Ohio Republicans – A Legacy of Denial, Tokenism, and Faith-Washing

[0:04] In Ohio’s governor’s race, one party wants you to forget we went through a pandemic in 2020. It’s the same party responsible for the 20,000 deaths after they ignored the science. Ohio Representative Josh Williams is running for Congress and continuing the long-running legacy of tokenism in today’s Republican Party. He also carries water for white anti-abortionists. I think it’s funny that non-religious Trump and JD Vance, who became a Catholic like 20 minutes ago, would tell the infallible Pope of the Catholic Church that he’s wrong about theology.

[0:44] This is Secular Left with Doug Berger, an independent, religion-free, progressive viewpoint on topics of the day.

[1:00] Ohio’s primary election isn’t until May the 5th, but the presumed GOP candidate for governor is Vivek Ramaswamy, and he’s been airing an attack ad against Dr. Amy Acton, the presumed Democrat nominee. I saw the ad recently when it aired on April the 13th during the 6 p.m. News, and I instantly had issues with it. Nobody ever cast a vote for Amy Acton, but she stopped yours. Acton called off Ohio’s election at the last minute, defying a judge’s orders and abusing her power. Now, Acton wants to be our governor. We already gave her a chance. Ohio can’t afford liberal Amy Acton. The fake Ramaswamy will fight for us to protect our voice at the polls, supporting safe and secure elections with voter ID. So Ohio voters have the power. Not unelected bureaucrats. The fake Ramaswamy for governor. And as you can tell, the ad starts by claiming Dr. Acton canceled an election and also defied a judge’s order to hold that election. This is part of a tired attack on Dr. Acton. She has been hearing since 2020 when she was the Ohio Director of Health under Republican Governor Mike DeWine.

[2:14] In case people forget, and I think the GOP want people to forget, in 2020, we had the COVID pandemic, which resulted in lockdowns and other measures to try to protect people’s lives. The 2020 Ohio primary was scheduled for March 17th, which was the month the pandemic really hit hard and the lockdowns began.

[2:38] Dr. Acton signed an order postponing the March primary due to the health emergency, and she signed it at the direction of Governor DeWine. And he even put out a statement at the time. He said, during this time when we face an unprecedented public health crisis to conduct an election tomorrow would force poll workers and voters to place themselves at an unacceptable health risk of contracting coronavirus. As such, Health Director Dr. Amy Acton will order the polls closed as a health emergency. While the polls will be closed tomorrow, Secretary of State Frank LaRose will seek a remedy through the courts to extend voting options so that every voter who wants to vote will be granted that opportunity. And he put that statement out the day before the primary was supposed to be. Governor DeWine wanted to postpone the primary to June, and the Ohio Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the primary could be postponed. So Dr. Acton didn’t defy any judge, neither did the governor. I have a clip of a fact check of this very ad that was done by WCMH and Columbus Channel 4, and I wanted to play a particular part of the clip. And so let’s listen to it here. The decisions that were made during COVID, they were my decisions.

[4:07] So no one should blame someone else if they don’t like it. Two buck stops with me. That was the governor back in December.

[4:15] This week, members of the GOP sent me this health department order with Dr. Acton’s signature that canceled the 2020 primary election. In a phone call, Lieutenant Governor Candidate Rob McCauley told me he stands behind the ad. He says the election was canceled because of Acton’s guidance, and she violated her constitutional and statutory authority as the governor’s chief advisor. But the governor this week told me he ordered Acton to sign that directive. I’ve learned the day before the election, there was a telephone call to talk about whether or not the primary should be canceled. On the phone, Republican Governor Mike DeWine, his Lieutenant Governor, now Senator John Husted, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Republican Party Chair Jane Timpkin, Dr. Acton, and her Lieutenant Governor candidate David Pepper, who at that time was head of the Ohio Democratic Party. The governor says he listened to all of them. An insider tells me there was agreement on the call that it would be difficult to staff the polling locations because of fear of COVID. As for who was calling the shots, some months ago, I asked John Eustead about that. Governor DeWine is right.

[5:38] It was his decisions. And Dr. Acton was very cautious. She wanted to shut businesses down, shut schools down, not let sports happen. And I was on the other side of that saying, we need to open businesses up. We need to get schools open. We need to have sports playing again. And the governor ultimately made those decisions. Now, I’ve checked reporting from back at that time, ours and others. No one within the administration was questioning the cancellation of the primary election. Secretary LaRose is quoted as calling it a plan laid out by the governor, Husted, and LaRose.

[6:14] Now, again, that is, you heard the governor basically confirm that he directed Dr. Acton to cancel, not cancel, I don’t want to say cancel, they said cancel, postpone the primary. And again, it was a primary election, not a general election. And the GOP sent the The reporter there, Colleen Marshall, the copy of the order with her name on it. Well, Dr. Acton’s the director of health. She has to sign the order, but she did it at the direction of the governor.

[6:48] And then the other part of that clip that I wanted you to pay attention to was when Colleen Marshall notes that before the primary was postponed, there was a conference call between Frank LaRose, the Secretary of State, the governor, John Husted, the lieutenant governor at the time, Dr. Acton, and Jane Timken, who was the head of the Republican Party in Ohio at the time, and David Pepper, who was the head of the Ohio Democratic Party at the time. And they discussed the issue, and they came to a consensus that it would be best to postpone the primary. And that’s why I say that Rob McCauley should know that information. But as you heard in that clip from Channel 4 in Columbus, he is sticking with his story.

[7:44] Now, the Ohio legislature did pass a law in late March that required the primary to happen in April, but in a compromise with the health emergency at the time, there would be no in-person voting. It would be all done by absentee ballot, and an exception was made for those who couldn’t vote by mail, either they were elderly or disabled, but there would be one central voting location in each county allowed, and there were strict guidelines and masks were required because they didn’t want, they wanted to limit the exposure. And that law was passed, that legislative package was passed on March the 25th by both the Ohio House and Senate. And then, like I said, Rob McCauley, who is running as lieutenant governor with Ramswami, should know those facts since he was in the Ohio Senate in 2020. And he even introduced a bill that would immediately end the stay-at-home order and limit the state health director’s ability to give similar orders. So his claim that Dr. Acton acted unconstitutionally is false, or else he wouldn’t have had to introduce a bill to limit the health director’s ability to give similar orders, right? And the other part of that Channel 4 WCMH clip too was John Houston’s comment.

[9:07] And it pretty much leads to where it happened that Dr. Acton ended up resigning in June of 2020 because, as John Husted said, he wanted to get businesses back open and sports going and everything. They wanted to undo all the stay-at-home orders and let people be outside again because, for whatever reason, even though the science didn’t say, the medical people were still saying that it was too dangerous, but they got tired of it. And that’s when the Republicans started politicizing the coronavirus response here in Ohio. And John Husted was one of those that did that. So does Macaulay and some others. And they ended up, the governor then lost his nerve and started listening to the politicians rather than the medical people. And so he wanted Dr. Acton to revise some of the strict orders that she had previously signed, and then she decided against it. And there was an interview that she did with Colleen Marshall where she said that the Speaker of the House, Ohio House at the time, Larry Householder, is the one that demanded that she reduce some of the strict orders.

[10:34] And she refused to do it because she knows medical ethics and it’s do no harm.

[10:42] And so the COVID pandemic, the whole entire pandemic, ended up killing about 20,000 Ohioans altogether.

[10:53] And Macaulay and the other Republicans just didn’t care. They ignored the science for political gain. Now, another part of that Wanswami ad that I had an issue with was the claim that he would support secure elections and, quote, voter ID, unquote, whatever that means. I’m assuming he meant photo ID, since that is a big stink with Trump and company currently. But Ohio has required a photo ID to vote since 2023. And before that, it was one form of ID allowed, and in 2023 it was required. Passports and a U.S. military ID card, Ohio National Guard ID card, or U.S. Department of Veterans Affair ID card are also allowed. What’s not allowed is a student ID, which also has a photo. Imagine that. And also, we also have a law that doesn’t allow undocumented people to vote at all in Ohio for anything. Previously, municipalities could allow undocumented people to vote if it was just for a local issue. There’s already a federal law that doesn’t allow non-citizens to vote. So that’s not a problem.

[12:11] The other thing to remember, too, is the GOP has controlled Ohio state government since 2011. And current Secretary of State Frank LaRose has worked to make it harder to vote and crows about how secure Ohio elections are constantly. Every election, he’s celebrating it. So I’m not sure if there is any space for Ram Swamy or any Republican to support more secure elections. I mean, how much more secure can they be, really? But that’s the problem. The Ohio GOP and Ramswami have to convince Ohio voters to not only ignore the pandemic in 2020, but ignore the fact that they have been in charge for more than 10 years.

[12:55] And as I mentioned before, Dr. Acton resigned in June of 2020 after Governor DeWine stopped listening to the science and came to the politics. And I’m sure that we’ll see an ad or two, certainly from their campaign, from Macaulay and Ram Swamy’s campaign that complains about acting quitting, because that’s something I’ve seen on social media. We’ve already seen an old domestic dispute being brought up by the same people who allowed a known creepy sex pest to resume his committee assignments in the Ohio House, and who even endorsed Ram Swamy at one point before it was pointed out to him and he had the guy’s name removed from his website.

[13:36] The GOP really need to stop with the law and order performances and stop thinking that the voters are completely dumb and don’t know what’s going on.

[13:56] For more information on the topics in this episode and the links used, visit secularleft.us. Ohio State Representative Josh Williams is the only black Republican in the Ohio House of Representatives. He has leaned into being conservative, being a Republican. He talks the talk, and he’s anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, and supports forcing religion into the public schools. He claims affirmative action and DEI make black people into victims stuck in poverty, when his own story shows that isn’t true. He had a serious health issue years ago when he was a younger man, where he was bedridden for six years, and he had no high school diploma, and he had some legal issues. He used all of the programs available to low-income people with struggles like Josh, and he ended up going to college, became a lawyer, and like most conservatives, he then quickly forgot how he got to where he is now.

[15:25] Williams is one of six people running for the GOP nomination for the 9th Congressional District seat here in Ohio. That is currently held by Marcy Captor. All of the candidates are trying to out-MAGA all the others, so they can be the hand-picked puppet of Donald Trump. Now, I just don’t understand why a black person would debase themselves to gain favor with the world’s most famous racist. And that’s just beyond me. Josh is leaning into his Christian nationalist support when he crowed about winning the straw poll at a recent Greater Toledo Area Right to Life candidate forum. In another recent social media post, he repeated an often debunked claim about abortion and black women. He said, and I quote, I told my Democrat colleagues the truth about abortion, how half of abortions in Ohio last year were performed on black women, and how an estimated 20 million black babies have been killed in the womb since Roe v. Wade. They hated hearing the truth so much that they ridiculously accused me of violating all the rules of the Ohio House. But I will not shut up about the genocide of the unborn in my community, unquote.

[16:43] The claim that abortion is black genocide is not only a myth, but it is one used by the anti-abortion groups who are, not ironically, 99% white.

[16:58] If you look at the photo that Williams posted when he won that straw poll, it’s a meeting of the Greater Toledo Right to Life group. And I challenge anyone to find any black people other than Williams in that shot. Maybe the rest of them didn’t show up, or maybe the angle was wrong. Maybe all the black anti-abortionists were in the back of the room. Who knows?

[17:25] Bria Peacock, MD, is a medical doctor, a black gynecologist, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2022, and she, and quoting her, she says, Today, facing the likelihood of a post-Roe America, I think about forced births in this population that bears the highest maternal morbidity and mortality in the country. Black women will be disproportionately affected by the lack of abortion access and over-representative in pregnancy-related deaths. I think about our ancestors each time I support black women as they give birth or choose not to. I think about the young women of my community whose lives are forever changed by a lack of choice. As a black female physician, I aim to ensure that my patients can choose for themselves knowing that I’m there to support them, not exploit them for anyone’s gain. The myth of abortion as black genocide is a dangerous conspiracy theory that undermines the autonomy of black women, ignores systemic inequalities, and relies on racist stereotypes.

[18:31] It makes sense that Williams would carry water for white people, white supremacist people, since he was gerrymandered into a safer GOP district that is majority white voters. And Representative Williams has enjoyed the supermajority in the Ohio House, so much so that he has supported banning gender-affirming care for trans kids.

[18:58] He recently introduced yet another bill to control women’s abortion choices, even though we have a constitutional amendment to the Ohio Constitution that says that they can’t do that anymore. And as I said, religious bias permeates the statehouse so much that Representative Williams happens to be the only black Republican in the Ohio House.

[19:24] And he wants to ban drag shows in public, thinks trans people have a false belief and that it’s harmful for our society to affirm that false belief. When we all know what’s harmful is using the power of the state to bully and irrationally attack a marginalized group. And Representative Williams should know that. He also personally benefited from the same DEI programs and policies that he now claims are woke and need to be ended. It’s similar to the post that I did some time ago or the episode I did where I talked about Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice to the Supreme Court, who also is against affirmative action, DEI, and all those programs that help poor people get out of poverty. And he and Justice Thomas…

[20:14] Used those very programs, affirmative action in DEI or what it was called. I don’t know if it was called DEI back then. It helped him get into Yale Law School. That’s where he got his degree. He would not have gotten into Yale Law School on his own, completely on his own. And that’s another thing. That’s another mark against conservatives is they don’t think that they need help to get where they’re at at all. They think they’ve done it completely all by themselves.

[20:46] Even Josh Williams, even though he knows and he says in his biography that and one of these laws that he introduced, He complains about the bureaucratic red tape that it took for him to get out of the welfare and the care that he was receiving because he was bedridden for six years. And he was taught about the red tape and the bureaucracy to get out of it so he could go to college and everything. And yet he’s not saying, well, let’s improve the system. He wants to get rid of the system. So it’s that classic pulling the ladder up behind you after you’ve already used it. And as I said, you know, he crowed about winning the straw poll against some pretty religious extremist people that are running for the 9th District for the GOP nomination. So that’s not saying much. But as I said, most of the people in the greater Toledo right to life group are white.

[21:51] And any time that they bring up about genocide of black babies, it’s always from a white supremacist viewpoint that they’re making that argument.

[22:10] I know by living in this religiously biased world that we live in today, even here in the United States that supposedly has religious freedom, it can be quite exhausting to have to deal with religious extremists like all the time. You have, like, for example, here in Ohio, we have religious extremists that continue to target trans kids, continue to target the entire LGBT A-plus community.

[22:43] We have religious extremists that are still trying to restrict abortion. We also have a representative who believes, because of his religious beliefs, that drag performances, no matter where they’re performed, are naturally obscene. You know, just the fact that somebody believes that a trans girl is a predator. Now, I just don’t understand how people think that way. I also don’t understand how people aren’t giving others basic dignity and worth, especially, you know, we’ve seen religious extremists go after undocumented people. And we know, I mean, I’m an atheist. I’m a humanist. I’m an atheist. Even I know religious teachings are at the complete opposite of that. And so when Pope Leo, who’s the first American-born pope to be elected to the Roman Catholic Church, when he spoke out against the current chosen war by the Trump administration against Iran.

[23:56] It didn’t surprise me. I mean, I don’t have an opinion on it. He’s the Pope. He’s the leader of his church. It’s not any different than a CEO of a company putting out a statement of their values. But because it’s religion, it gets politicized. Well, at least currently here in the United States, religion gets politicized. And so with our current president, Donald Jefferson Trump, who is by all accounts a narcissist, I’m not a psychiatrist or mental health professional or anything like that. I’m just going by what I’ve been told and read in articles that he’s a classic narcissist, that he took that criticism by the Pope personally and lashed out at him, said he was weak on crime, whatever that means, and that he wants Iran to have a nuclear bomb, which is not the case. The Catholic Church has usually been against nuclear arms.

[25:04] And so this whole Trump administration, because Trump is mad about it, all his sycophants, all the people surrounding him support him, and they do his bidding. And as any good authoritarian does, you surround yourself with people that will do what you want them to do. And so we have Vice President J.D. Vance, who blasts the Pope as well. And what is ironic about it is that J.D. Vance has a book coming out called, I believe it’s called Communion, where he talks about his conversion to Catholicism. His wife is Hindu. He got married in a Hindu ceremony many years ago, but he decides to convert to Catholicism. And it makes sense because Catholics, according to the statistics, are the largest religious group in the United States that shifted to the right over the last few years.

[26:12] And the other thing also to know is that there is a large contingent of Catholics in our government currently that have sizable control. Several of the Supreme Court justices are Catholic. Coney Barrett, one of the newest associate judges, taught law at the University of Notre Dame. And I know years ago, the head of the FBI that actually knew what he was doing was also a member. He was also a Catholic.

[26:52] What was it called? The group was called the… Opius Day group or something like that. You might have to Google that. I’m not sure on that. Anyway, so J.D. Vance, who’s a newly minted Catholic, according to him.

[27:08] During a Turning Point USA conference on Tuesday, and this would have been the 14th of April, criticized the Pope for his disagreement with Trump. And Vance listed several disagreements he has with the Pope and then cited the conflict in Iran. And this is a quote from J.D. Vance. And he says, and look, there are certainly things that the Pope has said in the last few months that I disagree with. Let me take like one very concrete example related to this conflict in Iran. So the Pope said something where he said, I’m going to try to remember the exact quote, but he said that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword.

[27:49] God is never on the side of those who wield the sword. I’m pretty sure that’s what he said at that exact statement. Now, on the other hand, again, I like that the Pope is an advocate for peace. I think that’s certainly one of his roles. On the other hand, how can he say that God is never on the side of those who wielded the sword. Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis? Was God on the side of Americans who liberated the Holocaust camps? And those innocent people from, you know, those who survived the Holocaust? I certainly think the answer is yes, and I agree. And in this article that I got this quote from, it says, Vance equates World War II and Hitler’s thirst for genocide to Trump’s irrationally sneak attack on Iran. And that’s the point. The Pope was criticizing Trump for attacking Iran for no real rational reason.

[28:41] In World War II, we had to fight. We had to defend people. We had to defend not only the free world, but democracy against an evil person who was Adolf Hitler, who just so happened to trying to kill all the Jews that he could find. And to use a religious term, that was a righteous war. The Crusades, the people that fought the Crusades in Palestine was at the 12th and 13th centuries, I think. My history is probably pretty bad on that. The Crusades, they believed that they were on a quest from God. So they thought that they were wielding the sword appropriately. way.

[29:34] And so what Pope Leo was talking about was that he was pointing out rightfully that Trump chose to attack Iran for no real reason. We weren’t defending ourselves. We really weren’t defending ourselves.

[29:48] So then at this Turning Point USA conference, Vance then goes on to lecture the Pope on doctrine. And he says, when the Pope says that God is never on the side of those who wielded the sword. There is a thousand-year, more than a thousand-year tradition of just war theory, okay. Now we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just, but I think that it’s important in the same way that it’s important for the Vice President of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy. I think it’s very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology. So I think one of the issues here is that you’re going to opine on matters of theology. You’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to make sure that it’s anchored in the truth. And that’s one of the things that I try to do, and it’s certainly something I would expect from the clergy, whether they’re Catholic or Protestant. And here’s the thing, okay? I’m an atheist. I’m a humanist. But even I know that according to Catholic doctrine, the Pope is infallible. He is the ultra expert on theology and the Bible in the Catholic Church. You cannot dispute him on matters of theology. It is against canon law to do that. You could be excommunicated.

[31:09] For going against the Pope on a matter of theology. And there are dozens and dozens and dozens of anecdotal evidence to prove that of where you’ve had priests that have been defrocked and excommunicated because they decided that they knew better than the Pope when doing their masses or teaching their flocks.

[31:33] And so the fact that J.D. Vance, newly minted Catholic, thinks that he knows better than the Pope. Talk about arrogance. You know, these religious extremists are like that. It also blends into that common trope with these MAGA types that they just dismiss experts in whatever it is. They think that they’re the experts in everything. And so it’s just hilarious that the vice president of the United States thinks that he knows more than the Pope. Now, it’s just, I don’t have a personal opinion on the whole fracas, because I really don’t care. I just saw an article today where Bill Donahue, who is a Catholic extremist on the right, is kind of carrying water for Trump.

[32:35] And that he also disagrees with the Pope. He kind of hedges his bet, though. He doesn’t come right. He isn’t as confrontational as Vance was. He didn’t say that the Pope should stay in his lane. But he supports Trump’s war in Iran because, you know, most of the people on the right do because it’s, you know, they’re getting rid of the evil people, the evil Muslims. And so, you know, that’s the whole reason why they’re doing that.

[33:08] And so even Bill Donahue is kind of like, oh, wait a minute, you don’t want to do that, J.D. But he still kind of hedges his bets there. He doesn’t want to get in the Pope’s bad graces. But yeah, so I just think it’s hilarious that when these religious Christian nationalists, religious extremists start fighting amongst themselves, it’s very interesting because they get into these doctrinal theological arguments about things. And they always think that each one of them, each one of them, each of their views are the view. But then Trump is taking on the Pope.

[33:54] And there’s a lot of regular Catholics that are upset about it, unfortunately. I think he’s going to find out. And he actually needs the Catholics more than the Catholics need him. And so it’ll be interesting to see how that turns out.

[34:41] For more information on the topics in this episode and the links used, visit secularleft.us. If you want to support the show, share it with your friends or visit our merch store at secularleft.us.shop. See you next time.