Sour Grapes

Goodness! You'd think that the world was about to end, all because a black man won the Presidency, not once, but twice! The right wing has gone into defensive mode, blaming President Obama for showering his constituency with "gifts", like health care, birth control and more. They're inferring that those votes were bought with bribes instead of legitimately won by humane policies that help to even the playing field a bit more and let those of us who are not well off at least enjoy a few benefits of a civilized society. They're also circling the wagons and have begun a shooting war within their own party, blaming their candidate for being too moderate and not conservative enough, without remembering that he tacked hard right during the primaries both to win the nomination and to woo the base. Then as the election neared, he made a rapid run to the center to try to win over skeptical independents, all the while looking like a world class flip flopper by completely changing positions on various things to where the "severe conservative" that he was claiming to be looked more like a moderate, a risky move at best in a party that has moved so far to the right as to have begun to alienate even the old Reagan Democrats. Another thing that badly dogged this Presidential candidate was just flat out bad "down ballot" candidates that were hung around his neck like an albatross, wackos like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, who made preposterous claims about women and rape, and they weren't the only ones, either. Having those kinds of candidates speaking for your party and making misogynistic comments grossly underestimated the power of women voters, who were infuriated and insulted by the kinds of things that these male candidates were saying about women's reproductive systems as if they were some kind of medical experts at what our bodies can do. The GOP thought that the claims by Democrats that the GOP was waging a "war on women" would backfire and favor them instead, so they doubled down on the strategy of saying stupid, inane and misogynistic things about women thinking that it would woo our gender to their party. How very wrong they were, and how badly they paid for such a monumental blunder. Women make up well over half the electorate and we turned out in enormous numbers to drive out these idiotic men who could not seem to keep their mouths shut about women's bodies and reproductive systems.

And yet, you'd think that the GOP would have learned a lesson from their smack down in the Presidential elections a few weeks ago that you don't mess with the female vote. But oh, no, the State of Ohio, whose State House and Legislature are dominated by Republicans, have decided to ratchet up the war on women by defunding Planned Parenthood and making abortion illegal despite it being legal in the United States. Why they want to risk incurring the wrath of women and defunding an organization that provides care to women throughout their entire reproductive lives and makes vital cancer screenings available to low income women, I do not know. Abortions would be rarer if more women had access to the birth control services that Planned Parenthood offers, but to defund it and make all abortions illegal in this state means that women will have to travel to other states to receive medical care, birth control, cancer screenings and other services provided by Planned Parenthood. As a woman who is going through the fun filled experience of menopause, I have to constantly remind people that this is one thing that Planned Parenthood also helps women with, the medical consequences of menopause and beyond. This is as much a part of our reproductive lives as anything. Just because we are ending our monthly menses does not mean an end to our reproductive lives. It means a third chapter in our lives, a time when, yes, the reproductive organs are shutting down, but there are side effects of this that must be managed from this point on in a woman's life. There are chemical and physical changes like bone density and osteoporosis, for example, that affect women my age. We must still receive regular cancer screenings as well. Taking away Planned Parenthood deprives low income women not only during their reproductive lives, from menarche to menopause, but beyond that as well, all the way into the next chapters of our lives as we age. But people have this mistaken idea that Planned Parenthood is nothing more than an abortion provider and nothing more, so the state of Ohio is going to cut its funding off at the knees, force clinics to go out of business, drive up unemployment and make all abortions illegal, which won't stop abortions. Instead it will just force women into back alley coat hanger abortions and they will die miserable and painful deaths instead of receiving safe, healthy and medical abortions that they need.

So the GOP apparently did not learn a damn thing by being smacked down by angry women voters in this most recent election cycle. Sadly, it will cost their party dearly and unless they reform and change with the times, they will suffer the same fate as the Whigs and be consigned to the scrap heap of history. Right now, they do not seem terribly interested or inclined to change. They seem to think that the only way forward is to tack even harder to the right, but unfortunately, the American people rejected that in this last election cycle. The GOP was emboldened by the TEA Party insurgency in the most recent midterms, but that fire seems to have cooled with the Occupy Movement bringing to light the severity of income inequality in this country. That the GOP chose a Monopoly Millionaire as their messenger and standard bearer for this election cycle was very revealing about where the party thinks it needs to go, but now the internal Civil War inside that same party has begun with this most recent loss. The finger pointing, the recriminations, the blame game - it's all going on and they still can't believe that they could not outright buy this election with all of their billionaire's cash on hand. Heads will roll, political careers will end, others might arise from the dust and maybe even save the party if they will let that happen. If they decide that they still want to be the party of old white guys who want to take the country forward, back to 1950, they are going to find that they will have a mighty hard time winning anymore elections until they come to the stark realization that they have a real problem with 21st century America, which is more diverse than they may want to think. Bill O'Reilly, one of their Fox News spokesmen, was whining on that channel that the era of what he called "traditional America" was over, that "Ward, June, Wally and the Beav", referring to the Cleaver family of 1950s TV fame, were no more. Well, guess what, Mr. O'Reilly, the world of Ward and June Cleaver has been over for 60 years. We've moved on. The GOP is stuck in a "Mad Men" mentality in a "Modern Family" world. Things have changed since 1950 and the GOP had better hurry up and fast forward into the 21st century, or else they are doomed. But if that is where they want to remain, so be it. Just don't say you weren't warned, Republicans.