Category Archives: Republican Myths

Republican response to hurricanes reveals their moral and philosophical bankruptcy

Written on October 9, 2024 by in Democratic Messaging, Good Government, Republican Messaging, Republican Myths

President Joe Biden holds briefing on Hurricane Helene in Raleigh, NC on Oct. 2, 2024

As millions of Florida residents brace for Hurricane Milton, just days after Hurricane Helene devastated Florida and multiple southern U.S. states, Republicans are playing cynical political games. On the one hand, elected officials like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are bragging about how much his government administration is doing to prepare for Milton. On the other hand, DeSantis refused to take a phone call from Vice President Kamala Harris that would keep communications lines open and help coordinate federal aid to Florida. That’s after the first priority of hurricane preparedness for DeSantis was to order the removal of all suspensions and limits on gun sales in Florida, as if that has anything to do with the matter at hand besides kowtowing to the MAGA Republican base.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump and other Republicans keep lying about President Joe Biden’s actions, especially through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to assist victims of Helene, claiming that much less has been done to help them than actually has been done. At the same time, however, U.S. House Republicans refuse to vote for more funding for FEMA, or even to return from vacation to help with these emergencies.

However, all of this Republican hypocrisy and game-playing provides a silver lining for President Biden, Vice President Harris and the Democrats: in addition to the hurricanes providing yet more evidence of climate change, most of these cynical Republican actions fall into the largely Democratic frame that government assistance and involvement to help people are good and crucial things. If so, then Ronald Reagan’s infamous line from nearly 40 years ago …

I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help”

… is as dead, gone and obsolete as the Republican government philosophy itself.

Photo by NCDOTcommunications, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/V5zqWe

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Attention Florida voters!

Written on May 23, 2023 by in Democratic Messaging, Republican Messaging, Republican Myths

Florida voters, renew your mail-in voting status

If you’re a Florida voter, and you vote by mail, there’s an action item you need to take: Last January, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill passed by Florida’s Republican majority legislature to make it harder to vote. Specifically, the new law cancels automatic mail-in voting status for those who voted by mail in 2020 or 2022, and requires such voters to contact their county Board of Elections and make a new request for a mail-in ballot for the 2024 elections. The new Florida law also reduces the number of ballot drop boxes and implements stricter voter identification requirements.

The intent behind these voting restrictions, sadly, is to make it harder for many voters, especially likely Democratic voters, to cast their votes. Republicans across the country know that their policies are less popular with the voters, thus they can only win by cheating, stealing elections, and/or suppressing votes. Moreover, Republicans think (maybe erroneously) that in recent elections, they typically hold the lead as to in-person votes on Election Day, but when mail-in votes are counted (often after the polls close), Democrats pull in more votes and often end up winning. This has led to conspiracy theories by Republicans that somehow such elections are “stolen,” which is silly given that, in addition to the complete lack of evidence to support the charge, in Florida and many other states the relevant statewide offices (Governor, Secretary of State, etc.), and therefore the elections themselves, are controlled by Republicans.

Accordingly, if you are a Democratic voter in Florida, please call your county Board of Elections (the contact information should be easy to find online) to make sure your voter registration is up to date and to request mail-in voting status for 2024 if desired. Likewise, remind your Democratic friends and family members in Florida to do so too. Make a plan for the 2024 elections (including presidential primaries and the general election) to make sure your vote is properly cast and received on time. If you are a Republican voter, feel free to ignore all of this as “fake news.”

Photo by Tony Webster, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/kxQ2vq

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The Republican myth of “politicizing gun violence”

Written on March 29, 2023 by in Democratic Messaging, Fox "News" Watch, Good Government, Republican Messaging, Republican Myths

Political process in action

Once again, the cycle continues of a mass shooting in America, followed by a public outcry to do something, followed by Republican charges that Democrats are “politicizing gun violence.” It happened again this week, in the aftermath of the school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, which involved an AR-style assault weapon and an AR-style pistol, and claimed the lives of three young school children and three adults. Reaction to the shooting included one mother who took over a Fox “News” live stream following a press conference at the scene, saying that she and her son had survived the shooting, and that:

How is this still happening? How are our children still dying and why are we failing them?

These shootings… will continue to happen until our lawmakers step up and pass gun safety legislation.

Democrats support and propose such gun safety legislation, and indeed, President Joe Biden and other Democrats called for a renewed Assault Weapons Ban after Monday’s Nashville school shooting. But the only response to the shooting from Republicans is to avoid talking about guns. On Monday, for example, Republican U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan postponed a committee meeting at which he and his Republican colleagues planned to nullify a recent rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives which defined firearms with stabilizing braces (allowing firing from the shoulder) as “rifles” subject to registration and other requirements. In postponing their action, Jordan stated that “Democrats were going to turn this tragic event into a political thing.” That charge is another Republican myth, and we will show why.

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Latest twist in the Disney-DeSantis Florida saga

Written on March 24, 2023 by in Republican Messaging, Republican Myths

Will the Mouse outlast the Governor in Florida?

If you follow LGBTQ issues, presidential election politics and/or Florida stories, you will know that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is having an unusual feud with The Walt Disney Company. The feud started when DeSantis, who is running Florida like a fascist dictator, signed the “Don’t Say ‘Gay’” law, which restricts freedom of speech and education in Florida schools. After initially saying nothing, and under pressure as a supposedly LGBTQ-friendly company, Disney belatedly spoke out against the law. That led to a series of Disney-bashing actions by DeSantis, culminating in his state takeover of Disney’s self-governing zone (which contains Walt Disney World) near Orlando. So much for the Republican myth of “smaller government.”

Now, however, Disney has struck back, or at least thumbed its nose, at DeSantis. Specifically, WDW News Today reported this week that Disney plans to host “[t]he annual Out and Equal Workplace Summit, which boasts itself as the ‘largest LGBTQ+ conference in the world,’  this year at Walt Disney World Resort.” No doubt this will make heads explode in the Florida Governor’s office.

Disney may have gained some confidence for its announcement given that its repeated price increases at Walt Disney World have not cut down on crowds, to the point where the park is now extending its hours to try to spread out those crowds. Thus, while we fully expect a new round of tit-for-tat retaliation by Governor DeSantis, it may well be that Disney maintains the upper hand in the state of Florida.

Photo by Blake Handley, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/2a7Dm7

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Florida and the myth of Republican “smaller government”

Written on March 16, 2023 by in Good Government, Republican Messaging, Republican Myths

Republican idea of smaller government

At least since the days of Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has tried to brand itself as the party of “smaller government.” Sometimes they add “and lower taxes.” Indeed, Republican anti-tax activist and Reagan ally Grover Norquist once famously stated that:

I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.

Presumably, such an identification tests well among GOP faithful, including today’s MAGA base, who sadly vote against their own self-interests based on race-baiting and other cultural hot-buttons such as abortion and guns. As an initial matter, however, plenty of polls indicate that most Americans don’t want small government. Rather, they like a full-size, robust “good government,” as we like to call it. That includes, for example, Social Security, Medicare, good highways, public schools, the U.S. Postal Service, a competent FEMA to assist with major emergencies such as hurricanes, universal background checks for gun sales, and more. Likewise, most Americans oppose federal government shutdowns, and correctly blame Republicans when they occur.

But even if most Americans wanted smaller government, the Republican myth that they are the ones who deliver that is false. A perfect case in point is Florida, which is almost entirely Republican-run under Governor (and likely 2024 GOP presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis, along with a state Senate that is 70 percent Republican and a state House that is similarly 71 percent GOP. In Florida, far from the Republican myth of “smaller government,” the GOP state government is huge and extremely intrusive. Here are some examples:

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Megyn Kelly’s White Santa and other corporate myths

Written on December 16, 2013 by in Fox "News" Watch, Republican Myths

Megyn Kelly of Fox “News” waded into the imaginary War on Christmas this past week, and ended up stepping in yellow snow. First, on December 11, as indicated in the video above, Kelly said that “Santa just is white …. Santa is what he is.” Kelly went on to say that “Jesus was a white man too.”

Kelly’s remarks caused a firestorm among historians, anthropologists and almost everyone else over the age of seven. Many people pointed out that, aside from the little technicality that Santa Claus isn’t real, St. Nicholas was from present-day Turkey (and likely swarthy-looking), and the very white, rosy-cheeked Santa familiar to many American kids is merely a Coca-Cola advertising creation. After hearing about all this, Kelly took to the air last Friday to say that she had only been joking about that Santa being white thing, even though there was no indication in her original broadcast that she was joking about it. Then Kelly, apparently in her next stage of grief, said that her critics, not her, had decided to “race bait,” but that, come to think of it, it “is far from settled” whether Jesus was white (even though, according to the evidence, Jesus was a Middle-Eastern Jew who was likely as swarthy-looking or more than even St. Nicholas).

Sadly, Fox’s Megyn Kelly is not alone in having her history shaped by White Corporate America. So in honor of Megyn Kelly’s history lesson, how about we list some other myths perpetuated by some big U.S. corporations, their front groups and bought-off politicians, which make as much sense as Fox’s White Santa/White Jesus:

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