Melania Trump made this question famous when, as First Lady, she wore a jacket emblazoned with the words while visiting camps of imprisoned children. Afterwards, she had several explanations as to why she wore this particular saying.
Regardless of her rationale, it seems to have become the mantra of the Republican Party. They really don’t care, and they hope you won’t either. Republicans don’t want you to care about the sick or the old, people of color, lesbians or gays, transgendered, poor, or just about any one who doesn’t look or act like them. And they don’t care if their decisions harm the few or the many as long as they “own the libs.”
Take Gregg Abbot, again (I wrote about him and other Republican governors intent on doing harm last week), and his decision-making. His recent decision is harming not just Texas, but the nation as a whole. All in the name of “protecting” the border.
His latest is to mandate additional checks on goods and products being trucked across the Texas/Mexico border. Due to his, what I would opine as a calculated, decision, our grocery shelves are both a little emptier, and a bit more expensive. Fruits and vegetables are rotting on trucks waiting to enter the U.S. There are other goods waiting to come to factories in the North, and I would assume other points across the States.
In slowing down the goods and products, it creates less supply, same or greater demand, which results in increases in prices. Simple economics. A process any politician knows very well. Gregg Abbott doesn’t really care. It seems he only cares about making the Biden administration look bad in facilitating a supply chain bottleneck.
Unfortunately, as we are finding, people don’t stop and think to connect the dots, all they see is rising prices, lower supply. Since many people also believe the President has sole power in determining economic factors without doing any research, they blame the President, along with the politicians in power at the federal level. They also don’t connect the dots that local economies are, in most cases, influenced greatly at the state and local levels.
Gregg Abbott doesn’t care about the people. All it appears he cares about is power, maintaining and increasing pure unadulterated power, regardless of the ill effects on people and their livelihoods. If his decision hurts the Democrats, then the rest of us are collateral damage.
As teachers I used to work with always wanted to know, “Who is making the decision?” They wanted to know if it was me, the district, the state, or the USDE. That way they knew who to hold accountable, and who to ask questions of for clarification or modifications.
This is a time when we all need to ask that question, “Who is making the decision?” Then, and only then, hold that person accountable, not who we’d like to hold accountable due to ideological beliefs, but who is really to blame, or to praise.
It’s time for mainstream media, his constituents, and the nation to hold Abbott accountable, and to lay blame where blame is due.
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 