I was a Republican from the time I reached voting age in 1977 (my first presidential vote went to Ronald Reagan in 1980) until the early 2000s, when I came to understand that I just wasn’t cruel enough to be a Republican.
The break for me came when I was living in Arizona and began to see a disconnect between my own experiences with the undocumented migrant workers and what Republicans were saying about those people. From personal observation, I knew these people generally were hard-working, pleasant, religious and devoted to their families. From my understanding of history, I also knew that these people had played integral roles in Arizona’s culture and economy going back even before Arizona became a state in 1912. They crossed and recrossed the border for decades and weren’t vilified for it.
Suddenly, inexplicably the Republicans began changing that narrative and the campaign of vitriol against migrants — rebranded as “illegal aliens” — began to grow. For the past two decades, Republicans have launched a steady attack on these people, demonizing them, marginalizing them and, yes, dehumanizing them.
Republicans often describe the legal process by which undocumented people are detained then released pending hearings (something that, by the way, happens every day in all sorts of judicial proceedings throughout the country) as “catch and release” as if they were animals that had been trapped or fish pulled out of a lake. They are, in the view of Republicans, less than human.
Crossing the border without documentation, like other misdemeanors, had long been an accepted, if not legal, reality. Now, though, it has evolved into a “crisis” among Republicans. The question I always ask when someone refers to the “border crisis,” is when did it become a crisis and why.
There’s just one answer: Cruelty.
My break with the Republican Party started with that issue, but nothing I’ve seen over the intervening 20 years has altered my view.
Cruelty has become the Republican brand and rarely am I surprised by any new iteration of it.
Monday, though, I was surprised.
Fox News host Sean Hannity, who is, given his devoted following of millions of Americans, perhaps the GOP’s greatest ambassador, plumbed cruelty to new depths on his show Monday night.
Hannity broadcast a 2018 voicemail left by President Joe Biden to his son, Hunter Biden, whose struggle with addiction is not disputed by anyone.
Here’s the transcript of that voice mail:
“It’s Dad. I called to tell you I love you. I love you more than the whole world, pal. You gotta get some help. I know you don’t know what to do. I don’t either.”
I don’t know what Hannity hoped to achieve here. Perhaps he thought it exposed the President as being weak, since Republicans often mistake compassion for weakness.
I think most people, regardless of their politics, see it far differently: as an expression of unconditional love from a parent to a child, an anguished plea and deeply personal and private moment.
You have to be pretty damn cruel to see it any other way.
Addiction is a non-partisan destroyer of lives, relationships, families. I wonder how many addicts out there would love to have a parent who, like Joe Biden, loves and supports their children unconditionally.
Cruelty.
Everywhere you look, cruelty in all of its manifestations is a trademark of the Republican Party.
It is cruelty that requires a child as young as 12 to bear a child of incest. It is cruelty that tells a woman she must bear her rapist’s child. It is cruelty that tells a woman she must jeopardize her own life for the sake of the fetus she bears and cruelty that demands a woman to carry to term a fetus so severely disabled that it cannot long exist outside the womb.
No, I’m simply not cruel enough to be a Republican.
Are you?
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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