A degrading new political trend no longer rattles Americans

US President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Guardian Centers in Perry, Georgia, US, October 24, 2026.

REUTERS/Edgar Su
D. Earl Stephens
October 25, 2026 | 07:50AM ET

I have to admit that I am shocked by the attention the abhorrent ad that Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is running to attack, and hurt his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, is receiving.

I’m sorry, but just where in the hell has everybody been the past decade?

Ramaswamy’s ad is revolting to be sure, and deeply degrading to Dr. Acton, women, and survivors of rape and incest, but do I really have to remind everybody that our president is a noxious, violent abuser who REPUBLICANS have chosen to be their standard-bearer the past three presidential elections???

This really is insane.

The leader of this despicable party, the serial-lying, morally busted convicted felon, and American-attacking and woman-abusing Donald Trump, makes Ramaswamy look like a choir boy by comparison.

Frankly, the hand-wringing by too damn few in the Republican Party over this ad during yet another ugly political moment among thousands the past decade has my head spinning, it really does.

If you are a Republican who is trying to tell us that Ramaswamy’s venom went too far, then just where have you been while Trump has effortlessly called political adversaries names like, “scum” “vermin” “dogs” and “filth?”

How far has your head been willingly stuck up your rear end, when mimicking his hero, Adolph Hitler, Trump has portrayed Black people as monkeys and says immigrants from “s--- hole countries” are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

In what sound-proof closet were you locked in when Trump called professional women like Dr. Acton “fat pigs” “dogs” “slobs” “disgusting animals” “piggy” “ugly” “horse face” and “stupid?”

Seriously.

You have got to be kidding me right now …

Trump has lowered the bar of civil discourse deep into the muck and mire the past decade so that his sickening proteges like Ramaswamy can easily clear it. The ad the guy ran was horrible, sure, but it is hardly the worst thing we have seen since the man who said. “(He) can do anything” to women, including “grabbing ‘em by the …”

Once Republicans decided that was OK, ANYTHING was OK.

Trump has enabled Republicans everywhere to be just as gross and repellent as they want to be, and Ramaswamy is the latest sicko to gleefully cash in on his lewd favor.

And no surprise, King Dump is eagerly defending his apprentice.

The press is “trying to convince everyone that this very powerful ad is bad,” Trump bellowed, “Because it’s so good!”

I have typed this 47 times the past decade, but it can’t be typed enough: The Republicans’ capacity to always go lower is breathtaking.

They have repeatedly showed that there is no bottom to their actions and words. In fact, they are still heading there at an accelerating speed.

Worse? Knowing all this, many of our friends and neighbors will still eagerly pull the lever for their favorite Republican candidates the next 11 days. Not because the Republican candidate of their choice has no standards, but because THEY have no standards.

Many of them have voted for the world’s most notorious lowlife three times. Not because he’s any good at his job, of course, but because he can reach deep inside them and bring out their very worst.

Have you seen the people that attend his circus rallies?

Of course you have ...

They dress up in their garish costumes like spoiled, snotty 4-year-olds and just let the hate drain out of them, while the orange, dirty, old man on stage conjures up his very worst to delight them.

Those rallies are all about going lower, grifting, and little else. What outlandish things will he say tonight?! What kind of childish nickname will he come up with for the libtard Democrat?! Will he do his little dance …?

Republican voters aren’t upset by this ad, or any of the hundreds of revolting things Trump has said and done, but they are slightly upset that the crap they consume — but mostly the cost of food, gas and electricity — is just too expensive right now.

And while it’s just a little politically inconvenient that Ramaswamy said out loud what so many of them think so close to an election, they aren’t really bothered by it, either. I bet you can’t point to one Republican you know who has publicly spoken against it.

These people are desensitized. Morally lost. Without standards.

Because while this ad is running, there has been absolutely no convictions of the scum — including, and mostly, Trump — who litter the Epstein Files they told us they were so damned concerned about in the 2024 election.

Children are being violently rounded up and being stuck in cages, separated from their parents. American citizens are being gunned down by masked government agents. Our endangered animals are being exterminated, and our drinking water, air and food are being poisoned for corporate gain.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is their enemy, and Vladimir Putin is their friend.

Our children are being slaughtered in our schools, and they don’t care. Let me repeat that: THEY DO NOT CARE.

But that Ramaswamy ad? Well now, that crossed a line.

Please, spare me with all this.

The Republican Party is a cesspool. It is governed by hate and willing ignorance. It is a marketplace of evil ideas and destruction. It is racist, misogynistic, and anti-American.

That we’ve decided one revolting ad has gone too far, when “too far” left the stable at a gallop 10 years ago, is absurd.

This is who the Republicans are each and every day, and it would be about damn time everybody starting reckoning with this sickening fact.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and awarding-winning journalist, who headed newsrooms, and worked as a reporter in the newspaper business for decades. You can find all his work here.