CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Veteran and former Republican on Liz Cheney’s stand for the truth

Intelligencer Journal - 5/17/2021

“Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.”

Martin Luther to the Diet of Worms, 1521

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney’s speech to the House of Representatives last Tuesday evening captured the spirit and the intensity of the Protestant reformer’s message to the Holy Roman Empire’s governing body 500 years earlier. Her pledge to “not sit back and watch in silence, while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president’s crusade to abandon our democracy” reflects her conscience, integrity and loyalty to all Americans.

The open question is whether this will result in reform of the Republican Party or further division and polarization.

When former GOP House Speaker John Boehner and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins were recently asked why they are Republicans, each of them gave similar answers. They cited the following values for which they felt the Republican Party stood: fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense and national security, and support for personal responsibility.

For many years, I considered myself a Republican for the reasons cited by Boehner and Collins, even when I was not active in the political process — living in Iowa during presidential caucus years tends to increase one’s political involvement. I voted for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush for president on four separate occasions.

The Bush family promoted other values that kept me within the Republican Party. Both Presidents Bush praised public service and expertise. They argued for a “big tent” Republican Party that acknowledged different points of view, welcomed immigrants and respected people of other faiths. Civility, compassionate conservatism, and “a kinder, gentler nation” were aspirational goals.

Bush — father and son — professed a belief that government can play a positive role in making people’s lives better; for example, through education policy. Limited government did not equate to anti-government sentiment. Empirical evidence, facts and truth were not the enemy to their political philosophy.

The Republican Party has abandoned the values that made it a credible party of national governance.

Turning DC upside down

The party’s anti-government sentiment became apparent to me in 2008 when Sarah Palin was nominated as the Republican candidate for vice president. Hindsight informs me that the trend started much earlier.

Political advocacy groups, including Americans for Tax Reform, founded by Grover Norquist in 1985, and Americans for Prosperity, founded in 2004 and financed by Charles and David Koch, have fueled the radicalization of the Republican Party.

Americans for Prosperity helped to launch the Tea Party in 2009 and played a key role in the 2010 midterm elections. The newly elected Republican Congress demanded contractionary fiscal measures in 2011 as the United States was still trying to recover from the recession caused by the 2008 financial crisis — this resulted in the 2011 debt ceiling crisis and slow growth.

Norquist famously said that he would like to reduce federal government “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” In a 2012 interview, Norquist asserted that nondefense spending was unconstitutional. His argument, while superficially persuasive, would have failed the constitutional law section of most state bar exams.

The U.S. House Freedom Caucus, formed in 2015, furthered the radicalization of the Republican Party. One of its founding members, Mick Mulvaney, described the election of Donald Trump as consistent with one of the goals of the caucus: “to turn Washington upside down.”

Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus embrace the ideological view that government is always the problem and never the solution to our nation’s problems. Unfortunately, this ignores the full text of Reagan’s actual quote: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” (Italics are mine.)

Context and nuance matter.

Denying truth

The view that government is always the problem has created anti-government hostility and a willingness to deny truth.

When rock singer and pro-gun activist Ted Nugent appeared on Mike Huckabee’s Fox News show in February 2011, Nugent confirmed a nationalistic, pro-military, anti-government perspective — Nugent professed his love of “warriors” and disdain for “bureaucrats.”

As a military veteran and a U.S. Army civilian attorney (a “bureaucrat”), I wondered how Nugent would reconcile his appreciation for the military with his disdain for bureaucrats if he knew that my civilian duties were nearly identical to my military duties.

In turning Washington upside down, Trump led a purge against scientists. U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., asserted that scientists’ claims of global warming were disproved by a snowball that he had brought into the U.S. Capitol. Many scientists were involuntarily terminated or moved to positions of lesser responsibility. Many decided to resign or retire. Websites of government-funded data and research were purged.

Trump used his bully pulpit to spread false information and undermine the most respected scientists in the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, likely worsening the death toll.

Republicans have undermined the efforts of scientists, doctors and others to control the virus during every stage of the pandemic. Some, like U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, continue to spread false information and undermine the message of respected scientists.

Three former U.S. presidents and the current U.S. president volunteered to get vaccinated against COVID-19 publicly to overcome vaccine hesitancy.

Trump got a vaccine behind closed doors and did not use his position to encourage others to get vaccinated. However, he has very publicly described his recovery from COVID-19 (aided by top doctors and science). Is it any wonder his followers are the most reluctant to get the vaccine? The failure of the U.S. to reach herd immunity may be laid at the foot of the man who still promotes lies about a “stolen election” and who grossly abused the bully pulpit of the presidency.

Regarding fiscal responsibility, Republicans have argued for tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest taxpayers. When those tax cuts have resulted in greater deficits, Republicans have subsequently asserted that government spending that benefits the working class and poor must be cut.

The Republican Party has ceased to stand for my political values. Its tent is too small. Our national security and democracy have been threatened by the lies of the former president — as was demonstrated most vividly in the Jan. 6 violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Our democracy is threatened by the lies that Trump continues to tell, which are embraced by many who still follow him. To wit: U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., tried absurdly Wednesday to claim that the events of Jan. 6 resembled a “normal tourist visit.” Clyde asserted, against all evidence and what we all witnessed on television, that it was a “boldfaced lie” to call what happened that day an “insurrection.”

Liz Cheney recognizes the threat posed by these lies. I believe that she wants to reform the party, perhaps like Luther wanted to reform the Roman Catholic Church.

I wish her luck — she will need it.

Gregory Hand, a Manheim Township resident, is a retired U.S. Army civilian attorney (1989 to 2017). He served as an Army judge advocate in Germany and as a local prosecutor in Dubuque, Iowa, from 1980 to 1989.

What to Read Next

Crédito: GREGORY HAND | FOR LNP | LANCASTERONLINE