MAGA Republican scolds are out of step with a can-do America

They don’t just tell us what not to do. They can’t do anything either. At least not their jobs.

The party of personal freedom is now an old scold. Instead of seeing opportunity they shrink from challenges. Instead of urging us to do great things, they tell us we can’t. If it weren’t so dangerous, it would just be annoying and boring.

Republicants scold us and say, you can’t have a drag show in this town! They pour over our options, and carefully take away what they don’t like. No, they tell us, you can’t take that sociology course. No, no, no, you cannot talk about the causes of the Civil War. They are shocked at our behavior and demand we stop even talking about climate change. And, no, they say, you absolutely can’t walk on a street without guns.

They say it is okay for Donald Trump to read stolen national security documents in his bathroom at Mar-a-Lago but high schoolers can’t read novels by Toni Morrison in a library the same state. The Grand Old Party has drawn its disapproving line, and we are ordered not to cross it.

This is who they are. Mr. Trump raped a woman in clothing store changing room, but his party says, women who get pregnant by rape can’t terminate that pregnancy. They say her sister can’t drive her to a bordering state. They say her doctor cannot take care of her if there are complications and she starts to bleed out in the hospital.

Republicants don’t just tell us what we can’t do. They even tell us what we can’t think. And, they say, we are not allowed to think our institutions can be trusted. The courts? Mr. Trump is found liable for rape and for defamation and for business fraud. They say we can’t trust that. Elections? Doesn’t matter that they lost scores of cases when they told us that we can’t trust the vote count. They just say we can’t believe that either. And now, they say we can’t continue to believe Mr. Lincoln’s idea, the one that led to the founding of the GOP, that we are a union, indivisible. The Supreme Court says Texas is part of the union and must follow the laws passed by Congress and signed by the President. Texas says they can’t do that, and Republican governors from around the country agree.

To be fair, they don’t just tell us what not to do. They can’t do anything either. At least not their jobs. They can’t pass laws to fix the border. Never mind that is is their number one issue. It is so important to them that they cannot even think about anything else- like defending Europe from Russian military aggression, until the border problem goes away. But no, they tell us, they can’t pass any laws to better secure the border. They can’t even pass a tax cut bill, even one that gives breaks to corporations and lifts millions of children out of poverty. They say they can’t do either of these things because it will make the government look good. (Wait, what? Isn’t that their job?)

Republicants don’t just tell us we can’t do things Americans are supposed to have the freedom to do, they don’t just tell us we can’t trust the institutions that make democracy function, they don’t just tell themselves they can’t do their jobs. It’s actually worse. They tell us we can’t trust our own good sense. They demand we believe their lies, about elections, about January 6th, about George Floyd, about space lasers, and about the path of hurricanes.

It’s time to send these Republicants packing and show the world that Americans are a can-do people.