The real face of today’s Republicans

I find Marjorie Taylor Greene disgusting, but it’s kind of silly the way people speak of her as a “cancer” or “virus” within the GOP. Who are we kidding? She is the GOP in the age of Trump. And no, the age of Trump is nowhere near over.

As the election approached in 2016, somebody posted a bizarre fantasy to the effect that Hillary Clinton was sex-trafficking kids out of a D.C. pizzeria. By the time we voted, close to half of all Republicans reported that they thought there might be something to it. This is where the Republican base lives these days.

These are not people who want to hear oldtime Republican calls for small government or states’ rights or balanced budgets, nor does the Republican political class practice any of those principles except when convenient. The base wants Trump, and if they can’t have him, they want something similar. A younger, blond female version who is perhaps even more unhinged than the original might be just the ticket.

If there is something that represents a virus within the party, an antigen against which the body is busy defending itself, it’s more like Mitt Romney. Political courage, respect for factual reality, adherence to a principle higher than power for power’s sake, fealty to an entity other than the Republican Party (such as the U.S.A.) — this guy is trouble.

It isn’t the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of this world that the party has a problem with. It’s Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Cindy McCain, maybe Ben Sasse. These people whose knowledge of the world does not come primarily from Breitbart, Parler or Fox News, they need to make way for today’s GOP. Heck, these people don’t even have the sense to pose with an automatic weapon pointed at images of nonwhite congresswomen.

Eric Kuhn Middletown