Lies Republicans Tell America

I am not a Democrat.

I am not a Republican.

I am an American.

In this age of tribalism and strut-thumping division, that sentiment sounds downright corny.

Well, here's the truth. I have never known a time when America was not divided—by race, ethnicity, class, educational opportunity and political belief. But this country has never been as divided as it is now. Not close.

The political, historical, and social fabric of our nation is ripping at the seams, our collective emotions have become raw and unhinged. A dizzying chasm of separation has replaced strived-for unity as the product of our American experiment. Which is saying a lot, when you consider that the last fifty years have included such periods as the Civil Rights Movement, the Woman's Movement, and the War in Vietnam.

We have witnessed the sad transformation of our country, over these years. It's easy to see the harm that corrosive, divisive politics has brought to the doorsteps of every American, “the little guy,” the “forgotten American” for whom Donald Trump's populist campaign pretended to hold out so much promise.

We have seen the Trump promises wither with pressing political expediency, as one after another of those commitments to the “forgotten Americans” have been tossed aside for more pressing concerns – those concerns that benefited the donors and corporations whose obscene financial contributions (thank you, “Citizens United”) have shaped the tawdry political landscape of this nation.

In the next few months, this blog is going to change a bit. On days when there isn't breaking news (when is that?) we will be focusing on the various lies that Republicans tell America. 

I can already hear the aggravated responses from Republican politicians and supporters: the Democrats lie, too!

Of course, the Democratic Party has not always held a higher ethical ground. The southern Democrats stood for a particularly noxious form of racism in the first half of the last century. They engineered, then perpetuated an ill-thought out and questionably motivated campaign of carnage in Southeast Asia – a war whose consequences continue to haunt and shape the daily national conversation. I am certainly not claiming that the Republican Party holds the patent on illicit sex scandals or criminal outrages.

But Democratic malfeasance is not the subject of these blog posts or of the book that will follow. The situation that America finds itself in is unprecedented in the three hundred year history of the nation. It is no exaggeration to say that while America sits at the precipice of a very dangerous moment in history, it is the Republicans who are shaping – perhaps, inexorably – the nation's future.

That seems as good a time as any to focus on the untruths, mistruths, fabrications, and flat-out falsehoods that have occupied such a prominent place in Republican thought. If you're interested, the next few weeks will be filled with such lies – the lies Republicans tell America...