By Carol Lucas
Has it ever crossed your mind to question what the implications of RINO are? I am sure that most of you know what the four letters mean in the political sense: Republicans in Name Only, a pejorative used to describe politicians of the Republican Party deemed insufficiently loyal to the party.
I take that to mean true to the conservative values.
So let’s look at what those values entail. In starting my research, I came upon the following:
“Traditionalist conservatism, often known as classical conservatism, is a political and social philosophy that emphasizes the importance of transcendent moral principles, manifested through certain posited natural laws to which it is claimed society should adhere.”
Following this was, “Traditionalist conservatives believe that human society is essentially hierarchical (i.e., it always involves various interdependent inequalities, degrees, and classes) and that political structures that recognize this fact prove the most just, thriving, and generally beneficial.”
As a middle-of-the-road Independent, I admit to being taken aback when seeing the words hierarchical, inequalities, degrees, and classes. So this is what conservatives believe? How, I ask myself, is this any different than India’s caste system? So I went back to Wikipedia.
India’s caste system is an example of a social hierarchy; it is a rigid social stratification system where people are divided into hierarchical groups based on their birth, with limited social mobility between castes. Note that it is hereditary and passed down through generations.
I can hear the wails of righteous indignation already. How can I possibly think we have a caste system in our country where all men are created equal?
Pick yourself up from the floor, quit mopping your brow, and ask yourself what often happens in our country when there are those who strive to break out of their so-called “situation,” but are held back. Perhaps this is by wanting a better education (how long did it take to desegregate our schools?); or by expecting their vote to really count (let’s not forget that gerrymandering is still alive and well). And currently, as I type, we have a concerted effort to confront those who have come into our country legally and are the target of far-right, so-called conservatives who encourage outrageous actions (mass deportation). They even perpetuate lies about these people, suggesting they are stealing and killing pets for food.
Make no mistake. There are covert as well as overt ways that conservative dogma strives to keep those deemed “less than” in their place. The sad irony of this lies with the inability of so many middle class persons to see that the upper one percent of our society is slated to get the “lion’s share” of the bounty, whether through reduced taxation, or loopholes only they can access. A trickle-down economy comes to mind.
I found an article posted by Congressman Mike Johnson, who managed to become Speaker of the House after a months-long circus involving a quick entrance and equally quick exit of two other men.
Speaker Johnson posted a short summary of central beliefs entitled “The 7 Core Principles of Conservatism.” These 7 principles include individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets, and human dignity. Certainly all of these appeal to me as a moderate; how they have been manipulated, however, isn’t remotely appealing.
I wish I had the space to copy and paste what Johnson authored under each category. I strongly suggest you go online and read for yourself. In 2018, Congressman Johnson drafted this short summary of the central beliefs of American conservatives. Again, with a nod to space, I submit this portion under “individual freedom.”
Johnson wrote, “In America we proclaim that all of us are created equal and granted by God the same inherent freedoms, such as the natural and unalienable rights to life, liberty, conscience, free speech, and the free exercise of religion, and the ability to pursue happiness, own property, build wealth, and defend ourselves and our family. The purpose of the government is to secure these rights …”
How eloquent and well-intentioned this sounds. I would like to think that when he wrote these words, he believed them. But you see, someone quite devious was already in the White House in 2018, making a mockery of this. That mockery continued and became vitriolic, indeed toxic. And along with this MAGA movement came the capitulation of the 2018 version of idealist Johnson. He, along with many others, forgot the Constitution, forgot unalienable rights, and abandoned his conscience.
That cataclysmic turnaround heralded the entrance of the “real” RINOs, Republicans in Name Only; those who would do away with the Constitution.
I humbly suggest that the real Republicans, indeed the REAL Conservatives, are those like Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, her father, Dick Cheney, the late John McCain — the list has become endless. The latest is George Will, the Conservative’s Conservative. Be still my heart.
REAL Conservatives are putting country above party. They may not like much of what the Harris/Walz ticket represents, but they understand that to vote otherwise is to doom the country to a status it may take decades to repair.
Ask yourself this: can you remember any other time in recent history when a party has formed a coalition to vote against their candidate and for the candidate of the opposing party? People may have crossed party lines, but never in the numbers we are seeing today. And never did those high ranking officials openly implore others to join them, let alone appear at the opposition’s national convention.
MAGAs choose to thumb their collective noses at those people who bravely step forward and express their conscience. Make no mistake, if you consider yourself to be true to conservative ideology, then you cannot be a MAGA as well. Furthermore, now is not the time to write in someone’s name because you dislike Harris; this could well be a vote for Trump.
It’s all about moral character, folks, or lack thereof. The choice should be clear.
Carol Lucas is a retired high school teacher and a Lady’s Island resident. She is the author of the recently published “A Breath Away: One Woman’s Journey Through Widowhood.”
