The Republican Party’s celebration of its own unquestioned fabulousness- the GOP’s quadrennial convention/circle jerk- is about to invade Cleveland. For several not-so-fun-filled days, America will see the GOP in all its peacocky splendor. It promises to be a showcase for a party steeped in nativism, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, religious arrogance, and a generalized fear of People Not Like Us ©.
For reasons fully known only to themselves, the Republican Party has become the ideological home of those who’d drag America kicking and screaming into the 17th century. The party’s proposed platform appears to have been cribbed verbatim from the Flat Earth Society’s manifesto; a more glorious homage to the dream of a White, Christian, Conservative, and heterosexual America would be hard to imagine.
Oh…and did I mention guns? Security considerations being what they are, water guns and aerosol canisters are verboten…but you’re welcome to bring your guns!!
‘Merica, beeyotches!!!
Republicans have proudly nominated a reality-television star whose campaign is predicated on not-so-subtly advocating for a race war while claiming to be a uniter, though that word clearly doesn’t mean what he believes it does.
But I digress. Allow me to return to the real subject at home: the 2016 Republican Party platform.
Yes, the Republican platform appears designed to appeal to those good, God-fearing, Christian patriots who believe the Earth is 6000 years and that Jesus healed the sick as he roamed the countryside astride a triceratops. Some of the platform’s “greatest hits” include:
A declaration that pornography is a public health crisis. (But guns aren’t. FREEDUMB!!)
Endorsement of a border wall stretching the length of the US-Mexico border. (Your tax dollars at work…or not.)
Approval of a slowing of foreign trade agreements. (if countries want to trade with us, they can damned well do it on our terms. We’re Americans!! NO ONE dictates ANYTHING to us!!)
Rejecting a proposal acknowledging that LGBT Americans are the targets of terrorism. (If gays and lesbian don’t want to be attacked and beaten- or worse- they should’ve been born straight.)
Refusing to support same-sex marriage. (Marriage is the union of one man and series of one or more women in succession.)
An intractable opposition to weed, prairie chickens, being gay, bathroom choice, abortion, cohabitation outside of marriage, the IRS, grey wolves, sage grouse, and federally-owned national parks.
Granted, a party’s platform is merely a reflection of what activists within the party think the world should look like. It has little real world application except as an ideological road map. In the case of the GOP, it can also serve as an indictment of a morally bankrupt and culturally/morally/theologically/ideologically intolerant party which believes White Folks were ordained by God to rule and therefore should remain the unquestioned owners of the American Dream.
No president has ever governed solely, or even primarily, based on their party’s platform, but that document is at its most basic a statement of intent, the beliefs which inform both action and ideology. In the case of the 2016 GOP platform, it’s a declaration of self-interest, intolerance, lack of compassion, and the desire to elevate the interests of White Conservatives above those of lesser mortals.
If you believe that Every Man For Himself is the way America should be run, you’re probably going to love the 2016 GOP platform. If, however, you believe that America is better when Americans pull together in an effort to lift one another up, that platform is a depressing confirmation of Conservative self-superiority and disdain for those People Not Like Us ©.
Make America Hate Again.
