There are less than 50 days before the 2022 mid-terms, and the campaign ads are moving into full swing. I find it both ironic and puzzling that many Republicans running for office are marketing themselves as champions of freedom and small government.
During the height of the pandemic, GOP governors such as Ron DeSantis in Florida vehemently opposed business and school shutdowns, fought tooth and nail against mask and vaccine requirements, and often bulldozed Democratic-run local governments that tried to impose such requirements.
DeSantis was quoted as saying “While so many around the country have consigned the people’s rights to the graveyard, Florida has stood as freedom’s vanguard.”
Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) argued that abortions should be banned because they “scar your soul” and that women should be told that “the best thing they can ever do in their whole life is to be a mother.” However, she made a lot of noise against mask mandates and covid vaccines, co-opting the phrase “my body my choice.”
GOP legislators (some running for re-election in November) were involved in the January 6th insurrection. The rioters, driven by white supremacist rhetoric and conspiracy theories aimed at overturning the legitimate results of a democratic election, sought to obliterate the democratic process altogether.
Many GOP candidates and incumbents are campaigning against a woman’s right to choose. Many incumbents voted against the John Lewis Voting Act in 2021, which called for safe, secure, and accessible elections. Some candidates are openly attacking members of the LGBTQ community, and three-quarters of GOP legislators voted against bills ensuring rights to gay marriage and contraception.
For Republican candidates to talk about freedom, yet vote against basic civil rights is a testament to the hypocrisy of the party. Doesn’t freedom mean the right to vote, and the right to marry who you want? What happened to “my body, my choice?”
Yet, every GOP ad I hear on the radio, and every ad I see on my TV all contain buzzwords like “freedom,” and “America,” and seek to scare us with claims that “radical liberals,” and Democrats will take away our rights.
These candidates cannot be more wrong.
Many republican candidates love to cloak themselves in a blanket of freedom and patriotism, claiming that they own it, and their opponents don’t. In fact, what these candidates are selling is not freedom at all. Given the evidence of book bans and attacks on abortion rights, voting rights, fair elections, and LGBTQ rights, they are for bigger government and increased control over our everyday lives, not freedom.
Sorry GOP, your claims about defending our “freedom” is a load of humbug.