By Calvin Hill
How does one discern what lessons are to be learned from the tear-stained face of Lindsey Graham in response to the multi-count indictment of a man who has spent much of his adult life as a walking, talking symbol of a criminal enterprise – “allegedly?” The senior South Carolina senator did not shed those tears when his friend, John McCain, passed away. For Senator Graham, a more appropriate response should have been, “I told you so!” In 2016, it was Graham who loudly declared to his fellow Republicans, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we will deserve it.”
For the many Republicans who have worked for and managed campaigns, Lindsey Graham was right. Those present, and now former Republicans, do not recognize the party they have supported and worked for over decades. In their opinion, Trump has destroyed the Republican Party as they knew it, and, they fear, is destroying the country. Before his run for President, Donald Trump spent much of his adult life supporting the issues of pro-choice Democrats. The quintessential RINO, Trump has convinced a significant section of the voting populace that lifelong Republicans are the real Republicans In Name Only simply because they don’t support him. What they don’t support is his reckless, vengeful leadership, or his march toward an American autocracy posing as an America First agenda.
Donald Trump, Senator Graham and the House GOP leadership have turned Republican politics into a raging bastion of schizophrenia. They will blame a “Democrat run city” when a madman shoves an innocent commuter onto the subway tracks. Yet, the very same madman can drive down I-95 and stop at any number of Republican run enclaves, buy an assault rifle and mass murder children in school, parishioners in their houses of worship, food shoppers, concert and movie goers and the Republicans’ simplistic solution is to pray and pay for better mental health.
It is the breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion and behavior, by Republicans, coupled with their delusions of reality that causes them to believe more guns and more prayers will solve the problem. And sending grief counselors to aid recently traumatized 6, 9 and 14 year olds is of little consequence when the child cannot sleep at night and wakes up screaming after hearing gunfire and seeing bloodstained classmates in their dreams. The lack of sensible gun policy is not just causing preventable death; it is creating generations of mental health problems that will go untreated because many states, where these mass murders occur, refuse to live in a world of advancement where medical care is easily accessible, affordable and necessary.
Meanwhile, in the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, the Tennessee legislature, under the guise of violating decorum, saw fit to expel two young “uppity,” duly elected black members of their body for exercising their free speech rights after three 9 year olds were murdered in school along with three 60+ aged Tennesseans.
These days, the GOP also seems to be suffering from a self-inflicted level of paranoia over their pro-life positions. Since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, half the Republicans feel their radical anti-abortion approaches will prejudice their election chances while the other half believes the radical anti-abortion proposals are the only way to get elected.
For a political party that usually excels at narrative and messaging, much better than Democrats, a weeping Senator Graham is not reassuring. Someone should tell Lindsey that there’s no crying in politics, bless his heart. Crying for Donald Trump is simply weak and pitiful. Leave the tears for the women who had to relive being sexually assaulted by Trump and the naked young girls he deliberately ogled at his teen pageants. And while Graham and his fellow Republicans are timidly ensconced in thoughts and prayers, they should think about doing something significant and worthwhile to prevent the tears of the next group of families who have to bury their loved ones or cannot pay the hospital bill after treatment for gunshot wounds.
The Op-Ed Alternative 