The Republican Party has a civility, morals and virtue problem. John Adams, our nation’s second president, once said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Morality and virtue are the foundation of our republic and necessary for a society to be free. Virtue is an inner commitment and voluntary outward obedience to principles of truth and moral law. Private virtue is the character to govern oneself according to moral law at all times.”
Fast forward to the 2024 presidential election, and you can see Adams’ words at play. On Thursday, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, found himself involved in a disturbing scandal about posts he allegedly made starting in 2009. But Robinson was just the latest Republican to have a bad week. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican nominee for vice president, admitted to “creating” stories about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating cats and dogs, causing major disruptions, bomb threats and rancor for schools and the community.
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And after another what law enforcement is calling a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at his Florida golf club on Sunday, Vance blamed the democrats for their “dangerous” and irresponsible “rhetoric” and said, “I’d say there is pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone it down. They need to cut the crap out.”
Then, in a speech in North Carolina, he called “legal immigrants” in Ohio “illegal aliens.” Vance launched into a tirade against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, saying she twisted illegal actions into legal ones. Make no mistake: The Haitians are here under temporary protected status, and that is very legal.
Imagine the gall it takes for a sitting U.S. senator who spews what Vance does — from insulting immigrants and childless women like Harris me to saying women should stay in abusive marriages — to tell someone else to be more responsible with their words. He ignited a crisis in his home state with his inflammatory and false rhetoric about the legal Haitian immigrants.
If these antics were not enough to make you roll your eyes, consider the latest from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was White House press secretary under Trump. At a campaign event Tuesday, she said, “My kids keep me humble.” OK. No problems there. Alas, she continued. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris has no one to keep her humble.”
Huh?
What?
Really?
Most stepparents take their roles very seriously. In a piece for Elle Magazine in 2019, Harris wrote about when she was newly dating her now husband, Doug Emhoff, “When I met Doug, the man who would become my husband, I also met a man who was a divorced father of two children, Cole, and Ella.... And I was determined not to insert myself in their lives until Doug and I had established we were in this for the long haul. Children need consistency; I didn’t want to insert myself into their lives as a temporary fixture because I didn’t want to disappoint them. There’s nothing worse than disappointing a child.”
On Wednesday, Emhoff responded to Sanders’ weird comments, “Somehow, because Cole and Ella aren’t Kamala’s ‘biological children,’ ... she doesn’t have anything in her life to keep her humble…. As if keeping women humble, whether you have children or not, is something we should strive for.”
Exactly right!
This is 2024, and women are in leadership positions in corporations. They are university presidents. They are elected members of Congress. They run for the presidency of the United States. Women do not need to be “humbled.” They need to be taken seriously and vetted for their credentials and policy positions alone.
So what are the Republicans talking about when they call for more civility and toned-down rhetoric? Trump has taken our politics to a new low. The cruelty is the point. The lying is the point.
But what of us? What does this say for us as citizens of this great republic? Why will tens of millions of Americans vote for Trump again given all he and Vance have done to drive us to this dark place? Why are we so angry at one another and so willing to call each another names and attack women and immigrants. What does that say about us?
In the end, we do need more civility and, yes, humility in our politics. But I promise you, Sarah Sanders, JD Vance and Donald Trump are not the ones to help us restore these needed virtues.
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