Pretty much every Republican legislator alive today has spent most of their careers trying to cancel the right of LGBTQ Americans to get married. At the state level, there have been hundreds of attempts that go beyond even that, trying to cancel adoptions and foster parenting.
Over the past year, Republicans have used intentional policy (refusing to mandate masks) and public statements like "it's just like the flu" to give the US the highest COVID infection and death rates in the world, cancelling the lives of over a half-million of us while countries like Taiwan and South Korea have seen only dozens or a few hundred deaths.
They're even trying to get average Americans to cancel getting the COVID vaccine, presumably to help President Biden "fail" at containing the epidemic. As Parker Beauregard writes at Blue State Conservative, "I draw the line is shots for chicken pox, shingles, flu, HPV, and now COVID. Statistically speaking, none of these viruses are going to be my undoing, and the risk of injecting unknown substances into my body to impart potentially helpful immunization doesn't stack up against my body's God-given and nature-made defense mechanisms."
And the Governors of Texas and a few other states are trying to cancel the lives of thousands of their own citizens by eliminating mask mandates and forcing restaurant and bar owners to become their own "mask police," which will be an absolute customer service mess for any business that wants to protect its employees.
In Oklahoma, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives just voted to cancel the lives of Black Lives Matter and other protesters. They passed a bill that would decriminalize killing "protesters" by driving a car into a crowd if the driver/killer was "fearful" about the crowd. This is just the latest variation on the Florida GOP's "Stand Your Ground" law that gave George Zimmerman the "right to kill" Trayvon Martin because he was Black and therefore "looked threatening" to Zimmerman.
Perhaps most troubling, the GOP is all about canceling your vote. At least if you're poor, Black, Hispanic, a college student, or a Social Security voter. The Brennan Center documents how over 200 pieces of legislation that cancel your right to vote are working their ways through 40 state legislatures at this very moment; Georgia just passed two of them that would outlaw "Souls to the Polls" and mail-in voting, and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds just signed another big Republican cancel-your-vote piece of legislation this week.
Meanwhile, Republican appointees on the Supreme Court let Republican Secretaries of State cancel the voter registrations of over 20 million Americans in the last dozen years, and let them enthusiastically reduce the number of voting machines and voting locations, particularly in Black, Hispanic and working-class neighborhoods, to cancel their right to easily vote in less than five or six or 10 hours. Georgia just passed a law to cancel your right to receive a bottle of water or slice of pizza while standing in those obscene lines.
Over the past year, Republicans have used intentional policy (refusing to mandate masks) and public statements like "it's just like the flu" to give the US the highest COVID infection and death rates in the world, cancelling the lives of over a half-million of us while countries like Taiwan and South Korea have seen only dozens or a few hundred deaths.
They're even trying to get average Americans to cancel getting the COVID vaccine, presumably to help President Biden "fail" at containing the epidemic. As Parker Beauregard writes at Blue State Conservative, "I draw the line is shots for chicken pox, shingles, flu, HPV, and now COVID. Statistically speaking, none of these viruses are going to be my undoing, and the risk of injecting unknown substances into my body to impart potentially helpful immunization doesn't stack up against my body's God-given and nature-made defense mechanisms."
And the Governors of Texas and a few other states are trying to cancel the lives of thousands of their own citizens by eliminating mask mandates and forcing restaurant and bar owners to become their own "mask police," which will be an absolute customer service mess for any business that wants to protect its employees.
Perhaps most troubling, the GOP is all about canceling your vote. At least if you're poor, Black, Hispanic, a college student, or a Social Security voter. The Brennan Center documents how over 200 pieces of legislation that cancel your right to vote are working their ways through 40 state legislatures at this very moment; Georgia just passed two of them that would outlaw "Souls to the Polls" and mail-in voting, and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds just signed another big Republican cancel-your-vote piece of legislation this week.
Meanwhile, Republican appointees on the Supreme Court let Republican Secretaries of State cancel the voter registrations of over 20 million Americans in the last dozen years, and let them enthusiastically reduce the number of voting machines and voting locations, particularly in Black, Hispanic and working-class neighborhoods, to cancel their right to easily vote in less than five or six or 10 hours. Georgia just passed a law to cancel your right to receive a bottle of water or slice of pizza while standing in those obscene lines.
It turns out that America actually does have an issue with "cancel culture." Our problem is that the media has been focusing on the wrong one.
Originally posted on thomhartmann.medium.com.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
