WHEN THEY ARE WRONG

by Ruth A. Sheets

In the Pennsylvania legislature, Republicans are working to change the way judges in the state are elected.  This isn't because the current system is not working, but because it is not working for them. 

The Republican party is furious that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the Republican-drawn/gerrymandered districts as unfair.  Of course, the Republican legislators know very well that their district lines were not drawn fairly.  A lot of time and effort was put into making sure that despite the fact that Pennsylvania has significantly more Democratic voters than Republicans, the Republicans would always have most of the US Congressional and state representatives in their column.  They want the courts too.

This phenomenon is becoming a frequent presence on the American political scene.  Republicans are the most common practitioners.  What is this phenomenon?

When you are caught doing what you know or suspect is wrong, unamerican, or probably illegal, double down on your wrong actions.  If possible, make those you don't like or respect suffer even more.

-Don't hold hearings and a vote on President Obama's nominee for Supreme Court justice (as the Constitution requires), then approve someone perhaps, just barely qualified but conservative enough he will approve anything you want the Court to do for your party and your followers.  then approve only the most ult-right, compliant (to conservative whims) nominees for all Federal court positions, nominees who will regularly rule against women and minorities.

- Your voter I.D. law doesn't pass muster, so work to eliminate as many voting days as possible to inconvenience and discourage poor and minority voters.  Then, make voter registration as difficult as possible for those who don't have easy access to the few registration locations. 

- Purge voter rolls, close to Election Day, mostly of Democratic voters, of course, and when caught, take the case to the Supreme Court which 5-4 says, "OK," when they should have said "No.  Everyone has a right to vote."  Now it's legal, Don't get caught cutting too many minorities on purpose, though.  Just accidentally.

- Migrants and refugees are a terrible problem and those people just keep coming.  We'll build a fence, no, a wall, hire thousands of people to guard the southern border, destroy cashes of water and supplies that would help people crossing the desert.  Since the people keep coming, we'll call them animals and take the children from their mothers at the border as a deterrence.  Oh yes, then the Republican president claims these actions are the fault of Democrats, a lie, but what can you expect.

- Women want control over their own reproduction.  They are moving into the male sphere.  Tell women that birth control is harmful and that abortion will destroy them for life physically and emotionally.  Oh no!  Women know the truth!  We have to stop them, so we'll force insurance companies not to cover birth control.   We'll approve of clinics that lie to patients about everything related to their reproduction.  We'll keep making it harder and harder to get an abortion.  We want the Supreme Court, that we have packed, to say abortion is illegal.  Why is abortion so horrific, you might ask them.  Ummm, it must be in the Bible or something.  Oh wait, it's murder, or something.  Oh yes, it's definitely murder.  We should punish the women who have abortions and the doctors who perform them.

In case it isn't clear, the common factors in all these cases are race, sex, and poverty, white -- or wannabe white, rich -- or wannabe rich, male (Republicans) and everyone else (Democrat and Independent).  To indicate that a Republican might be racist is the greatest insult, they claim.  I don't understand this.  The amount of thought, scheming, and effort Republicans and their allies use to figure out these ingenious actions against African-Americans, immigrants, and women, one would think they were proud of their work and should stand up and state what all Republicans believe deep down.  White, rich men should rule because they know what's best for everyone else, the inferiors who must be kept in their place. 

This situation will not improve until more people stand up to the fear, anger, and privilege Republicans deliberately infuse into everything these days.  The media will not help because they have become lazy and just skim off the top the people and events they will cover. 

Voting at all levels is the key.  Candidates that spew phony patriotism, imply inferiority of any group of people, and toss off easy answers to complex problems do not deserve anyone's vote.  These candidates are wrong and will only double down on their racism, sexism, and xenophobia to no one's benefit but their own.  We must keep this in mind as we face the lies, deceit, and scheming of the 2018 election.