In the early months of 2015, Americans have watched as one presidential candidate after another stepped up to the national stage to declare why they were truly the only one who can bring America back to the “once great nation that it was.” While I know that phrase is overused, I couldn’t agree with it anymore now than I have in the past. 

Ted Cruz is a 44-year-old United States Senator from Texas. Although he was born in Alberta, Canada, he wants Americans to believe he is as American as it gets. Just a little side note: His mother is from Canada and his father is from Cuba. He is a natural born citizen because his mother spent more than ten years in the states. So, if this is truly the case, why does it matter where Barack Obama, whose mother was born in Kansas, was born in the first place?

Identifying as a member of the Tea Party (you know, the true patriots of America), Cruz was elected in 2012. His crowning achievement in the Senate thus far is when he read “Green Eggs and Ham” on the floor during his filibuster in September 2013, which led to a partial government shutdown that cost the country $24 billion. He opposes the Affordable Care Act and has vowed to get rid of it all together, opposes the president’s immigration reform and denies climate change is real, saying legislation to prevent it would damage the American economy. Oh, and he loves Ronald Reagan, so you should vote for him.

Rand Paul is a first-term Senator from Kentucky. Paul wants “Obamacare” gone (because some billionaire told him to do it and he shook his head yes. Also because it has “Obama” in it). He also believes that businesses have the right to discriminate against minorities and homosexuals because of their First Amendment right. 

In the past, Paul has supported legislation that would cut the Department of Education by 83 percent, the Department of Homeland Security by 43 percent, as well as folding the Department of Energy into the Department of Defense and eliminating the Department of Housing and Urban Development all together. He also stalled a vote to confirm John Brennan as the Director of the CIA in a filibuster that lasted almost thirteen hours, because you have to try and get your name in the news somehow when you want to run for president. Oh, and he loves Ronald Regan, so you should vote for him. 

Marco Rubio is also a first-term Senator hailing from the state of Florida. His most notable moment in the Senate is when he proposed a plan providing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, but then ran away from it because Republicans cried amnesty. Going to my history point: do conservatives not remember when Ronald Regan granted over three million undocumented immigrants amnesty? 

To his credit, in a recent interview, Rubio said he didn’t think being gay was a choice, but rather the way some people were born. Being only one of three Hispanics in the Senate, Rubio could do well in the primaries. Oh, and he loves Ronald Regan, so you should vote for him. 

Ben Carson is a retired neurosurgeon who is best known for successfully separating conjoined twins at the head. Carson first became popular after delivering a speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, and has clung to that fame ever since. Carson once commented on same-sex marriage saying: “Marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA (which is a group for pedophiles), be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.” He also stated in an interview that homosexuality is a choice because “a lot of people go into prison straight, and when they come out, they’re gay”. 

Carson is also a critic of the Affordable Care Act, calling it “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.” 

These are just a few of the Republicans who have announced, or plan to announce, their intention to seek the presidency. These candidates who wish to return America to the “once great nation that it was” represent the same party who supports tax cuts for the super-rich, wants to control women and their right to choose, believes that being homosexual is something you just wake up one morning to decide to be and that gutting most of the federal government will solve all of our problems. 

Also, to those of you who think that this article is satirical, I am talking about the Republican Party, people.