Who are new Republicans?

Who are these new so-called Republicans? Are they so obsessed by money and women’s reproductive issues that they have forgotten any connection they must once have had to U.S. citizenship?

They cite the Constitution constantly yet seemingly have neither any understanding of it, nor loyalty to it. What was it we used to learn about the rule of law under our Constitution: that citizens have the responsibility to respect and obey the laws passed by our elected representatives and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court while yet maintaining a right and responsibility to work within the system to change that law if we believe it to be wrong?

Is that procedure now considered too cumbersome for those who choose to subvert it by techniques such as gerrymandering electoral districts, or signing away representative responsibilities to nonelected outsiders who inject obscene amounts of money into the process?

If in the end, all that remains of the Founding Fathers’ “great experiment” is a wealthy oligarchy consumed with its own moral superiority as it imposes its will upon others, how then will we be any different from every other tyranny of the past?

Janet Norby

Spokane