Wedge Issues are Republican Stock in Trade

When former president Donald Trump said that he had worn his mask all day, couldn’t see his face and that he missed it, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking he’d be laughed out of Washington DC. Instead the Republican party turned wearing a mask into a wedge issue. Republican voters were showing up at school board meetings making asses of themselves, complaining that their kids were being forced to wear a mask. Despite the fact that Trump was vaccinated, this led to the anti-vax movement. What kind of political party turns a pandemic into a wedge issue?

Of course the Republicans expect the voters to forget their fumblings as they want them to ignore the insurrection and Trump’s unwillingness to concede the election, claiming he won by a landslide, with no evidence at all. What’s worse is the majority of Republicans running in the 2022 election cycle are afraid to denounce Trump. The media should be asking them if they support the big lie, over and over until it sticks. You know, like Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi or Hillary’s e-mails which helped elect Trump in the first place.

In 2021 two elections were held for governors of Virginia and New Jersey. The Republicans almost won both of them. The Virginia candidate, Youngkin, took aim at suburban housewives with his CRT scam. That’s critical race theory. It’s a theory that racism is systemic in American society. It scared the pants off the Virginia suburban voters, and they elected Youngkin. The New Jersey candidate came within a whisker in a solid blue state. CRT is not taught in American schools. Of course social studies teachers address the Civil War, Jim Crow laws, the Chinese Exclusion Act, Indian orphanages, WWII Japanese internment camps etc. but nobody is promoting any specific opinion. I studied all this stuff, and I never felt bad about myself. The Republican party would have you believe that studying about slavery is a racist attempt on the part of teachers sympathetic to blacks because blacks vote democratic. That’s nuts. Republican have been after public education and teachers ever since Reagan. They don’t even believe teachers deserve a raise. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker refused to allow teachers to negotiate for anything other than cost of living increases. Teachers belong to one of the most powerful unions in the country. Republicans hate unions, especially that one.

Another wedge issue is sex education and books that address sexual issues and other areas Republicans don’t want people to know about. Republicans are afraid sex education teachers are teaching about homosexuality and transsexuals to K-3 students. Nobody suggests actually talking to the teachers about what they actually teach. You can do that during parent teacher conferences. They hold them all the time. Hardly anybody shows up. Anyway, they’re not teaching age inappropriate material to little kids. There’s this Florida demagogue Governor Ron DeSantis who has had legislation passed making it illegal to teach kids in third grade and under about homosexuals. You’ve heard of “Don’t Say Gay”? That’s him. It’s a fear tactic. No sexual education teacher is going to teach little kids about anything they can’t handle. Sex Education has always been a problematic area for conservatives. It led to the home school movement, which the Supreme Court legalized. We really need an investigative reporter to do a series on how well that worked. I have my suspicions. They’re supposed to follow a curriculum and a testing procedure, but I wonder how many actually do.

Okay, let’s address the two gorillas in the room: guns and abortion. Republicans wouldn’t even pass background checks after a crazy person killed 26 little kids and their teachers in New Town or when a maniac killed 59 people and wounded hundreds more in Las Vegas during a Country Music Concert. Country Music Concert? Rather Ironic, don’t you think. How many country music fans support gun legislation? This guy was essentially firing a machine gun into a crowd, using a bump stock on an assault weapon. Once again Republicans argue that any background checks would lead to a slippery slope assault on the Second Amendment. What about the militia part of the Second Amendment? How many of those gun owners belong to the National Guard? The whole idea resulted from George Washington needing volunteers to fight during the Revolution with guns of their own. The colonists did not have a standing army nor could they provide guns. The Constitutional attendees certainly weren’t talking about assault weapons. No, they meant squirrel guns and muskets you had to reload after firing.

In respect to abortion, I’ve always thought it was none of my business. People harassing women at abortion clinics strike me as holier than thous. I might support Right to Life if Republicans would get behind welfare for unwed mothers. No, they refer to them as welfare queens. The next time Republican politicians want to hear from those babies is when they’re in their eighties and want to stop them from exercising their right to die. And when are Republicans going to be logically consistent and support legislation that requires the man to support this baby they insist on bringing into the world?

Logically consistent doesn’t enter into the picture with Republican politicians. Pro Life means forcing a prospective mother to have her baby, but it ignores the mass slaughter going on because of guns. Denouncing Trump’s participation in an insurrection immediately after it happened as McConnell and McCarthy did, doesn’t preclude supporting him a year and a half later.

Another big wedge issue is climate change. Once again, thank you Supreme Court. Al Gore was 500 votes behind in Florida when the conservative Supreme Court shut down the 2000 recount. Gore favored doing something about climate change, like cap and trade. Republicans preferred to roll the dice, and they still are. Campaign money from Texas billionaires is more important to Republicans than saving the planet. It doesn’t matter that 9.7 out of every 10 climatologists believe climate change is a world-ending problem.

Immigration will also be an important 2022 campaign issue. America first seems to be the main Republican argument, despite the fact that we need workers, especially pickers. They give us a very black eye when it comes to our national reputation. What about Emma Lazarus’s poem. “Give me your tired, give me your poor . . .”. A Republican response would be, “Not if they’re brown. Not if they have Covid.” They weren’t worried about Covid when they refused to take the vaccine, wear masks, or keep a social distance at a motorcycle convention in Sturgis, South Dakota.

So . . . you can’t depend on them during a pandemic, you can’t go to a Country Music concert, and you can’t count on them to do anything about climate change. What are they for? Apparently they’re just there to cut taxes for the rich and to make sure imaginary socialists don’t give us free education.