According to a report from the Guardian's David Smith, the Republican Party is doing irreparable damage to itself by following the same policies of ousted former president Donald Trump -- and that decision will come back to haunt them in the polls for years.
Central to his point is the GOP's embrace of denying the reality of the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic, with lawmakers refusing to listen to the CDC to mask up and get vaccinated and encouraging the base to make up their own minds regardless of the science.
As Smith notes, COVID-19 is ravaging Republican strongholds -- with Florida and Texas at the top of the infection lists -- and the GOP governors of those two states are only making matters worse.
"Some Republican leaders are seeking to support Joe Biden's efforts to beat the pandemic by encouraging the public to get vaccinated as soon as possible. But others are actively trying to undermine the president's offensive by embracing what critics regard as lethal mix of ignorance, irrationality and nihilism," Smith wrote. "These Republicans seem intent on scoring political points by appealing to a pandemic-weary's public yearning to get back to something like normal life. Still in thrall to former president Donald Trump, they fiercely oppose mask or vaccine mandates by invoking traditional party tenets of individual freedom, personal responsibility and resisting state interference."
As the author notes, the death toll will continue to climb and is impacting the very voters the GOP needs in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
According to Smith, "...with America now averaging about 113,000 cases a day, an increase of nearly 24% from the previous week, and hospitalizations up 31% from the week before, Republicans stand accused of causing the deaths of their own voters as the highly contagious Delta variant scythes through red states where vaccination rates are low."
Crossing the aisle, a former member of Bill Clinton's administration warned Republicans that they will come to regret their actions.
"They've gone out of their minds. There's just no other way to describe this. This is about the dumbest thing you could imagine because the only people listening to them are their voters. So this is the first time I've ever seen a political party advocating things that would harm their voters, maybe even kill their voters," Elaine Kamarck explained.
According to former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), Republicans have painted themselves into a corner.
"I interact with the Republican base every day. They are still highly skeptical or resistant to vaccines. They're up in arms against any sort of mask wearing and mask mandates. So I hear that every day from the base. If I'm hearing that, then you know these Republican officeholders are hearing that as well, so they're just going to cater to that," he noted before adding, "Look, typically midterm elections are all about turnout and if Republican elected officials go squishy on masks and even vaccines people are not going to come out and vote. So they can't do that."
Democratic strategist Bob Schrum was even blunter when speaking of Florida's Ron DeSantis and Gregg Abbott of Texas.
"They share a profound irresponsibility. What they're doing will sicken people and some people will die," he accused. "In my view DeSantis and Abbott are both doing it for political purposes to satisfy the base. DeSantis, at least, is too smart to not know what he's doing or not know what he should be doing but that's what we've come to in this country."
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