A fundamental difference

Want to know the difference between Republican leadership and Democratic leadership? I know, the list of differences could go on forever. But two real-world episodes illustrate this fundamental difference:

1). The Cuomo affair. Democrat Andrew Cuomo is under fire for an alleged history of sexual harassment while he has been governor of New York. The list of alleged victims is large. The stories of his groping and inappropriate verbal exchanges are disgusting, especially for a man who absolutely should know better.

So who is loudly and prominently calling for his resignation from office? Democrats. Particularly, Democratic leadership. Pelosi, Schumer, New York state assembly leadership, even President Biden. Even a group of Democratic governors from nearby states issued a written demand that Cuomo resign.

Compare that to the silence of Republicans as Donald Trump was documented visiting the dressing rooms of young girls during the Miss Universe pageant, just so he could lay his eyes upon them in a state of undress. He bragged about it to male friends. And of course, there are video clips of him and the late monster Jeffrey Epstein ogling girls dancing at a party at Trump’s Mar A Lago in 1992. Trump is also accused of assaulting no fewer than 26 women throughout the years. Why are these allegations credible? Look no further than the Stormy Daniels episode and his “grab them by the ****** recording on the bus.

The GOP response? Crickets. As usual.

2). The roll-out of Obamacare. When the Obama administration launched the website for the Affordable Care Act in October 2013, it was a complete failure. Is simply crashed two hours after launch. Poor technical skill, policy delays, and general incompetence were the contributors to this disaster. Andy Slavitt, a skilled technology/operations executive, was retained to spearhead the website fix, and he generally got it up and running in 2 months.

And who, besides Republicans, sharply criticized this website failure? Obama himself. He took full blame. “Nobody’s madder than me about the website not working as well as it should…. “There’s no excuse for the problems.”

Is there any doubt whatsoever that if such a failure happened during the Trump administration, the 45th president would have flat out denied there was any problem at all? That an inoperable website was just a figment of imagination and the site was really working well? If not that, Trump would have invented something along the lines of “Democrats and Nancy Pelosi secretly sabotaged the site to embarrass me.” Or “we’re using computers made in China that are defective and caused this crash. I’m ordering all government agencies to destroy their Chinese computers and get new ones not made in China.”

You could set your watch by it. And his acolytes in Congress and GOP statehouses around the country would praise his “leadership.” After all, a huge number of them still proclaim he is the rightful president.

The fundamental difference between Democrats and today’s GOP? Facts, accountability…and living in the real world.

My next piece will focus on why higher education faculty are so overwhelmingly Democratic…and understandably so.