The Democrats have long been taking the high road. Michelle Obama coined a phrase: “When they go low, we go high”. It was a catchy political shot at the time, but it has a kind of mournful tone to it now. What did going high get us? In fact, what has going high ever gotten us?

The right wing’s amorality has been going on at least since President Richard M. Nixon’s so-called Southern strategy, started in the 1970 mid-term elections in order to drive Southern whites harboring racial resentments from the Civil Rights Act into the Republican party. It worked pretty well for him, winning him the 1972 election by a landslide (no, not a Trump “landslide”, a real landslide”) against the hapless Democratic candidate George McGovern. The only state McGovern carried was Massachusetts, hence the popular bumper sticker after Nixon’s Watergate disgrace and subsequent resignation: “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts”.

Nixon’s replacement, Gerald Ford, was a decent guy, a nearly extinct brand of Republican, a moderate who today would be considered a RINO (Republican In Name Only) today. Ford was beaten in 1976 by Democrat Jimmy Carter, who lost in 1980 to a movie actor named Ronald Reagan, a Republican who, although still a RINO by today’s standards, was significantly more conservative than Nixon or Ford. He started out by busting the PATCO union of air traffic controllers, and infamously declared that government is the problem, not the solution. Never mind that the unions were the lifeblood of the middle class at the time. Not to mention the Iran-Contra arms scandal, Reagan’s version of Watergate. Reagan, today, is romanced by all Republican candidates for national office, and sometimes the Republican debates sound like a contest of who can say “President Reagan” the most often. The truth about Reagan is quite a bit different from his legend. Suffice it to say, our country would have been much better off if Carter had beat Reagan in 1980.

President Reagan was a monster, but he had served two terms, so he couldn’t run again in 1988, so the nomination went to his V.P., George H. W. Bush., who ran against the hapless Democrat, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Bush’s campaign director was a man, now deceased, named Lee Atwater. On his death bed, Atwater gave an interview admitting his party’s racial strategy. Atwater’s most well-known contribution to the Bush candidacy was tying black convict Willie Horton, who was paroled under the Dukakis administration, to Dukakis himself. Horton was arrested for rape while on parole, and they ran a campaign ad with Horton’s dark countenance prominently displayed. Dukakis suffered from a lack of charisma, but he was subjected to racially divisive attacks, and Bush won by a landslide. George H. W. Bush was a war hero, shot down as a pilot in WWII. He would have been a RINO in today’s Republican party. In fact, his violation of his pledge of “no new taxes” led to today’s national Republican party being forced to sign a pledge by antitax advocate Grover Norquist, stating that they will not, under any circumstances, raise taxes.

Bush was beaten by Bill Clinton in 1992. Bill Clinton moved the Democratic party rightward, arguably necessary at the time to remain in power. However, he was basically a good man who was a victim of his own appetites, but his heart was in the right place. Much has been written about the scandals that were used by the Republicans to try to bring him down. He was a philanderer, but nothing more was tied to him, not for lack of trying though.

Clinton was term-limited out in 2000, so his V.P., Al Gore, ran against George W. Bush. Although Bush lost the popular vote, the Supreme Court gave him the election. I remember his promise to be a humble, compassionate conservative. 9/11 happened on his watch, so he and his V.P. Cheney used that as a pretext to start two wars, one in Afghanistan, then Iraq, on the national credit card. At the same time as his massive military actions cost us trillions, Bush allowed massive tax cuts to take effect, more than erasing the surplus Bill Clinton left him with.

After Bush’s two terms, his historic unpopularity and a mediocre Republican running against a man with a great gift for oratory gave the presidency to Barack Obama. He was a good man and a good president, but the cards were stacked against him from the start, after a Republican honcho secret meeting after Obama’s 2009 inauguration, that laid out their plan to obstruct his every move, even if it was a move they had previously sponsored themselves. Obama tried, unsuccessfully, to make a deal with the Republican congress, not realizing that they were never going to compromise with him. Obamacare was originally Romneycare, and it is painful to think of how much could have been accomplished if the Republicans had helped make their plan successful, instead of opposing it because it was proposed on Obama’s watch.

Now we have the culmination of decades of Republican efforts, President-elect Donald Trump. The election itself was basically illegally stolen from Hillary Clinton. James Comey of the FBI did a masterful job, first of smearing Clinton in July, then, in violation of the Hatch Act, releasing an innuendo-filled report about some emails that weren’t even examined for relevancy. They were found to be irrelevant, but the damage had already been done. In a few short weeks, America will suffer with the presidency of Donald J. Trump, an impulsive, narcissistic, showman elected by a minority of the voters but winning the Electoral College.

The in-your-face scorched-earth Republican policies of putting party before country, in a just world, would have a good many federal employees, whose salary I paid with my taxes, in prison-orange uniforms, behind bars where they belong. The man who is assuming the office of President, Donald Trump, is going to be coming in with an unbelievable list of conflicts of interest. In addition to all his business entanglements and their potential for corruption, Trump is trying to hire a cabinet of poorly qualified people. He is trying to put a man with a history of racism in charge of the Justice Department. He is trying put a man in charge of the Energy Department who had previously said he wanted to abolish it. He is trying to put a man with a history of anti-environmentalism as the head of the Department of Interior. And the list goes on. Rich men, extremely wealthy bankers, conspiracy theorists, people with histories of racism, all coming or trying to come in and take over the government’s operation.

The amoral and seditious behavior of the Republican party has gone on long enough.Those of us who oppose what the Republicans have done and are doing to America need to let our voices be heard.