A party that’s lost its moral compass

The Republican Party left me behind when it focused its efforts on denying a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body, opposing the right of gays and lesbians to marry, supporting tax policies that inevitably favored the wealthy and left the poor and middle classes further and further behind and, finally, becoming a cult worshiping at the altar of Donald Trump. With a relative handful of exceptions, today’s Republicans have turned their backs on the democratic values that made this country the greatest in the world — until Trump took command and the worst presidency in the history of America unfolded.

That Trump reign came to an end with an election that saw well over half of the entire Republican membership in the U.S. House and Senate supporting Trump’s ongoing claim that the election was stolen. And most of that Republican support was ongoing even as at least 63 lawsuits were dismissed or dropped due to a lack of any evidence to support the challenges.

And then came the Trump-inspired Jan. 6 insurrection resulting in death, injury and destruction inside our nation’s Capitol — a heinous act of sedition that, even now, Trump and some Republicans are claiming was of little or no consequence and should simply be brushed aside and forgotten.

Stung by the loss of the presidency, Republican-controlled legislatures in state after state are hoping to pass new election laws aimed at suppressing, in any way possible, future votes by Black and other minority Americans. But claims that their goal is to restore election integrity and expand voter opportunity are complete and utter nonsense. Take Georgia, where Republicans just enacted an array of new election laws, for example. Some of those provisions include making it a crime to provide food and water to voters waiting in line, allowing voters to use drop boxes only during early voting hours and inside early voting locations, and perhaps worst of all, allowing the Republican-dominated State Election Board to take over county election administration if it chooses to do so. What do those provisions have to do with election integrity or expanding voter opportunity? The answer is not a single thing. And you can bet that Georgia’s new laws will serve as a template for voter suppression in states across the nation.

To be sure, Democrats have their faults. But whatever those faults may be, they don’t include turning our national government into an autocracy or a fascist state. Today’s grim reality is that Republicans are making an all-out assault on democracy. That’s not to say that every enrolled Republican in America supports such an assault, but if they refuse to speak out against it, they are complicit by their silence. It would be nice to hear Maine’s senior senator, Republican Susan Collins, speak out and take a strong stand against her party’s push for voter suppression. But, given her history, I’m not counting on it. That’s yet another reason why, for me, “Republican” has become a dirty word. The evidence is glaringly apparent that the Republican Party is wholly without principles or integrity. It’s all about obtaining and hanging onto power, by any means necessary.

A former Republican state legislator, Hugh Bowden is a retired journalist who lives in Ellsworth.