Are Republicans’ chickens suddenly (and unanticipated by the GOP) coming home to roost?

It is midterm election season. The party in the White House is historically destined to lose seats in both houses. The party out of the White House is supposed to sweep to victory, taking both houses in something of a landslide, typically referred to as a wave. That party this time is the GOP. And they have treated 2022 as just another Midterm year, and just another typical cycle, where they are fated to take both houses and take control of the government. All they have to do is lay low and wait it out. But they live in Dupe City, thinking that everyone is as easy to deceive as their MAGA base. Except this is not just another cycle, like all the other cycles. Republicans have carelessly hatched far too many very troublesome chickens, and they are all suddenly coming home to roost.

This has been ongoing for a long time, and Republicans have become quite smug about it not influencing voter apathy, and if true, this would be to their considerable benefit.

Chicken #2: Normalizing Donald Trump’s lies, corruption, and disrespect for the law, itself

Trumpism is a thing bigger than Trump. It has taken control of the once proud Grand Old Party, to its eventual (now not too distant) detriment. Good sized chicken.

Chicken #3: Normalizing an insurrection and attack on our democracy

Seemingly, Trumpism led “quite naturally” to an attack on Democracy. Today’s Republicans seem perfectly fine with that. Senator Lindsey Graham still thinks it’s a good idea to encourage these dupes to further violence with, “There will be riots in the streets,” if Trump is indicted. Others in the GOP – the “party of law and order” -- are saying the insurrectionists who attacked police are “patriots,” and calling for the defunding of the FBI.

Chicken #4: SCOTUS’ Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade

This chicken reverses a half century of women’s abortion rights, also opening the door to similar rejections of gay and interracial marriage, and even birth control. This is one very big chicken.

Chicken #5: Normalizing rejection of the January 6 committee hearings as a witch hunt

Trumpism at its finest sees any accusation of the corrupt Donald Trump as an infringement on their alternate reality.

Chicken #6: Normalizing extreme and unsavory candidates in primary elections

This is basically a promotion of Trumpism because winning is all that matters, and the more extreme you are, the more like Trump you are. This is another very large chicken.

Republicans are hoping you will stupidly ignore all these chickens and think only about Joe Biden’s problems, and how they translate into your problems. But this time, with all of these chickens coming home to roost, it may not be enough for optimistic Republicans to just lay low and wait for the election. And they do seem to be showing signs of having received a wake-up call. SURPRISE! With polls showing an increasing swing toward Democratic candidates, and some of them actually defeating favored Republicans in special elections, we now see extreme right-wing candidates actually starting to scrub the extremism from their websites, including support for the Big Lie about Trump having won the last election. And new and reversed proclamations are appearing on these candidates’ websites, with unexpected support for “a woman’s choice.” Hmmm…

As if there are not already enough of these big roosting chickens to deal with, Trump is posting some really objectionable crap on his own social media platform. Lately, he has added a photo of three of the most powerful Dems, the V.P., the President, and Speaker Pelosi, standing in front of the American flag. He has added a black-out across each of their faces. In the black-out, there are contrasting words, two over each face. They read, “Your enemy is not in Russia.” No, really. Apparently, the guy is too stupid to realize how big that chicken is, with Russia six months into the invasion of a sovereign democracy, the defense of which we are funding.

It just may be time to show these chickens the door. Vote. Vote like your life and your democracy depended on it. Because they just might. Chicken dinner, anyone?