To The Republicans of CD-2
TL;DR: Shame on 80% of you.
I write about congressperson Cliff Bentz to retrain my fellow Oregonian's focus on his part in all that is happening in our country and around the world. I will not stop doing this.
I don't know Peter Larson well, but after talking to him I knew he was ten times the man — let alone the potential congressperson — that Cliff Bentz is. If you're a registered Republican, you saw his name on your ballot. 80% of you skipped over it.
Clearly, not voting for Peter Larson or any other candidate means you voted for Bentz. If you are a registered Republican but did not vote in the primary at all, have no illusion: you still elected Bentz. And most critically, you elected his so-called leadership and its catastrophic results for Oregonians in the Second District.
You want more of the same.
I'm sorry to say that you haven't just met with my lowest expectations for the outcome of your primary; you also have confirmed my long-held assumption of who you are at the core: you'd rather burn down your own country than share it (aside from roughly 20% of you who supported the other candidates).
Voting for Bentz is voting for the regime and our decrepit dictator. You'd rather protect monsters than admit you follow one with soulless, monolithic devotion. You'd rather betray your own children than change your ways to save their future. You'd rather ruin the environment than take responsibility for it.
Clearly, not voting for Peter Larson means you voted for Cliff Bentz. If you did not vote in the Republican primary at all, have no illusion: you still elected Cliff Bentz.
You have tacitly endorsed his so-called "leadership" and its disastrous results. You implicitly want more of the same, which is so much worse than owning up to what you believe and filling in the bubble with your pen.
Most people would've changed their underwear by now but you refuse to admit to the mess you've made and you continue to wear it with pride. Saving face is impossible for you, but cruelty is always an option.
The Republican Party might have devolved into a narrow spectrum of misanthropic con-artists, but there is still a bottom to this pit and Cliff Bentz hails from it. He upholds our corporatist, racist, fascistic status quo by not challenging it, and by actively supporting it, and by shunning his constituents when he's confronted about it.
Cliff Bentz knows well the slime he swims in and how it nourishes his dishonest worldview. And how desperately he needs that slime: to fulfill his identity but also to then hold it against his fellow Oregonians like a blade while he robs us.
I will not let history forget Bentz's complicity in the darkness of our times. Nor will I provide any distinction for his supporters from his toxic legacy. It is your darkness to perpetuate. Those are your hands on the wheel.
What you do is who you are. If you deny that, than it's no wonder you can look at our wars, our "leaders," our national decline and still say: "keep up the good work, Mr. Bentz."
You are slaves to a dark future you don't even know is creeping into your everyday lives. You are cheerleaders for crimes against humanity very much capable of coming back to haunt us later. You are gambling with everything we have in a game you know is rigged. You win by self-injury.
Perhaps it gives you a sense of purpose. The demolition of a country comprised of so many cultures, beliefs, and aspirations might just provide you with the motivation you need to throw your state — and your country — away.
But your enemies will never leave. Those who oppose MAGA will not all be deported or snuffed out. Your concept of victory is, and forever will be, a work of desperate fiction.
I am tempted to delight in the pain Bentz and his deliriously deranged deity in the White House continues to heap upon you, but I am not immune from that pain. I fight against it on my behalf and yours.
All you bring to the table is willful tragedy and that sickening, thoughtless, heartless cry for "more."
Posterity will not pretend that you didn't know any better. You will not be excused.
You have chosen:
The U.S. Dollar losing 10% of its value.
Homeland Security Investigations suspending child exploitation cases to pursue the administration's whims.
Billions of dollars in lost revenue from illegal tariffs.
Billions of dollars in lost revenue from our illegal war in Iran and blockade of the Hormuz Strait.
Billions of dollars in lost revenue from deporting our nation's integral migrant workforce and the destruction of their communities.
Billions of dollars paid to the regime and its family members, collaborators, and sycophants.
Billions of dollars paid to a genocidal apartheid state whose blood-soaked borders will only broaden further under our continued protection.
Billions of dollars paid to none of the victims of fraud after the regime's shameless pardons for friendly financial fraudsters.
Billions of dollars withheld from hungry and sick Americans in order to subsidize a national militarized police force with one allegiance: the regime.
Billions of dollars sent to Argentina instead of to our schools, or put into our bridges and roads, or paying down our debts.
Billions of dollars spent to undermine our elections, bribe politicians, and ensure vast, sweeping protections for the industries and interests that pose the biggest threat to this nation's continued existence.
Trillions in lost government revenue to bathe the ruling-class in cash they earned off our streets, off our grids, off our data, off our health, and off our lives.
If congressperson Cliff Bentz is a fiscal conservative or a champion of the free market, he has yet to show it. If that's your stated reason for protecting his bad faith representation of the People, you cannot be trusted or believed. And if trans athletes or DEI is what motivates you, I am sorry your misery is all you have.
Voting Bentz is like begging to self-destruct — on your knees, no less, so as to dodge any effort to save you. That is the very picture of insanity, and it is committed to our collective memory.
The future will either ask forgiveness on your behalf or curse your name. To suggest the possibility of admiration or thanks for your political cowardice isn't just laughable; it is abominable. You will not be spared the shame Bentz embodies; he imparts it to you now.