Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
April 21, 2022
By Bill McCann
Forget the elephant. The GOP symbol should be the chicken. Maybe a White Leghorn or Rhode Island Red. For good measure, the GOP battle cry should be “The sky is falling. The sky is falling.”
The Chicken Littles at the Republican National Committee made their cowardice clear last week when they voted to bar future Republican presidential nominees from participating in debates sponsored by the nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates.
The RNC took its cue from former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly claimed that the commission was biased in favor of Democrats. The RNC apparently doesn’t like reporters asking hard questions of candidates like Trump who make stuff up or change the subject because they don’t know the answers.
In his two 2020 debates with President Joe Biden, Trump spent much of his time ranting, interrupting Biden, and dodging questions that were directed at him. He did much the same thing in 2016 in debates with then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. When he got unfavorable reviews for his misbehavior, Trump tried to blame the news media moderators and everything and everyone other than his own uninformed self.
RNC, if you folks are afraid to let your candidate debate, how can the voting public be confident of your candidate’s knowledge and ability to make sound decisions? Or respond quickly under pressure? Or stand up to our nation’s adversaries?
Unfortunately, we got those answers during Trump’s presidency. When the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the U.S., instead of leading, Trump did what he does best. He lied. He downplayed the virus that causes COVID-19. He said it would go away quickly when he knew otherwise. He failed to heed the medical experts. He tried to shift blame and responsibility elsewhere.
Trump also continually coddled Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin, amid investigations of Russia’s interference with the 2016 presidential election. In one particularly embarrassing instance at a summit in Helsinki, Trump took Putin’s word over that of his own intelligence experts.
Trump’s deference to Putin continues even now. Last week, Fox News entertainer Sean Hannity, who would like to see Trump return to the White House, tried mightily to get Trump to say that Putin is evil. Hannity has sense enough at least to know that most Americans are united against Putin right now. How could anyone who has half a heart, anyone who has watched Putin’s military murder mothers and their babies in Ukraine, not call Putin evil? But Trump failed to do it while Hannity practically begged him repeatedly.
We should not be surprised that Republicans fear debate. They don’t even have an up-to-date political platform that lays out their principles and positions. They failed to produce one in 2020, blaming the pandemic. The pandemic didn’t stop the Democratic Party from producing its platform in 2020.
Today’s GOP is the party of paranoia, fear and hate. It is the party of anti-immigrants, anti-social progress, and anti-science. Anti-anything that Democrats seek to accomplish to help everyday working people, poor people and the elderly.
Today’s GOP is the party whose leaders mostly sat silently while Trump praised Putin, even as Putin brutally attacked Ukraine. They sat silently while political rogues appointed by Trump created a swamp of criminal and ethical misdeeds throughout his administration. They sat silently while Trump lied thousands of times about everything from Russian election interference and COVID-19 to his false and reckless claims about voter fraud costing him the 2020 election. It’s the party whose members mostly stayed quiet when the Republican National Committee called the January 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol “legitimate political discourse.”
Calling GOP leaders chickens, I now realize, is an affront to mother hens everywhere.
McCann is a contributing columnist for the Advertiser. He is a retired journalist and may be reached at [email protected].
