Republicans have lost a lifelong supporter
“No matter who is running, I won’t vote Republican. I no longer trust the party that surrounds the candidate.”
Those words came from my 88-year-old mother, sitting in her rocking chair beside a woodstove.
This is someone who voted for Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan twice, and both George H.W. and George W. Bush twice. A fiscal moderate who once believed Republicans stood for responsibility, integrity, and putting country before party.
Not anymore.
“I remember when both parties had leaders of good moral stature, good education, and who put the country first. I may not have agreed with their policies, but I never questioned their patriotism.”
For the next hour, she wondered aloud how Americans could continue voting for politicians who undermine their own livelihoods.
Why businesses along the Canadian border would support Republicans who won’t fight trade policies that drive away their customers. How farmers, ranchers and manufacturers could vote for a party that is raising costs with erratic tariffs and a reckless war.
My mother is especially bewildered that military families aren’t demanding greater accountability from an administration that dismissed hardships aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. “Nothing makes me madder than mistreating our soldiers.”
She is outraged by the exploding national debt, wasteful spending on a gilded ballroom, rampant corruption, and politicians who abandon professed principles rather than doing their jobs.
But her deepest frustration is reserved for congressional leaders, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson, for their failure to exercise oversight and control spending. This is not the Republican Party she has known all her life.
With midterm elections just weeks away, my mother has a simple message for voters: Republicans in the House and Senate have demonstrated incompetence with the economy, national security, and caring about the lives of American families.
“They need to be fired.”