Scioto County Republicans and Their Support of Trump

 

Scioto County is a dead-red Republican county. The commissioners – all three – and the sheriff and the state representative are Republicans. According to bestplaces.net, 66.3% of the people in the county voted Republican in the last presidential election, and Scioto County voted Republican in the last five Presidential elections. 

In rural Appalachia, any progressive change comes at a turtle's pace. Living in Scioto is synonymous with being caught in a time warp of remaining passive, poor, and White. Residents are so used to the “same old” depression that most do not even engage in efforts to find solutions – solutions to racial injustice, solutions to solving the opioid epidemic that continues to blight the area, and solutions to change the fact that Scioto is last – 88th out of 88 Ohio counties – in terms of overall health.

What can happen when one party dominates politics? The concentration of political power in one party’s hands eliminates essential checks and balances; therefore, it can ignite cronyism and corruption. When one-party rule is standard fare, it can push the pendulum too far in the opposite direction – important issues can be denied in favor of party domination. Unchecked power pushes parties to excess regardless of which party is in power. It is an inherent part of both human nature and the nature of government.

“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

– James Madison, Federalist 51

The Scioto County Republican Party Facebook page decries that the Scioto County Republican Party “exists to promote conservative values within our county and surrounding area.” Their website promotes their beliefs of “more individual freedom and individual accountability.” Trump is a Republican Conservative in name only.

Now, local Republicans support a candidate for president who does not practice their core values. Judd Gregg, opinion contributor for The Hill explains:

“In the new Republican world of Trump and Hannity and Ingraham, the language of the basement has become the language of the presidency. There is nothing uplifting about mimicking your opponents with childish antics that would not be tolerated in a third-grade classroom, or calling those you dislike coarse names that grind down rather then raise up the dialogue of the nation.”

(Judd Gregg. “Trump is a conservative in name only.” The Hill. December 16, 2019.)

The Scioto County Republican Party supports Donald Trump for president. It is difficult to fathom how a party that promotes individual accountability could back such a candidate. Trump never holds himself responsible or even answerable for his grievous words and actions. From his divisive White Nationalist policies to his gross deception of handling the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump has proven he is both irresponsible and incompetent. The man lacks any trace of honesty or integrity.

Trump has called Americans who died in war “losers” and “suckers.” He has refused to condemn white supremacists and alt-right military groups. He continually denies science, preferring to offer his own off-the-wall advice during difficult times. And still, his faithful follow his failed leadership.

Just living in a county under these pressing, fraudulent conditions is difficult for anyone who opposes Trump. In 2020, any discussion of Democratic politics here must be soft spoken and self-protective. Being in the political minority during the Trump years amounts to being on the down low or the “hush-hush,” as voicing an opposing opinion is likely to elicit aggression. Trump's penchant for hostility and confrontation has emboldened his base and greatly increased tensions between the parties.

I believe it is fair to question how many local Trump supporters really believe that Trump's reelection would do anything to heal the deep division in America. Trump exacerbates political polarization. Make no mistake, he serves to stoke the fires of discord and promote a White Nationalist agenda. Trump thinks his law-and-order, hard-line government must squelch opposing views, protests, and dissent. His game includes ignoring and insulting voters, officials, and states which haven't been on his side.

Trump Republicans do not care how much division exists as long as they find one preferred issue in his platform. I understand how some support his gun and right to life issues; however, I do not understand how for a second term, they put aside the obvious – that Trump's disturbing character faults make him unfit for the presidency. He greatly damages the party to which they belong. They chose him as their “better alternative” to Hillary Clinton, yet now they continue to condone his appalling behaviors as “just his nature.” I find this hypocritical and very disturbing. Some even applaud his rude, narcissistic behavior.

Self-aggrandizement is Trump's constant theme. He has transformed the White House into the capital of ignorance, dishonesty, and misinformation by reciting verifiable falsehoods. And, while doing this, he has cared little about a Republican conservative style of government.

Lifelong Republican Peter Wehner. writer and former speech writer for the administrations of three U.S. presidents and currently a vice president and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, says …

“I think he’s (Trump) actually broken with conservatism and redefined it in a negative way … Trump has “upended conservatism, as I understand the term.”

According to Wehner …

“Conservatives believe in 'epistemological humility, respect for human experience, aversion to fanaticism, a belief in the complexity of human society, a belief in objective truth and a whole range of things … [whereas] a lot of what Donald Trump has done has been an assault' on conservatism and conservative philosophy.”

Wehner believes Trump’s personal conduct has done great damage to conservatism and to the Republican Party. He says …

“So I don’t really consider him a conservative. I consider him a populist and an ethnic nationalist resembling some of the populist/nationalist leaders elsewhere in the world.”

(Eric Black. “Trump has ‘upended conservatism,’ says lifelong Republican Peter Wehner at U of M forum.” Minnesota Post. July 30, 2020.)

Is Trump launching an assault on the Republican Party? Just consider the following: defending the Russian autocrat whose intelligence services aided his campaign by deriding America; causing thousands of children to be interned in inhumane conditions, often for months, resulting in deaths, injuries and traumatic separations from families, and without access to even rudimentary schooling; insulting and alienating the nation’s friends and allies while rendering the democratic world leaderless; and placing racial division at the heart of his political strategy.

Trump's first Defense Secretary James Mattis cast Trump's purposeful division as fundamentally antithetical to the nation's Constitution and its values. Former White House chief of staff John Kelly agreed. Kelly said …

"I think we should look at people who are running for office and put them through the filter. What is their character like?"

So, being a Democrat and living in a Republican county is tolerable, but standing back in silence and respectfully acknowledging Trump as the vaulted Republican candidate is unthinkable. This candidate rips the heart of bipartisanship with his repulsive nature and offers no common respect, only ridicule. And grievously, a vote for Trump represents an endorsement of his own assessment of the coronavirus pandemic: “It is what it is.” And, “what it is” is a complete sellout to accountability.

The GOP’s surrender to its unorthodox, un-conservative leader puts their prioritization of politics over policy. Under Trump, the Republican Party exists to beat Democrats. That’s not a political party's respected platform. It is certainly not a strategy for needed change. Trump and the Republican Party have officially validated hate as an acceptable response to politics.

“What does the party stand for? Four years ago, 90 percent of Republicans would say personal responsibility, character counts, strong on Russia, fiscal sanity, legal immigration, free trade. But now the party’s 100 percent against all these things. We’re left of Bernie Sanders on trade. We’re way to his left on Russia; Bernie may have honeymooned in Russia, but he didn’t marry Putin. We’re for an imperial presidency. I guess when the next Democratic president does an executive order for a wealth tax, we’ll be OK with it.”

– Stuart Stevens, who spent four decades helping lots of Republicans win. He’s one of the most successful political operatives of his generation, crafting ads and devising strategies for President George W. Bush, Republican presidential nominees Mitt Romney and Bob Dole, and dozens of GOP governors, senators and congressmen