Why Republicans are too dangerous

In Ohio's last general election many independent voters cast ballots for both Republican and Democratic candidates. I was one of them. But that will not happen again for the foreseeable future. The modern Republican party has become extreme, anti-democratic, and corrupt. The right wing in America, and its leaders, have made and tolerated violent threats. Targets of these attacks have been election workers, law enforcement, those defending the electoral process, and even members of the Republican party deemed insufficiently loyal to the former president. Here in Ohio, threats of violence have driven Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzalez and state health director Amy Acton out of public life. The most telling aspect of this rising culture of violence is the very muted reaction to it by state Republican officials. After Dr. Acton resigned, all Gov. DeWine had to say was, "To bother the family of Dr. Acton, that's not fair game. It's not right. It's not necessary." But Dr. Acton and her family were not just being "bothered." They had armed protesters outside their home and were targeted with violent anti-Semitic threats. It was not merely "not fair game," it was criminal. Representative Gonzalez decided not to run for Congress again in large part because of the threats he received after his vote to impeach former President Donald Trump. And Mr. Trump himself has engaged in political threats, while refusing to walk them back or apologize. When a prominent member of his own party, Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, recently dared to act contrary to demands, Trump declared that McConnell had a "death wish." Trump has repeatedly called for violence, both openly and in coded language. The response to all of this from the Ohio Republican party has been tepid at best. Until they take a firm and public stand against violence and threats from the party leadership, as well as the base, they will not get my vote. The Ohio Republican party has become increasingly extreme. It blew off the clearly written words of the Ohio constitution, the will of voters, and the decisions of the Ohio Supreme Court to keep gerrymandered electoral districts in place. Ignoring science and the judgments of medical professionals, they have enacted a number of laws to tie the hands of public health officials in responding to emergencies. They have extreme views denying women's reproductive rights, and they are just waiting for the post-election lame duck legislative session to implement them. In addition, the Ohio GOP has attacked professional educators by dictating what can be taught in the classroom. Factual and important Information about American history is labeled as "critical race theory" and they seek to outlaw that. Another of their proposed laws would prohibit "anti-racism" curricula, education and training. Pro-racism curricula is apparently still OK. And as if it were not hard enough being transsexual in today's world, Ohio Republicans decided they needed to use the law to discriminate against them. Perhaps most alarming of all, a number of Ohio Republican office holders and candidates supported Trump's insurrection against our democracy. Leading Ohio Republicans have had almost nothing to say about this. In fact, a number of them supported the insurrection or contributed funds for it. Across the country including Ohio, hundreds of Republican candidates are running for office while claiming, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen. What this portends is that they will refuse to accept the results of any future elections that they lose. This takes us down the road to Banana Republic territory in which electoral losers routinely refuse to accept defeat. National and Ohio state Republicans seem to have every intention of taking us down the authoritarian road. Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance has called for purging the government of independent civil servants or those with liberal inclinations. Former Trump administration officials have targeted 50,000 jobs with ideological purity tests and termination for those who disagree. Vance is clearly OK with that, as is the Ohio Republican party by its silence. Finally, ever since Ohio Republicans implemented gerrymandered legislative districts in the state they have become increasingly corrupt. Gerrymandering and corruption go hand-in-hand because if politicians have little to fear in terms of losing elections they are more likely to succumb to temptation. This is borne out in Ohio starting roughly in 2005 with corrupt administration of Ohio pension funds, known as "Coin gate". Later there was the scandal in which hundreds of millions of dollars intended for the education of our children was diverted to the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), an ineffective and unaccountable online education fraud machine. More recently, First Energy Company bribed Ohio Republican politicians in exchange for billions of dollars in unwarranted bail-outs. It is safe to say that, without gerrymandering, much of this could and would have been avoided. So I will not be voting for Republicans again any time soon. I hope you can understand why. Oliver is professor emeritus of political science at Heidelberg University in Tiffin. He can be reached at soliver@heidelberg.edu.