OPINION: Republicans and the Stockholm Syndrome

AN EARLIER article by Phil Edmonston, Chairman of Democrats Abroad, Panama,  invited local Republicans to a pre-election debate, which was a well attended tradition in previous years.

No one picked up the gauntlet, but the invitation still stands.

Additionally Newsroom welcomes a response to Edmonston’s latest contribution.

It should be no longer than 500 words and carry y the name of the author.

Phil Edmonston writes

REMEMBER Patty Hearst? She is the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst; who was kidnapped in 1974, while she was a 19-year-old student living in Berkeley, California.

She was abducted by a left-wing terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army.  Threatened with death, raped, and kept in a closet for lengthy periods, she re-emerged as an SLA bank robber and propagandist.

When caught, she recanted and was pardoned.

Psychiatrists successfully pleaded Hearst was afflicted with ´Stockholm Syndrome´, a mental affliction where kidnapped victims, under duress, identify with a kidnapper´s goals and actions.

Republicans are afflicted by the same malady, of which Donald Trump is the symptom, not the cause.

The Tea Party alternate right-wingers have kidnapped the Republican Party and increased their strength following the ineffective leadership of House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

So, you believe climate change is a hoax? Evolution is not possible—cavemen rode on the backs of dinosaurs, and the Earth is only 6,000 years old? And, women should be punished for having an abortion? No problem.

The Party of Lincoln now has a place for you.

The lust for power and fear of the extreme right has turned Republicans in Congress into a band of cowards, rather than a band of brothers.