Republicans Denouncing Socialism – Linking it to Mass Murders
The Republican party took control of the US House of Representatives in January. Instead of actually governing, the party seems determined to play meaningless, revenge politics that accomplishes nothing, other than serving red meat to their base.
Brian Fitzpatrick played a pivotal role in the election of the Trump-appeasing Kevin McCarthy as Speaker. However, despite the influence he must have accrued for his efforts, our Congressman has not had any moderating influence on the party’s focused descent into shallow grandstanding.
McCarthy has yet to bring an important vote to the floor, but he has brought forward divisive, time-wasting resolutions. A painful example of this approach was House Resolution 9. Without defining Socialism, the poorly worded resolution threw every evil action in the world into the bucket of Socialism.
The final words of the resolution are: Resolved: That Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America.
Democrats fought to have the meaningless resolution modified, if not withdrawn entirely. However, the Republicans pressed on, and eventually it passed, including wording linking all forms of Socialism to mass murder.
DemocraticCongresswoman, Betsy McCollum of Minnesota, correctly described this resolution:
Mr. Speaker, let’s be clear about what this resolution is. A complete waste of time. This resolution is not about Stalin. It is not about Mao. It is not about Castro. It is not even about condemning the human rights abuses that many communist dictators throughout history have committed. Instead, the Republican majority has thrown together a poorly written, ill-conceived resolution so sloppy that it condemns socialism in all its forms.
Congresswoman McCollum went on to point out that many of our allies have mainstream Socialist parties in their parliaments, and such a resolution accomplishes nothing, while potentially alienating some allies. California Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, added that the Republicans conveniently failed to mention Hitler and the Nazis in their litany of evil leaders.
It is becoming clearer by the day that the modern shell of the former Republican party is dead set on dismantling as much of the federal government as possible, and HR 9 is just another portal towards that goal. They will scream “Socialism” in response to every important federal program that can improve the lives of all Americans. We have been here before with Republicans. President Harry Truman called them out: Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
We need to build an effective, efficient federal government that can help us come address undeniable and disastrous climate change, meet the vast infrastructure needs in this nation, fight back against the military aggression of Russia, and confront a host of other challenges that include too many American children going to bed hungry.
The problem that Brian Fitzpatrick has is not that he fails to make some bi-partisan efforts in Congress, but that he is a member of the Republican party and does not have the power or the personal commitment to affect its fundamental unfocused, wasteful misuse of power.
For Representative Salazar of Florida, I have an idea for a different resolution for her to bring to the House floor: In light of the fact that there are 2,250,000 Floridians who face hunger each day with 660,000 of them being children and with similar numbers of hungry Americans in other states, be it therefore resolved that it is time that we end hunger in America.
We have been here before with the Republicans using the Socialism scare tactic. And Harry Truman had their number back in the 1950’s. He declared:
Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power.
Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan “Down With Socialism” on the banner of his “great crusade,” that is really not what he means at all.
What he really means is, “Down with Progress — down with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,” and “down with Harry Truman’s fair Deal.” That is what he means.
It is particularly of note for me that the politician he was reacting to in that speech was Robert Taft, the conservative Republican Senator brother of my much more liberal grandfather. Robert was wrong then, and the Republican focus on the scare tactic of ‘creeping socialism’ is wrong today.
