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Hypocrisy of America’s political parties

Hypocrisy (noun); behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel; synonyms include insincerity, piousness (Merriam-Webster).

Research is replete with the behavior of today’s main line political parties meeting the definition of hypocrisy; one would be hard pressed to argue with their relentless attempt to hoodwink Americans.

Evidence abounds of people believing every syllable uttered by their party of preference, only to find out they’ve been duped once again. The marketing principle of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware before purchasing a product) applies to many GOP and Democrat Party dogma statements.

Let’s examine some political party double-talk.

Republicans want open-carry gun rights. But, at the May 27-29 National Rifle Association convention in Houston, attendees were not permitted to have guns to protect the safety of Donald Trump. Let’s see. Guns are safe in public spaces. Wait. Guns are not safe.

Republicans tried – over 70 times — to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. However, when they had the governing majority (2017-2021), no repeal and replace plan was proposed; hypocrisy.

Republican Senators’ Mitch McConnell (KY) and Charles Grassley (IA) and the GOP were two-faced by refusing Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination prior to the 2016 election but quickly got Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the SCOTUS even after early voting had already begun in 2020.

Republicans are hell bent on pro-life yet are proponents of the death sentence, tearing babies away from their parents – plus locking them up in cages — at the border and curbing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that benefits children.

Today’s GOP is overtly criticizing the U.S. House Jan. 6 bipartisan insurrection investigation committee. Yet, back in July of 2021, U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R, CA) promised the GOP would run its own Jan. 6 investigation, which never came to fruition.

The Boston Globe reports “Republicans stand by their firm belief that free Americans should never be required to show their papers to Big Brother. However, when it comes to voting, they want to impose all sorts of strict ID requirements.” (Aug. 13, 2021).

The GOP despises government control. Still, many Republican-dominated states barred communities, school districts and businesses from requiring masks or vaccines. Republican’s attempted control over women’s right to health care, gay rights, diversity training, books and K-16 curriculum contradicts their no intervention platform.

Republicans, at one time, were the get-out-the-vote party. After the 2020 election, over 250 voter suppression bills – Jim Crow on steroids — were offered by GOP-controlled state legislatures to restrict voting.

Democrats aren’t much better. As reported by John Feehery, the Dems’ detest unregulated campaign funds. Yet a Times analysis showed 15 of the most politically active nonprofit organizations gave the Democrats about twice as much money ($1.5 billion) in 2020 as they did to GOP coffers (Feb. 1, The Hill).

Democrats claim to be the working-class party. However, Yahoo reports “the single most expensive item in the House version of the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill is a gigantic tax cut for millionaires and billionaires,” favoring the top 20% and especially the top 0.1% of earners (Nov. 30, 2021).

Jelani Cobb, Columbia Journalism School’s forthcoming dean, summarizes both party’s hypocrisy in a manner that should cause all registered voters to question any candidate or party stance: “The Democratic and the Republican Parties have endured as long as they have because they have significantly altered their identities . . . each has come to represent what it once reviled” (March 15, 2021, The New Yorker).

Registered voters should demand political parties quit speaking with a forked tongue, which is destroying our democracy. It’s sad that citizens who vote the party line are being mislead left and right, pun intended.

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Steve Corbin is a professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.

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