Grim Republicans can still hope
“Little by little, Republican Party losing credibility,” in the Dec. 11 Dispatch, isn’t the kind of op-ed Republicans expected to receive during the holiday season known for spreading goodwill. The notion that the Republican Party has lost its soul isn’t a gift many Republicans enjoyed unwrapping, especially coming from conservative writer David Brooks, who is supposed to be family.
Brooks says Republicans’ fall from grace has been pervasive, “moral, intellectual, political and reputational,” and a long time in the making, “starting with Sarah Palin and the spread of Fox News.“
Brooks concludes that Republicans have become “homeless.” But “depressed” is more apt. Republicans have ample reason to experience deep and abiding sadness.
Major tenets have suffered greatly as experiments conducted in recent history have failed. The spread of terrorism has dispelled the belief that displays of military power, as in preemptive attacks, will bring peace in the world. Distributing wealth upward to a few — what Republicans’ current tax plan does — has not made a dent in poverty levels, or even helped the middle class.
The denial of physical reality itself can’t be healthy for the Republicans’ minds. The thought of being blamed by future generations for the environmental catastrophe that climate change promises is a heavy burden to carry. Not to mention how stressful it must be to consistently deny what one’s human faculties demonstrate is real, a prime example of which is some conservatives’ insistence that evolution did not happen.
Other components of Republicans’ belief system that aren’t on strong moral footing include the “Respect for Life” movement, which merely addresses quasi-life issues — that is, before life begins — and the afterlife, while Republicans consistently have been absent on real-life issues, where it matters.
Completely surrendering one’s value system can’t promote Republicans’ wellbeing, either. Having to cast votes for the likes of Donald Trump and Roy Moore — who lack even common decency — just to remain loyal to one’s political party, likely is what has hit Republicans’ sense of individual worth the hardest.
Yet, there still is hope that, at the urging of Brooks and other reasonable Republicans, change within the party will take place. With hope, Republicans have at least one gift to unwrap, that will help spread the spirit of the holiday season. Columbus System continuing to refer to its “3 percent” cost-ofliving raise (“Proposal to cut pension adjustments questioned,” Dec. 7, Dispatch). OPERS retirees receive a 3 percent raise the first year after they retire. They never again receive a raise that high.
If the retiree’s 3 percent raise is $50 per month, that continues to be the dollar amount of the raise every year for the rest of his life. It is the difference between simple interest and compound interest. It in no way resembles a 3 percent raise received on the job or a 3 percent raise from Social Security. This is not a costof-living adjustment.