Matt Gaetz has been in the news a lot lately, in case you hadn’t noticed. Even if you have, you may not have noticed that no one (until now) has given him credit for being a Republican who has principles. You may think that’s a contradiction in terms, but in Gaetz’s case, it isn’t!
Think about it.
Let’s step back a bit. What is the one word that describes almost every Republican act and utterance? I’ll give you a hint: it beings with an “H” and ends with “ypocrisy” Who keeps moaning about deficits while running them up for no reason? Republicans! Who warns against voter fraud while engaging in voter fraud? Republicans! Who warns against the threat of non-existent left wing terrorists while coddling actual home grown right wing terrorists? Republicans! The list could go on and on, but I am too lazy to elaborate further.
The point is that we must recognize the courage and principled conviction that must be at work when a Republican breaks the mold, and Matt Gaetz has done just that and gotten no credit for it. For, can’t we expect that a Republican would condemn sex trafficking while engaging in sex trafficking? Of course! But…Not Matt Gaetz! He had the courage of his convictions. When it came time to vote on a bill to combat sex trafficking, he was the sole member of Congress to vote against it. No hypocrite he, at least not on this issue. He stuck by his fellow sex traffickers. The other Republican sex traffickers, and please don’t try to tell me there are no others, took the hypocritical way out and voted in favor.
The sad part is that up to now, no one in the media has given Matt credit for his amazing lack of hypocrisy. Even Fox has simply preferred to ignore it, possibly because if they acknowledged such an unusual trait in a Republican they would be, as we lawyers say, sub silentio acknowledging that he is a Republican outlier. Well, I give him credit, and I really think that when he’s sentenced, the judge should take his moral courage into account, and take a day or two off his sentence.
Post a Comment