Sorry FDR, but fear is once again is a big problem for America. Democrats should note the abject cowardice that dominates the hearts and minds of nearly all Republicans, who have become a Party of Cowards, as they recoil with fear and revulsion to . . . well, damned near everything, so long as it’s imaginary. Very real problems, that should scare all of us, say, anthropogenic greenhouse gas attacks destroying the habitable margins of the environment, never break through the information bubble where Republicans cower in self-imposed ignorance under the lash of their imaginary fears. Fear, humanity’s strongest emotion, has become a more or less reliable differentiator between Democrats, who usually want to confront problems and challenges, and cowardly Republicans, who generally run and hide from the troubles they know face us.
Once upon a time, even though Republicans sometimes postured about things like Communists hiding behind every lamppost in America, the GOP wasn’t principally defined by cowardice, as they have now become. Sure, they were greedy as hell, disagreeable, obstructionist, always opposed to labor and attached to Wall Street and industry at the hip. But they weren’t the outright cravens the GOP’s rank and file have become under the leadership of President Bone Spurs, his GOP predecessors and other enablers. Republicans generally fear anyone not white, not American, not Christian, not like themselves. They fear learning, knowledge and science, along with everything else that can’t be explained by a fortune cookie or Bible verse.
The right wing has become the fright wing; red states are now dread states. But, most of all, Republicans fear voters, as they prove with every voter purge, ID obstacle, closed polling place and dog whistle (if not shouted) genuflection to the party’s Trumpian base.
So, what is the fate of cowards. The Bible doesn’t seem to care much for cowards. In business organizations, Forbes found cowardice in leaders to be dangerous and counterproductive. That covers God and Mammon. In World War II, cowardice could get you shot. So Caesar is on board as against cowardice. Everyone but the GOP seems to agree that cowardice is a really bad look.
Worse, cowardly leadership is dangerous for America so the best thing we can do for these cowardly political figures is to force them to face their very deepest fear — loss of control. Thus, Democrats owe it to Republicans, for the GOP’s own good, to vote them down to a splinter, rump party of sparsely populated, isolated, scattered, rural tracts, giving them some well earned time-off to wander in the wilderness. After that, though, we’ll need them back, braver, perhaps more appreciative of the environment, more ready to realistically face America’s actual problems as the vocal minority whom Democrats will need to help keep us honest and focused and to blunt our occasional bad ideas. 2020 is now!
