Editorial: Responsible GOP should counter the me-first crowd [View all]

Cross posted in Editorials & Other Articles

From the Columbus Dispatch.

It’s doubtful Gov. Mike DeWine is very worried about the “Impeach DeWine” sentiments showing up in some corners of his own Ohio GOP. For one thing, he’s been pretty busy of late, working on reopening the state’s economy without inviting a lethal resurgence of coronavirus infection.

Beyond that, DeWine is quite popular at the moment with Ohioans, Republican and Democrat, who appreciate his thoughtful and principled handling of the pandemic. So an impeachment movement isn’t likely to gain much traction beyond the fringes of the state’s diehard far-right wing.

Still, it’s incumbent on other Republicans – the ones interested in actually exercising the power they hold to govern the state – to speak out.

The likes of state Rep. Nino Vitale of Urbana and Ohio Gun Owners, a gun-rights group even more extremist than the National Rifle Association, are of course well within their First Amendment rights to protest whatever they don’t like about the DeWine administration. Unfortunately, what they choose to say tends to feed a toxic subculture that rejects public responsibility and, in the case of the pandemic, ignores science.

Their speech should be countered by that of conservatives who recognize the concept of a public good that exists alongside their individual rights.

In terms of what public good can ever – temporarily, with science-based justification – trump individual liberties, none is more obvious than public health.

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