There is something seriously wrong with a lot of Republicans.
I’m not referring to the infinite capacity of some of them to lie, nor to the infinite capacity of others to believe those lies.
I’m not even talking about Republicans supporting Trump’s politicizing of the CDC and FDA so that each is losing its long-standing credibility on which our health as a people depends.
I’m talking about their humanity, or, actually, the lack thereof.
180,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus. That is the population of my hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia more than three times over, as if it were gone, obliterated by a bomb wiping out everybody.
It’s unimaginable, yet in a CBS/YouGov poll taken August 22 Republicans said it was all okay.
The poll asked a simple question: “Is the number of US deaths from coronavirus acceptable or not acceptable?” Unbelievably, 57% of Republicans say that was an acceptable number.
What is wrong with these people?
Ronna McDaniel, Chair of the National Republican Committee, said nothing is wrong with them. What was wrong, she insisted, was that the question was unfair: “I think that is a really unfair poll. Republicans do not want to see people suffering from this pandemic.”
If what she said is true, why, then, did they give the answer they gave?
Democrats and independents were asked the same question. 90% of Democrats and 67% of independents said the 180,000 deaths were NOT acceptable
Republicans made matters worse and made McDaniel look like the political operative she is when 73% of them said Trump was “doing well” in handling the pandemic.
In contrast, 62% of all voters said our government’s response to the pandemic was “going badly.”
The obvious conclusion to be drawn here is that the poll is an accurate reflection of the attitude most Republicans have about 180,000 Americans dying from the coronavirus. It’s an acceptable number.
Let’s put that in a broader context.
Those 180,000 Americans who have died had families – wives, husbands, sons, daughters, parents, grandparents, all of whom have been thrown into unbearable grief.
That pain is deepened by the memory that they could not even be by the side of their loved one when he or she died to hold their hand, give them one last kiss, and say good-bye.
That fact alone makes this whole thing as unacceptable as it could possibly be, except to Republicans.
If we add to the number of immediate family members the members of their extended family, and close friends who are like family, long time co-worker friends, and many others, we are talking about the deaths of 180,000 people directly affecting as many as 2 million people.
What is more, this number doesn’t include the nearly six million Americans who have contracted the virus, thousands of whom along with their families are now dealing with long-term health effects.
When you think about the magnitude of the pain and suffering, death and grief, this pandemic is causing, the idea that anyone would believe it’s all acceptable is a testimony to how far the Republican Party has fallen under Donald Trump’s leadership.
Making it even worse is that he wants to have the same impact on the nation as a whole. He wants to dehumanize all of us, to diminish our humanity and pit us against one another.
This is a dismal picture of the Republican Party and everyone who identifies with it. It makes you wonder if there is any hope they might someday recover their humanity.
I was tempted to say to NO, there isn’t, but for the sake of my own sanity and the future of our nation, I decided to try to find some reason to believe there is a ray of light in this Republican darkness, and I may have found it.
By reading the poll numbers in the opposite way, it shows that 43% of Republicans don’t believe 180,000 deaths are acceptable, and 27% don’t believe Trump is doing a good job handling the pandemic.
Not a lot, I admit, but it is worth noticing those Republicans who stand against the majority. It suggests a minority of Republicans have not lost their humanity yet, at least not completely, though they still are Republicans. It means a few of them still have their soul and have not abandoned all their moral principles.
Whether or not this means they might also put their country before party loyalty and vote against another four years of Donald Trump is another question.
But when you’re fighting for your country’s survival, you grab at every straw available to you, and these figures, even though they represent only a minority of Republicans, is one such straw.
There is at least a chance Trump has not done permanent psychological and spiritual damage to all Republicans. That said, it doesn’t change the fact that, based on what they say about themselves, the majority of them have lost their humanity.
No wonder Joe Biden keeps saying this election is about the soul of America.
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