Gaetzgate

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is caught up in quite a concerning issue. He is accused of not only sleeping with a 17-year-old female, but taking her across state lines on a trip. He is 38. (Let’s be clear here — if you are an adult, you are not sleeping with a minor. It is more accurately called rape, as minors can’t consent to sex.) As it turns out, a trip he took to the Bahamas may also be involved in this relationship, or possibly escorts.

Now, it’s long been known that Matt Gaetz is a skeeze. He would show naked pictures of women he slept with to his colleagues… ON THE HOUSE FLOOR. Whether these women knew these pictures were taken or not is unsure, but even if they were fully aware, which I’m going to assume they were, I doubt they would have given consent to show his buddies. He also has some previous issues with DUIs, broke into a SCIF with his electronic devices while Gaetz (and 13 other Republicans who stormed the SCIF) were already legally allowed to be in there because of the committees they were on, he kicked out a grieving father out of a hearing on gun violence, perpetuated The Big Lie and voted not to certify the votes in Arizona, claimed the insurrection on January 6 wasn’t made up of Trump supporters but Antifa, announced he had an immigrant son, Nestor, as a political prop when told he didn’t know what it was like to be a black man in America (Nestor is not related to him in any way — Gaetz dated the teen’s older sister at one point, but did not adopt Nestor) — which doesn’t make him any more knowledgeable about being a black man in America anyways, downplayed COVID-19, was accused of inventing a sex game while he was in the Florida Legislature that is shockingly vile…

I mean, do I need to go on? That’s a long paragraph, but I could keep going. Needless to say, Matt Gaetz is generally just not a good person.

This whole sex scandal with Matt Gaetz started into a probe into Former Seminole County Tax Collector, Joel Greenberg, and over time, led to Matt Gaetz. One damning piece of information is that Matt Gaetz used Venmo to send Greenberg $900. The following day, Greenberg sent money to three separate girls varying amounts of money with the memo being “Tuition.” The total was $900. Gaetz’s memos were interesting as well. The first was just “Test,” but the second says a lot. It states, “Hit up [insert name here].” The name was one of the recipients of the money, who was a minor.

Gaetz had a public list of Venmo transactions this week until he deleted them. Greenberg’s Venmo account is not currently accessible. However, it is highly likely that he will take a plea deal. Matt Gaetz must not be feeling very safe today.

Ex-Speaker John Boehner says that Matt Gaetz should resign or be expelled if he is indicted. I’m not even sure Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) will ask for him to resign even if he is indicted. So far, only one Republican, Adam Kinzinger (Il.), has called for Gaetz to resign. If Gaetz were a Democrat, we would have already called for him to resign. We don’t accept sexual harassment or assault in our party, let alone child rape or trafficking. When Al Franken’s photo came out, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insisted they gather the Ethics Committee. Of course, Democrats had already demanded he resign.

There’s a double standard here. Democrats don’t accept this behavior whether they get in legal trouble for it or not. Republicans are fine. It’s not surprising anymore. They even backed Roy Moore, a known pedophile, when he ran for the Alabama Senate. But we have to look no further than the former President. Trump has been accused of over 25 women for sexual harassment, assault, or rape, including rape by a minor; however, the stories have been covered up and made to seem like it’s just normal behavior.

I’m not a perfect Democrat. I’m a Social Democrat. But one reason I’m happy to register as a Democrat instead of an Independent and especially as a Republican is that because when it comes down to it, Democrats do the right thing without being forced to. That’s a team I’m proud to be on.