Kiss

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part column, with the second part coming in an upcoming edition of the Chieftain.

I have a problem. I deeply care about my fellow Americans. I especially care about our children and grandchildren, who are keenly observant sponges. And I truly fear the lessons our children glean from today’s politically motivated behavior.

What lessons? Well, let’s consider the millions in the United States, and the disproportionately larger share of rural Americans, who live with family poverty and food insecurity. So why would anyone in Wallowa County support the recent end of the 2021 Expanded Child Tax Credit, when it reduced child poverty in our country by 30%, and helped to pay rent and food costs for all impoverished American families with children?

Every Sunday, our churchgoers hear God’s second most-important commandment: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”. Yet Republican opposition to continuing the 2021 Expanded Child Tax Credit sent well over a million American children back into poverty. And your children then learned that God’s second most-important commandment is best quickly forgotten upon exiting church. (They know that political choices speak louder than words emptied of meaning by contrary actions.)

We all care, of course, about the economic needs of our county. So why support today’s congressional Republicans’ priority to make President Biden look ineffectual by opposing everything he wants, including the millions of high-wage, green-energy jobs he wants to help create? Don’t believe this? How about believing the potential Republican senatorial candidates who, when asked to run, have refused. Why? Because when they asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for his legislative priorities before the 2024 election, he essentially responded: “Kill whatever Biden wants. Period.” Including those new high-paying jobs.

Why else would a party that seemingly declared Infrastructure Week once a week for four years, all while failing to pass an infrastructure bill, consider disciplining its members who recently voted for an infrastructure bill, because passing it now constituted a Biden success? Do your politics, like your party’s, also place party loyalty above our country’s infrastructure needs? Are you teaching your children to emulate today’s Republicans in Congress, by prioritizing expressions of outrage at the opposing party instead of legislation to help American families address their very real concerns? Remember, boys and girls: If you want to feel powerful and always right more than you want truth and solutions addressing your concerns, frequent displays of extreme anger are always preferable to the rational pursuit of needed help.

Speaking of displays of extreme anger, let’s turn to the events of Jan. 6. Not what Fox and Tucker told you happened, but what your own eyes actually saw. Some of you believe that those who gouged the eyes, severed the fingers and injured the brains of scores of Capitol police officers, who smeared our Capitol’s hallways with feces while chanting, “Hang Mike Pence, Hang Mike Pence,” are true patriots. Does that mean we should now cancel their real status as traitors to our country, since they tried to violate our Constitution by handing our presidency to the election’s loser? Remember, boys and girls: being a bad loser is good, but being a truly terrible loser is even better.

How the heck did we get here? Well, in a trend started by Newt Gingrich and accelerated by the recent presidential loser, conservatives have been increasingly encouraged to hate and demean their political opponents, and to mindlessly accept their party leaders’ words. Example? Well, there’s a sum total of zero evidence that the last election was rigged, but over 50% of Republicans believe it was anyway because the bad loser told them it was. So remember, boys and girls: You must always believe today’s Republicans. Especially when they lie to you. Like, for example, when they call the Capitol riot of Jan. 6 “legitimate political discourse.”