Virtuous - That Ain't It

describing the current Republican Party

I’ve been looking for a word to describe the current state of the Republican party, but nothing seems to do justice to the putrid decay. I did think of a word that perfectly describes what the Party once claimed to be, and I’m finding spinning off this word in a sarcastic sort of way is both more informative and more fun — virtuous. And lucky for me Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Education Bill Bennett’s The Book of Virtues from 1993 (and just re-released in a 30th anniversary edition) defined the key traits of a virtuous Republican for us. Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Loyalty. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Hard work. Self-discipline. Faith. These remain the essentials of good character. Sorry….it makes me chuckle just seeing that in print.

Of course, virtuous and its various synonyms and qualifiers, are just words — context is what counts. I’m writing this literally as the U.S. House of Representatives is voting for the third time to try and elect Jim Jordan of Ohio, a “legislative terrorist” (to quote former Republican Speaker from Ohio John Boehner) and a member for 16+ years with ZERO legislative accomplishments, as Speaker of the House — the person 2nd in line to the Presidency of the United States of America. In the next hour or so we’ll see if handful of Republican hold- outs from Jordan’s first two defeats exhibit the virtue of courage in the face of Republican death threats again. And while we’re pointing out virtues, Jim Jordan himself is certainly demonstrating persistence in this pursuit. And his friendship with Donald Trump is obvious — he put in a great deal of hard work to help his friend Trump’s coup attempt in early 2021. Even Donald Trump himself is filled with compassion — compassion such as has never been seen before — for Donald Trump.

OK, enough with the satire. The House did not elect Jordan in round 3, but let’s not be distracted. While 25 Republicans did not vote for Jordan in this third- round roll call, 194 chickenshits did. In a Republican conference secret ballot, 108 colleagues, quadruple the public vote, said “no” — what courage! And the next slate of nine candidates includes seven who voted on January 6th, as a key cog in the attempted coup, not to certify legitimate electors — honesty in all its glory.* The plain truth is that the Republican Party, as an entity, has expelled whatever virtues or essentials of good character it may have once possessed in a supernova -like collapse and explosion where only a distant echo of the hot gases flying away into space is detectable.

Actual photo of the Republican Party’s violent expulsion of its virtues into the void

The Party will almost certainly nominate insurrectionist, possibly traitorous, and likely convicted felon Donald Trump for President in 2024, the poster-boy for self-discipline. The House just attempted to install a co-insurrectionist as Speaker, where 139 Republican members voted to overturn the 2020 election on January 6th (based on claims of fraud to which no evidence has emerged in the almost 3 years since) and 77.8% of their next-up Speaker candidates participated in that coordinated attempt to overturn the election. I wonder if anyone has noticed the connection? The Republican Party and a sizable portion of its voters are finished with the multi-cultural representative democracy experiment that is the USA. I still can’t come up with a satisfying word to describe this political party, but the antonyms of virtuous — immoral, dishonest, unethical, dishonorable, unscrupulous, unprincipled, nefarious, debased, villainous, debauched, unseemly, indecorous, depraved — are still not sufficiently bad.

In fairness to Bill Bennett, I have no idea what his view of politics today might be. I started my thinking about the word virtuous before I remembered his book (even though I think I read it 30 years ago). An independent review of this 30th anniversary re-release of The Book of Virtues notes that it still contains readings from Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman and James Baldwin as well as an 1852 speech on the “sin of slavery” by Frederick Douglas. That says something I suppose. The review also detailed that the re-release includes a good deal of added material, so some of you might want to grab a copy. I invite those in Florida, who will be unable to buy this book while the noble fight to cleanup slavery’s bad image marches forward, to send $150 in unmarked bills to me and I’ll get your signed copy with a personal message from Bill Bennett to you right away — honest.

* I am aware that Tom Emmer is now the next-up Speaker candidate, one of the candidates who did vote on January 6th to certify the election. It’s my understanding, however, that he signed an amicus brief in support of that case filed by multiple state attorneys general, headed by Texas’ squeaky clean AG Paxton, claiming election fraud. Alas, there is no honor in this once admirable political party.