As an Ohioan, this November, I will be voting straight Republican, including Senate candidate J.D. Vance, who screams RINO.

With one exception: Gov. Mike DeWine will not get my vote.

When the pandemic emerged, lockdowns became common in the unnecessary panic, and blatant lies about COVID-19 ruled the day, almost every governor became a dictator.  There was the notable exception of Kristi Noem of South Dakota, and most Republican governors followed her lead, opening up their states after short stints of illegal shutdowns, moves that usurped Congress's prerogatives and violated civil rights of Americans.  Democrat governors did the opposite.

Governor DeWine was the only Republican to follow the Democrat governors.  There was no short stint for him as dictator.  He grabbed hold of power without letting it slip away and held on to it.

When DeWine shut down most businesses, which is a usurpation of Congress's prerogatives based on an undue impact on interstate commerce, small family businesses were destroyed.  People lost their jobs, and some committed suicide or became homeless.  Drugs and alcohol increased for the unemployed who otherwise would have been working.

DeWine told most people their jobs did not matter when he shut down their livelihoods, which means they did not matter.  That was a significant reason for suicides and overdoses that followed.

How dare he tell people they do not matter?

For those of us who were deemed by him to have value, papers were issued for travel, which I had.  I could have been pulled over for no reason other than driving and asked to see my papers.  That happens in places where tyrants rule, which is not supposed to happen in America by any governor for any reason.

While the overdoses piled up, DeWine continued to rule without a care for the loss of life.  He preferred power over the lives ruined by his actions.

Those overdoses continue to this day.

Shutting down had horrible effects on Ohioans across the board, beyond the overdoses.  His tyrannical action devastated the lives of almost every Ohioan.

DeWine proved himself to be not at all different from Democrat governors.  Everything they did was criticized by Republicans, yet he carried on with the Democrat program.

I will be voting independent.  When asked about risking DeWine losing to his Democrat challenger, Nan Whaley, by voting independent, my response is simple: would she have done anything different with lockdowns from what he did?  No.

I will vote for a suspected RINO, Vance, for Senate, because RINOs are not as bad as Democrats by any metric.  Even the Trump-hating Sen. Mitt Romney is better than any Democrat in the Senate.  Not by much, but still better.

The difference between RINOs and Democrats is enough to allow me to vote RINO in November.  I wish DeWine were a RINO, since the dictatorship would have been shorter.

DeWine is no RINO.  He proved himself to be a Democrat.

Bob Ryan is a writer who has an MBA.  He is an American Christian Zionist who staunchly supports Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.  He has been a weekly blogger at the Times of Israel since 2019.

Image: Vivien McClain Photography via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.