Flash back to the year 2000. George W. Bush became president of the United States with the help of Florida Governor Jeb Bush and a politically motivated, right-leaning Supreme Court. Later George W. Bush would do the worst thing any U.S. president could ever do: he’d lie to start a war.
President Obama followed President Bush. And even though Obama would arguably become the best U.S. president in fifty years, Republicans would see him as the worst, and do everything possible to demean and destroy his two terms.
Why? The Republican politicians in office had one goal in mind—power. And they had no qualms about putting party before country to achieve their goal. As for Republican voters, there is a reason the GOP, Fox News, and fake news creators have targeted them. They are, perhaps, the biggest suckers to ever walk the planet. Not only can they be convinced to vote against their own interests, but they can also be convinced to believe practically any conspiracy theory put before them.
Now that Donald Trump will soon take office, we can safely say that none of the Obama conspiracy theories came true. Here are just a few of the hundreds of conspiracy theories millions of Republicans believed—and Montanans parroted on newspaper editorial pages throughout the state:
President Obama was born in Kenya; he was a Muslim, secretly working to help other Muslims take over the country; he would replace U.S. law with Sharia Law; his wedding ring was emblazoned with “There is no god except Allah”; he would declare martial law to cancel elections and remain president beyond his two terms; he ordered the murders of Antonin Scalia and Andrew Breitbart; he faked Osama bin Laden’s death; he would create death panels; he would open youth reeducation camps; he would order FEMA concentration camps; he was behind the Aurora movie theater shooting and numerous other mass murders on American soil; he refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance; he was the Antichrist; he would come for your gold; he would come for your IRA; and he would—most certainly—come for your guns!
The gun industry and the NRA, incidentally, would like to thank Republican voters for the more than 100 million guns they purchased during the Obama presidency. They will have no worries about limping through the Donald Trump presidency either. Since Trump is the king of conspiracy theories, they’ll soon find another angle to get Republicans to continue increasing their weapons stockpiles.
Could there be a more embarrassing time to be a Republican voter? In electing Donald Trump, they will forever be known as the people who voted with the Ku Klux Klan and were the pawns of Vladimir Putin. They also sold out the possibility of anyone ever taking their claims of being Christian seriously again. Think about it. Donald Trump is exactly the self-serving, greedy, rich man that Jesus preached against in the Bible. And people like Donald Trump weren’t some fringe issue for Jesus either. They were a huuuge issue! Consequently, Republicans can no longer honestly declare that “Republican values are Christian values.” Instead their values are merely “whatever is convenient.”
That being said, I hope Republicans enjoy their win. They certainly paid a high price for it. And if Trump’s erratic, thin-skinned, and vindictive personality gets the United States into another war, they had better be first in line to volunteer for military service. The Trump-voting demographic is much older than the war-fighting demographic, but that’s not an excuse. Neither are their bad knees, arthritic hips, or other age-induced maladies. Trump is the responsibility of those who voted for him. Never again can we have thousands of our brave young men and women dying because of an unnecessary war!
As for those of us who voted against Trump? Our candidate might have lost, but at least we still have our dignity—and November 3, 2020 as a date to look forward to.
Marty Essen
Victor