Tuesday, September 8, 2026

As Republicans are in the process of learning, the hard way, elections, without having any programs to improve the quality of their constituents’ lives, are all about character.  The result is, without substantive government they can brag about, they have nothing to sell.  Nothing except who they are.

Let’s see…  Honesty?  Are you kidding me?  Honest people don’t follow dishonest people the likes of Donald Trump, or support candidates as flawed as Texas’ Ken Paxton who is running for the U.S. Senate.

“Hey you, Republican.”  You want people to vote for you?  The next time Trump lies about something, call him on it, to his face, loud enough that your constituents can hear what you say.  Not just in private conversations with your colleagues.  Keeping your mouth shut is tacit agreement.  Agreeing with someone you know is lying is the same as lying yourself.  So, that makes you a liar too.

How about commitment?  To what?  The people you were elected to represent?  The Constitution?  Not even close.  Do Republicans have the backs of their people who are counting on them?  Is that really what you believe? Republicans don’t have your back, they’re hiding behind it.

Maybe courage?  …Com’on.  Nah, I’m just messing with you.  Republicans, under Trump in particular, are clearly…  clearly more devoted to keeping their jobs, income and the perks of their positions rather than honoring their sworn commitment to their constituents and the law.  Can you imagine that?  Is that the way people you respect live their lives?

Regarding the courage thing, I’m not entirely sure I have any.  Maybe just the ordinary variety, well short of the impressive kind.  It’s hard to tell, but think courage has something to do with doing the right thing, even if it costs you, financially and otherwise.  It means not being afraid of the bully on the playground who threatens to stuff you into your locker.  Even if he gets away with it, courage means having the character to take the hit.  Your day will come.

You need to be rational.  Don’t tell me prices are falling or that I’m better off now in the middle east than before we attacked Iran when we’re obviously not.  What are you thinking?!  Lying to my face isn’t a good look for any politician. What’s worse?  The lying or insulting me by thinking you can get away with it, that I didn’t notice?

Also, it’s important that our elected officials be nice.  That they have empathy.  Republicans, Trump is not your friend and he’s certainly no one you want to be like when you grow up.  He’s mean.  A sociopath which is what you are when you have malignant narcissism.  But then President Trump is certifiably, clinically nuts.  What’s your excuse?

And you need to be hardworking – like the people you represent.  You’re always taking off time to run for re-election or do who knows what.  That’s not what the people hired you to do.  If your constituents were as unproductive as Congress, their employers would have fired their tushes ages ago.

Is the problem Donald Trump?  Of course not.  There’s nothing magical about a guy who has lied his way into office, twice now taking advantage of voter naiveté – and, I’m disappointed to say, lingering voter prejudice against the potential of putting a woman in the Oval Office.  No. All Trump has done is revealed who the Republicans, most of them, really are.

If the polls are right and Republicans are going to lose badly in November, Trump will get blamed for it, but the real reason will be that his party – the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and McCain – is intellectually and morally bankrupt, with nothing, no policies and no character, to sell.

-Les Cohen