{"id":3578,"date":"2022-01-06T16:01:40","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T16:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=3578"},"modified":"2022-01-06T16:01:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T16:01:40","slug":"a-clear-and-present-danger-the-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/06\/a-clear-and-present-danger-the-gop\/","title":{"rendered":"A Clear and Present Danger \u2013 The GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lafe Tolliver<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
\nGuest Column<\/p>\n

If there ever was a time that a New Year\u2019s resolution needed to be made, it would be a solemn promise by the Grand Old Party that they would go to the Land of Oz, cut in the front of the line and ask the benevolent wizard for both courage and a replacement spine.<\/p>\n

What we have been experiencing since the era of Donald Trump is that his wimpy minions are collectively like the scarecrow character in the movie, The Wizard of Oz<\/em>;<\/p>\n

they have no inner fortitude with which to stand up to a bully and a con artist.<\/p>\n

The cancer of Donald Trump\u2019s lack of any moral certitude or honor about governance and fidelity to the Constitution has so infected the vital organs of the GOP, that even radical surgery is not a guarantee that the so called, Party of Lincoln, can fully recover.<\/p>\n

The Republican Party has morphed into a non-recognizable political organization that has lost its identity and its former allegiance to being a party of ideas and conservatism.<\/p>\n

Now, it is shameless in reviling those GOP members who speak out against the excesses of Trumpism; and it turns its head from confronting outrages that in the past, it would have blasted as being, \u201cun-American.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the far-right fringes of the Republican Party, take front and center stage at GOP sanctioned events and rallies and they rant and rave about pure nonsense or engage in hyperbolic gibberish, no one, save for a tiny few members, have the courage to go on public blast and chastise their intellectually stunted members.<\/p>\n

As usual, that Georgia Peach, Marjorie Taylor Greene, never passes up a chance to\u00a0show how woefully ignorant she is about cultural issues. Sometimes, when she speaks you gotta wonder that people elected her to be their representative in Congress!<\/p>\n

Now, this elected rep is shamelessly stating that the African-American holiday, known as Kwanzaa, is in fact a corrupted religion formulated by a psychopath.<\/p>\n

Or, what about her recent statement that Democrats should not be allowed to move to a \u201cred\u201d state because they can dilute the voting power of the GOP, and also, they should be required to have a \u201ccooling down\u201d quarantine period before they can vote in their newly adopted state!<\/p>\n

Goofy is as goofy does and for this rep, along with a host of other GOP reps and<\/p>\n

state legislators, saying kooky things and trying to pass them off as points of an intelligent discussion is Rep. Greene\u2019s stock in trade.<\/p>\n

Or, how about the idea that she is floating regarding a \u201cNational Divorce\u201d in which or by which certain states, red and blue, formalize a geographical division and each conglomeration goes their own way.<\/p>\n

Take about busting up the Union! Yet, such pre\u2013Civil War fulminations still do not cause a stir within the so called GOP leadership. And why is that you ask?<\/p>\n

Simple, Rep. Greene, among others, will utter outrage after outrage because she is taking her cues from Herr Trump who has demonstrated that he has no check off list of offenses that would offend him.<\/p>\n

If any words that a GOP extremist spouts from the rooftops are diabolical, offensive, racist or hate filled, the feckless Republican Party will simply accommodate such reckless behavior and saunter on to the next lie.<\/p>\n

As I have said before, Herr Trump is an avatar or a bright pernicious blend of what he believes that his \u201cbase\u201d will want or will endure.<\/p>\n

And for that, it must be clearly stated that the problem and the drama of enduring what is being spewed forth by the G.O.P. regarding immigrants, women, minorities, climate change and other still simmering problems, comes from the approval of the\u00a0base of Trump\u2019s camp followers.<\/p>\n

The Big Lie is only one lie among dozens of other lies, half-truths, and mischaracterizations that Trump gladly repeats because he innately knows that his\u00a0people will back him despite what truths are being massacred in the process.<\/p>\n

For people of color, the GOP as a monolithic block will intensely fight against open and free elections because of the changing demographics in which white voters are sensing that their grip on power via the voting booth is being slowly wrestled from them.<\/p>\n

Such a belief that they will be consigned to a minority status and a concomitant loss of power and benefits drives them to accept the lies of the so-called culture wars as being a direct assault upon them, including the derision of the valid claims of critical race theory.<\/p>\n

Blame for this corruption of the GOP must also be placed at the foot of the base of the party and that base eschews minorities and \u201cothers.\u201d This base galvanizes Trump and his heresies and he, in turn, throws them the red meat of discontentment, anger, and the fear of being shut out of participation in the affairs of the nation.<\/p>\n

Now, Trump has been able to channel those phobias as if he were a medium at a s\u00e9ance and then passing along to mainstream America such vitriol.<\/p>\n

Yeah, it is that base that greedily gobbles up the BIG LIE despite overwhelming evidence that smashes those unfounded claims. But no matter.<\/p>\n

The BIG LIE is critically important to both Trump and his base because that is their created world view of how they can understand and cope with an ever-changing world in which the past is more comforting and safer than facing the future.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact Lafe Tolliver at tolliver@juno.com<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lafe Tolliver, Esq Guest Column If there ever was a time that a New Year\u2019s resolution needed to be made, it would be a solemn promise by the Grand Old Party that they would go to the Land of Oz, cut in the front of the line and ask the benevolent wizard for both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[95],"class_list":["post-3578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3579,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3578\/revisions\/3579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3578"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=3578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}