Republicans

JD Vance is the handpicked leader of the anti-democracy movement in the US (10/3/2024)

The Republican blueprint for power contains the seeds of its own demise Timothy Snyder (7/19/2024)

What's Project 2025? Unpacking the Pro-Trump Plan to Overhaul US Government (7/3/2024)

about Republicans
There’s been nothing like this in history. It’s kind of an outrageous statement, but it happens to be true, that the Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in human history. Nobody, not even the Nazis, was dedicated to destroying the possibility of organized human life. It’s just missing from the media. In fact, if you read, say, the sensible business press, the Financial Times, Businessweek, any of them, when they talk about fossil fuel production, the articles are all just about the prospect for profit. Is the U.S. moving to number one and what are the gains? Not that it’s going to wipe out organized human life. Maybe that’s a footnote somewhere. It’s pretty astonishing. Noam Chomsky
The radical right insurgency has swept all before it, crushing the administrative state, destroying public protections, capturing the courts, the electoral system and the infrastructure of government, shutting down the right to protest and the right to live. While we persuaded ourselves that there is no time for system change, they proved us wrong by changing everything. George Monbiot (7/19/2022) Days of Rage
When it comes to three of the most urgent crises we face — covid-19, global warming and gun violence — [Republicans] disdain prevention in favor of amelioration. In practice that means allowing these calamities to rage out of control — and then hoping for the best. Max Boot in the Washington Post (9/22/2021)
"the real incomes of middle class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans." Larry Bartels, Unequal Democracy, the Political Economy of the New Gilded Age
“Arguments in defense of the centralization of power and rising authoritarianism are always different, but the results are always the same: corruption, stagnation, dictatorship, repression, violence.” Gary Kasparov
Why I am not a Republican
Centralization of power in the executive, politicization of the judiciary, attacks on independent media, the use of public office for private gain—the signs of democratic regression are well known. The only surprising thing is where they’ve turned up. As a Latin American friend put it ruefully, “We’ve seen this movie before, just never in English.” Foreign Affairs: Is Democracy Dying ?
"For a long, long time, Republicans have been selling you an economic agenda that goes like this: the way you and yours are going to get on the world, with a well paying job and good benefits and a secure, comfortable retirement and so on, is by eliminating government regulations, busting up your unions, and cutting taxes on your boss. Now, even if you don't believe all that, you've been voting for it." Jul 30, 2017
Democratic backsliding, lubricated by populism, polarization, and post-truth often involves a return to a kind of twenty-first century patrimonialism, ... they will work to turn the state into a sprawling criminal conspiracy instead. Instead of building a state to protect their citizens from the mafia, they morph the state into a mafia-like organization designed to take over the nation's most precious assets and control of the most valuable businesses and transfer them to their families and cronies.
The Revenge of Power: Democracy in Retreat by Moises Naim
The Republican Party has become a radical insurgency - ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. Securing the common good in the face of these developments will require structural changes but also an informed and strategically focused citizenry.
Finding the Common Good in an Era of Dysfunctional Governance Thomas E. Mann & Norman J. Ornstein (2013)
...movement Conservatives that had taken over the Republican Party ... an ideology that permitted wealth to concentrate at the top, just as the defense of antebellum slavery had been. The Republican Party in the twenty-first century adhered to the position it had organized in the nineteenth century to fight. And like their southern predecessors in the 1850s, Movement Conservatives in 2004 were boasting that “Republican hegemony” would last “for years, maybe decades.” Like their predecessors, they were wrong. A looming crises soon revealed that their devotion to an ideology divorced from reality meant they no longer knew how to govern. Heather Cox Richardson: To Make Men Free, a History of the Republican Party.

Why the Spineless, Craven, & Sold-Out GOP Sides with Trump's Big Lie 2.0 (6/6/2024)

The G.O.P. Push for Post-Verdict Payback: ‘Fight Fire With Fire’ (6/5/2024)

MAGA is a 'Russian intel op': Experts respond to allegation GOP using Kremlin propaganda

Trump’s RNC takeover triggers strife and staff exits as purge partly backfires (4/8/2024)

Want to make it in the Republican party? Pledge allegiance to the Big Lie (3/28/2024)

A guide to Project 2025, the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration (3/20/2024)

Project 2025: The Latest Plot Against America (3/13/2024)

What I Learned When I Read 887 Pages of Plans for Trump’s Second Term (2/29/2024)

How Putin Co-Opted the Republican Party (2/22/2024)

Trump’s G.O.P. Is a Confederacy of Fakers (2/20/2024)

Republican congressmen are now talking about throwing migrants from helicopters (2/5/2024)

Republicans have only won the popular vote in ONE Presidential Election since 1992.

GOP vs Dem

The Republican party, which claims high moral values, spreads a toxic culture, a flawed system, bad people, does not benefit anyone except the very wealthy, and makes the future look grim.

Fascists have always had a home in the GOP, never liked the New Deal, attempted to overthrow FDR. Before WWII they supported Germans, spread propaganda to keep the US out of the war

After WWII the US had progressive taxes, the highest marginal rate over 90%, which reduced wealth inequality and funded important government programs. The middle class did well, college was affordable.

Although after WWII the Second Bill of Rights was implemented in Germany and Japan, so that they had universal healthcare, the US did not do the same. It was always a mistake to make corporations or churches responsible for social programs. Privatized US health care is the world’s most expensive, pre-existing conditions blocked many from affordable insurance. Didn’t cover everyone. Many were indebted or bankrupted. Republicans fought fiercely any attempt to improve the system

Lies and misinformation are a trademark of the GOP. People think they are good for the economy. They are not.

If you vote GOP, you are not voting in your own self-interest. When you see the US has the most expensive healthcare in the world bankrupting the sick, hordes of homeless, students in lifetime debt burden, unaffordable child care, substandard eldercare, that’s what you got for those Republican tax cuts. That’s GOP motivated small government. The GOP is funded by wealthy minority that is doing all it can to keep people down, capture government, and extract as much wealth as they can. Like other such governments, they are armed and may refuse to be replaced in real elections. It's not great and it won't be.

GOP is a far right party, has always had a fascist fringe that is now mainstream, opposed WWII,turns a blind eye to violence, and is a cult like following of a demagogue.

Authoritarians, including the GOP, to impose their ideology, control media, interfere in education to indoctrinate, don't tolerate political opposition, and are hard to remove because they violently retaliate if people disagree. Resulting hate leads to violence and war as in Israel, Syria, Russia, and the US.

Trump’s candidacy is a national embarrassment. He is running to stay out of jail and his co conspirators support him for the same reason. He’ll pardon the January 6 rioters.

Republican Vote Tracker

Trump promised oil executives that he would allow them to do what they want if they contribute a billion $ to his campaign. Game over for the environment and the future for the kids for a campaign contribution, by selling out the US at fire sale prices.

Trump appointed judges are slow walking his trials at the price of national security. Justice delayed is justice denied. Elect the GOP, result in lawless government.

With the complicity of the corrupted Supreme Court Republicans have made the US number 1 in mass shootings, would roll back gun controls, are armed and may refuse to be replaced in real elections. If they win it won’t be great. Putin may be pleased. NATO may become a protection racket. The US will get a mob boss.

Because Republicans are a minority party they have to cheat at elections. Empowered by the Supreme Court, they suppress opposition voters and gerrymander in States where they can. It is why in Florida, where voters said that felons should be allowed to vote, they added a provision that required ex-felons to pay back debt before they could vote. It is why red States are governed badly. It is why they tried to bully their way to have a citizenship question on the census. The flawed Constitution allows them to maintain control, even of the Presidency without the popular vote. It is why, at every opportunity, they change voting law to assure their own election, and oppose democracy. It is why US democracy is on life support.

Republicans plan tax cuts for the wealthy paid for by cuts to the vulnerable, Social Security, Medicare and others. To do that requires a sociopaths.

Republicans reward the wealthy, and keep people down for profit.


In the continuing struggle for democracy against capitalism, Republicans choose capitalism, which actually has become fascism.

There is a slippery slope to the political right. Unconstrained capitalism concentrates wealth, tax cuts shift the burden to people, union busting defeats workplace democracy, captured agencies do not regulate, industry concentrates and so does wealth, making the US an oligarchy that richly fund the GOP and opposition to democracy.

The GOP are cult-like followers of a demagogue, an existential threat to the republic. They threaten violence on judges, election workers, witnesses, dissenting politicians. They plan to dismantle the administrative state, refuse to accept an election that they lose, attack media, reject the rule of law, trash the Constitution. If they regain power, the next election could be our last one. The US looks like the 1933 German Wiemar republic just before it collapsed.

Republicans are authoritarians and have worked for a long time to create an imperial Presidency. Trump accomplished that. Trump ignores the Constitution’s separation of powers, refuses checks including Congressional subpoenas, any oversight, fires Inspector Generals. The DOJ under Willian Barr dismissed US Attorneys investigating Trump, and acted like the President’s Roy Cohn, putting him above the law. Authoritarianism and kleptocracy are closely related.

Mary Trump

Should he win a second term, Trump plans to be a dictator, acting out the authoritarians playbook: demonize the opposition, undermine the courts, attack the media, gain control of public broadcasting, impose strict controls on the internet, subdue civil society, intimidate the business community, enrich crony capitalists, assert political control over the civil service and security apparatus, gerrymander and rig electoral rules, control the body that runs elections, repeat until democracy is dead. (paraphrased from Larry Diamond’s book ‘Ill Wind’)

It has been said that Donald Trump aspires to be a King, however at least in European Countries, Kings were stripped of most State power and became figureheads. They cut ribbons, act as roving ambassadors, politely comment on public policy, and sign important documents. Real decisions are made by representative, elected bodies. We should strengthen our Constitution so the President cannot make himself a dictator. Trump was a warning. It can happen here.

Government is a vital part of the body politic. When it is attacked, the body sickens.

Republicans say they don't like government, and, not surprisingly, they are bad at governing. Far right government as seen in red states does not benefit people.

Republicans want to take power by force once and for all. If they should regain power, expect a dictatorship like Putin’s or Orban’s. Project 2025 is a plan that threatens everyone. They intend their government will be permanent, like Putin’s almost impossible to remove.

Democracy is a much better way to govern than dictatorship, but Republicans seem to prefer dictatorship.

Patrick Henry

Why is the GOP joining Putin, Xi, & MBS to Destroy Democracy? (12/27/2023)

15 questions that will not be asked at the Republican debate (12/6/2023)

The 6 Kinds of Republican Voters (8/17/2023)

Trump’s indictment can’t solve the real threat: our undemocratic electoral system (8/17/2023)

‘Project 2025’: plan to dismantle US climate policy for next Republican president (7/27/2023)

Trump and the Republican party exemplify these five elements of fascism (6/17/2023) the Guardian, Robert Reich

The death of the Republican party is not a tragedy to be celebrated (4/19/2023)

It should now be clear to everyone: The Republican Party is incapable of governing. E.J.Dionne (7/29/2020)
The Next Insurrection
What Republicans have is a playbook: Make people scared and then tell them you’re the only one that can solve it. Governor Wes Moore of Maryland
While rural Americans often tell reporters that they feel neglected and ignored by big-city coastal elites, the people preventing them from getting health care aren’t in New York or D.C., they’re in their own state capitals. And these state politicians hold power in large part thanks to the strong Republican leaning of rural voters. Self-Inflicted Medical Misery, Red America’s homemade rural health crisis. (6/24/2019)
There is no question in my mind anymore that the Republican Party has reconfigured itself as a Confederate party. Not because it is so largely white, though it is. Not because it is largely Southern, though it is that, too. And not because it fights so hard for vestigial accoutrements like the Confederate battle flag. The Republican Party is a Confederate party, I think, because that is its view of what the government of the United States should be. It is written quite clearly in the party's platform that the Republicans adopted last week in Tampa: "The Republican party... stands for the rights of individuals, families, faith communities. institutions — and of the States which are their instruments of self-government." Charles Pierce: Esquire Magazine 9/2012
What conservatives are really arguing for is a return to the three historic embodiments of tyranny that the Founders and Framers identified, declared war against, and fought and died to keep out of our land. Those tyrants were kings, theocrats, and noble feudal lords....They stripped the president of the power to declare war...Separated the State from the church and they rejected feudalism (broadly defined as "rule by the super rich.) From Thom Hartman's book Threshold.
...market systems turn you into a sociopath - you're out there for yourself, and you don't give a damn about anyone else. That's a market system. That itself is destructive. Noam Chomsky
"The Republican party has become an insurgent outlier -- ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. When one party moves this far from the center of American politics,it is extremely difficult to enact policies responsive to the countries most pressing challenges..." Thomas Mann and Norman Orenstein: It's Even Worse than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism
"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
H. L. Mencken
Stupid Republicans ?

Texas fracking billionaire brothers fuel rightwing media with millions of dollars (9/5/2023)

12m Americans believe violence is justified to restore Trump to power (6/9/2023)

The US debt ceiling crisis is more proof of Republicans’ cynicism and bad faith (5/18/2023)

George Santos, liar and fantasist, fits in with the Republican party just fine (5/12/2023)

'One of the Odd and Scary Things About American Politics' Is What Republicans Are Doing (4/19/2023)

Republicans are a mess right now, and voters know it. Does the party? (4/10/2022) Guardian

The Grift is at the Core of the GOP's Existence (3/30/2023)

Three Reasons the Republican Party Keeps Coming Apart at the Seams (1/15/2023)

Republicans: Making War To Preserve Peace

Crooks and Liars

The Lincoln Project

Please put us out of our misery
Republicans are driving a very bad bargain: "we are in the process of destroying a great many things which are real air, soil, water, energy, resources, other species, our health for the sake of something that exists chiefly in our imagination: money. from DeclineOfTheEmpire.com

GOP Morphs From Political Party to the Greatest Threat to Humanity in 50 Years (11/6/2022)

US politics’ post-shame era: how Republicans became the party of hate (10/23/20222)

Republicans are trying to win by spreading three false talking points. Here’s the truth (10/16/2022) Robert Reich (Guardian)

Republicans’ lawless leaders at odds with midterm law and order message (10/3/2022) Guardian

The Trump Republican violence machine: Why have violent attacks and threats of violence escalated across America? Robert Reich (8/25/2022)

Republicans Are America’s Problem (8/17/2022) NYT

Why do Putin, Trump, Tucker Carlson and the Republican party sound so alike? Robert Reich (3/29/2022) Guardian

As Right-Wing Rhetoric Escalates, So Do Threats and Violence (8/13/2022) New York Times

The Republican party is obsessed with children – in the creepiest of ways (3/30/2022)

The real – and far scarier – reason Republicans think Biden is illegitimate (3/21/2022)

Guns, Germs, Bitcoin and the Antisocial Right (1/31/2022) NYT Paul Krugman

How the events of last January 6 put the existence of the United States in question (Timothy Snyder)

How Saboteurs Took Over the G.O.P. (12/3/2021) Paul Krugman, NYT

Trump booed after telling supporters to get Covid vaccine (8/22/2021)

The Nation Needs a Reality-Based G.O.P. Only the Kook Caucus Is Stepping Up. (7/8/2021)

This sedition is brought to you by… (6/23/2021)

The Nazification of the Republican Party (1/20/2021) by Loretta J. Ross

The 139 Republicans Who Lied, Fueled An Insurrection And Then Voted To Cover It Up (6/2/2021)

Yet while the party appears to have no legislative agenda, it’s a mistake to conclude that it has no policy agenda. Because Republicans do: They have an extraordinarily ambitious agenda to roll back voting rights, to strip the government of much of its power to regulate, to give broad legal immunity to religious conservatives and to immunize many businesses from a wide range of laws. It’s just that the Republican Party doesn’t plan to pass its agenda through either one of the elected branches. Its agenda lives in the judiciary — and especially in the Supreme Court. Republicans Have an Ambitious Agenda for the Supreme Court (3/30/2021)
Zombie Republicanism is a threat to the body politic. The treatment will require radical interventions, including the transformation or dissolution of the Republican Party, a purge of zombies from the government, and an investigation of the ex-president, his family, and his top cronies as a criminal enterprise. While the urge to move forward is understandable and dredging up four years of horror is painful, the Biden administration must take firm and decisive action against the illegalities and shattered democratic norms of the the Lame Duck’s hideous tenure. Democracy’s Night of the Living Dead: Trump’s GOP Zombies Lost by a Landslide, but they’re back to eat our Brains (1/5/2021)

Why the Working Class Votes Against Its Economic Interests

Republicans Think They Can Get Away With It. They Might Be Right. (5/27/2020)

Trump and His Infallible Advisers (5/4/2020)

GOP Freedom
The problem is not only with the Autocrat Trump, but the many Republican senators and congressmen who have drunk the Kool-Aid. They have been unwilling to respect any of the constitutional norms created by the Founding Fathers in ensuring that a system of checks and balances impedes a dictator. The acquiescence of the military to the bully-in-chief’s whims is the most salient concern. The way things are heading, Trump will declare that the November election cannot be held either because of the imposition of martial law or because of the mounting deaths from the coronavirus. At this point, there are no leaders who would stand up and stop Trump from declaring himself President for life with Ivanka to succeed him Comment on a review of Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen
Since the truth sets you free, the people who oppress you resist the truth, In any catastrophe, especially of their own making, tyrants will find a mixture of blaming others and excusing themselves that includes an enticing element of what we want to hear. In early 2020, people naturally wanted to hear that there was no coronavirus in the United States. Timothy Snyder's book Our Malady
Republican Culture war

PASTELS AND PEDOPHILES Inside the Mind of QAnon By Mia Bloom and Sophie Moskalenko

Trump's Republicans want a coup (6/1/2021)

The verdict on Republicans? Guilty as charged, on all counts (7/9/2021)

120 House GOP Members Share Incendiary Social Media Content Leading Up to Capitol Attack (3/5/2021)

Voter Suppression Is The Only Policy Agenda Left for a White Christian Identity Party (2/28/2021)

The G.O.P. Is in a Doom Loop of Bizarro (1/28/2021)

2020 Was the Year Reaganism Died (12/28/2020)

Republicans Can’t Handle the Truth (12/7/2020)

What Makes Trump’s Subversion Efforts So Alarming? His Collaborators (11/23/2020)

How the GOP Sold Out America (10/18/2020)

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann
Putin Buys American

The American Abyss, A historian of fascism and political atrocity on Trump, the mob and what comes next (1/9/2021)

What Makes Mike Pence’s Complicity So Chilling (10/9/2020)

The G.O.P. Plot to Sabotage 2021 (9/14/2020)

There’s been nothing like this in history. It’s kind of an outrageous statement, but it happens to be true, that the Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in human history. Nobody, not even the Nazis, was dedicated to destroying the possibility of organized human life. It’s just missing from the media. In fact, if you read, say, the sensible business press, the Financial Times, Businessweek, any of them, when they talk about fossil fuel production, the articles are all just about the prospect for profit. Is the U.S. moving to number one and what are the gains? Not that it’s going to wipe out organized human life. Maybe that’s a footnote somewhere. It’s pretty astonishing. Noam Chomsky
I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny- fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear- Margaret C. Smith

Trump’s Nazification of the GOP is why there’s serious discussion of killing off the ‘unfit’ (5/2/2020)

They Didn’t Drink the Bleach, but They’re Still Drinking the Kool-Aid (4/29/2020)

How Republicans Became the Party of Death (4/24/2020)

Republicans Don’t Want to Save Jobs (4/13/2020)

Republicans Add Insult to Illness (3/23/2020)

End the GOP, In order to save our democracy, we must not merely defeat the Republican Party. (02/17/2020)

The Modern GOP Is Built on Lies (2/14/2020)

How Zombies Ate the G.O.P.’s Soul (2/3/2020)

If, as the antigovernment rhetoricians insist, we view ourselves only as individuals, then the game is lost: we will never combine in numbers large enough to overcome the deep power and unrelenting focus of great wealth. Bill McKibben in his book Falter, Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?.

Trump Has Been Impeached. Republicans Are Following Him Down. (12/18/2019)

Senate Republicans Are Bathed in Shame (1/18/2020)

The Cruelty of a Trump Christmas, Republicans aren’t Scrooges — they’re much worse. (121/23/2019)

Fear and Loyalty: How Donald Trump Took Over the Republican Party (12/21/2019)

Paul Krugman Goes There: “Modern Republicans are irredeemable, devoid of principle or shame.” (12/14/2019)

Leonard Pitts: An open letter to all of you privately disgusted Republicans (12/7/2019)

Eight GOP Senators Who Will Vote On Donald Trump Impeachment Spent July 4 Holding Secret Meetings In Moscow (12/1/2019)

The Crisis of the Republican Party (10/18/2019)

Republicans Only Pretend to Be Patriots (9/23/2019) Paul Krugman

Why Republicans Play Dirty (9/20/2019)

Vote Them Out

The Education of Fanatical Centrists, Will they finally admit what the G.O.P. has become? (10/7/2019)

Dare We Dream of the End of the G.O.P.? (9/6/2019)

What the Reactionary Politics of 2019 Owe to the Politics of Slavery (8/19/2019)

The problem is not Trump, it's Trumpism. (8/11/2019)

Hate Is So Much Bigger Than Trump (8/10/2019)

The G.O.P. Is Now a Personality Cult (7/20/2019)

A Racist in the White House (7/15/2019)

In the Face of Flaming Racism We Are Well and Truly Done With Decorum (7/16/2019)

The Moochers of Middle America (7/1/2019)

What Happened to America's Political Center of Gravity? (6/26/2019))

Why Republicans are growing more willing to embrace discrimination (6/25/2019)

Schiff: 'Republican Party has turned itself into a cult' of Trump's personality (6/2/2019)

The Zombie Style in American Politics, Why bad ideas just won’t stay dead. (4/29/2019)

The Great Republican Abdication, A party that no longer believes in American values. (4/22/2019)

Republicans’ Race to the Bottom, The absurdity of denying Trump’s bigotry. (2/28/2019)

The Republicans of Gilead, A louche administration takes aim at reproductive rights. (2/25/2019)

Donald Trump is the perfect Republican: A party built on lies has found a liar to lead them (1/20/2019)

The G.O.P. Goes Full Authoritarian (12/11/2018)

“We Need to Destroy the Republican Party”: A Conservative Luminary Calls for a Clean Start (12/2018)

We're Seeing What Happens When Republicans Rule Without Popular Support (12/9/2018)

Climate Denial Was the Crucible for Trumpism (12/3/2018)

Maybe They’re Just Bad People (11/26/2018)

Noam Chomsky Calls Trump and Republican Allies "Criminally Insane" (11/3/2018)

A Party Defined by Its Lies (11/1/2018)

The Party of No Ideas (9/21/2018)

The G.O.P.’s Climate of Paranoia (8/20/2018)

America is Suffering an Epidemic of 'Dishonest Fake Belief' — Promoted by the People Who Took Over the GOP (6/12/2018)

Timothy Snyder on Tyranny

The Great Snake Oil Slump (4/19/2018)

Sounding Code Red: Electing the Trump Resistance (5/29/2018)

The Republican Party is organized around one man, That is dangerous (4/19/2018)

Putting the Ex-Con in Conservatism (3/26/2018)

The Content of the G.O.P.’s Character (2/19/2018)

How the Republicans Helped Trump Steal the Election (1/25/2018)

The Real Reason for Republicans’ Silence on Donald Trump (10/26/2017)

Trapped by Their Own Lies-Paul Krugman (9/25/2017)

Democracy In Chains’ – How One Man’s Mission To Rip Up Democracy Has Become The Republican Party (7/24/2017)

Understanding Republican Cruelty (6/30/2017)

Zombies, Vampires and Republicans (6/19/2017)

50 Terrible Ideas That Could Become Law If Trump Is Impeached and Pence Becomes President (5/21/2017)

Why Is the GOP Still Supporting Trump ? (2/17/2017)

Donald Trump is not the problem – he’s the symptom (1/20/2017)

Donald Trump Won Because Republicans Have Bad Ideas And People Hate Those Ideas (5/4/2016)

... the problem facing America runs much deeper than Trump’s personal awfulness. One of our two major parties appears to be hopelessly, irredeemably corrupt. And unless that party not only loses this year’s election but begins losing on a regular basis, America as we know it is finished. A Quisling and His Enablers, Paul Krugman (6/12/2018)
We have a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country. With all this in mind, Republicans in Congress say they will block tax cuts to the middle class and block unemployment benefits to more than two million families unless the President gives huge tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. Their behavior is morally bankrupt. It is reprehensible. Senator Bernie Sanders.
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible, and they are stupid." -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”  Benjamin Franklin

Trump

corruption

Values

impeach

Republican Scam

Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Republican Accomplishments

Veto Republicans

States

Republican ideas

GroundTruth Project

Right Wing Watch

Koch Addiction

Republican Dirty Tricks

PoliticsPlus

Grokking Republicans

Why Do People Vote Republican ?

Republican War Crimes

Glenn Beck's Party

Top 20 Republican Party Donors to Boycott

GOP Obstruction Report

Assessing the Republican Party Platform (9/14/2008)

The real GOP.

NoRNC.org

Same Old Party (Paul Krugman)

The Republican herd.

Video about Republicans

The GOP Government

Howie's Page

What Republicans Believe

Right Wing Hypocrites.

Right Wing Watch

Republican Presidential Quotes

Foreign Policy In Focus The Republican Rule

The Predator Party

Another Ugly side of the Republicans

Armchair Subversive

About Ronald Reagan

Republicans Exposed

The Party of Cruelty (3/26/2010)

Can the Republicans Change?

GOP Dominated By White Conservatives: Gallup Poll(6/1/2009)

Republican Senate Sex Scandals Point Back to Secretive Conservative Christian "Family" (10/12/2009)

Republican Gomorrah: The Shattered GOP, Taken Over by Authoritarian Radicals, Is Incapable of Compromise (10/8/2009)

The Republican Brat Pack (9/25/2009)

Republicans are a threat to the Republic. (7/5/2009)

30 GOP Senators Vote to Defend Gang Rape (10/8/2009)

Military Coup ? Republicans may have tried it before. (10/2/2009)

Republicans: A Threat to the Republic ? (7/7/2009)

Is there an Antidote for Republican Amnesia ? (3/19/2009)

Republican Strategies for Success(Tom Tomorrow 3/10/09)

Why Misgovernment was no accident

Republican Dirty Tricks Daily

"...the current state of the Republican Party, a gang of venal ignoramuses pimping for lost causes. Despite having won the 2014 midterms, and capturing both houses of congress and governorships, they seem increasingly out-of-touch with the realities of economic contraction, peak oil, and climate irregularities. The old magic of stirring up the animals on social issues of abortion, bedroom activities, and allegiance to Jesus fail to move the old base, which is becoming economically quite desperate. That base also becomes conscious of how they have been hornswoggled into voting against their own interests for years in the sense that author Thomas Frank so aptly described in What’s the Matter With Kansas." James Howard Kunstler: Forecast for 2015
During the past six years... the Republican leadership in the White House and the Congress have taken us closer and closer to a kind of government that the founders abhorred. Manipulating our fears, stirring religious divisions, and contriving to create a state of permanent war, they have sought to institute a rule by men instead of the rule of law—and they have reinvented the president as a sovereign monarch rather than an executive with limited powers. With the backing of corporate wealth and fundamentalist religion, the unitary presidency represents a potential tyranny."It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush by Joe Conason.
"To sermonize that America’s plan for the world is freedom and democracy, and at the first confrontation with the enemy to resort to torture, are in perfect alignment with the hypocrisy we so frequently encounter with the neocon pontificators who are so practiced in identifying evil in others. When we point to the monstrous conduct of others as an excuse for our own, that is to say, when we claim we have the right to torture because others torture, we deliver to our enemies the power to convert us into terrorist thugs as well. One is immediately put in mind of the Third Reich, where torture became the standard weapon against the regime’s enemies, that and the furnaces." Gerry Spence's book Bloodthirsty...
"{after discussion of Trump] we should recognize that the other candidates are not that different. I mean, if you take a look at—just take a look at their views. You know, they tell you their views, and they’re astonishing. So just to keep to Iran, a couple of weeks ago, the two front-runners—they’re not the front-runners any longer—were Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. And they differed on Iran. Walker said we have to bomb Iran; when he gets elected, they’re going to bomb Iran immediately, the day he’s elected. Bush was a little—you know, he’s more serious: He said he’s going to wait 'til the first Cabinet meeting, and then they'll bomb Iran. I mean, this is just off the spectrum of not only international opinion, but even relative sanity. Noam Chomsky
"The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." Albert Camus
What does it say about us when we are simultaneously pro-life and pro AK-47′s? What does it say about us when God’s will would allow a rapist to ask for shared custody and child support payments? What does it say about us when a black guy’s in charge and we say things like “it’s time to take America back”? What does it say about us when we think the institution of marriage is threatened by gay people who love each other, but not by idiotic game shows like “The Bachelor”? What does it say about us when we export democracy with Hellfire missiles, then restrict the right to vote here? What does it say about us when we build nuclear submarines to defend against exploding vests? What does it say about us when we think a guy who doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, keeps his money offshore, stubs his toe and says “H-E-double hockey sticks” and wears magical underwear can feel our pain? What does it say about us when we demand less government and more FEMA? What does it say about us when we completely forgot the colossal shit storm we were in four years ago? The answer, my friends, is not blowing in the wind. The answer is, “We are fucking crazy.”Chuck Lorre
It's really time for the Republican party, at the local, state, and party levels, to man up here, or else to say clearly that individual acts of seditious lawlessness are part of the party's basic philosophy of government. Maybe each Republican state committee can have an annual Calhoun-Davis Day Dinner. "Sh*t's getting Real Out West" 5/14/2014
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair, 1906
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." -- John Kenneth Galbraith

Why the Republican Party Is a Threat to Human Survival (1/26/2016)

The Republican presidential primary shows the power of evolution-denying fundamentalist Christians (1/16/2016)

Paul Krugman Gets It Right: Republicans Are Panicked, Stupid And Cruel (11/23/2015)

Republicans Lust For Gold: Paul Krugman (11/13/2015)

Republicans Boycott the Pope (9/19/2015)

Paul Krugman: Republicans are “determined to learn nothing from experience” (6/24/2015)

Only one of the nearly 20 Republicans running for president acknowledges the danger of climate change (6/18/2015)

GOP Campaign Slogan: Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. (5/2/2015)

Seven truly awful things about the current Republican leadership (2/5/2015)

Top 5 Planks of GOP 2016 Platform? Torture, War, Bank Corruption, Paid-For Elections (12/13/14)

The Animal House Republicans Take Control (11/12/2014)

The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage (9/23/2014)

What Happened When an Extremist, Christian Fundamentalist Got to Run a Whole State (7/31/2014)

The Republican agenda comes from a small number of very wealthy individuals: Koch, Coors, Olin, Scaife, Walton, Adelson and others who stand to benefit greatly from the removal of the 'death tax' (formerly known as the inheritance tax...they have a way with words.) From these wealthy fund the various partisan right wing 'think tanks' like Heritage, and, although they claim to have values, they have a habit of dirty tricks, election rigging, war profiteering, and other miscellaneous techniques for using the government as their very own ATM machine. These, including right wing talk radio broadcasting misinformation, are the major players in the vast right-wing conspiracy.

As wealthy donors shaped the Republican party, government has become unresponsive to people. Each Republican President has been more anti-social than his predecessor.

Republicans tried to overthrow FDR and failed, but ever since they have been determined to roll back the New Deal. They have, over decades, accomplished that by allying with religion and corporate interests. See One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America: Kevin M. Kruse

Eisenhower brought religion into politics, Nixon prolonged the Vietnam War for his own election prospects, Reagan policies of union busting, tax cuts, big defense contracting, shrunk the middle class; Bush Jr after nine-11 revoked civil liberties, implemented universal surveillance, sanctioned torture and renditions, and blew up the Middle East; then came Trump.

Republicans voted to make America great again, but they were conned. What they got was plutocracy, corporatism, theocracy, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, militarism, isolationism, nativism, racism, and a conflicted, unprepared, charismatic head of state. It looks a lot like Fascism.

GOP billionaires despise democracy, they attack their enemy media, concentrate media to turn it right, defund NPR, undermine elections by gerrymandering and suppressing minority vote, pack the Courts with Corporate Supremacists who defend gerrymandering, Citizens United and the right to anonymously donate dark money to politicians, privatize schools (this is profitable). Government now looks like a get rich quick scheme. Corruption has been widespread in the Trump administration.

To pay for big tax cuts for the .01%, including elimination of the inheritance tax , cut social supports. cut meals on wheels, remove 24 million people from health insurance. When Republicans are in office deficits don’t matter. When they are not, debt is an important reason for austerity.

Republican economics are always regressive, driven by crony capitalism, it never concerns itself with the public welfare. For example, 'supply side' economics is not part of any major universities academics, Bush the first called it 'voodoo economics', but it ought to be regarded as snake oil. The result has NOT been trickle down, it is Niagra up.

To extract even more money from people, block consumer protections, oppose the CFPB, scrap the fiduciary rule, rollback Dodd-Frank. forget anti-trust, make student loans more expensive, undermine weak privacy allowing telecom to sell your data, cancel net neutrality,

Expect gridlock. No matter what the challenge, and there are important ones, together we are going nowhere. Republicans (R's) obstructed or watered down practically everything that Obama proposed, knowing that his success would get in the way of their election prospects. Their main objective was to block Obama, not to serve the public. Clearly, they do not care about the public.

Rs are willing to shut down government to force their misguided austerity agenda.

R's attempt to reign in spending translated to massive layoffs and a continuation of our downward economic spiral. But they still aggressively worked to keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy from expiring. The US has again come to a gilded age. Tax cuts will help us toward a permanent aristocracy and there will be even more unemployment. The balanced budget amendment, at least at the Federal level, is a really bad idea despite what Heritage and talk radio tell you.

They think the market is rational, and a guide to good decisions. Anyone who has ever played Monopoly will understand that the outcome: the winner gets everything. Is the market (the hidden hand of the oligopoly) really a better way to make decisions than democratically elected government ? What does the Constitution say ?

R's are tireless in protecting the rights of Corporations. Bush Jr left his legacy on the Supreme Court, resulting in the Citizens United decision which establishes the corporate right to spend as much undisclosed money as they like to buy elections, to fabulously fund the Congress or to fund opposition for Congressmen who do not fall into line. (Think Gun Lobby.) Republicans solidly oppose legislation that might mitigate this corporate takeover of our highly suspect elections. Mussolini (and some dictionaries) define fascism as control of the government by corporations. Do we not have that ?

R's strain to roll back regulations that restrict Banks rights to get bailed out, dole out big bonuses, write sub-prime loans, charge as much as they want for credit card interest, gamble with taxpayer insured money, and, if they don't get their way, crash the economy. New regulations could get in the way of all that. Trumps cabinet work tirelessly to remove regulations to benefit polluters among others.

R's work hard to protect insurance companies rights to refuse health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, to cap the amount of coverage, or to drop sick people. They work to repeal Obamacare because it would get in the way of that.

R's want to cut food stamps when they are most needed, privatize Social Security, log the national forests, expand offshore gas and oil drilling, privatize highways and waterways, and continue to outsource government. They have broken the social contract

ElizabethWarren

R's oppose using taxpayer money for unemployed who can't find work. Yet they empower companies to cut wages, benefits, raid pension funds, and bust uppity unions so they don't get in the way. Anyway corporations can migrate most work to offshore, low-wage countries, so unions don't matter much any more. Poorly paid people are not able to support a robust economy, but then, if you got yours, it won't matter to you.

R's are tough on crime. When Ronald Reagan invoked the southern strategy, declared war on drugs, privatized the prison industry, and oversaw drug running into poor communities, he not only made the US number one in incarcerations, he made the policy creating a new Jim Crow. He implemented the R's racist strategy. See The The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander if you have any doubts about US institutionalized racism. Since poor people of color overwhelmingly vote Democratic, putting large percentages of them in prison deprives them of the vote, and (along with computer hacking) assures more Republican election victories. At the same time, proceeds from drugs financed death squads in Central America. Remember Iran/Contra ? William Barr covered that up too.

R's responded to the 9/11 emergency by going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan then passing tax cuts for the wealthy It was difficult to make the case for war in Iraq, but that's when torture proved effective. None of it was paid for, but Cheney reminded us that deficits were not important. Although Republicans never have money for people, they can always fund war (or prisons). Security, like the military, has been a gusher of money for well connected contractors. It's their jobs program. War Profiteering has been good too. Many details are in the movie, Iraq For Sale, which you can watch on-line.

R's do not acknowledge that other developed countries have universal health care, affordable education, several weeks of vacation, generous sick time, good pension plans, maternity leave, child care, and assistance for the elderly...and we do not. Another sign of a failed state that they have created. Dismantling the welfare state (services for you), crumbling infrastructure, turning a blind eye to real risks, is the real price of their profligate military.

Republicans are for small government. They have no problem if their strong-man President suspends habeas corpus, disappears people, spys on everyone, illegally wiretaps without judicial oversight, datamines internet search records, financial and commercial records, tortures, overrides the Bill of Rights, relieves Congress of its war making powers and its oversight responsibility. A strong President can override the Congress with signing statements. They especially love guns. They support all that out of respect for their values and the Constitution. Right ?

R's small government doesn't regulate corporations, but it can decide who gets married, the kind of procedures allowed in medical research or hospital treatments. or reach into a hospital and override those tough individual choices, such as a women's right to choose. It doesn't matter to them if there is no exception that she is in the high-risk pool. Republicans gave us the 'no-fly' list, wiretaps without court oversight, the 'Patriot Act', and, out of deep respect for the Constitution brought a new concept in Fourth Amendment rights at airports. When they advocate deregulation, they don't want to regulate corporations, they want to regulate you. Corporate media, because they are corporate and richly rewarded, will be sure that you hear only their views.

Republican Masochist

R's would downsize 'government', but never cut the budget for the military. The US spends more on its military than all other major countries combined, but that is necessary to build a world dominating empire, not so much to stop a few individuals with box cutters. You are a lot less safe.

R's even blocked the Start treaty, which would have reduced the number of nuclear weapons held both in the US and Russia and is a major opponent of a ban on nuclear weapons. Feel safer now ?

Republicans current initiative on immigration, while it is divisive, racist, and mean-spirited, is, according to some accounts, a block for consideration of mitigation of climate change. (Late breaking news: the climate crisis is man-made, real, and accelerating There is scientific consensus, although the tea party disagrees.)

R's 'know' that global warming is a hoax. Ignore the pictures of glaciers melting rapidly, the polar ice caps shrinking, fresh water becoming precious commodity, fisheries collapsing, species going extinct at an alarming rate, CO2 levels at record levels, massive forest fires, reports from the IPCC or NOAA, and just ignore the models predicting much more warming and more violent storms. Now that Russia is burning, it's a good bet that as the arctic tundra melts that massive amounts of methane will be released. Methane is much more potent as a greenhouse gas than is CO2. Gwynne Dyer's book,: Climate Wars, makes credible projections why water scarcity could lead to food shortages, warming will cause sea level rise, and why poor countries, some nuclear armed, will likely go to war if they can't feed their people. Steven Hawking thinks our planet could look like Venus. Anyway R's won't want to allow any legislation capping carbon emissions. It's not cost effective to save the planet. They would destroy the planet to get reelected. So Republicans make Jim Jones look like a small-time dealer of kool-aid, where they can deliver to the entire planet.

Republicans, assisted by the corrupt Supreme Court, brought years of disastrous governance under George W Bush, expanded personal gun rights making the US a shooting gallery, and they created the National Surveillance State. Considering the sorry condition of our election process, our mostly corporate media, and the open floodgates of corporate money, there may be no stopping their move to Fascism. The Republican government who lied to go to war in Iraq and they will not hesitate to go to war with Iran. Trump is the natural result of this sequence.

Consider results in Republican States.

Here is the forecast.

At this point, then, Republicans insist that the deficit must be eliminated but they're not willing either to raise taxes or to support cuts in any major government programs. And they're not willing to participate in serious bipartisan discussions, either, because that might force them to explain their plan -- and there isn't any plan, except to regain power.

But there is a kind of logic to the current Republican position: In effect, the party is doubling down on starve-the-beast. Depriving the government of revenue, it turns out, wasn't enough to push politicians into dismantling the welfare state. So now the de facto strategy is to oppose any responsible action until we are in the midst of a fiscal catastrophe. You read it here first. Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist.

...we can look forward with confidence to character-building bankruptcies, picturesque bread riots, thrilling cavalcades of splendidly costumed motorcycle police. Lewis Lapham (Harper's Magazine Oct. 2005)

"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis (1935)

Bill Moyers & Thomas Frank: How America's Demented Politics Let the GOP Off the Hook for Their Giant Mess

Hijacking Catastrophe

The Plot Against Liberal America (8/18/2008)

Republicans did not heed Ike's warning about the Military/Industrial Complex, because militarism now is the US primary industry. They brought on an endless war and a government that cares not for its people. They operated in secrecy that shrouded illegal activity. The CIA, without effective oversight, continued to engage in projects, including assassinations, that would never be allowed by voters. The FBI has, behind the scenes, helped elect our worst Republican Presidents. and that should be a warning that the universal surveillance of Americans will result in a police state.

The Party of Ideas

Some of the right wing talking heads say that Republicans are the party of ideas. They do have ideas....only they are mostly bad ones. Their stated goal is to shrink government to its bare essentials. You saw the logical outcome of this strategy after Hurricane Katrina. Republicans should not be confused with conservatives because they make no attempt to conserve anything other than money, and they do that only when not in control.

R's assert that tax cuts will fix the economy...because they will increase tax revenue (they never have). That and the flat tax are for the wealthy and funded by cutting services for people or deficit spending. That's the new American way.

Republican ideas are characterized by greedy policies that may be profitable in the short run, but are catastrophic in the end. They do no planning because they would argue that the market will do it. (Actually, the 'market' is really the hidden hand of the oligopoly.) You would think that tax cuts would solve all of our problems if you listen to the Rs, but, in fact, it is simply a way of not paying the bill for the world dominating military that they favor. They may talk about financial prudence, but when in office they give it no thought. What they have in fact done is to run up huge public debt for private gain. It's really about greed and converting the US into a banana republic.

They have refined personal attack politics until it has driven our most talented away from public service. They want loyalists, not experts. Anyway, private sector salaries are much higher than government service, so who would want to do public service ? (Those of us old enough remember when our very best were delighted to work for a dollar a year, but then came Republican greed.) Now Congress is a farm team for K street. The corrupt, partisan Supreme Court betrayed us with, among other decisions, Citizens United.

Republican policies are mean spirited and although they would claim 'family values', they have driven a large percentage of American families into poverty. The middle class has been sinking ever since Reagan took office. Their idea of 'welfare reform' was yet another assault on the victims. Having shredded another piece of the US safety net, they have moved on to blaming a new victim...'illegal' immigrants, which is too important a wedge issue to do anything about. They block any effort to address the problem.

They obstruct all efforts to improve our dysfunctional health care.

Charles Derber described the Republican agenda in his book, The Wilding of America, which now looks prescient.

The free market is our decision maker...when it is profitable. When it consolidates large corporations so they are too big to fail, that is just the market making the decisions. When it loses money, (which is inevitable because consolidation brings on unsustainable debt) then the government better be there to bail them out because the consequences are too dire to contemplate. So there you have it: socialism for the rich, and the 'free market' for everyone else. (The free market doesn't care if you have health care, if you make a living wage, or even if your job has permanently left the country.) So here we are running huge federal deficits for the benefit of a few rich individuals. Just like a banana republic. Thank Republicans for this financial disaster. They will give you religion though.

Republicans don't really like government, which is why they are so bad at it. ( A note for Republicans.) Privatization allows them to devour taxpayer money. and to build a constituency to expand private schools, prisons, 'defense' contractors, and otherwise sell off public assets. The military-industrial complex is completely dependent on government, some not ours. They will argue that government doesn't create jobs.

Corporate Agenda

Republicans, after all, do represent multinational corporate interests and the very wealthy. As a result we now have one of the widest disparities of income of the developed world.

A government that represents corporations is, by definition, fascist. (To appreciate this look here.) All major American institutions oppose democracy but Republicans have been the ones who have most damaged the Constitution.

They own the media, and they manufacture the voting machines. They probably can't lose. Even though they lose the popular vote, they control the Congress.

The military-industrial complex is one of the best mechanisms to convert government into an ATM machine for the politically connected. Weapons manufacture has become an important industry with facilities in almost every Congressional district. It is a jobs program. Because they are war profiteers, Republicans are often warmongers. In his warning about the military-industrial complex, Ike was right. US media is mostly owned by war profiteers. The cold war is over, there is not much threat out there, but Republicans insist m expanding the military-industrial complex. They have dreams of a world dominating empire, but that will make it toof expensive to have civilization here at home.

Since Congress is largely money driven, Corporate tax burdens have been systematically removed, and the wealthiest among us have done fabulously well, especially thanks to the Bush regime. Just as in 1929, when we had a gilded age, the economy has crashed as a result.

The Supreme Court ruled that the purpose of Corporations is to make money for share holders, thus justifying the short-sighted, mean-spirited, destructive, anti-democratic, exploiting, corporate agenda that has crashed the economy. If the purpose of Corporations was to serve the public good, things could have been much different. As it is, Corporate activity may lead to the end of human habitability of the planet. Globalization is their technique for world domination and the suppression of democracy.

We need a government that actually serves the people, not an election-rigging, war-mongering, torturing, human-rights abusing, criminal, megalomaniac, Republican administration..

Market fundamentalism

Today, there is the ... widespread conviction that the marketplace can sort out large public problems for us far better than any mere mortals could. This faith has attained almost religious certitude, at least among some governing elites, but ... it is the ideology that led the early twentieth century into the massive suffering of global depression and the rise of violent fascism. One World, Ready or Not: William Greider

Limited government to Republicans means rolling back New Deal social programs like Social Security and making sure that everyone is on their own. Republicans don't really care about people. because their 'values' are about money.

Republicans brought on the financial crisis with deregulation that allowed markets to go out of control, privatization that removed the public from the process, tax cuts that in effect directed massive public debt into deep private pockets (banana republic), civil service destruction and cronyism placed incompetents in public office; regressive, anti-labor policies led to a general decline in consumption; a determination to build an empire for world domination requires unlimited budget for the military; a contempt for international law covered up illegal activities including torture, renditions, secret prisons; Congress did no oversight during the Bush years; regulatory agencies were captives of the industries they were supposed to regulate; industry migrated to low wage countries and not much was done to mitigate the damage; income inequality reached gilded age levels, but there was war enough for everyone. War is profitable, and in its chaos pallet loads of shrink wrapped money just disappeared. Civil liberties here in the good old US of A were cut down to size by chicken hawks who built the profitable national security state. PayGo left. The financial sector was allowed to devour the rest of the economy.

Market fundamentalism has led to massive deregulation and now you can see the consequences: financial instability, bank failures, bad food, market scams, deceitful advertising, commercial lying, predatory lending, absurd CEO salaries, a widening gap between rich and poor, and increasing insecurity for everyone. Make no mistake though: deregulation can kill. as you can verify in lax workplace safety enforcement, unlabelled and unchecked food products, toxic toys, downer cows, or environmental degradation. In their hypocrisy, notice that R's are all too willing that the government should bail out highly leveraged banks and brokerages. Their agenda is socialism for the rich.

Right wingers, exploiting justifiable anger at massive middle-class decline, are protesting health care reform lately. It is a triumph of corporate media that they are opposing their own self-interest, and arguing that the corporate market is a better form of organization than democratically elected government.

Republicans think the market is always right, but what it actually does is reward the already wealthy. Market driven economies are most competitive when they are in the most repressive countries: where labor is not free to unionize and cannot complain, where there is no limit to environmental destruction. Republicans have vigorously led the fight against organized labor. R's regressive policy led to U.S. deindustrialization, shrinking income, dried up consumer demand, and a collapsed economy.

R's are in denial about the collapsing environment. By the end of this century, widespread disaster will prove how willfully ignorant they are.

How Free Market Delusions Destroyed the Economy

Free Market Fantasies by Noam Chomsky 2/5

Deregulation

Republicans made regulatory agencies (like the FCC, FDA, EPA, SEC, etc) captives of the industries they are supposed to regulate. This allows corporations to serve their own interest instead of the public interest.

McCain’s economic advice from Phil Gramm, alone, should have disqualified him. Gramm was the architect of the Enron collapse and current financial instability. Reform is necessary to throw out the cronies, lobbyists, and incompetents placed in office by the Bush administration.

Now, the U.S. Financial System in Serious Trouble

Privatization

Republican's think privatization is good policy. What it actually does is remove functions from public accountability, so it is anti-democratic. Result: Blackwater, Enron, prison-industrial complex, or, worst of all is privatized vote counting. There is now considerable doubt about election integrity. Most vote rigging is computer fraud, but there is little to prevent it.

Privatized healthcare in the US is not only the world's most expensive, it does not cover a large fraction of the people, It is highly bureaucratic, and it is not particularly effective in overall quality. Even so, it is about to be cut so that Republicans can spend unlimited amounts of money for war, and not much for our civilization.

Many Republicans would privatize Social Security, and they are doing their best to privatize education as well.

Since armaments are one of the last industries in the US, it is also a jobs program. Notice that when Republicans decide it is time to balance the budget that programs to get cut are always those that actually benefit people: like healthcare, social security, Medicare, or infrastructure...not the military and not nuclear weapons.

Fiscal irresponsibility

Republican policy is always regressive, and you need to pay more attention if you think they are for fiscal responsibility. Bush Jr unapologetically and unjustifiably ran up a 10 trillion dollar debt for the next generation. His tax cuts are for the already wealthy in an action that makes his 'Christian' persona a hypocrisy. The first President Bush bailed out Savings and Loans to the extent of half a trillion dollars, and Bush junior oversaw an even larger bailout.

As the Bush administration took us to war, there were unprecedented tax cuts for the wealthy. The unprovoked War in Iraq killed thousands of Americans, estimates are up to a million Iraqis, it has cost, according to Joe Stiglitz, around three trillion dollars, and the results are no benefit for anyone. (Note: Stiglitz now says his estimate was low: it's more like four trillion now that so many disabled vets are coming home.)

Supply-side economics

Bush the First once called 'supply-side' economics, voodoo economics. That lower taxes would produce more Federal revenue was never true. Tax cuts were not only contrary to common sense, they ignored the costs of Bush's war adventures, and, contrary to Christian values, they rewarded the already wealthy at the expense of the poor. They converted the fundamentalist churches into a propaganda conduit for the Republican party. They would not pay for their wars.

Union Busting

It is written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that everyone has the right to participate in a labor union. Republicans in their continuing war on the people have made union busting national policy, and the result has been declining wages for most, shrinking (plundered) pensions, benefits, and anemic social programs.

R's do not believe in anti-trust. Even when corporate media shamelessly exploit us, Republicans, for their own propaganda purposes, have allowed media to further concentrate. That is why media pollution spills into your living room 24/7. When media lies, the Supreme Court (which invariably sides with Republicans) ruled that it is ok. The Court ruled that Corporations are people and have the full protection of the Bill of Rights, but unfortunately those same rights no longer seem to apply for actual humans. The Bush administration has all but shredded the Constitution.

Population is the driving force for environmental degradation, but Republicans are always looking for more rapid economic growth and create a fog of misinformation around environmental damage. That is wrong.

Global warming due to increased carbon dioxide levels is a simple idea. On Venus it produces a planet with a temperature hundreds of degrees, but Republicans because of their subservience to corporate interests are deniers. To continue to deny global warming the Bush administration had to muzzle mainstream scientists and it appointed political handlers to accomplish that. In addition they censored scientific papers, and they lied. It is fair to say that Republicans have waged a war on science.

Republicans thrive on divisive wedge issues like immigration, race, or religion in their typical mean-spirited, hateful, blame-the-victim mentality. Although they claim to be the party of small government, instead they have instituted massive surveillance, warrentless wiretaps, renditions, torture, invasive searches, and effectively a national security state. Talk radio sells the program. They have shredded the Bill of Rights, except for their grotesque interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Social Programs

When Republicans say they want to 'reform' Social Security, Medicare, or the UN, they mean 'destroy'. When they talk about 'clean skies' they mean they are going to pollute. Republicans call this working for smaller government. It means less for people, more for them.

Bush Republicans are human rights abusing, torturing, war criminals, who deserve to be held accountable. There was never an administration in the US that deserved impeachment more.

See the Social Contract

Shutdown Backers

Limited Government

Republicans don't like Government. They don't think it can do much, and, when in office, they are able to prove it. Their stubborn opposition to health care reform proves that they are incapable of reasoned problem solving and that their only values are about money.

Republicans claim to be for limited government, and almost everyone agrees that smaller government would mean less expense and lower taxes. Unfortunately, instead of making government more efficient, they made it dysfunctional. Bush's Justice Department was staffed with Bible School graduates. Regulatory agencies were headed by industry representatives who thought regulation is unnecessary. Wall Street went wild and devoured the rest of the economy. With no watchdogs, corruption was rampant.

Limited government to Republicans means removing oversight from corporations. What we have seen is massive financial instability, a suspect food supply, widespread consumer exploitation, drugs that are made in third world countries with lax environmental laws. an environmental record that Robert Kennedy wrote is a 'crime against nature'.

Limited government to Republicans means allowing corporations to dump pollutants anywhere they like. That's also why they deny climate warnings and deny the scientific consensus.

But notice that they have implemented unprecedented surveillance measures including illegal procedures to wiretap in what they claimed was necessary for national security. They implemented massively expensive programs to track our own citizens. When they talk about limited government, that's not what any of the public had in mind. When they talk about 'law and order', they just don't think it applies to themselves.

Republican Rule is Dangerous and Authoritarian

The reason they have warped values, usually get policy wrong: All they really care about is money.

Republicans have a history of increasing income inequality and economic collapse. Are you surprised ?

Management of the economy

The 'stimulus package', mandated by the Bushies, was a colossal waste of money. With all of the challenges facing us, Republicans, with Democratic acquiescence, came up with a plan to give away money. This is spending with NO value in return. (We used to call it waste.)

Never confuse Republicans with conservatives.

Anti-Intellectual

Republicans do not turn to experts for advice, they tend to go with their gut (the funders). That's why they are mostly wrong on policy matters. Notice that the best educated communities are also the most liberal. The corporations that own talk radio have manipulated the audience to go with their gut, act against their own self interest, keep them angry and ignorant.

Richard Dawkins at TED. (video)

Religion

The Family: Christian Supremacists at the Heart of American Power: Jeff Sharlett

American Theocracy: Kevin Phillips

The Dark Side of the Reverend Moon

Religion and the Cold War edited by Dianne Kirby

Hypocrisy

Republican Gomorra: Max Blumenthal

Rating the Greatest GOP Sex Scandals of the Past 20 Years (6/26/2009)

Muckraker's Progress

Sex, Lies, and Politics: The Naked Truth by Larry Flynt

Republicans and Race

"Over the past few weeks there have been a number of commentaries about Ronald Reagan's legacy, specifically about whether he exploited the white backlash against the civil rights movement. The controversy unfortunately obscures the larger point, which should be undeniable: the central role of this backlash in the rise of the modern conservative movement." Paul Krugman, The New York Times: 11/19/2007

The New Old Face of Racism

When Republicans are 'elected', we can pretty much count on their faithful devotion to the corporate agenda: that's how you explain the regressive economic policy, the denial of global warming, the devastating environmental policy, the short sighted population policy, or the wreckage of vital social programs. The privatization, market fundamentalism, and dismantling of the public, has created problems not seen in the rest of the developed world.

Major manufacturers are migrating to low wage countries to escape health care, pension, union or environmental burdens. Most people are finding that pensions are disappearing. Bankruptcy law has been made stricter, and the lookback period for long term care has been increased. Media does not talk about excellent Scandinavian social programs. Sure they pay higher taxes, but they get what they pay for...theirs works. Republicans don't care about people.

Bush Republicans campaigning for Congress concentrate on their soundbite, all-purpose solution for all problems:" tax cuts." (See David Cay Johnston's book Perfectly Legal for insight.) They claim that they have been good for the economy and that they are saving people money,. It is a fast-talking scam. The apparent prosperity is one that comes from running large, unsustainable deficits. The tax cuts are mostly directed to the upper one percent of the wealthy so it is not just regressive. It is self-serving. Economic reality for most people is pretty bleak as health care, tuition, energy prices all take increasing portions of declining wages. As in many banana republics, large amounts of borrowed money are flowing to an elite. Republicans defend all this by saying "no new taxes".

Republicans have been pushing for privatized, concentrated media for a long time so that now we get only corporate spam, distraction, misinformation and propaganda. CSPAN sometimes offers a real insight into our plight, since it aired the FCC hearings on the matter, but that is the exception. Expensive campaigns are often extortion payments to broadcasters. The public has no say because the spectrum has been nearly completely privatized (read corporatized). Thirty second soundbites rule out discussion of issues, more and more they degrade public dialog. Right wing, hate-mongering shock jocks make any dialog all but impossible. Media is an important element in rigging US elections, and in its current form it is not only corrosive to the culture, it is suppressing democracy. Bush and his administration not only funded propaganda, but pushed for further consolidation of media. Most US media cannot be trusted. Republicans call this 'deregulation'.

Bush used 9/11 as pretext to execute his radical right wing agenda, and it has been disastrous in terms of lives, dollars, good will, or anything else. There was plenty of evidence of incompetence in the aftermath of Katrina, or, say, in the 'no fly list', or in handling of immigration issues, and many others. Corruption is widely evident. Important jobs are awarded to religious zealots and/or incompetent political hacks. Congress looks the other way.

Congress failed to provide oversight of Bush. They gave up their Constitutional duty to determine when it is necessary to go to war when they allowed Bush to invade Iraq. They didn't bother to investigate war profiteering. They severely damaged the Bill of Rights when they passed the Patriot Act. They allowed him to wiretap without oversight, to datamine internet search records, library borrowings, financial and commercial records, to torture. They thumbed their nose at the Freedom of Information Act. The concept of the imperial President may well be approved by a packed Supreme Court. Checks and balances no longer function and that is the end of the Constitution. In signing statements Bush demonstrated that he is the law, the living Constitution, and in plain language a dictator.

Government by and for the corporations is defined as fascism.

We are building an empire and our fate will be that of every other empire in history except now there is considerably more destructive potential. We are certainly not safer. Apocalypse, which evangelical true believers fully expect and welcome, is a lot closer. Republicans will facilitate it.

Leading Republicans all support waterboarding. (2007)

Republicans often favor a flat sales tax, sometimes called in an Orwellian sense the 'Fair Tax'.. It is backed by very wealthy and, like all other Republican policy, it is extremely regressive. Be careful what you wish for. See the tax page.

Win McCormick on Republican Family Values

Republican ties to Big Oil

Immigration is a Republican wedge issue that capitalizes on economic insecurity. (About Lou Dobbs.)

A left view of Republican candidates.

Fair and Balanced news about Republicans

Howie's Stupid GOP Quote Page

Bush Values

NeoConBastards

The Hunting of the President A film about the right-wing conspiracy to remove Clinton from office.

Richard Mellon Scaife (from the Washington Post) Vice Chairman of the Board of the Heritage Foundation.

Republican Assumptions

Taxes are the problem

The monetary economy is more important than the real economy.

The private market (the wealthy) should decide. (aristocracy).

The business cycle is no longer operating.

There is no need to be concerned with the distribution of income

The free market makes great decisions and it is always right.

There is no need to worry about the environment.

The Military is the only legitimate government function.

Government is the enemy. (Republicans make it so.)

The President should be the decider (but only if he is a Republican.)

Our religion is better than their religion.

The Bible is the absolute truth. Never mind that we might have learned something in the last 2000 years.

We should tear down the wall between Church and State. Freedom from religion was a fundamental founding U.S. principal.

Vouchers are a good way to improve schools.

The War on Drugs is not like Prohibition.

Everyone has a right to carry guns

War is an effective instrument of government policy.

Pursuit of peace is weakness.

Torture is ok

The unborn have rights more important than the living.

Population growth not a problem.

The death penalty is effective.

Prisons need to be funded at higher levels than education

The US has no need to be guided by international law

Global warming is a hoax

Evolution is just a theory

US media is the enemy.

Regulation is always a bad idea

Dirty Tricks

Elections

The Republican agenda is a scam.

Segretti: In 2000 Segretti served as co-chair of John McCain's campaign in Orange County.

Republicans use CIA propaganda tools domestically

Privatization initiatives have been spectacular failures in healthcare, in war, in schools, and, most starkly, in the case of New Orleans after Katrina. Profiteering and corruption have flourished as uncontested government contracts have been doled out to Republican crony corporations. Infrastructure is crumbling. Probably worst of all is the privatization of vote counting.

Deregulation resulted in contaminated food, poisoned toys, unregulated pollution, bank instability, wide-ranging consumer problems, and fueled the carnival of corruption: Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, etc.

There were no effective changes to corporate governance.

The huge borrowing binge that appeared to be Bush's prosperity went straight to the oligopolies that now are our real rulers. A government which is controlled by corporations is, by definition, fascist.

Aside from that, US government has failed its own people. Income disparities, already poor, have been exacerbated by Republicans regressive policy.

Since it made no attempt to pay for the war, we are seeing obvious signs of financial instability. Much of our domestic industry has bled away to Asian sweatshops, and about all that is left are defense contractors. That helps to assure that the military-industrial-media complex will continue to expand. It is about jobs. Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine" explains how much of this occurred.

The Bush administration provoked wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Republicans favor another in Iran. Congress surrendered its Constitutional authority to declare war and, since it did no oversight, made history of those 'checks and balances'. The Bill of Rights has been shrinking since Bush took office, and it appears unlikely that it will ever be restored to its former self. Packed courts can see to that. Allowed to persist, we will no longer have a Constitution than matters.

The US is building an empire. It has all but bankrupted itself creating a military budget that exceeds all other countries combined. At the same time, Iraq, like Vietnam, demonstrates that an advanced military can not win against a population determined not to tolerate an occupying army. World opinion of the US has plummeted.

Republicans can and should take the blame for all of this. Their party controlled all branches of government including the fourth estate. If they are not defeated in elections (pretty much rigged), we will likely continue to avoid real problems like environmental degradation, public health threats, overpopulation, financial instability, or even the new arms race.

Our kids will be in debt from skyrocketing tuition, a tough job market, shrinking wages, vanishing benefits, and they will have to fight the endless crusades. Since the country has been de-industrialized, their only career choice may be the military. The draft will be economic. Finally, the weak economy will no longer support empire.

You surprised that New Hampshire's Republicans are leaving the party ? Did you know that New Hampshire also refused to comply with Real ID ? Do you really think that the illegal immigration is not yet another wedge Republican issue...that can create an underclass in privatized prisons ?

Are you voting for ANY Republicans ?

Why Not Republicans ?

We ought to boot out the secretive, fascist, war-mongering, empire-building, human-rights abusing, Republicans.

See Reform.htm

Michael Moore on Republicans

We should oppose Republicans in government and on talk radio. They are a threat to democracy, the economy, the Constitution, civilization, and the habitability of the planet.

The Rise of Pseudo Fascism by David Neiwert (pdf) February 25, 2005

Video

Donald Trump and the Republican Party (CSPAN video 12/27/2016) 1:22

Bibliography

Republicans Declare War on Themselves (12/31/2013)

The Republican Autopsy Report Revisited: 5 Ways The GOP Got Worse In 2013 (12/30/2013)

Republican To-Do List (12/9/2013)

Meet The 37 House Republicans Who Could Lose Their Jobs For Shutting Down The Government (10/24/2013)

The Republican Coup of 2013 (10/20/2013)

Republican Party Favorability Sinks to Record Low (10/9/2013)

Staring Down the Irrational Wing of the GOP(10/4/2013)

Supply-Side Jesus and the Death of Shame (10/10/2013)

Half the Republicans You Know Are Insane (10/2/2013)

The GOP Is Committing Treason (9/29/2013)

Death of the Republican Party (8/31/2013)

Fresh Off Hikes to Student Loan Rates, Congressional Republicans Vote to Abolish Food Stamp Program (7/12/2013)

Study: Republicans Lie More (5/28/2013)

The Wisdom of Bob Dole (5/28/2013)

The GOP's Real Agenda (3/13/2013)

The Ignorance Caucus: Paul Krugman (2/11/2013)

60 Outrageous Republican Congressional Votes (10/25/2012)

Why Republicans Have to Lie (8/16/2012)

Five Adjectives That Scream "Don't Vote Republican !" (8/6/2012)

Let's Just Say It: Republicans Are the Problem (4/27/2012)

Top 10 Reasons to Vote Republican (9/25/2011)

Goodbye to all That (9/3/2011)

This Fall's Election is about Right and Wrong (9/7/2010)

(See also Fox News and Tea Parties.)

Oklahoma Republicans and Tea Parties forming anti-government Militia (4/13/2010)

Dishonesty and Hypocrisy have become the Hallmarks of the Republican Party

Countercoup 2002

The Only Republican Plan Is to Destroy Democrats, Not Solve Problems (4/2/2010)

Scary New GOP Poll Republican attitudes about Obama (3/23/2010)

An Open Letter To Republicans (3/22/2010)

How is the Republican Party Like Jim Jones ?

Why Didn't The Bush Tax Cuts Create Jobs ?

The Despicable Ryan Budget

Message for Republicans

Republicans have no idea what they're Doing (8/13/2011)

From Raleigh Myers

Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been GOP ?

We have to ask because of the slant the GOP puts on everything. You can't believe a thing they say or want. The corruption is so rampant the GOP are just a group cover-up in locked step.
The GOP put everybody through that sort of embarrassment with their HUAC
in the fifties where they were looking for so called Communists when it
was the anti-fascist dissidents they were after. Today the terrorist is
the alleged target when it's the dissidents and the first amendment they
want to compromise. Today we really have an the same GOP infiltration
with a seamless path all the way back to NAZI Germany.
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas5a.htm