A look into the GOP platform: Part three

This the final install­ment of a three-part series. If you missed part one, you’ll want to read that one before con­tin­u­ing. As in the pre­vi­ous install­ment, text in bold is from the GOP plat­form; the rest is the author’s commentary.

Chapter 8.

We will end poli­cies that pun­ish fam­i­lies.  No indi­ca­tion of what those poli­cies are.

Republicans will end lux­u­ry hous­ing and Taxpayer ben­e­fits for ille­gal immi­grants.  There is no sup­port­ing evi­dence that either of these even exist — and why were not the same ben­e­fits for wealthy Americans not included?

We will stand up to Marxist Prosecutors and com­pas­sion­ate­ly address home­less­ness.  Apparently the only “Marxist” pros­e­cu­tors are those who law­ful­ly pros­e­cute Republican scofflaws like Rudy Guiliani and Sydney Powell.  And the way that Republicans address home­less­ness appears to be to declare it a crime, arrest and fine them, when they obvi­ous­ly have no funds.

Republicans con­demn anti­semitism.  How about also con­demn­ing vio­lence against Muslims, Asians, and Blacks?

We will pro­mote beau­ty in Public Architecture.  In the eyes of whom?

Republicans cel­e­brate our Great American Heroes and are proud that the Story of America makes every­one free.  Well, the sto­ry of America didn’t always make every­one free, did it?  Just ask African-Americans, Native Americans, all the var­i­ous groups that were, at one time or anoth­er, dis­crim­i­nat­ed against in immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy, or women who only gained the right to vote 145 years after white men had that power.

Chapter 9.

Stop the Radical Left Democrats’ Weaponization of Government and its Assault on American Liberty.  Guess Republicans don’t weaponize gov­ern­ment when they launch inves­ti­ga­tions on Democrats with­out any evi­dence or attempt to influ­ence elec­tion results.

Protect Individual Liberties.  Their idea of indi­vid­ual lib­er­ty is allow­ing armed insur­rec­tion­ists storm the seat of government.

Fix our once very cor­rupt Elections.  Republicans can’t seem to divorce them­selves from the myth that our elec­tions are cor­rupt (but only when their par­ty los­es) despite the fact that the 2020 elec­tion is wide­ly viewed as the most secure elec­tion ever, even with the vast­ly expand­ed meth­ods of cast­ing votes.

We will main­tain the Supreme Court as it was always meant to be, at 9 Justices.  The GOP plat­form writ­ers should read a bit more his­to­ry.  The Supreme Court began with 5 jus­tices and was changed six times before the num­ber was set­tled on at nine in 1869.

We will declas­si­fy gov­ern­ment records.  So that our lead­ers, on leav­ing office, can take them with them with­out fear of being pros­e­cut­ed for abscond­ing with con­fi­den­tial documents.

We will defund insti­tu­tions engaged in cen­sor­ship.  That should result in a lot less mon­ey going out to insti­tu­tions which are being forced to cen­sor mate­ri­als, pri­mar­i­ly relat­ed to LGBTQ issues.  But then that would result in shut­ting down libraries, which may be the real goal of the Republican party.

Republicans sup­port a new Federal Task Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias that will inves­ti­gate all forms of ille­gal dis­crim­i­na­tion, harass­ment, and per­se­cu­tion against Christian in America.  White Christian Nationalism rears its ugly head with the per­ti­na­cious oblo­quy that Christians and Christianity are con­stant­ly under attack by “oth­ers.” And it is easy to imag­ine the type of indi­vid­ual that would be select­ed for such a task force; no non-Christians allowed.

We will oppose Late Term Abortion.  Might as well since you also oppose any type of abor­tion.  Of course, it’s easy to ignore the facts that late-term abor­tions are exceed­ing­ly rare and usu­al­ly only per­formed to save the life of the mother.

We will keep men out of women’s sports.  Don’t you want to keep women out of men’s sports as well?

I, per­son­al­ly, am def­i­nite­ly against women Sumo wrestlers.

We will imple­ment mea­sures to secure our Elections.  See Item 3 under Chapter 9 above.  Republican efforts thus far to “secure” elec­tions have result­ed in Supreme Court deci­sions that dis­en­fran­chise huge seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion, requir­ing vot­er IDs that dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly dis­ad­van­tage the poor, reduc­ing access to absen­tee vot­ing and drop box­es, and even pass­ing local laws mak­ing it a mis­de­meanor to pro­vide water to vot­ers wait­ing in line to vote.

Chapter 10.

Republicans will pro­tect the American Homeland, our People, our Borders, our Great American Flag, and our Rights under God.  Wow, that’s a lot to chew on.  Samuel Johnson is cred­it­ed with say­ing that “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”  Republicans spout patri­o­tism at every oppor­tu­ni­ty; ergo, guess where all the scoundrels are.

In refer­ring to mil­i­tary issues, the plat­form says: Get woke Leftwing Democrats fired as soon as pos­si­ble.  This one sen­tence per­haps illus­trates the under­ly­ing true nature of cur­rent Republicanism.  Woke is left­wing; Democrats are left­wing; there is no room for left­wing think­ing in either gov­ern­ment or the mil­i­tary; there is no room for Democrats in either the gov­ern­ment or the military.

Against all odds, President Trump has com­plet­ed Hundreds of Miles of (bor­der) Wall.  Here’s a per­fect exam­ple of the con­stan­cy of lies that emanate from the Republican par­ty, and espe­cial­ly from Trump him­self.  Politifact states: “Trump built 52 miles of new pri­ma­ry bor­der wall.  That admin­is­tra­tion built 458 miles of pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary bor­der ‘bar­ri­ers.’ The major­i­ty were replace­ments of small­er, dilap­i­dat­ed bar­ri­ers.  Replacement bar­ri­ers and sec­ondary bar­ri­ers that are behind pri­ma­ry bar­ri­ers don’t add sta­tis­ti­cal miles to the south­ern border’s total coverage.”

Well, there you have it.  The Republican Party 2024 Platform, or as I pre­fer to call it, 2024’s addi­tion to fan­ta­sy fiction.

The entire plat­form can be accessed at presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform. 

Reading it will either put you to sleep or send you scream­ing into the night.