Roger Terry: What are Republicans for?

Frustrated that the Republicans seem uninterested in making things better for Americans, President Biden said, “I did not anticipate that there’d be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn’t get anything done.”

He obviously didn’t understand what drives the GOP these days.

“Think about this: What are Republicans for? What are they for? Name me one thing they’re for,” he continued.

Since they have refused to adequately answer this question, maybe we need to spell it out for voters. If we can see through the smoke screen of white grievance and endless culture wars, this is what we will see.

First and foremost, the GOP is a pro-death party. This may sound harsh, but we need to label it for what it is. Republicans claim to be pro-life, but a party that opposes universal background checks for guns and refuses to restrict assault-style weapons supports policies that increase shootings, especially mass shootings.

Second, the GOP is pro-virus and pro-pandemic. The Republicans’ strong opposition to mask-wearing, vaccine mandates and even vaccinations has lengthened the pandemic, restricted the freedoms of all Americans, and resulted in the U.S. experiencing more COVID deaths. So, being pro-virus translates directly to being pro-death. With greater GOP support for both vaccines and mask-wearing, we could have prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Third, the GOP is pro-global warming. It has consistently used misinformed arguments to support the fossil fuel industry and place hurdles in the way of any legislation to seriously address the warming of the planet. And did I mention that their refusal to accept climate science has a direct impact on the severity of droughts, wildfires, flooding and hurricanes, all of which cost human lives? So this also makes the Republican party a pro-death party.

Fourth, the GOP is in favor of denying millions of citizens adequate health care. Economically-advanced countries (and even most that aren’t) have some form of single-payer system that provides adequate health care for their citizens, and they do this at a far lower cost than our broken system can manage. These other countries are often producing better overall results than the American healthcare tragedy produces.

We could copy any of a dozen other systems and provide better health care for our citizens, at a far lower cost, but the Republican party will not allow it. This makes the U.S. just about the only country where a person or family can be bankrupted by medical expenses, but it also makes us a country that experiences too many preventable deaths. Which, of course, is another reason the GOP is a pro-death party.

Fifth, the GOP is pro-inequality. By enacting policies, including lopsided tax cuts, that favor the wealthy and the powerful, the GOP has decimated the middle class, kept the minimum wage at a ridiculously low $7.25, and ensured that more than one in 10 of Americans live in poverty (even though the official poverty line — $12,880 for an individual, $26,500 for a family of four — is a laughable measurement).

Since the Reagan tax cuts, inequality has soared, with an ever-increasing portion of wealth going to the top. For instance, the top 1% of Americans now hold more wealth than the entire middle class, defined as the middle 60% of all households by income. According to a 2016 Harvard study, the richest American men live on average 15 years longer than the poorest, and the richest American women live 10 years longer than the poorest. So yes, economic inequality kills people, another evidence that the GOP is pro-death (except for the wealthy).

I used to be a Republican. But I could not continue to support a party that promoted so many policies that were bad not just for America, but especially for its own party members, many of whom are less educated and struggling economically.

Roger Terry is a writer and editor who is fascinated and confused by the fact that people continue to vote against their own interests.