Republicans and their propagandists continue to place party loyalty above all else. They reduce anything that does not conform to a particular rigid ideological standard in every scenario as “liberal.”

This is a tactic that has worked for Republicans to the determent of objectivity. Objectivity is necessary for problem solving and is the basis for scientific analysis. To denigrate inconvenient facts with word “liberal” reduces objective reality to a pointless us-versus-them exercise.

That is not problem solving for the real world, it is blinders-on service to political dogma. Offering divisive political dogma as fertilizer for a later political harvest has served the Republican party, not the American people.

If one looks at the Justice Department, for instance, one would see a department aflame with ideological extremism. Once deemed above politics, it has denigrated into an ideological encampment that is serving a narrow set of interests over the intent of particular departments like the civil rights division, according to a report by MSNBC.

The report pointed out that the civil rights division has gone from filing hundreds of civil rights cases to filing virtually none, focusing instead on issues such as white “voter disenfranchisement” that benefits the Republican party.

Americans deserve better than a divided government in service to right-wing ideology. They deserve honest Democrats who solve problems, not Republicans like Sen. Susan Collins, who create them.

The Republican strategy of dividing Americans for political gain must stop.

Mark Tardif, Waterville