Hershel Walker's GOP

After hearing the news that Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Hershel Walker – who's been running on a platform of being a staunch anti-abortionist – paid for his then girlfriend's abortion 11 years ago, I immediately thought, "Well, this is it for Herschel."

Then, seconds later, my cynicism kicked in.

According to recent polling, the race between Walker and incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock is neck-and-neck. How can that be, I wondered?

Then I knew why. Almost immediately (everything is immediate these days), Republicans across the board rushed to Walker's defense: Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Newt Gingrich among others, all telling us how wonderful a Christian man Walker is and what a fine senator he'd make (even though he's had four children out of wedlock and has not helped in raising any of them; even though he's held a gun to his wife's head and threatened to blow her brains out; even though good American air is going to China to replace their polluted air; Walker thinks he's redeemed while he believes his opponent, an ordained Baptist minister, doesn't believe in redemption. Good senator material there, huh? Sheesh).

While we can question the motives and actions of members of either political major party, the Republican Party clearly has taken hypocrisy – as well as Big Lying, cheating, misdirection and grift – to new, unseen heights. And we see it happen in front of our eyes virtually every day.

And yet, the GOP fundraising increases. I don't get it. I understand the concept that we have retreated to our own political camps, I understand how new technology, like the Internet and various unchecked social media have warped the truth and elevated conspiracy theories. I don't understand why the Republican base accepts most of the nonsense we're hearing these days as political truth.

So when a barely functional illiterate (who, as Gingrich himself said, might have taken too many blows to the head back in the day as a football star for both Georgia and the NFL) takes the mic and tells you he has no idea why this woman is talking about an abortion he apparently paid for even though she has the receipt and get-well card that he signed, Republicans rush to his aid.

Apparently, they're going to vote Republican because daddy was a Republican, and Pawpaw was a Republican, and great Pawpaw was a Republican. That chain or lineage seems to be the only measure for casting a vote these days, and not the facts, nor the agenda, nor the ideas that might surface.

As one Yahoo! news story commenter noted about Walker: "Can anyone seriously see this man reading and understanding a tax bill, the provisions of an EPA regulation, the relative merits of buying one jet fighter vs. another, the options for combating drought in the Western watershed, proposed changes to social security or Medicare legislation? Please, can we get real here?"

Good questions, and questions that can be posed to any Republican – Hershel Walker's Republicans since they are supporting him party-wide – who won't give a straight answer. 

I think this country's democracy is at a crossroads as we head into the midterms. Many Republican candidates are election-result deniers – including several who are running for their crucial secretary of state position – who two years later still don't think Joe Biden is the legitimately-elected president; many still think the Jan. 6 insurgency at the Capitol were tourists on a lark; many believe in the Big Lie that Donald Trump is still the legitimate president without a shred of evidence of perceived voter fraud.

I'm not sure how to get past this absurdity. Well, yes I do. I've never advocated this before, but the only way to make sure that democracy as we have known it for the past 246 years is to vote a straight Democratic ticket, flaws and all. We have to purge the insane asylum. This is our chance. 

Maybe our last chance.