HYPOCRICANS NOW ARE A PARTY

by Ruth A. Sheets

This morning, I heard a snippet Of Trump’s speech to the Black community at Temple Univ. yesterday.  My response, what a hypocrite!  It takes gall for a convicted criminal to lie about crime in Philadelphia.  I remember having written a blog about hypocrisy a while back, called “hypocricans.”  I thought I had written it about 5 or 6 years ago.  I looked back through my more than 13 years of blogs.  It turned out I actually wrote the blog a bit over 11 years ago.  I find it interesting, perhaps a little amusing that I remember a particular blog from so long ago, then I read it and realized it is at least as relevant now as back then.  I pass it on to you here.  I have updated it in a few places, but, I have left it intact.  I have italicized the updates.  I would love to know what you think and if there is anything we can do about this blatant rarely reported hypocrisy on the part of trump and friends. 

Whenever an election season comes around, folks begin talking about third parties.  I want to get a head start.  I have a modest proposal for a third party, or rather, a second and a half party.  I would call them the “Hypocricans.”   Iin the past 11 years, I have come to see that we don’t need a third party when the “Republican” Party has taken over the Hypocrican role.  That works because they need their position clearly articulated.

In order to be a member of this party, one must meet a variety of rather strict criteria.  But, these criteria are DOABLE and I suspect that there are a great many people who could join tomorrow.  OK, about 70 million of them are already members in “good” standing.

1. A member must want only to associate with people who believe the same things he does.  This is very important because it can make a person uncomfortable to have any beliefs challenged, and God knows a lot of folks can’t bear to be challenged on anything, especially related to their cherished beliefs. 

2. Members must not have an original thought.  Original thoughts can alienate those one would like to emulate.  It might make others think a person is too smart (elite) to be included in their set, and that would be a tragedy.

3. Members must be male or hold to the “honored” tradition that white men are superior to everyone else.  We know that a lot of women, and a few people of color have this essential value, so, for a while at least, there will be a strong pool to draw from.  It is not clear why anyone not white and male would want to be a Hypocrican, but I bet it has something to do with preferring to be a big fish in a small pool (the small pool being the number of prominent women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ persons in the Party.  Not much competition!

4. Members must despise, distrust, and/or fear women.  Passing legislation that limits women’s rights and ability to choose helps to keep the female gender in its place and to keep males dominant.  Effective propaganda makes even many women fall wholeheartedly into line.  That is not enough, though.  it is necessary for these women to condemn their sisters who value choice and won’t march to their beat.

5. Members must be Christian, assuming that our founding fathers were all Christian (no matter the actual religious faith of George, Thomas, Benjamin, and the others).  Only Christians truly have God’s ear and know exactly what God wants everyone in America to do.  In their heart of hearts, they must know that God has ordained them to be His army on earth.  I call these folks “pseudo-christians,” because they follow few if any of the basic Christian principles.

6. Members must hate “Big Government.”  That hatred, however must only extend to programs that help people who are poor, struggling, aging, disabled, unemployed, uninsured, and children.  The role of “Big Government” is to enforce the values of the hypocricans:  big military, Big Money, Big Brother in the bedroom, Big Security watching everyone everywhere (if you’re doing the right thing, you won’t care who sees you doing it).  Of course, there’s no problem with “cop cams” that just happen to be off when they shoot a Black man)

7. Members must hold forgiveness in high esteem.  That forgiveness, though can only come after tearful, if not too sincere apologies for infidelity, extortion, embezzlement, influence peddling, insider trading . . .  And, this forgiveness wipes out all previous offenses, but only for members and their supporters, the true believers.  

8. Members must LOVE guns.  Despite all evidence to the contrary, members must KNOW that guns are the only way they can be safe.  Members will adhere to the “keep and bear arms” clause of the second amendment, but carefully forget the “well-regulated” or “militia” parts of the same amendment.  And, it is OK to have bump stocks, assault-style weapons, and to openly carry, unless you’re Black, of course.

9. Members must believe that science is a hoax and that nothing science or scientists have to say can be counted as true unless it directly helps the military, provides drugs to improve members’ lives, or contributes to members’ comfort and convenience.  NO VACCINES!

10. Members must know how to make mountains out of mole hills when minor problems arise within the opposition administration:  Ben Gazi, IRS targeting a few right-wing organizations to be sure they really are “Social welfare” not political, tapping phones of a few journalists.  They must also know how to make mole hills out of mountains when they are being held accountable:  outing CIA agents, starting wars due to a series of lies (so what if more than 4,000 Americans died, it was for the security of America), not showing up to help minority victims of a natural disaster, remember Katrina and Puerto Rico.

In short, Hypocricans must value hypocrisy above all virtues but not admit to it.  There are a whole lot of people who would make terrific members.  I nominate Sara Palin, Mitch McConnell, John Boener, Michele Bachman, and Marco Rubio (as the token minority figure along with Ted Cruz and Tim Scott).  I also nominate Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and the other 4 conservative Supreme Court justices who lie regularly, make up laws, accept cases they should never hear, take good care of businesses rightly accused of criminal behavior, yet claim impartiality.  Then, there’s Donald Trump and his family!  I’m guessing Karl Rove, Roger Stone, the Steves, and the Heritage Foundation with its “Project 25” will design their platform for them.  Rove’s had a lot of experience and anyway,  he is a charter member.    

It is obvious we have only moved deeper into Republican hypocrisy over these past 11 years.  When I wrote this originally, I was reminded that I should not be name-calling.  I have decided that might have been good advice back then, but when a man is running for president who regularly breaks the law, is a convicted criminal, and only avoids standing trial for other even more serious crimes because of “friendly” judges, yet claims to be a “law and order” candidate, the party he leads is “Hypocrican.”   This former president, while in office, pardoned criminals who helped him commit the crimes, has established lying as a critical criterion for being a leader in his “Hypocrican” Party, it is essential to call a thing what it is, and Republicans are hypocrites, so renaming the party is fair!  Besides, “Republicans” are no longer in favor of maintaining our Republic.