A Liar, A Scandal, and the Party of Family Values

It’s time to talk politics again.

I don’t even know where to start.

I keep staring at the porcupine of tabs that are open at the top of this screen, and not knowing which one to click to read and summarize the news.

I’ve been trying to do relatively lighthearted rundowns of all the political news leading up to the 2024 election once a week, with separate posts for news specifically about Ohio and news specifically about the pro-life movement. But just now, everything is running together in a jumble.  I’m at a loss. There’s too much.

I’m still going to try to talk about the pro-life movement’s recent news separately, because it’s too hideous and shameful to mention except in its own column.

But I’ll try to cover both Ohio and National election news in one swoop here. Just let me take a few deep breaths, and I’ll get started.

Ohio is in a mess. I mean more than it usually is. Our supreme court has just declared that a ballot measure which is supposed to correct our severe, nearly hilariously blatant gerrymandering can be described on the ballot as a measure to CAUSE gerrymandering. And this isn’t surprising, as the Ohio Supreme Court once declared that wings with bones in them could be called boneless wings. We’re stuck with that wording. I hope Ohioans will be savvy about what the measure will actually do.

Furthermore, the small city of Springfield, Ohio, is still under siege because of the moral panic I told you about last week. It has been demonstrated again and again that Haitian immigrants are not stealing pets to eat in Springfield. The Springfield police and city manager deny this is happening. The mayor and governor of Ohio, both staunch Republicans, have denied it. No one has presented any evidence to prove that the police and local Republican officials are in cahoots to cover it up at all. The photo of the man with a goose that was being circulated as evidence for the conspiracy theory is actually a man trying to rescue a road kill in Columbus, Ohio. The short Tiktok of a scrawny animal on a grill, which was shared as evidence by a right wing influencer, turned out to be two small hens being roasted in South America. The person who posted about Haitians eating cats on social media has deleted her post and explained she made a mistake. The sole call to the police about a cat being stolen by Haitians turned out to be a false alarm: the cat, Miss Sassy, was hiding in the basement and is fine. The cats and dogs of Ohio are safe. But Trump and Vance won’t stop repeating the story.

Springfield’s residents, both US citizens and the legal immigrants, have had to cancel their cultural festival. They are being harassed. There were at least four days of bomb threats to schools, hospitals, and other buildings, and now the State Highway Patrol have to search the school buildings twice a day so that children will be safe. The immigrants are terrified. But not only did Trump refuse to stop his calumny, he doubled down and promised a visit to Springfield. The mayor has all but begged him not to come, saying it would strain the town’s resources, but Trump insists he’s coming. We’ll just see how that works out.

And as for J. D. Vance, the senator from Ohio, who was elected by Ohio’s citizens to represent our interests in Washington, he’s even more adamant.

On Sunday, he admitted he made the story up in order to get people talking about immigration, as if people weren’t talking about immigration already. He told a bemused reporter to “shut up” and talk about the dangers of immigration. And then he took it a bit further. At a speech in North Carolina, he insisted that even though the immigrants in question were here legally and following all the rules, “I’m still going to call them an illegal alien.” Thus proving that it was never about immigrants who come here “the right way” any more than it was ever about telling the truth. Trump and Vance feel they have the right to scapegoat anybody they please, to change a person’s immigration status as they wish, and to decide who counts as a real American or not. I can’t even express how dangerous this is. This is fascism, pure and simple. Neither of these men should ever hold office again.

I want to give credit to all the bishops in Ohio in communion with Rome, both in the Latin and other rites of the Catholic Church. They’ve released a pretty good letter supporting the immigrants. That’s a great step. Archbishop Schnurr, who is J. D. Vance’s bishop as well as the bishop presiding over the city of Springfield, is one of the signers, and I’m glad. But the letter does not call out Vance, a politician committing the mortal sin of calumny again and again in order to solidify power. That’s disappointing. I don’t care so much about Trump at this point, because Trump isn’t even pretending to be a Christian and seems completely senile. But Vance is a Catholic and in his sane mind. He needs to be called out by name.

And now, national news. There is one piece of news currently dominating the airwaves, and it’s horrendous.

Mark Robinson has found himself the subject of a shocking bit of reporting. Journalists have discovered that the lieutenant governor of North Carolina and current Republican gubernatorial candidate, who has been celebrated and praised by Donald Trump as “Martin Luther King on Steroids,”  is far more of a monster than we already thought. Believe me, there were plenty of very public stories about this man’s transgressions. The vehement pro-lifer already admitted to paying for an abortion. The man who calls LGBTQ people “filth” has been exposed as a regular at a pornographic video store. But now we get to find out about his internet habits.

CNN reports that about ten years ago, on a pornography forum, Robinson referred to himself as a Black Nazi. He expressed interest in joining the KKK if only they accepted Black people like himself. He said that he was in favor of bringing back slavery, and would like to own some slaves himself. He referred to Martin Luther King by a racial slur I’m not going to spell out here. And he described his sexual habits, in ways I don’t even want to think about. You can read for yourself. Meanwhile, Politico has discovered Robinson’s account on Ashley Madison, a website for married people seeking partners to have an affair with.

Robinson has denied all of this and vowed not to drop out of the gubernatorial race. He has until 11:59 tonight, a little less than two hours as I write this, to change his mind, and then, by North Carolina law, the GOP will no longer be able to abort the candidacy and will have to bring it to term. North Carolina is a swing state, so this has interesting ramifications if a lot of undecided voters come out in droves to vote Democrat.

There’s probably more news, but I’m exhausted.

I just have one observation: these Republican candidates are the people who call themselves the Party of Family Values.

I’ve mentioned many times that I was spiritually abused for years with the fiction that it’s a mortal sin to not vote Republican, because of the abortion issue. Never mind that abortion rates tend to fall faster under Democratic presidencies. Republicans are the squeaky clean ones. Democrats are the Party of Satan.

Does anyone, at this stage of the game, want to tell me that I’m in mortal sin for not voting Republican?

Does anyone want to hold up these serial liars, cheaters, philanderers, authoritarian bullies and, yes, aborters, as paragons of virtue?

Tell me you still believe that. Go ahead. I haven’t had a good laugh in days.

And now I’m going to bed.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.