Are Republicans Pro-Life?

Republicans like to claim they are the Pro-Life party. But are they really?

It depends on how you define it and whose life you are talking about. Evangelicals usually mean anti-abortion when they use the term Pro-Life. But in the most complete sense of the word it means to honor and respect human life from conception to natural death.

I’m going to leave the conception to birth controversy for now and look at the birth to death period of human life. How do Republican policies reflect honor and respect for human life during that phase? And I’m going to apply it to all Americans – after all they want to prevent abortions for all Americans – rich or poor, White or Black.

In his March 17, 2023 substack post Thom Hartmann asks if there is any area where Republicans put human life ahead of money, and admits he can’t find a single one. He lists many policy areas in which lives are sacrificed for profit:

·        Pollution kills people. Republicans fight every regulation for clean air and water because it costs big business money (and the wealthy can afford to live away from their factories). In Trump’s first regime he rolled back over 100 environmental regulations. In Trump 2 Elon Musk is gutting the EPA.

·        Homelessness kills people. Republicans are opposed to any of their tax money going to shelter homeless people. They just want them to stay away from their part of the city so they don’t have to see them.

·        Guns kill people and are now the leading cause of child deaths. Republicans are known for their opposition to any gun restrictions.

·        Hunger kills children. Republicans are opposed to programs that provide school lunches. The budget they are working on now will likely eliminate or drastically cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which assists low-income families with their grocery budget.

·        Suicide kills more gay men than AIDS and kills 4x more queer children than cis children. Republicans persecute gay and trans people when what they need is more understanding and support.

·        Cancer kills people. Republicans fight to keep known carcinogen pesticides and additives in our food. Trump’s new appointee in the EPA to oversee approval for chemicals, Lynn Dekleva, was a Dupont lobbyist who fought against regulation of formaldehyde.

·        Infections kill people, especially children and the elderly. Republicans oppose mandatory vaccinations. Anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now Secretary of Health and Human Services which oversees CDCP, FDA, Medicare and Medicaid. An unvaccinated child died of measles in Texas last week, the first in a decade.

·        Poverty kills people. Republicans consistently oppose raising minimum wage and other labor regulations that improve the lives of workers.

·        Lack of health insurance kills people. Republicans are strongly opposed to increasing coverage of Medicare and Medicaid and are about to slash their coverage in this month’s budget.

·        Premature birth kills babies. Republicans fight any proposal to provide housing, food or medical care to pregnant women.

·        Not being part of a union kills 54% more workers. Republicans fight unions and the right to unionize.

·        Climate change is killing people. Republicans won’t even admit it exists.

Wherever saving lives costs money the Republicans will fight it.

Hartmann concludes that Republicans are not the Party of Life. They are the Party of Death.

 

Source:

https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-gop-claims-to-be-the-party-of

Eisenhower was the Last Legitimate GOP President

In his November 20, 2023, substack post Thom Hartmann made a remarkable statement. He said that Dwight Eisenhower was the last Republican president who won an honest election. He was also the last who “believed in democracy, the rule of law, and that government should prioritize what the people want”. All the GOP presidents since have either cheated, often to the point of treason, or inherited it from one who did.

Let’s look at each one.

The first was Richard Nixon who took millions in bribes while VP to Eisenhower. He ran for president in 1960 against John Kennedy and was trailing in the polls. In 1959 Fidel Castro had just taken over Cuba from the dictator Batista who was a friend of Nixon (and of Nixon’s mafia friends). Castro came to the US looking for economic aid for his country but Nixon turned him down so Castro turned to Khrushchev, leader of the USSR. Kennedy used this - turning Cuba communist - against Nixon in the presidential campaign. To counter this attack Nixon tried to have Castro overthrown, making him (Nixon) a hero in time for the election. The plot failed and so did Nixon’s presidential run.

Nixon tried again in 1968 running against Hubert Humphrey who was Lyndon Johnson’s VP. Johnson had been working hard on a peace deal to end the Vietnam War and had an agreement ready to sign that fall. Nixon sent his men to South Vietnam and offered them a better deal if they would wait until after the election. Johnson learned about this (from the FBI) 3 days before the election but didn’t say anything publicly while privately calling it treason. Nixon won the election and the Vietnam War dragged on until 1975 killing an additional 22,000 American troops and more than 1 million Vietnamese.

Nixon’s VP Spiro Agnew resigned rather than face prosecution for taking bribes and was replaced by Gerald Ford. He became president in 1974 when Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment over the Watergate scandal. Ford was never elected.

Ronald Reagan was the next to commit treason to win the presidency.  During the 1980 election campaign President Jimmy Carter had finally reached a deal with the Iranian President to release 52 hostages held for nearly a year at the American Embassy in Tehran. Reagan made a clandestine deal with Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s radical faction, to keep the hostages until after the election. In return Reagan offered parts for the American weapons that Iran had purchased. This became known later as the Iran/Contra Scandal. Partly because of the hostages, Reagan won the election and the hostages were released the very minute Reagan was inaugurated.

George H. W. Bush was VP under Reagan and became president in 1988, defeating Michael Dukakis. There was no criminal trick involved in winning this election but he would never have been president without Reagan’s Contra deal (and Bush's racist Willie Horton ad no doubt helped). The Contra affair followed Bush Sr. into his presidency. Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, member of the National Security Council Oliver North, and others were indicted and convicted on a number of charges. Bush, as VP at the time of the contra affair, was subpoenaed and could be facing prison. Bush’s Attorney General Bill Barr (yes THAT Bill Barr) suggested Bush pardon all the conspirators, thus ending the investigation.

George W. Bush was next in 2000 running against Al Gore. The election came down to who won in Florida and it was close. The first count had Bush over Gore by 537 votes out of 5.8 million. I mentioned in my February 26 post on election fraud how Bush’s brother, Florida Governor Jed Bush, had purged 57,000 mostly Black legitimate voters just before the election. There was also an issue about the confusing design of some of the ballots which favored Bush. A recount was underway on order of the Florida Supreme Court when Bush asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene to stop it. The 5-4 vote on December 12 ended the count gaving Florida and the presidency to Bush. Justice Antonin Scalia’s son was a lawyer representing Bush in this trial  and Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife was working on the Bush transition team - neither Scalia or Thomas recused themselves from the case. A later recount by a group of newspapers found that Gore had actually won. Had Gore won, America would not have started two illegal wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and 9/11 may not have happened. And there would have been a lot more progress in slowing global warming.

Donald Trump is just the latest in a series of cheating Republican presidents. There was no big Republican scandal but several significant smaller ones that added up to a victory in 2016. The big scandal in 2016 was “Hillary Clinton’s emails”. The FBI had concluded there was no criminal intent but then just 11 days before the election FBI Director James Comey announced they were opening the case again (and dropped it again right after the election). Who pressured him to do that I wonder?

Russian interference was a big factor in the 2026 election as detailed in the Mueller report. Because Mueller did not find enough evidence to indict anyone, Barr made it sound like the report exonerated Trump, which it definitely did not. Most Republicans still believe that it wasn’t Russia but Ukraine interfering in the election; that story of course originated in Moscow. Without more voter purges Trump would not have been elected in either 2016 or 2024.

Hartmann wrote that article before the 2024 election but the guest post by Greg Palast in the January 24 2025 Hartmann Report argues that Trump would have lost in 2024 without the illegal voting purges and other tricks used by the Republicans.

None of these treasonous GOP presidents were ever held to account for their actions.

These illegitimate Republican presidents did a lot of damage to American democracy directly while in office. But their actions that have had the most long lasting damage was to appoint anti-democratic judges to the Supreme Court. I will outline their most damaging decisions of the past 45 years another day.

And if you are following the news at all, you will know that what Donald Trump is doing now is completely destroying what little of democracy is left in America.

Source:

https://hartmannreport.com/p/four-presidents

https://hartmannreport.com/p/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won-c6f