The GOP has become a culture of death
Kamala Harris is right when she says we need to turn the page on this ugliness.
Far from being the party of life, the GOP has embraced a culture of death. Death from guns because they will not pass laws to keep them out of the hands of mass killers. Death from untreated fatal pregnancy complications because they would rather see a woman die than have a choice. Death from listeria in our food because they would rather let industry inspect itself than trouble them with inspectors who will enforce our laws. Death from climate change because there is just too much cash from the fossil fuel industry to ignore.
This culture of death is bought and paid for by industry lobbyists. But it has long since ceased to be just quid-pro-quo corruption. It has become who the MAGA Republicans are.
Just consider their cartoonish idea of masculinity. You see this in the wrestle-mania festival that passed for their recent convention. You hear it in the rhetoric of their candidates, who seem to value cruelty over kindness. You feel it in Donald Trump’s disdain for our fallen soldiers — men who gave everything because their idea of manhood called them to sacrifice everything to protect us, to make us safer.
When I was younger, I taught in the Chicago Public Schools. Every fall, those first days were magical. They still are. Kids and teachers are excited. Parents are proud. The opening of school is a time of promise, a joyful reunion of friends. But, because of the Republicans, in the United States it is also a time of horrific loss.
This week, parents sent their children to school, and some never came home. The school year has barely begun and already we have a mass shooting. Apalachee High School in Georgia is the latest horror in this nightmare from which we seem unable to wake. A nightmare that takes us to Uvalde Texas, Oxford Michigan, Santa Clara California, and Highlands Ranch Colorado. All of this after Parkland Florida, where we were promised, “never again.” All after Columbine.
This slaughter is not confined to schools. Concert venues, sporting events, colleges, houses of worship, fourth of July parades — any place where people gather is now a place where some may never come home.
Despite what J.D. Vance said this week, this is not an inevitable fact of life. This horror is a choice. An immoral choice.
The Supreme Court blames the authors of the second amendment. But that’s a lie. The Justices themselves made a choice. And to do it, they broke with history and precedent and the plain meaning of the Constitution. The Second Amendment is the shortest amendment in the Constitution, just 27 words long. But that was too long for the textualists on the court. They threw out the first thirteen words, leaving only the fragment of a sentence that says the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. The even told us to ignore the comma in the surviving 14 words. They told us to ignore the country’s long history of regulating firearms. In case after case, this court moves further from the plain meaning of the text in order to hug the gun lobby a little tighter.
And Congress, which, despite the Court, could once again ban assault weapons, will not do it. Why? Because it is Republican orthodoxy that guns make Americans safer. This is also plainly nonsense. And this nonsense pre-dates Donald Trump, though Mr. Trump is all in and brags about protecting the guns.
This is a death culture that looks the other way when children are slaughtered. That’s what Mr. Trump and his party do. Publicly they offer thoughts and prayers. Privately they pocket cash from gun manufacturers.
Photo Credit: Elijah Nouvelage/ Reuters. Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.
Researchers have identified the red flags that help schools find potential shooters and intervene. Those flags include increased feelings of grievance, anger, and a fixation on guns. Not coincidentally, these are precisely the traits that Republican rhetoric generates. Then they go a step further, and identify targets for all that rage: immigrants, journalists, Palestinians, Jews that vote for Democrats, women who refuse to be told what to do, the deep state, judges, and anybody who stands in their way.
Fortunately, this is not our way. America is not death culture. We work hard because we want to build a future. We care for each other. We have fun. At our best, we come together to shoulder some of the greatest challenges and conquer them.
America is unfinished mission — to create a more perfect union, to expand human freedom and dignity, to create prosperity and abundance. This is what drives us. It is why we have no time for hate, no place for retribution, and no covenant with death.
It is why Americans so dislike politics on offer from Mr. Trump and his GOP. Kamala Harris is right when she says we need to turn the page on this ugliness.
But that will not be easy. For years, powerful interests have put their heavy thumbs on the scale. They cannot yet control the outcome, but they have made it more difficult for the rest of us to prevail. They have captured a major political party as well as our Supreme Court.
We have less than 60 days to draw the line and say no more. Just a few weeks to reject this culture of death and to, instead, affirm our dynamic march forward, towards an ever freer, more prosperous, more unified nation.
Double check your voter registration. Make a plan to vote. Do it now.