The ebb and flow of the national news cycles is, in many ways, a hindrance rather than a help when it comes to following the midterms. CNN, MSNBC or FOX may devote a week’s worth of coverage to a particular candidate or race, giving the impression that it is suddenly changing or that we have learned something new and demeaning about a candidate, but this isn’t the case.

Although we in Hamilton may not see it, midterm elections do not take breaks when national coverage shifts. The candidates do not suddenly change when the spotlight is off. Why bring this up? Because although it may seem that we have learned more about the morally bankrupt and dishonest GOP candidates in Georgia and Nevada in recent weeks, do not forget that they have been that way all along.

Georgia has catapulted back into the spotlight with the revelation that Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker paid a former girlfriend to have an abortion, threatened his son and his mother — allegedly forcing them to move six times — and was urged by many members of his family not to not for Senate because these and many more revelations were certain to come to light, as they now have. This presents an issue for the GOP. The party has long championed itself as the party of “family values” and vigorously opposes abortion. After all, Walker is a self-described “pro-life” candidate.

Now, if the GOP were still a principled party, we could expect them to disavow him at the national level, and his support would plummet state-wide. Neither of those things has happened. Republican members of Congress have, by and large, stood by Walker. Moreover, he has only seen a one or two-percentage-point drop in support which, although significant in Georgia, is still overall very small. Although these developments are new, rumors about Walker’s secret children and allegations of domestic abuse have persisted since earlier this summer, and his support nationally and locally remained unchanged. Why does this matter? Because it makes it clear that Republicans at every level only care about winning. They do not care about ideology. They do not care about morals. All that matters is winning, no matter whose expense it is at, even their own.

Speaking of winning at all costs, let’s look at the Nevada Senate election. This race has started to break into the national news cycle because it’s become clear that Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto is in real danger of losing her seat to Republican opponent Adam Laxalt. Laxalt peddled the lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, and he argued that up to 200,000 ballots in Nevada were invalid. Despite these false and undemocratic claims, he has enjoyed support at the state-wide and national levels. It’s easy nowadays to become desensitized to the GOP lie that Trump won in 2020. In many ways, it is on the verge of becoming Republican orthodoxy. Do not underestimate how subversive, damaging and un-American that lie is. To subscribe to it is to reject democracy; to reject democracy is to reject America. Republicans who, for years now, have built their messaging around accusing Democrats of attacking America and hating this nation are themselves subverting America’s foundation. It is nothing but hypocrisy. Whether it’s a sincere subscription to that lie or cynical adoption of it, there is no difference.

These races reflect the sorry state of today’s Republican party. It’s a party built around a rotten core of lies and hypocrisy. To say it has a foundation of any sort would be incorrect. The Republican party of today is not what it once was. It stands for nothing. It is a party that has been corrupted at every level. Georgia and Nevada are just two cases that have broken into this week’s news cycle, but if you want more examples, look at Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Kari Lake and Blake Master in Arizona, JD Vance in Ohio and Tudor Dixon in Michigan, to name a few.

Republicans have stood by the worst their party has to offer even when those candidates run counter to the very foundation of the GOP. Remember that when you cast your ballot this November.