One Party Rule is Coming

And we all deserve it

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**Language warning - this article contains some colorful metaphors. Read at your own risk!

Preamble

American society is under attack by religious fundamentalists, intellectually and morally defective individuals hungry for power or attention, and corrupt officials willing to suck up to such losers to maintain their own tenuous grasp of power. They are supported by a cadre of either frightened or socially disaffected malcontents who have effectively joined a cult in the belief that they now somehow belong to a ‘movement’ that exists only in their own minds and in the minds of the pathetically few who agree with them.

There are but three choices for the remainder of Americans—join this inevitable failure and be left behind, root them out with force, or marginalize them to obscurity and allow the rational world to progress. It is only the last option that ensures a brighter future for the country and the rest of the world.

Introduction

It is a scientific principle about pendulums, when they swing far one way, they eventually plummet vigorously back the other. America is about to see very vividly what that looks like. In a system comprising just two parties, the propensity for a monumental shift is high. It need not manifest as a result of the direct application of power, though it tends to. What triggers the redirection often remains unpredictable. But entertain no delusions, it always happens.

As apathetic as the American electorate is, even it has its limits. When one side or the other goes too far, the proverbial ‘wave’ results. But ignore the pundit class’s wave predictions; their agenda does not prioritize or seriously consider real data (see the 2022 midterms as an example). Instead, look at what’s actually happening and the conclusion becomes abundantly clear. Single party rule is coming to the United States because one of the two primary political factions is too dumb, too greedy, and too corrupt to see the line; they are thus stepping over it in a catastrophic way (for them).

The Top-Down View

On the highest ticket, the race is not close no matter how hard certain propagandists or pollsters try to paint it. The two candidates simply do not compare.

One is facing more than 85 criminal charges for everything from violations of the Espionage Act to Racketeering to various efforts at conspiring to defraud voters. He has been found liable for rape, decades of real estate and bank fraud, stealing from a charity, discriminating against Black people, and running a scam ‘university.’

He has proposed no real policy other than deporting people, built on a racist platform about immigration, and cutting social security and other benefits. His previous administration was an unmitigated disaster of fraud, criminality, and incompetence, laden with tax cuts for the rich. His mental and verbal gaffes far exceed his opponent’s.

Moreover, he has never won a popular vote—because he has always been unpopular—and was defeated by more than 7 million votes in his last run. Members of his own administration refuse to endorse him. This may be because he represents a serious risk to national security, or a personal threat to them. Or, perhaps more important to many of them, he attempted to lead a violent overthrow of the government that targeted some of his own political associates.

Read why Trump is a national security risk by clicking below.

His opponent has overseen passage of numerous historical pieces of legislation, all of which have benefitted the middle and lower classes. Some use anecdotes to claim otherwise, but that is as shortsighted as pointing to a specific weather event to deny global climate issues. The primary ‘scandals’ tied to this administration are the President’s age or declining mind and the classified documents problem.

On those issues, any objective listener would note that Trump’s verbal blunders are indicative of verifiable mental issues, while Biden’s mostly appear to be the result of a lifelong stuttering problem; and both men are old. The special prosecutor investigating Biden’s classified document issue, Robert Hur (a Trump appointee), said Biden’s conduct paled in comparison to Trump’s criminal activity and Biden’s did not rise to criminality at all.

See an in-depth comparison of the two candidates’ policies here.

To put a bow on it, Hur was utterly humiliated when questioned about what he asserted in his final report on his investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. In his section conjecturing on Biden’s mental acuity he wrote that Biden is an “elderly man with a poor memory.” But, in his interview of Biden he conducted prior to publishing his report, he stated “you have—appear to have a photographic understanding and, and recall,” (page 47). That hardly sounds like a description of a person with senility.

Hur also claimed “that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency,” yet he reluctantly admitted he did not have evidence sufficient to prove it. He was far less accommodating when it came to Trump. Here’s what he wrote:

Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it. In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview. and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.

Put simply, the election balances one extremely unlikable, soon-to-be-convicted criminal candidate who stands a reasonably high chance of going to prison against a candidate with a strong legislative agenda, who complies with the law, whose gravest supposed scandals have virtually no basis in evidence or fact. In short, this election will probably see near to a 12 million vote landslide victory for Biden.

People really aren’t looking for a felon to lead the US military.

—Brian Tyler Cohen

Defective Congress

The US Congress has historically polled lower than almost any collective body on Earth. It typically doesn’t matter much which party is in power. But sometimes the dysfunction reaches lows never thought possible. Welcome to the Republican-controlled 118th Congress, the most inept of all time.

There are innumerable reasons why this Congress is so objectively bad, but its root problems can be traced to two defining features: 1) MAGA—a movement built on ignorance, vengeance, violence, and cowardice, and 2) the election of some of the dumbest people ever to hold a federal office. Here’s the breakdown:

The Impeachment that Never Was

When Donald Trump was impeached—twice—for conduct so obviously inappropriate that he has been criminally charged for related activity, the Republican party bristled with the desire for revenge. After gaining the majority in the House of Representatives in 2022 in a pitiful electoral showing, Republicans decided to put two of the biggest boobs in charge of exacting that revenge.

Meet James Comer and Jim Jordan. Comer is a representative from Kentucky and Jordan from Ohio. Both are encumbered with their own egregious scandals. Comer seems to be engaging in corruption through suspicious land deals, and as a wrestling coach Jordan sat idly by while his fellow coach sexually assaulted athletes. Under these two imbeciles, in mid-December 2023 the Republican-controlled House voted to “formalize an impeachment inquiry” into Biden, though the inquiry truly started almost a year earlier.

It took quite some time to muster the votes for formalization because even Republicans did not see sufficient evidence to initiate impeachment proceedings. What seemed to push the holdouts into voting for it was when the Biden White House made the same argument that the Trump White House did some years before: impeachment-related subpoenas are not legitimate without a vote to launch a formal inquiry.

Since then, the inquiry continues to be an unequivocal disaster to the extent that most Republicans now are quietly scuttling away from it. Even before two of their recent epic failures—hearings involving Special Counsel Robert Hur and Hunter Biden, the son of the President—many Republicans acknowledged that things were looking bleak.

James Comer, the head of the oversight committee in charge of the inquiry, himself said the “math keeps getting worse” (referring to the number of votes in favor of impeachment). Representative Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) noted that so far the committee had established no “definitive connection” to any crime warranting impeachment. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told Axios that the inquiry has “not shown that a specific law was violated by the President as of yet.” Even extremist Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said on CNN that the claims made about Biden “might have been a little oversauced.” So, what happened?

Despite the committee releasing a memo making all sorts of claims of corruption, nothing in the thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents indicate any crime at all. In fact, the records prove the continued assertion by the White House that the President had no involvement in any business activities involving his son or anyone else (in stark contrast to the conduct of the former president).

The Republicans’ memo itself acknowledges this, writing “The Committee recognizes there exist legitimate commercial transactions with China-based entities and individuals (involving Hunter, but not Joe Biden)” [Emphasis added]. It then asserts, essentially, that something still “seems” suspicious. Moreover, the committee has called numerous witnesses, all of whose testimony directly countered the Republicans’ accusations, or were proven lies.

The witnesses’ failure to corroborate any of the accusations was not the worst feature of them, though that did not help. As one Republican aide told NBC, “Calling witnesses that say the opposite of your narrative on impeachment is equally a bad strategy.” That aide was referring to, among others, Jonathan Turley, the once vaunted legal scholar turned perennial laughingstock. Republicans called him as a witness.

In the hearing Turley said, “I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment.” It was shocking to everyone—and no one. Republicans assumed Turley would engage in his usual antics of lies and dissembling, but alas even he could not muster the mendacity. Democrats—and other rational people—were stunned by the incomprehensible stupidity of not knowing what your star witness would say. But no one was surprised by the result because of the lack of any credible evidence whatsoever supporting the farcical hearings.

The bungling of the witness testimony aside, the credibility of the witnesses raises the specter for criminal investigations into Comer and Jordan, and possibly others. Some of the witnesses, for example, are accused spies of foreign adversaries or convicted or wanted criminals. The whole impeachment charade began with an FBI document titled an FD-1023, which is an unvetted piece of information offered to the agency. In other words, anyone can say anything and the FBI memorializes it to determine whether it later requires any follow up.

In that FD-1023, a man named Alexander Smirnov made allegations of bribery involving Joe Biden. Comer and his circus troupe ran with it. Unfortunately for them, the FBI ended up arresting Smirnov for submitting lies to the agency in that document—his second arrest in weeks. The FBI alleges that Smirnoff has ties to Russian intelligence. Moreover, he apparently was paid to spread his lies by a firm with close ties to Trump himself. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) seems to be the first to have learned of Smirnov’s information, and many are asking whether Grassley knew it was false. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Col.) told the media that even after certain Congressmen learned the information was false, they proceeded anyway, pretending it was credible. There may be a crime in doing so.

A federal grand jury indicted another GOP witness, Gal Luft, for violating Iranian sanctions and making false statements to federal agents. Some of his criminal charges stem from illegal weapons trafficking. Prosecutors further accused Luft of:

agree[ing] to covertly recruit and pay, on behalf of principals based in China, a former high-ranking US government official … including in 2016 while the former official was an adviser to the then-president-elect [Trump], to publicly support certain policies with respect to China.

One Republican strategist described the situation this way:

So the guy who was supposedly gonna blow the whistle on Biden taking payments from foreigners was actually paying off Trump admin officials himself on behalf of China!! Could this be more on the nose?

Luft is currently a fugitive from the law, having fled after posting bail. Comer said of this accused criminal, He is “a very credible witness.”

The Committee interviewed and called another ‘credible’ witness, Jason Galanis. Here’s how prosecutors from the Southern District of New York described this witness:

Jason Galanis orchestrated two multimillion-dollar fraud schemes, and hid behind a team of co-conspirators to conceal his involvement and defy an SEC ban. He and his codefendants engaged in market manipulation and the defrauding of shareholders, and they stole a large portion of the proceeds of tribal bonds that were intended to fund economic development projects.  Now Jason Galanis has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term that reflects the magnitude and pervasiveness of his crimes.

Because Galanis is serving an abundance of federal prison time, the Committee had to interview him on a zoom-type call from his cell. Afterward, Comer Fudd—as popular Substacker Jeff Tiedrich calls him—went on whatever media would listen to him stating that Galanis “confirm[ed] Joe Biden’s Involvement in His Family’s Influence Peddling.”

Comer Fudd is a rake-stepping glutton for punishment

Yet another witness, Tony Bobulinski, once partnered in business with Hunter Biden. In his hearing before Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) asked him a very direct question, “Did you witness the President commit a crime? Is it your testimony today?” Bobulinski replied “yes.” When pressed to name the crime, Bobulinski blubbered about ‘corruption’ but failed to offer any specific detail or to name a crime. Falsely identifying a specific one could have landed him with perjury charges; he did not seem to possess the courage to run that risk.

When the former righthand-man of Rudy Giuliani showed up, things went a touch differently. A court sentenced Lev Parnas to a year and 8 months in prison in 2022. It is beyond belief that the following description of his crimes is real:

In March, Parnas pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud, admitting that between 2012 and 2019 he conspired with another person to give investors false information about a Florida-based business, Fraud Guarantee. Fraud Guarantee was promoted as a company that could protect investors against fraud. Giuliani accepted $500,000 from the company to act as a consultant, but was not accused of wrongdoing or charged with any crimes.

Parnas and Giuliani named their fraudulent company “Fraud Guarantee.” In any event, Parnas told the Committee the exact opposite of what Bobulinski was saying:

From November 2018 to October 2019, I was a key participant and a witness to numerous efforts to prove that Joe and Hunter Biden were linked to corruption in Ukraine. Rudy Giuliani, on behalf of then-president Trump, tasked me with a mission to travel the globe, finding dirt on the Bidens, so that an array of networks could spread disinformation about them, thus securing the 2020 election for Donald J. Trump … today I ask you to consider the following: in nearly a year traveling the world, and interviewing officials in different countries, I found precisely zero evidence of the Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine. no credible source has ever provided proof of criminal activity. [Emphasis added]

Giuliani seated in the middle, Parnas on the right. Source: lawandcrime.com

Not a single one of the more than a dozen witnesses have offered an iota of evidence of Biden corruption, and most have provided precisely the opposite of what Comer and his clown show keep stating on propaganda networks like Fox ‘News.’ In fact, when Democrat Jared Moskowitz called out the chairman to step up and take action if he truly can prove something, Comer made a weird sound like he was swallowing some mouth bile and then said nothing. Moskowitz persisted,

Let’s just do the impeachment. Why continue to waste millions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money if we’re going to impeach because you believe you’ve shown he’s committed a high crime or misdemeanor? What are you waiting on?

Moskowitz then made a motion to take an impeachment vote. Comer merely had to second it and the House would, then and there, have voted whether to impeach President Biden. Instead, many Republicans all but hid under their chairs, including Comer. It was an exemplary illustration of the blatant foolishness and waste of taxpayer money that is the whole debacle. The inquiry has gone on for 15 months already.

Igniting a Stupid War on Women

With people like Comer and Jordan in the mix, it is sometimes hard to determine who the truly dumbest Republican member of Congress is, but some occasionally do their best to earn the award. Enter Senator Tommy Tuberville, the asshat of Alabama.

Recently, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that in-vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos should be considered children. Without diving too deeply into it, here are some of the low-lights. For starters, the Court actually wrote this irredeemably unintelligent line: “Unborn children are ‘children’ under the Act, without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.” By this reasoning, menstrual cycles that expel fertilized eggs (which happens as much as 70% of the time) is a violation of Alabama law. Moreover, the Court’s decision references “God” around 40 times, and goes so far as to state,

The Alabama Constitution's recognition that human life is an endowment from God emphasizes a foundational principle of English common law, which has been expressly incorporated as part of the law of Alabama.

The opinion even quotes Genesis. Its adherence to—and quoting of—a religious work as a basis of law violates the very essence of the First Amendment of the Constitution. Many people would unquestionably scream in protest if a judge cited the Quran in a judicial decision; this is no different. But, I digress.

Tommy Tuberville, in expounding his carefully thought-out political views predicated on his attention to complex facts, had the following exchange with a reporter about the Supreme Court of Alabama’s decision. The reporter asked what he thought of the court’s opinion. Tuberville responded, “Yeah, I was all for it, we need to have more kids. We need to have an opportunity to do that, and I thought this was the right thing to do.”

What the dipshit former football coach failed to comprehend is that that is precisely what IVF does—enables people to have kids. The reporter astutely pointed this out and how IVF clinics are halting services based on the ruling—effectively denying people the ability to have kids. Tuberville’s blank face scrunched up for a moment, seemingly aware that he might be an idiot who is just saying things. He swiftly tried to backpedal in a confused, humiliating way.

Well, that’s, that’s for another conversation. I think the big thing is right now, you protect — you go back to the situation and try to work it out to where it’s best for everybody. I mean, that’s what — that’s what the whole abortion issue is about.

When prodded further about how to do that exactly, he paused like a child trying to figure out how to explain a broken window, then brilliantly came up with,

Well… that’s a hard one. It really is. It’s really hard.

Hint: stop electing morons.

You can listen to the doddering fools for yourself (Alabama’s Chief Pastor Justice and Tuberville’s imbecilic response to the ruling). Tuberville’s sharp intellect begins at 3:47.

Tuberville’s idiocy is only one playing card among a whole House of them. While the Republican manifesto has long targeted keeping women in their “proper place,” it reached a crescendo when the objectively corrupt and intellectually deficient Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its Dobbs decision. Samuel Alito’s majority opinion was so bad that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania actually wrote the following in one of their own opinions,

The Dobbs majority relied upon the patriarchal notions of eminent authorities of old English common law, including Lord Matthew Hale, [whose] beliefs were driven by his goal of keeping women from encroaching upon the rights of men. [Hale] who presided over the hanging of two women accused of being witches [thought that giving women] legally enforceable rights over their own bodies was a threat to the freedom of men.

The Pennsylvania Court further noted that “those interpreting the law” (i.e. certain Supreme Court justices) saw women “as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.” A concurring Justice stated it more pointedly, writing that the Dobbs ruling relies on the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.” Human Rights Watch agreed, noting that what the Dobbs ruling has done is a violation of the United States’ treaty obligations:

By overturning the established constitutional protection for access to abortion and through the passage of restrictive state laws, the US is in violation of its obligations under international law, codified in a number of human rights treaties to which it is a party or a signatory.

And women across the country also agree. Women’s groups have responded in force, livid with the Supreme Court for gutting a protected right of over 50 years. The move to ban various women’s health services is founded in religious and paternal doctrine, not fact, reason, or morality, and women are rightfully pissed off. What has happened since the Dobbs decision proves it.

In Michigan, for example, residents demanded a referendum on which they would vote to codify abortion as a Constitutional right. It passed in a landslide. Additionally, the House, Senate, and the Governor’s office all flipped to Democrat based, in large part, on state Republicans’ position on the issue. A similar shift occurred in Pennsylvania, the same state whose Justices excoriated the Dobbs decision. Republicans in Kansas proposed an amendment to set up a statewide ban on abortion. It was soundly defeated.

A dozen other states have since passed laws protecting the procedure. In many states, the number of women registering to vote surged, some by as much as 55%. FiveThirtyEight, an organization that tracks political trends, notes that since Dobbs the voting behavior of women and young people of either party has dramatically moved in favor of Democrats. This highlights how much of a loser this issue is for Republicans, writing “during the 2022 midterms, no subgroup in Gallup’s data has become notably more conservative on first-trimester abortion since Dobbs.” In this instance, it seems polls might finally be correct.

The reason is that Dobbs is not just about abortion, it is about ruling over women. To illustrate, in some states that have adopted strict abortion bans since the decision, women have been criminally prosecuted for miscarriages. Police have increased the number of investigations of women who suffer stillbirths and in situations where other problems arise during the pregnancy.

Women have been forced to suffer declining health in many instances because doctors are afraid to perform routine medical procedures. Doctors in Louisiana, for example, refused to provide an abortion for a woman whose fetus literally had no head. Matthew Brown, a New Orleans-based attorney specializing in health care law told the media, “The problem is very specific. And that’s why the law doesn’t address it.” Brown was referring to the doctors who would not perform the procedure out of fear of it possibly violating the law. He added,

Any pregnant woman at this point, even the ones [who] are hoping for a healthy child and planning to give birth, is facing additional uncertainty about how they're going to be cared for under bad circumstances because of this law.

This confusion is what happens when enacting and interpreting the law derives from contradictory, illogical, and nefarious motives. As women in numerous states suffer medical malpractice, law enforcement overreach, and further abuses expected to arise from this Salem-Massachusetts-line of thinking among lawmakers and justices, Republicans will soon live the experience President Biden laid out in his State of the Union Speech:

The president paraphrased Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote in the Dobbs decision that “women are not without electoral or political power.” Biden then paused mid-sentence to address the six [Supreme Court] justices sitting in the front row, ad-libbing, “with all due respect, justices… those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women. But they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot.”

Fuck around and find out, as the saying goes. This may just be the beginning of the find out stage.

Abortion is not the only assault Republicans are committing against women. Driven by their religious and misogynistic fundamentalism, they are also attacking divorce and contraception. On the former, since 1985 every single state has had some version of no-fault divorce. In 2023, infamous public turd Stephen Crowder complained that his wife could divorce him without his consent. Crowder seemed to be mad that he has to pay child support or alimony. He commented further that marriage is “the only contract that I know of where one side is financially incentivized to break it.” Matt Walsh, another insufferable babbler who wishes so badly to be viewed as ‘manly’ has also griped about no-fault divorce. Republicans are trying to pass laws built on the very principle these petulant children and their ilk espouse. Dusty Deevers, a Republican in Oklahoma, recently proposed a bill that would eliminate no-fault divorce there and brilliantly stated,

I want to see no-fault divorce come back to at-fault in divorce and even public shaming for those who are at fault in divorce. I want to see abortion abolished. These are the kinds of morality and government issues that we need to get back to.

Give the propensity of politicians to commit adultery and various forms of sexual misconduct, Deevers should be careful what he wishes for. Porn app aficionado Mike Johnson, who also happens to be Speaker of the House (for now), once said that no-fault divorce contributes to a “completely amoral society.” As a reminder, this deviant uses his teenage son to monitor his own porn habits.

Trump sycophant JD Vance (R-OH) declared that no-fault divorce is “making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear,” including in marriages that might be violent against the woman. This is the guy that allegedly creates fake charities merely to fund his own political campaign. The Texas GOP provides right within its stated platform that the goal is “to rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws and support covenant marriage and to pass legislation extending the period of time in which a divorce may occur to six months after the date of filing for divorce.”

Beverly Willet, co-chair of the Coalition For Divorce Reform, actually claimed that “Unilateral no-fault divorce clearly violates the 14th Amendment.” To support the argument, she repeatedly lied about how the process works, such as with the claim “They do not permit defendants their day in court — defendants may not oppose the divorce, offer evidence, or call or cross-examine witnesses.” See an example of why this is false from this image from California’s divorce website.

While it is true that no-fault divorce cannot be opposed, with obvious reason, it is utterly false that a spouse cannot have their “day in court.” California literally says “you can agree [on decisions made about marital property, childcare, etc.] or use a court process to have the court decide.” It is arguably one of the more liberal states and even it allows courts to intervene.

This is true in most, if not all, states. Willet simply does not like that one spouse can decide to end a marriage; she emphatically said so: “After my own unwanted divorce, I co-founded a volunteer bipartisan organization to advocate divorce reform” [emphasis added]. She sounds more like a woman scorned than a woman concerned about women’s rights.

No-fault divorce enables women to leave marriages rife with violence or abuse. Since 1969, women in states that enacted no-fault divorce laws saw a reduction in suicides by between 8% and 16%. Domestic violence lowered by 30% and murders of women by their husbands shrunk by 10%.

No-fault divorce also reduces the cost to exit a marriage. Even today, women make less than men for the same jobs and thus are often financially trapped by marriage. While getting divorced does not necessarily help their financial condition, before no-fault laws many women could not afford the cost of divorce proceedings and potentially escape violence or abuse. Thus, an assault on no-fault divorce is undeniably an assault on women’s right to control—or protect—their lives.

Arguments against no-fault divorce stem from a desire to forcibly keep women locked into a keenly one-sided contract. Willet quoted former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, Leah Ward Sears, who characterized marriage as “one of the most important contractual obligations in society.”

What people holding this view try to do is to claim that a breach of that contract ‘violates due process’ if one party does not want to exit said contract. Contracts, however, are breached all the time against one of the contracting parties’ wishes. The due process part is in response to the damages resultant from the breach. As Cornell Law School notes, “The overarching goal of contract law is to place the harmed party in the same economic position they would have been in had no breach of contract occurred.”

Who suffers the “harm” or commits the “breach” in a marriage contract is virtually indeterminable because it requires knowing what happens behind the closed doors of people’s private lives. Thus, divorce laws in most states focus upon situating the parties fairly following the break through child support, alimony, and equitable division of assets. The Republican position on this simply twists the reality to breaking.

Lying about the real-world context of divorce often accompanies absurd views on contraception, especially among some extremist judges. Matthew Kacsmaryk resides on the bench of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, appointed by Trump. Kacsmaryk is known for his pronouncements that being transgender is a “mental disorder,” and that gay people are “disordered.” He also has a vibrant history of ignoring law and precedent. The 5th Circuit upon which this miscreant sits is widely known for its terrible holdings, bereft of logic and law, but littered with moral scolding and religiosity (and some corruption to boot).

In December 2022, Kacsmaryk handed down a decision so riddled with errors that “a first-year law student” can easily identify them. The case involved a parent who did not like the federal Title X program that allows minors to receive birth control without parental consent. Built upon a number of legal mistakes and testy dogma, Kacsmaryk concluded “the Title X program violates the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.” Notably, Texas’ teen birth rate is among the top ten highest in the nation. Its maternal and infant mortality rates are also ‘alarmingly’ high according to several studies.

Not long before the lawless Title X ruling, Democrats had introduced a bill seeking to codify access to contraception. It passed the House with all Democrats and 8 Republicans voting for it. Every ‘no’ vote was by a Republican. Unhinged Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) prevented the bill from going to a vote in the Senate. Coup-supporting Florida Republican Kat Cammack whined, “this bill is completely unnecessary. In no way, shape, or form is access to contraception limited or at risk of being limited.”

No one believed her blathering, and rightfully so. Several Republican-led states have passed or are in the process of passing laws prohibiting or restricting the distribution of contraception. Examples include Idaho, Missouri, Louisiana, and Arizona, among others. Christina Cauterucci, writing for Slate, sums it up well:

With contraception, legislators will start the same way they did with abortion: Banning certain types of care, passing parental consent laws, and stripping public funding so that patients on Medicaid lose access to the most effective contraceptives. And why shouldn’t they? It’s worked for them before.

This religious, paternalistic, and moronic war on women might be the true dagger in the heart of the Republican Party. Even deep red state women have begun to show their disdain for these efforts, seeing through the bullshit legislators offer as excuses. As legislatures impose prohibitions on leaving their states to get medical care (an undeniable violation of the Constitution in normal times), increase arrests for medical problems specific to women, and level surveillance at women simply for becoming pregnant, Republicans will not be able to hide their true motivations from the masses anymore. Over 61% of women support legal abortion, and over 90% support open and free access to contraception.

In states with the most egregious laws or proposals, women voter numbers are growing swiftly—and they are not interested in electing those telling them how to manage their own bodies or lives. Historically, women turn out to vote in larger numbers than men. Add the kind of powerful motivation Republican misogyny engenders, and women may ignite the one-party wave all by themselves.

This was recently illustrated in deep red Alabama where Democrat Marilyn Lands, who ran on women’s rights, destroyed her Republican opponent by 25 points. As a funny addendum, Lands ran in a special election because the previous officeholder, Republican David Cole, was forced to resign after pleading guilty to voter fraud. You can’t make this stuff up with these people.

Taking Entitlements and Giving them to the Rich

In 2017, Republicans enacted the largest change to the tax code in decades, possibly in history, one the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities called a “trickle-down failure.” Households earning less than $114,000 saw no benefit from the law, while the top 1% of earners received 50% of the total benefits. Despite seeing a tax reduction of around 15%, corporations have nonetheless continued to gouge consumers by raising prices on false claims, profiting over $1.5 trillion since the start of the pandemic. Despite a vastly growing disparity in income in the United States, many Republicans are still calling for cuts to entitlements.

Now, it must be noted that entitlements are not giveaways, they are earned through income and other taxes—something the wealthy pay in substantially lower rates than most regular citizens, yet corporate welfare has never been worse. For the rubes constantly gibbering on about socialism, corporate socialism far exceeds any other type. By the way, even so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ routinely pay higher tax rates than the wealthy or corporations.

Numerous Republicans have been caught on tape articulating their desire to cut social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. To see their plan in more detail, simply read the House Republican Study Committee’s report. It proposes raising the retirement age to 69. For those who retired at 62, the Republican plan would reduce the earned benefit from 70% (what it is now) to 61%. For those who retired at 65, the benefit would go down from 86.7% to 75%.

Cuts to medical benefits are also included in the plan. Compared to other wealthy countries in the world, US social security already pays out nearly 20% less, Healthcare is abominable, and Republicans want to make it worse. Meanwhile, corporate tax rates sit well below other jurisdictions where public benefits are much better. Republicans also wish to extend the extremely unfair tax cuts they enacted in 2017.

Taking Credit Where it isn’t Due

Republicans have a knack for taking credit for benefits that they themselves voted against. Biden’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was opposed by every single Republican of the House of Representatives. It passed the Senate on a tiebreaker vote by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since then, however, plenty of Republicans have stood at ribbon cuttings and other events made possible by the law as if they had something to do with it. They sort of have to engage in these theatrical lies—two-thirds of the projects enabled by the IRA are occurring in Republican-led districts. When confronted with the fact that they are taking credit for those projects while having voted against the law that enabled them, the responses range from idiotic to amusing.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—who chairs the low-IQ caucus—pretended that a different bill funded the project in her district. Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) said “Just because you vote against a bill doesn’t mean the entire bill is a bad bill.” Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) said “The overall process, the overall bill, particularly the spending, really frustrates Republicans—not necessarily every specific in the bill.” An aide to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) ridiculously argued that because talks about the project in his district were occurring before passage of the law, to “link” Cornyn’s opposition with the (IRA) funding for the project was “inaccurate.”

When a TV host in Florida pressed a Republican Representative there, that Rep. pretended she could not “remember” which way she voted. IVF expert Tommy Tuberville also jumped on the “take credit” bandwagon, as have many others, such as GOP Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith (Miss.), John Boozman (Ark.) and slavery advocate Tom Cotton (Ark.).

Because Republicans cannot be bothered to attempt to pass any serious legislation, they are left with little choice but to take credit for programs passed by Democrats. A review of the last dozen or so proposed Republican bills reveals how unserious they are about governing, here’s a sampling:

• Mike Lee (R-UT) - related to Mayorkas impeachment (4 bills)

• Ted Cruz (R-TX) - a bill to prohibit the use of funds to waive certain sanctions related to Iran

• Mike Crapo (R-ID) - a bill to restrict funds for the Environmental Protection Agency

• Mike Lee (R-UT) - a bill about transporting undocumented immigrants

• John Boozman (R-AR) - a bill to mint coins to honor a steamboat tragedy that occurred in 1865

• Ted Cruz (R-TX) - related to Mayorkas impeachment

• John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) - related to Mayorkas impeachment

**Note that the House impeached Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas back in February. The impeachment illustrated the Republican penchant for engaging in show-trials and faux investigations. The two impeachment articles cited Mayorkas’s purported “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law" and a "breach of public trust.” The impeachment passed by just one vote because all Democrats and three Republicans opposed it.

Senators of both parties criticized the impeachment, noting it had no basis in fact or reality. Indeed, it came on the heels of a defeat of immigration legislation designed by Republicans that was defeated by… Republicans. There is zero chance of Mayorkas’ removal, making this yet another waste of time and money. But that’s the only thing the party does these days, engage in sham impeachment proceedings.

Too Many Hateful Hypocrites

Book Banners

A trend gaining steam among Republicans illustrates another artifact of their dogmatic, doltish nonsense. Teachers College of Columbia University wrote,

The American Library Association reported a record-breaking number of attempts to ban books in 2022— up 38 percent from the previous year. Most of the books pulled off shelves are “written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of color."

Teacher College’s Sonya Douglass, Professor of Education Leadership added,

It's a battle over the soul of the country in many ways; it's about what we teach young people about our country, what we determine to be the truth, and what we believe should be included in the curriculum they're receiving. There's a lot at stake there.

The states with the most bans are Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania, but some level of ban has been imposed in 32 states. Most of these states are Republican-led states, though book bans often happen at the local level leading to the enactment of some in Democrat-led states, but Republican-controlled localities.

Forty-one percent of the bans explicitly target books with LGBTQ+ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ+. Forty percent discuss racism or slavery, or include people of color as the primary characters. Twenty-four percent of them comprise non-fiction works—non-fiction, meaning fact-based works. None include the Bible which contains copious amounts of violent and lascivious passages.

The people pushing these efforts largely belong to religious or political whackjob groups. Suzanne Nossel, chief executive officer of PEN America, told CNN:

While we think of book bans as the work of individual concerned citizens, our report demonstrates that today’s wave of bans represents a coordinated campaign to banish books being waged by sophisticated, ideological and well-resourced advocacy organizations.

They lobby state and local governments to pass “educational gag orders,” which are “efforts to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities in K–12 and higher education.” In 2021, 54 gag order bills were enacted in 22 states. Perhaps the best known of the groups advocating for this hogwash is Moms for Liberty. That organization purports to:

advocate[] against school curricula that mention LGBT rights, race and ethnicity, critical race theory, and discrimination.

The group’s own discrimination is patently on display. And, like almost every radical organization, its members engage in activities that undermine their credibility, even among their own racist or hate-filled followers. For example, Melissa “Missy” Bosch (Lonoke County, AR Chapter) was indicted for threatening to shoot a librarian. Phillip Fisher Jr., a pastor, Republican, and volunteer for the Philadelphia branch is a registered sex offender. He served three years in prison for sex with a minor. Two chairs in Kentucky hung around and took pictures with the Proud Boys. The Proud Boys saw numerous members of their leadership sent to prison for decades for trying to violently overthrow the United States government.

Moms for Liberty cofounder Bridget Ziegler’s husband has been accused of raping a woman with whom Ziegler herself had a sexual relationship—even though Ziegler regularly criticizes homosexuality and publicly advocated the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida.

More than 80% of the public opposes banning books based on any of these subjects. Nevertheless, the GOP openly supports the group. Sheriffs in some extreme jurisdictions coordinate their re-election campaigns with this group, and also launch investigations based on complaints made by Moms for Liberty chapters. Indeed, harassment is a hallmark of the organization’s operations.

Despite all the debauchery and hypocrisy, Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), criminally-on-trial Donald Trump, Nikki Haley (former Republican candidate for president 2024), Vivek Ramaswamy (former Republican candidate for president 2024), and others openly compliment Moms for Liberty.

Supporting these lunatics—that 80% of the voting population opposes—is not a winning strategy for Republicans.

Attacks on LGBTQ+

No matter one’s view on LGBTQ+ issues, probably almost everyone in America knows someone who faces them personally, even if unaware of it. In 2023, Republicans passed 75 anti-LGBTQ+ laws across the country. These have included banning flying the pride flag, prohibiting what teachers can teach about certain sexual orientation issues, restrictions on drag shows, removing instruction about HIV/AIDS from school curriculums, among others.

Despite 71% public support for codifying gay marriage nationally, Republicans have continuously resisted it. Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) even told Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) to “get right with Jesus” when Emmer announced his support of a law in favor of gay marriage. Allen is apparently unfamiliar with Jesus.

Republicans in Tennessee passed a bill in February that states, “The legislation, Senate Bill 596, declares that ‘a person shall not be required to solemnize a marriage if the person has an objection to solemnizing the marriage based on the person’s conscience or religious beliefs.’” We shall see how that goes when someone publicly refuses to solemnize a Christian marriage. Project 2025, the manifesto of the wannabe terrorist organization called the Heritage Foundation, opines that:

children suffer the toxic normalisation of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries… Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualisation of children … is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to first amendment protection.

The Heritage Foundation, and all its contributing conspirators should be charged with various crimes, but I will reflect on that later. Anyway, Sasha Buchert, director of the Non-Binary and Transgender Rights Project for Lambda Legal, told the Guardian, “These attacks are out of step with the way Americans view and trust LGBTQ+ people, so I’m confident they’ll continue to fail.”

Not only are these extremist views in contradiction with those of the majority of voters, they conveniently ignore the fact that when measured by political affiliation, sexual crimes against children are committed or promulgated by self-described Republicans in far greater numbers than anyone identified as LGBTQ+.

Campaigning on a platform of assaulting LGBTQ+ folks is another loser.

Related to education, whether on LGBTQ+ issues or by book banning, here’s a breakdown of how things are going in Republican-led states:

The states leading the category of poorest education are nearly all comprised of Republican-voting constituencies (1 = worst, 10 = least worst).

1. West Virginia - Red

2. Mississippi - Red

3. Louisiana - Red

4. Arkansas - Red

5. Alabama - Red

6. Oklahoma - Red

7. Nevada - Mix

8. Kentucky - Red

9. New Mexico - Mix

10. Texas - Red

Supporting Traitors

Fifty-four percent of Americans view the events of January 6, 2021, as a fundamental assault on democracy itself—an embarrassingly low number, frankly. Then again, only 1 in 3 Americans can pass the same civics test immigrants must pass to gain citizenship. Among Republicans specifically, 20% believed that Trump’s statements had encouraged political violence and 55% did not think that Trump had done everything in his power to stop the violence once it erupted. Roughly 70% of all Americans, however, believe that the rioters themselves were ‘extremists.’

At recent rallies, Trump commenced the events with the “MAGA National Anthem.” Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and certain Republican interest groups have repeatedly claimed that January 6 defendants were “treated unfairly” and call the imprisoned ones “hostages.” The Republican party’s previous position on the Capitol attack was to call it ‘political discourse.’

While a large piece of the party remains rather quiet on the issue now, most likely aware that it is not helpful to their campaigns, various Trump associates have not. Convicted criminal Steve Bannon, for example, regularly invites Cynthia Hughes, one of the founders of the Patriot Freedom Project, onto his show. The Patriot Freedom Project is a non-profit purportedly set up to raise money for the legal fees of defendants arrested because of their activities on January 6. A close look at its records, however, suggests it might be a scam. Nevertheless, certain Trump-associated criminals have seen fit to donate, such as felon Dinesh D'Souza, who gave $100,000.

Jack Posobiec, another regular Trump fallatiator, opened the 2024 CPAC convention by stating “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.” That was not enough for him. He later went on, “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.”

When things go south for this juvenile rebellion, Posobiec would be among the first to go if he wasn’t such a trifling scrimp unworthy of anyone’s energy. CPAC is the Conservative Political Action Conference; a once somewhat normal political conference turned into a nutjob’s carnival.

Most lawmakers do not say much about their views on January 6 because commenting only reminds people what really happened and highlights Trump’s direct role. Still, with Trump campaigning on it, and appearing on video playing the ridiculous anthem that is a pirated version of the real national anthem, but with lyrics condoning the riot, the issue may become front-and-center again for many of them and it will not be good. By the way, what did Trump say about black people kneeling during the playing of the real anthem?

What really happened on January 6; Source: CNN

Resignations

Some Republicans can no longer tolerate the unbridled madness outlined throughout this essay. Rep. Ken Buck, (R-Colo) quit Congress in the third week of March. Buck, who was definitely not a ‘moderate’ Republican, articulated his disdain for this 118th Congress, stating:

We’ve taken impeachment and we’ve made it a social media issue as opposed to a constitutional concept. This place keeps going downhill and I don’t need to spend more time here.

He further called Congress “dysfunctional,” expressed contempt for the continued GOP promulgation of the Big Lie, and bristled about Republicans who call January 6 Insurrectionists ‘patriots.’ Perhaps because of all this, Buck’s timing seems purposefully chosen to screw over fellow Colorado Congresswoman—and public trainwreck—Lauren Boebert and other Republicans.

Not only does his sudden departure reduce the House majority to just 2, but it also may herald the end of Boebert’s handsy tenure. This is because it puts her on the same ballot as the primary, which observers expect will confuse voters as to which position Boebert is running for. Because she won by such a tiny margin last election, even a handful of confused voters does not bode well for her campaign. Her numbers suggest she will lose anyway, no doubt because of her shameful public behavior, her son’s recent crime spree, her household’s penchant for domestic violence, and returned attention to her (ex-?)husband’s habit of flashing his junk in public to teenage girls, among his other apparent crimes.

Boebert, by the way, proclaims on her campaign website, “I believe that strong families are the foundation of American society,” just not hers. She has her own “unusually long” criminal record, just like her husband (or ex, or whatever). The Democrat running against her is showing record strength, having raised $3.4 million in the last quarter alone. In the last election, Boebert won by just 500 votes, suggesting that this time around she will get demolished.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican announced his resignation shortly after Buck. He scheduled his departure for April 19, a date of its own significance. By waiting until then, Wisconsin law requires leaving the seat open until the next election, thereby reducing the Republican majority in the House down to just one.

Gallagher did not give a specific reason other than to say “trust me, Congress is no place to grow old.” He voted against the impeachment of Mayorkas, and criticized the Party and Trump during the events of January 6. Some of his allies told the media that Marjorie Taylor Greene’s shenanigans and others’ similar behavior pushed him into his final decision. Gallagher is no less of a hypocrite than many others, though. He campaigned on shutting down TikTok over purported Chinese surveillance, but has recently joined one of the world’s worst purveyors of surveillance, Palantir, following his departure from Congress. At least he turned his hypocrisy toward his own party stooges.

Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) recently announced her retirement following the end of her current term. Just the other day, however, she notified Speaker Porn-app Johnson that she was stepping down from the House Appropriations Committee. Granger’s departure from that Committee will likely launch a heated battle among Republicans desiring to obtain the vaunted seat. Of course, if they follow their usual tactics, the fight will almost certainly turn ugly and only hurt the party further. It may also open up her current Congressional seat to challenges by Democratic candidates.

In total, 23 Republicans have either resigned or announced that they would not run for re-election, including a flip of the New York seat previously held by accused flamboyant criminal George Santos. Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) told CNN in reference to the abundance of departures, “You get this panic and anxiety like, ‘OK, who’s going to step up? Is this a normal thing that happens every few years, or is it actually abnormal?”

Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), who is leaving after this term, said “Our country – and our Congress – is broken beyond most means of repair.” Another Republican lawmaker who asked not to give his/her name stated that many retirements are being driven by the prospect of having to endorse Trump—something many do not want to do.

Miscellaneous Malarkey

Tennessee

In April of 2023, three state legislators staged a protest of Tennessee’s flimsy gun laws days after a shooter killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School. The lawmakers, along with hundreds of others, peacefully shouted things like “children are dead” and “power to the people” when Republicans refused to even consider any gun legislation. The Representatives leading the protest included Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson.

Republicans in charge of the House there later voted to expel each Representative for purported violations of decorum—two of the votes passed, one failed. The two passing votes expelled Pearson and Jones; the one that failed was against Johnson who retained her seat. Guess which of the three are black? (Hint: Pearson and Jones). It drew obvious, and deserved criticism, such that one week later Nashville's Metro Council unanimously voted to reinstate Jones. Around the same time, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners also voted to confirm the reappointment of Pearson.

Within the past few weeks, Republicans vacated the entire board of Tennessee’s only publicly funded black university, claiming that the university’s funds were misappropriated. In reality, the university had been underfunded by over $2 billion according to a federal review. Moreover, a state audit found “no evidence of fraud or malfeasance.” Rep. Bo Mitchell (D-Nashville) said:

I worked in Gov Ops many years as a staffer. I’ve seen many audits of many universities that look horrendous. Have we ever, ever vacated an entire board of a university before? Have we ever done that? But an HBCU that we owe $2 billion to? Oh yeah, we’re going to take their board.

In 2022, text messages from Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada (R) surfaced in which he wrote, “Black people are idiots” in one and that a certain black NFL player is a “thug (n-word)” in another. Casada admitted later that he did indeed send the texts, but never followed through with sensitivity training he promised he would take as a consequence.

The state also prevents more Black people from voting than any other state, based on a prior felony conviction no matter how old or whether violent or not. In 2018, when grassroots efforts led to the registration of 95,000 new Black voters, former Republican lawmaker Mark Goins proposed a law targeting these groups that would levy fines upon them for any rejected voter applications. Even though no one investigated how many faulty applications were actually submitted, if any, Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law nonetheless.

Goins was particularly concerned with Shelby County, which has the largest volume of Black voters and Black population. Tennessee state lawmakers have a long history of this kind of racist behavior—after all, it is the home state of the Ku Klux Klan. Regardless, the latest moves against Pearson and Jones seems to have further ignited Black voter turnout there and in other parts of the country.

Oklahoma

Republicans in Oklahoma engaged in what a state auditor recently called “the largest abuse of taxpayer funds in the history of the state.” Federal auditors, right around the same time, found that the Republican Governor’s Education Emergency Relief fund had $31 million in questionable or suspicious transactions. Two individuals involved in the fraud have since been criminally charged with felonies for embezzlement, money laundering, and other charges. This all occurred while the State Superintendent Ryan Walters (R) failed to perform his duties causing over 100 schools to lose out on federal funding. Similarly, Governor Kevin Stitt (R) declined federal funding for the summer food program for children claiming the “rules for it aren’t clear.”

In any case, Walters is under investigation himself for possibly mishandling teacher bonus payments, using money for political functions, and for using public funds to pay TikTok propagandist Chaya Raichik to produce campaign material. When parents and others grew angry enough to protest at the Department of Education over the rampant abuse and negligence, state police declared the building a state park (which have closing hours, thus making protesting there a trespassing crime if done outside of “park hours”).

Watchdog groups called out the ridiculousness of the move. Recent polling suggests many voters are thinking about switching parties in several elections in Oklahoma. Even a slight party shift in Oklahoma would be monumental; it has long been viewed as a “solid” red state.

Ohio

On March 9, 2023, a jury convicted former Ohio state House Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican party chair Matt Borges of what federal prosecutors called the “largest corruption case in state history.” Kenneth Parker, the prosecuting US Attorney, said that the two “sold the statehouse.” This is how:

Householder orchestrated a scheme secretly funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp to secure his power in the legislature, elect his allies – and then to pass and defend a $1bn nuclear power plant bailout benefiting the electric utility. They alleged that Borges, then a lobbyist, sought to bribe an operative for inside information on the referendum to overturn the bailout.

In a sense, Householder and Borges were convicted of defrauding voters by manipulating legislation to benefit themselves and a private company who funded election efforts to elect allies in return. Speaking of election fraud…

Election Fraud

The Republican party has been proclaiming election fraud since it became a quintessential piece of Trump’s Big Lie campaign in 2020. The problem is, the overwhelming majority of those convicted of election fraud are—you guessed it—Republican. Kim Taylor of Iowa, for example, will go to jail for four months, convicted on 52 counts of election fraud to benefit her candidate-husband—twice. The US Attorney there said she:

perpetrated a scheme to fraudulently generate votes for her husband in the primary election for Iowa’s fourth US congressional district in June 2020… After Taylor’s husband lost in the primary, he ran for Woodbury county supervisor … and Taylor again engaged in ballot fraud, causing absentee ballots to be fraudulently requested and cast. Taylor submitted or caused others to submit dozens of voter registrations, absentee ballot request forms, and absentee ballots containing false information. Taylor completed and signed voter forms without voters’ permission and told others that they could sign on behalf of relatives who were not present.

In late March 2024, Brian Pritchard, a Georgia Republican Party official, who repeatedly claimed there was voter fraud there in 2020, received probation for voting illegally nine separate times. He previously voted illegally in 2008 and 2010.

At least five Republicans were found or pleaded guilty of voter fraud in Florida in 2021. Robert Rivernider Jr., one of those five, was the only conviction Florida’s Office of Election Crimes and Security managed to secure despite Governor Ron DeSantis’s claim of widespread fraud there as well. DeSantis set up that ‘election crimes’ office specifically to root out alleged (Democrat) voter fraud. The other four Republicans pled guilty before trial.

Republicans in Nevada made a big deal out of the discovery of a dead Democrat voter having voted in the 2020 election. As it turned out, the person who used the dead Democrat’s name to cast an illegal vote was registered Republican Donald Kirk Hartle, who pled guilty to election fraud. Edward Snodgrass, a Republican in Ohio, served three days in jail and paid a $500 fine for voter fraud.

James Saunders, another Ohio Republican and Trump donor, was convicted of two felony counts of voter fraud for illegally voting in 2020 and 2022. Saunders was also found to have voted illegally in 2014 and 2016, though those charges were dismissed based on the statute of limitations. Barry Lee Morphew, a registered Republican in Colorado, allegedly murdered his wife and then voted in her name for Trump. He faces criminal counts of murder, forgery and election fraud.

Across the six so-called battleground states, the AP News found 475 total cases involving attempts to vote illegally, obviously nowhere near enough to tilt the presidential election in 2020. Yet, many Republicans are still making such absurd claims and their supporters believe them. Moreover, within those 475 cases, every one that resulted in criminal charges involved registered Republicans or people who tried to vote illegally for Trump.

This isn’t a Traditional Partisan Piece

This article is not a partisan piece in the traditional sense. In normal times, partisanship would consist of arguing for or against policies promoted by a party or political faction based on a policy-driven ideology. This, however, is very different. American politics no longer approaches policy discussion in any meaningful way. How could it possibly happen when one ‘side’ of any potential debate is riddled with charlatans, liars, and ne’er-do-wells? While political tribalism has long been extant in the US, it tended toward loyalty related to specific philosophies.

Today, it hinges upon two pillars of nonsense: a cultish following of one person, and a visceral hatred of anyone espousing views held outside the tent. On the cultish element, there simply remains no alternative way of explaining how a party can proclaim to be for “law and order” when their lead candidate for the highest office of the land is literally on criminal trial for crimes related to influencing an election, and is facing future trials related to stealing national secrets, inciting a violent rebellion to overthrow the government, and engaging in a massive voter fraud racketeering conspiracy. The only way to explain this away is to simply deny the thousands of pages of evidence long made public, to deny the very things the guy says in public and caught on video, and to deny reality generally.

The hatred of one political faction in US politics is self-evident. Indeed, the myriad examples laid out in this piece represent the literal tip of a titanic-sized iceberg. Without stirring unjustified anger within their intellectually-deficient or emotionally damaged electorate, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, etc., etc., etc., etc., would stand absolutely zero chance of acquiring or maintaining a career in politics. In fact, in any other context, these people would stand no chance of working in a Dairy Queen.

The evidence—both contemporary and historical—is clear. Regardless whether Republicans somehow maintain or gain power this election, it will be ephemeral. Normal humans will tolerate this level of chaos and foolishness for only so long.

Keep banning books, relegating women to subservience, denigrating minorities or immigrants as ‘animals’ or ‘criminals,’ or trying to empower archaic dogma, and the consequences will be severe. Republicans will suffer the same fate as previous regimes that have attempted adopting extremist rule: perhaps a brief grasp on power followed by a rapid, catastrophic fall. The last two years may comprise the last fleeting power they will enjoy for a long time to come.

As gorged as American society is on guns, continuing the oppression, misogyny, racism, and utter idiocy might even lead to violence. But that is neither necessary nor inevitable. States that uphold the values of integrity, equality, and fairness under the law are more successful by every available metric.

They can easily relegate backward jurisdictions to obscurity by welcoming refugees from those places until such time as rational people acquire all the levers of power—the House, Senate, and White House. From there, they need only show the courage to reorient the pockets of greatest failures and they will cement their power for at least a generation.

That means… one party rule. And Republicans and their supporters will deserve it.

***

I am a Certified Forensic Computer Examiner, Certified Crime Analyst, Certified Fraud Examiner, and Certified Financial Crimes Investigator with a Juris Doctor and a Master’s degree in history. I spent 10 years working in the New York State Division of Criminal Justice as Senior Analyst and Investigator. I was a firefighter before I joined law enforcement and now I currently run a non-profit that uses mobile applications and other technologies to create Early Alert Systems for natural disasters for people living in remote or poor areas.