“Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.”
—Aldous Huxley
Dear, Republicans
I’m a middle-aged, straight, white man living in rural America—a former police officer, firefighter, and combat veteran with a Purple Heart from the war in Iraq. In other words, I’m the human embodiment of a Republican campaign ad. I am three different colors in the rainbow of ribbon magnets proudly plastered onto the back of every lifted Dodge Ram from here to Mitch McConnel’s Kentucky plantation. So, hear me out: I’m not here to turn you into a kombucha-brewing, crystal-rubbing, Birkenstock-wearing liberal. I’m not trying to make your kid share a bathroom with a mustachioed boogeyman in a sundress. I’m not here to snatch your guns, raise the price of your eggs, or force you to grasp the mysteries of pronouns. I’m just a guy who fought and bled for this country—and now I’m pissed off at what our political system has become.
Let’s talk about this.
Trump has assembled the worst cabinet in American history, a rogue’s gallery of grifters and incompetents so absurd they make a room full of carnies look like the Harvard faculty lounge. He put a timber baron in charge of the Forest Service—a man who sees trees the way a butcher sees cows. He tried to appoint a guy under investigation for sex trafficking as Attorney General, presumably because the Justice Department was running low on irony. He put an anti-vax heroin addict in charge of Health and Human Services, a man whose medical expertise begins and ends with “just rub some essential oils on it.” He picked an FBI director who openly declared his desire to dismantle the FBI, a bit like hiring a vegan as your barbecue pitmaster. He’s alienated our allies, launched a trade war against our closest partners, and at one point, seriously considered annexing Canada and Greenland—because why not collect the whole set?
Is this what you voted for, Republicans? Really?
I know a Trump supporter who just lost his job due to the DOGE cuts. (Yes, we named a government program after a meme. We deserve everything that’s happening to us.) He has a family of four to support and told me they’ll “adapt,” but still insists he’s sticking with Trump. At what point is the price of loyalty too high? The Dow Jones just plummeted 900 points. Egg prices have more than doubled despite Trump’s Day One promise to fix them. He also vowed to fix immigration, end birthright citizenship, and bring peace to Ukraine. Instead, the only promise he kept was letting every January 6th rioter out of jail. How much more evidence do you need that this is a con? The man lies like it’s a bodily function.
So, I’ve been looking for answers. I turned to the writings of Gustave Mark Gilbert, a Jewish Austrian immigrant’s son who became a psychologist and was sent to the Nuremberg Trials to study the Nazis. He had the unenviable task of trying to understand how an entire nation got bamboozled into fascism. Here’s what Hermann Göring, Hitler’s right-hand man, told him:
Göring: Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life when the best he can hope for is to come back in one piece? But it is the leaders who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a communist regime.
Gilbert: But in a democracy, the people have a say in the matter through their elected representatives.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country.
Sound familiar?
The Right is telling its followers that they’re under siege—by the IRS, the FBI, Democrats, LGBTQ+ people, Hollywood, immigrants, teachers, and probably that one guy at Starbucks who always gets their name wrong. They scream about tyranny while handing tax breaks to the billionaires who are actually picking their pockets. They cry “freedom” while pushing laws that dictate what books you can read, what history you’re allowed to learn, and what women can do with their bodies. They’ve taken Propaganda 101 and turned it into a masterclass, amplifying outrage through Fox News, AM radio, and Facebook posts from your Aunt Karen, until their base is convinced that their biggest enemy is a poor kid getting free school lunch.
The GOP used to respect war veterans, love democracy, and care about the little guy chasing the American Dream. Today, you are at the whims of a billionaire, slum lord, draft dodger and an unelected man-child who is using you to tear down our checks and balances so they can make even more money. Wake up, Republicans. You believe that you’re in on the joke. The truth is, you are the punchline.
Sean Davis 