GOP has lost its moral compass

Few things are as poignant as watching real Republican politicians try to deny Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a real Republican. He just refuses to hide behind a respectable mask.

Thirty years of Reagan, Buchanan, Gingrich, Norquist, Limbaugh, Murdoch, Hannity, O’Reilly, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Palin, Romney, Giuliani and Christie produced a smug, arrogant, mean, selfish, bigoted, sexist, fiscally irresponsible, willfully ignorant demagogue. Is anybody really surprised?

The Republican Party lost its moral compass a long time ago and never bothered to look for it. If it makes money, it’s good; if it’s for the common good, it doesn’t matter.

Donald Trump is the inescapable result. That’s why real Republicans implore Trump to put the mask back on — so they can keep trying to fool us into thinking they are on our side. What real Republican politicians really fear is that people have finally figured out that, one way or another, every one of them is Donald Trump.

They fear that now even the most gullible guy who lost his job in the Great Recession is never going to believe that a billionaire real estate speculator, or any Republican, really cares about his problems.

Unless, of course, you scare him to death, which is what the Republican convention was all about.

“But,” I hear you say, “I’m a Republican. I don’t worship money. I care about other people.”

Well then, maybe you don’t belong in a party that runs on fearmongering and greed. And if you still have a social conscience, let it guide your vote in November. To paraphrase the sainted Reagan:

The Republican Party is not the solution; the Republican Party is the problem.

This story was originally published October 3, 2016 at 4:33 PM with the headline "GOP has lost its moral compass."