Pity the poor blogger, when fate deals him a hand that he cannot win. This article in the New London Day presents a challenge that requires a Mark Twain, or, at the very least, a Driftglass to come up with just the right nouns, verbs and especially adjectives to properly mock the Republicans of the City of Groton.
Poor dears! The City Republicans will not be running a slate of candidates in the May Municipal elections because, as the Coaster’s Charlie Brown of oldies sang, they can’t figure out why “everybody’s always picking on [them]”:
The City of Groton Republican Committee will not put forward candidates for the city elections in May, after prospective candidates cited concerns over “a hostile and threatening environment” for Republicans and withdrew their names from the slate.
“Over the past year and one half, the City of Groton Republican Committee identified a well-qualified slate of individuals who have shown a keen interest in running for election on the Republican ticket in the City of Groton,” according to a news release issued by the Republican Committee. But over the past week, the “prospective candidates have congruently withdrawn their names from the slate” and indicated the following three reasons for withdrawing their names:
“Over the past few months, there has been an increase in negativity toward Republicans, whether they supported Donald Trump or not during the 2020 election, by Democrats on the National, State, and local level, which has created a hostile and threatening environment for those wishing to run for election,” the release states.
“The recent improper and illegal action at the Capitol Building in Washington has created an even more negative, and visible, atmosphere towards Republicans on the Federal, State, and local (levels),” it further stated.
“Increased, nationally publicized threats, intimidation and bullying of Republicans by many liberal Democrats has created an environment causing many citizens, who were considering running for election to reconsider doing so out of concern for the safety and welfare of themselves and their family,” the release continued. “This has also raised major apprehension that they would be subjected to unjustified public ridicule and embarrassment by Democrats supporting the liberal left, should they elect to run for public office.”
Do you see my problem? How does one sum up the absurdity of the above in a few pithy sentences. Surely it can be done, but I find I can’t do it!
Let’s take a bit of a detour here, and note that the reporter apparently does not ask the City Republican Chair to cite even a single instance of “nationally publicized threats, intimidation and bullying of Republicans by many liberal Democrats”, but that’s the sort of journalistic malpractice that one learns to expect when the press deals with Republican mendacity.
The reporter herself takes a detour into New London, whose Republican town chair explains the source of the horrible treatment Republicans must endure:
She said there is a “new culture” in which it is “OK to be nasty to people because of their political affiliation.” While she said that has been the case for both parties for some time, an open hostility toward Republicans has grown for the last couple of weeks. She said there is an “immediate assumption that if you are a Republican, that you must have voted for Donald Trump, and that you must be racist and you must be all of these bad things simply because you bear the Republican political moniker — and quite frankly that’s not true.”
Funny, I thought being a member of a political party meant that you subscribed to a certain set of principles that the party embodies. I keep imagining a Gauleiter in 1932 Germany complaining to a newspaper that it’s so unfair that some people assume you support Hitler, that you’re anti-Semitic, and “all of these bad things” just because you bear the Nazi moniker. Who knows? There may have been Nazis who had their doubts about Hitler and didn’t want to kill Jews – – but they were still Nazis.
But here’s the drill, which some in the press are reinforcing: It’s time for healing, America! And that means, according to Republicans, that we must forgive them their trespasses, consign said trespasses to the memory hole, and get back to calling Democrats Socialists and radicals (see, e.g., Republican Heather Somers baseless attacks against Democrat Bob Statchen) and blaming Antifa for the acts of right wing storm troopers, as John Scott, Groton Town Chair, who is quoted in the article, recently attempted to do. They want all that forgiveness but perish the thought that they should have to confess their sins and say a sincere act of contrition, not to mention do a considerable penance.
Also, of course, we mustn’t reverse all of Trump’s racist policies because that hurts their fee-fees too. And, also, surely we can see that we should guarantee that Mitch McConnell can obstruct every single thing the Democrats and Biden want to do? You know, for the sake of unity.
Poor misunderstood Republicans. They’ve got it so rough.
Explanatory Note: I’ve referred to both the Groton City Chair and the Groton Town Chair of the Republican Party. For those not from our fair town, Groton City and Groton Town are two different, though intertwined entities. Too complicated to explain and not necessary for this post. Except that I should point out that the City is heavily Democratic, the Democrats typically sweep the municipal elections, and that’s why no one wants to run for those offices. But we shouldn’t let reality intrude too much.
