BY BOB BEARDEN
All the political pundits say we probably shouldn’t read too much of a trend as a takeaway from the recent elections in Virginia and across the nation. At least, they are saying we shouldn’t look upon this as a groundswell for the Democrats. And they are probably correct somewhat in that assessment but nevertheless there was a definite trend from the east coast to the west coast.
Washington State turned the west coast of our nation blue from Monterey to Vancouver and that is a good sign that people are rejecting Trumpism. The election one year ago gave the GOP total control of our government but because they tied their fortunes to a misogynistic serial groper who has no real policy other than me-first they have proven once again that they don’t know how to govern with any degree of clarity or purpose.
But they are, let’s face it, the party of no. They have become so practiced at saying no that they don’t know how to say yes, we can, because they can’t even mouth that word effectively. And tying themselves to a candidate that they hated has mired them in the quagmire he has created for them and they can’t get focused on what needs to be done because their mantra is and has been for a long time destroy, destroy, destroy.
You can’t govern a nation by destroying everything it stands for and they have for the last eight years stood foursquare against every attempt at progress. They have worked hard at undoing every bit of social progress that this nation has enacted over the past 80-plus years. You must govern from a position that makes things work and show that you have a sense of what real progress should be about.
They have no sense of progress because they have only wanted to destroy progress, not enable it. And now they have embraced a man who wants us to go back to the good old days that were never good, to an era in which hate, fear and bigotry reigned. He seeks to destroy every single facet of social progress this nation has been able to produce over the past 80 years.
The Republican Party is fast becoming a party that embraces fear, hate and bigotry and ideology, and policies that embolden those on the fringes of our society who wish to see us return to the days when fear, racism, hate and bigotry were used by politicians to keep minorities, women and those on the lower ends of the economic scales rom realizing the American Dream.
They embrace junk science and deny that climate change is real. They continue to pay homage to a failed ideology that embraced the enslavement of millions of Americans. They seek to cut off a path to citizenship for millions of hardworking productive members of our society. They want to enact tax reform that will benefit only the wealthiest among us.
If recent elections said anything, they said people are tired of them good ol’ days and want no part of a mantra that embraces racism, hate, bigotry and fear. They want real progress that offers paths for all the people of this nation, not just a privileged few.
These recent elections rejected Trumpism and his divisive politics that embrace racism, hatred, bigotry and fear, on a large scale.
– Bob Bearden is a trustee of the Central Oklahoma Labor Federation and a member of Mayflower Congregational Church, UCC, in Oklahoma City
