Pat Nash: Not enough has changed from book bans to wages | Columns

I was reminded of the saying while watching a show on PBS the other night. It featured the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe and showed footage of huge crowds in Italy wildly cheering the dictator Benito Mussolini. It also showed the same kind of crowds in Germany cheering Adolf Hitler. Their fervor and adulation for those cruel dictators reminded me of the fervor of the crowds at former President Donald Trump’s rallies as they cheer his lies, empty promises, false accusations and juvenile name-calling.

Remember the crowds going wild whenever he said, “I’m going to build a wall and Mexico will pay for it!” or any number of his lies and empty promises? The Washington Post and other fact-checkers have all verified he lied to his audiences at rallies and during interviews more than 30,500 times in five years. The scariest thing about it is that so many people believed the lies, and still do.

But fortunately, most Americans didn’t fall for them. President Joe Biden received almost 7 million more votes than Trump, and also won the majority of Electoral College votes. But like all dictators would, the former president disputed the results and continues to do so. The label “poor loser” is one of the nicer things we could say about that.

Another topic that reminds me of the saying is the subject of book banning, which is rearing its ugly head in Republican-led legislatures all over the country. Authoritarian, undemocratic regimes all over the world have banned books that contained truths they didn’t want the people to know, and now it’s happening here.

Then there’s slavery. Though it was outlawed after the Civil War, it continues today, in a different version, all over the country. Before Emancipation, wealthy whites owned black slaves who did the hard, dirty work in exchange for just enough shelter and sustenance to keep them alive and strong enough to work. Today, many white business owners hire immigrants, including undocumented workers, to do the hardest, dirtiest jobs in the country — jobs most Americans refuse to do.

Today, though many businesses are desperate for workers, Republican lawmakers please their base by saying they want to make it harder for immigrants to come here, and easier to deport them. If they didn’t want immigrants to come here and work for low wages, they’d have passed legislation decades ago that would penalize businesses that hire undocumented workers and other immigrants.

At the same time, they fight any attempts that would help hardworking immigrants gain American citizenship. That includes the “Dreamers,” who are now adults from Mexico and other countries who’ve been here since they were little kids, have been educated here, are working full-time jobs, paying taxes and growing the economy.

You have to wonder what happened to Republican politicians’ common sense, and especially their proclaimed but rarely practiced “Christianity.” Which reminds me of another saying, “Jesus would weep.”

Yes, Jesus would weep. Anyone who doubts that should ask which political party refuses to allow Medicare to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs. They should ask which party supports big pharma profits and doesn’t care that Americans pay many times more for drugs than people in other countries do. Hint: It’s the same party that wants to end the Affordable Care Act, which helps low-income people pay for essential medical care.

Voters should ask which party is against raising the ridiculously low federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour yet, under Trump, happily gave enormous tax breaks to the top 1% of earners. A recent study by Treasury economists found that the top 1% of American earners received nearly 60% of the billions in tax savings created by the Trump-era provision, with most of it going to the top 0.1%, most of whom pay little to begin with. How Christian.

I can’t imagine anyone with common sense or a conscience voting for most Republican candidates these days. Until the voters kick out the liars and heartless grifters in that party, it isn’t going to get any better.