I think we all understand that politicians will say things while they’re running for president that bear little relationship to reality. Democrats may promise to renegotiate NAFTA, for example, or to create a single-payer health care system. Republicans might promise to completely repeal ObamaCare or to lower taxes so radically that the government would have less revenue than Burkino Faso. In some cases, this is just cynical pandering. In other cases, it represents a sincere desire, but one the candidate will simply never have the power to implement. People claim not to like this dishonesty, but they also seem to reward candidates who stake out hard left or hard right positions. You don’t get much benefit out of telling people that the best policies are not realistic options. You get less credit for telling people that the best solutions require compromises from both major parties. Considering this political truism, we ought to be able to tolerate at least a low-grade level of bullshit in our politicians. It’s our job to educate ourselves enough so that we can distinguish between pandering and real goals.
The problem is that it’s getting very hard to find that line with Republicans. There are certain things that most of us probably consider to be inviolate. For example, we probably expect that we can watch Sesame Street with our kids without being subjected to a bunch of paid advertising. We might realize that the Supreme Court only needs one more anti-choice Justice to overturn Roe v. Wade, but we probably don’t realize that Rick Santorum opposes Griswold v. Connecticut, the ruling that established a constitutional right not to have the state or federal governments ban access to birth control or punish its use as a crime. We probably think that the country will still expect all children to get an education. It’s becoming less and less clear that the Republicans who are pushing these radical policies aren’t sincere about trying to implement them.
Today the GOP-controlled [New Hampshire] Senate passed HB 542, which effectively ends compulsory education for New Hampshire students. Their House colleagues approved the measure earlier last year.
The measure is so extreme that even the conservative Union-Leader editorial board denounced it in April.
Passing such a bill through both houses of Congress certainly appears to be a sincere effort to implement the policy. Call me crazy, but we’re not playing the same old game. We’ve already seen attacks on public service unions. Republicans want Indiana to become a right-to-work state. The GOP is not about tinkering. They’re about fundamentally changing things about our country that most people take for granted. You thought we wouldn’t torture people, didn’t you? Did you think home schoolers could get a bill passed in New Hampshire to end compulsory education?
It’s time to pay closer attention to the Republicans’ heated campaign rhetoric. They’re closer to really fucking things up than you may realize. And they’re serious. You thought you could rely on Medicare, but they want to voucherize it. You thought you could rely on Social Security, but they want to slash the benefits. You thought you had a right to privacy. You thought your family planning decisions were your own business. You thought we all agreed that every child needs an education. You thought PBS was here to stay in its current public/private form. There’s really nothing on the Republicans’ agenda that I would consider an improvement. Absolutely nothing. But there’s a lot of stuff they want to change about America that doesn’t need changing.
