Enough. I have had enough of treating the current leaders of the extreme wing of the Republican partyas worthy political opponents. That wing is in control of the party and trying to be in control of our lives, our nation and our Democracy. They are wrong AND dangerous, and they lie with a calm face, while doing their best to convey that their absurd comments somehow reflect rational thought and care for all Americans.
I wrote “current leaders” and not “current Republicans.” Republicans, please come back to animated political discussion, disagreement and dialogue! I come from a devoted Republican family, with an ancestor who attended the first Republican convention in 1856 because he cared about civil rights. When we mention civil rights, the assumption is that we are looking back to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. But today, with the current Republican leaders, we are really talking about everyone’s civil rights – perhaps most importantly a woman’s control over her healthcare.
Nothing makes me more furious than seeing Republicans push their nihilism about our government, their desire to destroy it (Grover Norquist’s ‘starve the beast’) and our civil rights by portraying all Democrats as crazed Socialists! I am not a socialist but I understand the obvious need for a strong Federal government. Way back when, as you crossed the country in a Conestoga wagon, you did not care much about government services, and there was little that the government did in Washington that really impacted your lives, either for better or worse.
The world is very different today. Bob Bilott is a partner at Taft Law. He spent twenty years fighting DuPont and their careless creation and wide distribution of the forever chemicals – PFAS. Today we need a strong, effective government to protect us all. Today, whether you are sipping water from a canteen on your Conestoga wagon or drinking water in your comfortable home, or buying food at your local market, you are unavoidably susceptible to actions by other individuals and corporations that have a deep effect on your lives. The result of Mr. Bilott’s twenty years of work was Dupont finally settling for $676,000,000 – a number that is still dwarfed by the horrific effects of PFAS.
Taft Law put out the following statement recently:
Taft partner Rob Bilott was quoted in a release issued by The White House about the first-ever federally enforceable drinking water limits for certain toxic PFAS “forever chemicals.” The release titled “What They Are Saying: Biden-Harris Administration Takes Critical Action to Protect 100 Million People from PFAS Pollution in Drinking Water” quotes Bilott and other leaders across the country praising the announcement.
Republicans, your current extreme leaders have no interest in actually legislating to protect you. Look at the performance of the current Republican House – with Republican congressman Chip Roy commenting: “I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing—one—that I can go campaign on and say we did. One!”
Republican leaders are only interested in obtaining power and serving a relatively small group of extremely wealthy individuals for whom the endless pursuit of MORE money is the only pursuit that matters. I have eight grandchildren, and doing everything I can to leave them a functioning Democracy and a sustainable planet is what drives me every day. Do these billionaires, who still claim climate change is a hoax, just not care about their grandchildren? I don’t get it.
Dear Republicans, dear fellow Americans, please reconsider. Please think in terms of what is best for your immediate and extended family. Please think about your civil rights, stop with the stupid, phony socialism rants, and start working towards a sustainable future that includes the civil right to make your own healthcare choices. Your extreme leaders have gone off the deep end and are aiming for a country with leaders who have total consolidated control that they amass through fear and intimidation. The word for that is authoritarianism. The bottom line is that authoritarianism is not the 250-year Democracy we fought one war to create and another war to defend. Like it or not, that is what they are pushing. Let us all come together and bring that to an end in 2024.
