Alex Brandon / AP
President Donald Trump listens during a briefing about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Thursday, April 16, 2020, in Washington.
Monday, April 27, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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Republicans haven’t always conducted Soviet-esque purges of experts and scholars. They haven’t always waged war on science and the environment — in fact, one of their own started the Environmental Protection Agency 50 years ago last week. They haven’t always attacked essential institutions in American democracy like our independent judiciary and government oversight apparatus.
But they’re doing all of those things now, and much more due to the actions of the party’s extremist leadership. Today, the GOP has become the party of destruction.
They demolish the planet. They undermine public health. They starve education. They attack health care for millions of Americans. They target “others,” who they characterize as essentially anyone who doesn’t pass their extreme loyalty test. They assault ethics, civility, norms and time-honored standards of decorum. They shred the safety net for the sick and the poor.
They subvert our national unity, and the idea of government itself.
GOP leaders even batter their own party, cheering when President Donald Trump kneecaps Republicans who dare to criticize or even question him.
The overwhelming majority of rank-and-file Republicans support this. But, importantly, old-school conservatives and a large group of honorable Republicans abhor this vandalism and have abandoned the party until it reforms itself.
That stands to reason. Anyone who values the GOP that was should reject the party as it exists today.
The Republican Party’s leadership is ripping everything apart and urging others to do the same.
Already, this teardown is affecting lives.
In 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention slashed 80% of its efforts to prevent global disease outbreaks. The reason: budget constraints brought on by cutbacks. In the end, the CDC was working with just 10 countries after previously working with 49. Meanwhile, the Trump administration shut down the National Security Council’s entire global health security unit, slashing national health spending to the tune of $15 billion, and eliminated the $30 million federal Complex Crises Fund.
We’ll probably never know how many Americans would have been spared from COVID-19 minus the GOP’s crippling cutbacks. But logic tells us that the gutting of public health operations was costly in lives.
Yet the Republican Party’s war on experts and knowledge continues unabated. This is a party whose president and extremist media encourage followers to attend protests against coronavirus-related shutdowns — rallies where few people wear masks or adhere to social-distance guidelines. Events like these are tailor-made to speed the spread of COVID-19, not only among the participants but those they encounter after going home.
Other effects of the GOP’s destruction also are playing out before our eyes. The assaults on the environment and climate change regulations are contributing to megastorms, droughts, ocean rise and other phenomena that are yielding an escalating body count and consuming billions of dollars of costs for cleanup and preventive measures.
The Republicans’ decades-long war on any and all gun safety legislation has resulted in a nation awash in gun violence and glutted with more than 300 million firearms. A generation of American children lives in a reality of mass shooter drills and the anxiety that comes with them.
Americans must put a stop to the Republicans’ vandalizations, and must do it quickly.
