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The moral decay of the Republican Party continues apace, as there is seemingly no low that they will not stoop to in a desperate bid to stay in power. Two completely different examples of this occurred recently, and it is hard to say which is more disgraceful, disgusting, and reprehensible. Both should be seen by all decent Americans as completely disqualifying for any political candidate or officeholder.
Both involve victim-blaming. The victims are very different, but the revolting nature of casting blame upon either of them is equally monstrous in nature. The first of these victims is Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio. She is running against a moral pipsqueak, Vivek Ramaswamy, who is trying to use his vast wealth to purchase the governor’s race. So far, it hasn’t been doing him much good, so he tried a desperation move in an attempt to generate an October surprise.
When she was a preteen child, Amy Acton accused her stepfather — the man married to her birth mother — of raping her and sexually abusing her from age 9 to age 12. The man was charged, pled not guilty, and then promptly fled the state to avoid prosecution. Her mother abandoned her two children and fled with him. This was a man who had previously been charged for allegedly raping his eldest daughter, but Amy’s birth mother stood by him even after her own 12-year-old daughter filed rape charges against him. Amy’s mother remained married to this fugitive from justice for the rest of his life.
The last time Amy saw her mother was at the courthouse in 1978, after Amy testified against her stepfather. Here’s how she describes it: “In the courthouse after they were charged, I went to give her a kiss, and she just turned her cheek away. That was the last time I ever saw her.”
Anyone with a shred of decency or humanity would sympathize with Acton, since she overcame her childhood trauma and has led an exemplary life ever since. That would not include Vivek Ramaswamy, who had previously compared himself to her by saying that he has “a positive vision for our state versus a governor who has none at all other than to complain about what someone else did to her.”
This heartlessness apparently wasn’t enough for Ramaswamy, though. He hunted Amy’s birth mother down and produced a one-minute campaign video of this reprehensible woman calling Amy a liar and urging people not to trust her or vote for her.
Amy’s brother, who was in the same household when this abuse happened, came to Amy’s defense, saying in a statement:
It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point. After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died. This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.
The ad was exposed online before it actually ran. The reaction was visceral, even from Ramaswamy’s fellow Republicans, some of whom (to their credit) strongly denounced Ramaswamy’s tactics. Rather than back down or somehow try to disavow the ad (whose origins were originally in question), Ramaswamy just put up $4 million to run the ad on social media.
JD Vance, who is also from Ohio, backed up Ramaswamy, which should (but probably won’t) completely disqualify him for running for any office for the rest of his life. Vance casually brushed the whole thing off by saying, at a rally: “The media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because — guess what? — Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.”
During an interview, Vance went even further: “Well, I’ll be honest with you, whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern. What is my concern is who’s going to govern the next generation of American government…. I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.”
This is today’s Republican Party, folks. Utterly without shame, utterly without decency, and utterly inhumane. They take the side of a pedophile rapist rather than his 12-year-old victim.
The second example of blaming the victim is far less personal but far more geopolitically important. Donald Trump is (once again) blaming Ukraine for being invaded by Russia. He is throwing his support behind Vladimir Putin while leaving Volodymyr Zelenskyy to twist in the wind.
Trump is trying — unsuccessfully — to influence the midterm elections by giving Putin everything he wants with very little to show for it in return. First Trump announced that he would be buying lots of diesel from Russia, then he waived all the sanctions he had just signed into law a month earlier, which effectively will give Putin a huge economic boost to continue his war of conquest in Ukraine. Next, Trump halted the flow of military intelligence to Ukraine for a few days, which allowed Russia to mercilessly pound them with missiles and drones with no advance warning. Trump also apparently ordered Elon Musk to shut off or drastically slow down the Starlink connections which Ukraine’s military depends on.
As if all this weren’t bad enough, Trump dismissed any concern that he was now complicit in funding Putin’s war machine, and blamed Zelenskyy for not wanting to make a deal — which, in plain English, means “completely surrender to Russia.” Trump apparently has a dream of announcing a peace deal before the midterm elections happen, but he is barely even bothering to consult Ukraine about any of this — he’s trying to work out such a “deal” with Putin alone. Putin tossed Trump a bone by releasing an American prisoner held in Russia, but otherwise Russia has not been asked to make any concessions whatsoever.
In the fantasyland that Trump lives in, this whole war is all Ukraine’s fault. If they would just agree to a deal (read: “complete surrender”), then the war would quickly end and Trump would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for making it happen.
In reality, Russia launched a totally unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and has fought a war of conquest ever since. Vladimir Putin shows zero interest in making any sort of deal or stopping the war, since he still dreams of completely taking over the country and adding it to Russia.
Trump has managed to reverse the American position towards Russia which stretches all the way back through the Cold War to the end of World War II. By doing so, Trump has completely abdicated America’s standing in the world and proven that he has never met a ruthless dictator that he didn’t like.
As I said, these are two completely different cases with vastly different situations, but the thread that connects them is that today’s Republican Party actually celebrates blaming the victim, while heaping scorn on anyone who objects. It doesn’t matter whether it is a European democracy fighting for its life against the Russian war machine or a 12-year-old girl who was raped by her mother’s husband. Basic decency and humanity doesn’t even enter the equation for people like Trump, Ramaswamy, and Vance.
Every time you think the Republicans have hit such an amoral low point that there is nothing they could do that could possibly be any worse, they go ahead and prove that they can indeed sink lower. They’re in a race to the bottom within their own party, and my guess is that it’s going to get worse before it gets any better. That seems like a safe bet, these days.
— Chris Weigant