I’ve spoken before about the “worst of the worst” in Congress, the “MAGA” Republicans who never shut their moronic mouths, but perhaps I’ve been negligent in not calling out the troop of hideous and destructive Republican governors who have the power to destroy people’s lives on a daily basis. After all, these dudes are the chief executives of their respective states, not just one of 435 members of Congress. Unfortunately, with them it’s not just obnoxious talk, it’s horrible action, and they are engaged in a hypocritical race to the bottom when it comes to putting people’s lives at risk for political gain—that is, for scoring political points with the good ol’ Republican “base.”
None of these governors are more hypocritical—or have more of their constituents’ blood on their hands—than Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida. DeSantis opposes mask mandates on the grounds that its government overreach, but then happily dictates what schoolboards and communities can and can’t do to protect their own citizens. Abbott, meanwhile, along with his Republican legislature, thinks government has the right to tell a woman what she can and can’t do with her own body, but insists that government has no right to tell its citizens to get vaccinated or wear a mask. And now other Republican-led states are about to follow suit with similar anti-abortion laws.
Abbott doesn’t think a woman should have an abortion unless she is raped, meaning that if you put all the rapists in jail you can eliminate the need for women’s reproductive health. Does he realize that over 90%* of women know their attacker? Maybe it’s a dog whistle to the “base,” but he prefers to dredge up the old myth of black and brown men assaulting innocent white women, an old racist falsehood that should be irrelevant to the laws governing women’s reproductive rights in the twenty first century.
*According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center
MAGAs Use “Liberty” and “Freedom” to Justify Whatever suits THEM!
The MAGA Republican hypocrisy about COVID revolves around their selfish, distorted notions of “liberty” and “freedom,” their passionate conviction that masks and vaccines represent an assault on their individual rights. What bullshit! The truth is, for the MAGA crowd “freedom” means doing whatever THEY want to do, regardless of the ramifications for their fellow citizens. Right now these people are holding back the whole country, making a mess of our economy and destroying the healthcare system. But they don’t care. These are the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election when the result wasn’t to their liking. To hell with the rest of us and our votes!
I know it’s hard to believe, but Confederate slaveholders had the audacity to think it was their “right” to own slaves and accused the abolitionists of trying to take away their freedom by trying to end slavery. They honestly thought the Civil War was a second American Revolution, a fight for freedom. Just imagine, thinking you had the God-given right to own and control other human beings, people whose rights and freedom you were totally obliterating for your own profit. Unfortunately, every time I think such bald-faced arrogance is behind us, I’m proven wrong.