I know for many of my progressive and liberal brothers and sisters, the idea of a Republican winning the White House is just too far-fetched to consider with any degree of seriousness. That’s easy to do when we take a look at the current and possible candidates for the Republican nomination, not a qualified one among them.
However, we must remember that the GOP and its standard bearers will go to many, if not all lengths to secure what they covet so much: the White House. Let us never forget the presidential election of 2000 and the actions in Florida of Republican elected officials, wanting George W. Bush to become the next president so badly they could taste it. That was also partially aided by one of the candidates running for the upcoming 2016 presidential Republican nomination, Jeb Bush, George W.s brother.
Let us count the ways America loses:
1.Obamacare
If the U.S. Supreme Court allows Obamacare to stand –and that’s a big if – a Republican president, with the help of a Republican-controlled congress, would wipe America’s first real universal health care plan off the books. Of course, they will do that with promises that they’ll come up with a better plan, one that of course, will never materialize, or else they’ll blame Democrats for its failure to materialize.
Health care for the masses is not something Republicans care about, just as long as the well-to-do, themselves and their own families have decent health care, the rest of us can go to hell in a hand basket, as far as they’re concerned. Back to the Emergency room when death is knocking at your door for many of us, and forget about preventive medicine changing health care’s cost and the nation at large, it just won’t happen.
2.LGBT Rights
Republican right-wingers will be having a ball creating laws to scare us gays back into the closet if they can. Transgender people, just on the cusp of finally realizing their rights, with the Pentagon opening their doors wide to transgender individuals, will have their hopes smashed to pieces by a Republican in the White House wishing to impose their religious morals on us all.
Perhaps a new federal law to protect religious people from being persecuted for persecuting and discriminating against LGBT people will be signed into law, making life for gay people and transgender individuals a living hell. While aiding and abetting job discrimination, home and apartment rental and real estate discrimination, and discrimination by any business who claims a sincere religious objection in serving LGBT members.
3.Marijuana Legalization
Legal pot will definitely take a hit, with a new Justice Dept. coming down on states like Colorado and Washington, with raids on marijuana businesses to close them down and arresting their proprietors and employees. Perhaps medical marijuana will survive the onslaught but I certainly wouldn’t count on it. The prison system is a big business for the small government GOP and they’d like to keep it that way.
4.More Wars
War with Iran, perhaps Syria, would be on the radar. More of our young men and women in the armed forces, giving their lives to keep Big Oil supplied with their treasured black gold. Our nation’s treasure will also go up in smoke as we spend more money to fight the endless wars against our enemies, real and imagined.
The Republican Party knows how to play on the fears of the misinformed and the ignorant that make up the base of its party. Hatred toward Muslims will also be a handy tool to stir the pot of anger and move the country toward yet another war against Islamic terrorists, one that will never be won by bombs and boots on the ground alone, but by winning the hearts and minds of the millions of faithful Muslims in this world of ours, who are simply trying to live their lives like the rest of us, in peace.
5.Income Inequality
If you think the wealth gap between the rich and the rest of us is bad now, wait until there’s another Republican president and a willing Republican congress to rubber stamp his every whim. More hefty tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals will definitely be on their agenda. Guys like the Koch brothers don’t spend almost a billion dollars not to get something even more valuable in return. If we had a hope in our hearts that a minimum wage increase was on the arisen, think again. Republicans will be instead looking for ways to throw out the minimum wage altogether.
Unions will lose big time, with more right-to-work states popping up all over the U.S. map. We’ll be hearing another song and dance number by Republican lawmakers about the wonders of trickle-down economics that never come to fruition for anyone but the rich guys. More money will fall into the hands of the few, while the rest of us keep waiting for that long overdue ship to come in, with well-paying jobs in its cargo bay. It of course, will never appear on the horizon and by the time another Republican president has set us into another recession by his signing into law more deregulation of big banks, it’ll be time to look for another Democratic president to take office to blame it all on.
6.The Environment
A Republican president will make it clear that global warming is only a hoax put on by those evil environmentalists who want to rob the wealth of Big Oil and other polluting industries – again, think Koch brothers. What little funding that is currently going into research and development of clean and renewable energy will go out the door, and perhaps even larger subsidies will be provided to one of the GOPs best friend, Big Oil.
And, if the president takes his cue from Republican state governors and legislators, like my own here in Oklahoma, new laws will be created to make sure that progressive states and municipalities have no say to where Big Oil sets up shop to drill, frack or whatever it takes to suck up the oil from the ground. The XL Keystone pipeline will be stretching across the Midwest in no time too, and state governments will have little clout to protest if any at all.
7.Voting Rights
The GOP has figured out that its popularity is fading away, and it has also figured out that to stay viable, it’s going to have to figure out how to survive without the majority of the vote. Republican controlled states have already been testing methods to restrict and block likely Democratic votes with Voter ID laws, cuts in early voting, restrictions on college students voting, and any other method possible to make it difficult if not impossible for minorities and the poor in urban areas to vote. Imagine if a Republican president makes it a federal issue, not only to secure Republican control in the states but also for federal elections and the White House and Congress that goes along with those federal elections, you can say goodbye to a country moving forward, just backwards toward the dark ages.
In Conclusion
I know there will be those who might say there’s no way Republicans will win the White House, let alone implement any of these I have mentioned, but we Democrats cannot take a chance. We need to do whatever it takes to keep the White House in capable and progressive hands, and hopefully, a Democratic controlled Congress to boot. Republicans are playing hard to win and believe me, there is nothing they won’t do to place their man (definitely not a woman) in the White House in 2016.
Someone please bar the door, the barbarians are at the gate.