The Republican Party has sold its soul to Donald Trump

ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

“That’s all I can stands, ‘cause I can’t stands no more.” — Popeye

As the general election season approaches, I herby declarethis editorial to be the only time I will discuss and endorse local candidates for office Nov. 6.

I have come to the painful realization that the Republican Party is morally bankrupt and has made a Faustian bargain, not with the Devil, but with Donald Trump. This, after watching and listening Friday to Susan Collins’ speech that outlined virtually all GOP talking points on the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Conclusion: The GOP no longer has any independent moderates. Gone is the party that at one time earned my respect of and even votes for Dwight D. Eisenhouwer, Paul Henry, Paul Hillegonds, Colin Powell, even Gerald R. Ford. The party over the last 40 years has been subverted and taken over by the religious right movement once known as the Moral Majority.

The result has been a rise in emotional rather than rational responses to issues and even more alarming, an explosion destructive binary thinking — that everything is either black or white, right or wrong, Democrat vs. Republican, Michigan or Ohio State. And there are no shades or gray.

As former President George W. Bush announced, “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.”

It broils my brisquet whenever people accuse me of being a Democrat because I criticize a Republican. These people don’t know me, or my ability to consider both sides and often see nuances, those shades of gray.

So as the election debate season approaches, I have no stomach for such spectacles, which do not enlighten, but are only intended to sell. I rarely have found them to provide useful information, but instead they are carefully orchestrated marketing exercises.

Because I believe the GOP has sold its soul to the serial philanderer and serial liar Donald Trump, I cannot and will not vote for or endorse anyone who seeks office as a member of this party. I suppose not all Republicans are 100% supportive of Trump, but I have yet to see anyone refuse to march in lockstep with his agenda.

My only regret is that I do have a modicum of respect for County Commissioner Mark DeYoung, except for his lack of attendance at local public meetings. Instead I recommend, pressing “The big D,” not because they are much better, but because they occasionally act independent of the Trump train to destruction.

Local candidates Mary Whiteford, Aric Nesbitt and Steven Johnson are just three of those who have jumped on the Trump bandwagon.

I am a lifelong student of history who always was baffled about how seemingly intelligent people in Germany 85 years ago could permit the rise of the dictatorial tryant Adolf Hitler. Now I am seeing something very similar unfold before my eyes.

“It can’t happen here. It can’t happen here. I’m telling you my dear. That it can’t happen here.” — Frank Zappa, “Help I’m a Rock.”

As former President Jimmy Carter said, “We are no longer a functioning democracy.” Or a constitutional republic for those who want to argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

I suppose the last straw for me was the last two weeks, which produced an ugly public spectacle. Though I agree it is impossible to prove Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations from 36 years ago, it is very easy to prove Justice Kavanaugh lied under oath in responses to questions during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.

His lies, while attempting to explain potentially embarrassing boasts in his yearbook profile:

• The Devil’s Triangle — He told the senator it was a drinking game, with two glasses. No, it’s commonly known as a reference to three-way sex, particularly two men and one woman.
• Minor in Possession — The judge said he drank beer in Maryland while the drinking age was 18. He was 17 in the summer of 1982 and the minimum age was increased to 21 the following February before he turned 18.
• The Renate Alumnus — Kavanaugh said this was a show of appreciation and friendship to a girl from the football team. When she learned of it she called it hurtful because it was an example of slut shaming.
• “Boofing” — The judge said it’s a term that refers to flatulence. People in the know maintain it’s ingesting beer or wine through the anal cavity.
• “FFFF,” according to Kavanaugh, was a some kind of farting sound, but it actually means, “Find ‘em, finger ‘em, f*ck ‘em and forget ‘em.” Even a naïve Wayland High student like me knew that one.
• He told a senator he first heard about Debbie Ramirez’s allegations through a story in the New Yorker. There is evidence via e-mails that he attempted in July 2018 to get friends to back him against her charges, well before the September story was made public.

Add to that an FBI investigation that was carefully constructed to avoid damning evidence, carefully orchestrated by White House counsel Don McGhan, whose task it has long been to shepherd Kavanaugh’s nomination to confirmation.

As the late comedian George Carlin said, “The game is rigged. But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”

I hereby pledge not to endorse or vote any Republican henceforward until they repudiate the authoritarian and selfish policies of Donald Trump.

We must confront our national diseases of racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia. I truly believe that not all Trump supporters are racists, sexists, xenophobes and homophobes. But virtually all racists, sexists, xenophobes and homophobes support Donald Trump.