the Republican party of today has made a choice, and they haven’t chosen the constitution,
And so I do think it presents a threat if the Republicans are in the majority in January 2025.
...the US is sort of sleepwalking into dictatorship
Liz Cheney
I study authoritarianism. I’ve warned—since 2015—that Trump poses an existential threat to American democracy. I’ve never felt more worried than I do about that likelihood than I do when considering a second Trump term, with this Supreme Court, and this GOP faction in Congress.
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 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
"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
How does a program with is so clearly pro-rich and antisocial succeed in appealing to a majority of
Americans as it did in 1980 and again in 2015 ? ... the skill of Republicans in using
nationalistic rhetoric in cultivating a degree of anti-intellectualism, and above all,
in dividing the working classes by exacerbating ethnic, cultural, and religious divisions.
Thomas Piketty: Time for Socialism, Dispatches From a World on Fire, 2016-2021
"What the data shows, with regard
to most issues, we do not need to speculate about the future, for we
already know what the past has shown us namely, that it is Republican policies that have repeatedly,
regularly, and with remarkable consistency brought us large increases
in the rate and duration of unemployment, in the frequency, depth, and
duration of recessions, and depressions, in socio-economic inequalities
in wealth and income, and in rates of suicide, homicide, and (since the
mid-1970's) imprisonment and capital punishments; and it is Democratic
policies that have brought us equally large decreases in all of those
destructive phenomena (even in imprisonment and capital punishment, as
the contrast between the Red and Blue States shows.)" James Gilligan: Why
Some Politicians are More Dangerous Than Others.
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
" ... the elements are in place: a weak legislative
body, a legal system that is both compliant and repressive, a party system in which one party,
whether in opposition or in the majority, is bent upon reconstituting
the existing system so as to permanently favor a ruling class of the
wealthy, the well-connected and the corporate, while leaving the poorer
citizens with a sense of helplessness and political despair, and, at
the same time, keeping the middle classes dangling between fear of
unemployment and expectations of fantastic rewards once the new economy
recovers. That scheme is abetted by a sycophantic and increasingly
concentrated media; by the integration of universities with their
corporate benefactors; by a propaganda machine institutionalized in
well-funded think tanks and conservative foundations; by the
increasingly closer cooperation between local police and national law
enforcement agencies aimed at identifying terrorists, suspicious aliens
and domestic dissidents." Sheldon
Wolin: Inverted Totalitarianism (2003)
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 from them 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.
Reagan gave tax breaks to the rich, piled on debt for the military, and paid with cuts to poor and vulnerable.
GOP continued it since then, the opposite of Christian morality, bad policy exacerbating wealth disparities, & continuing decline of standard of living. That’s why Republicans have to be sociopaths.
The US has become an oligoply, that is to say run by the wealthy.
Right institutions include the GOP, religion, corporations, oligarchs, plus their media,
many governments with dictators who go to war for empire.
Left includes academics, scientists, non-profits, unions, consumer groups, the independent press, and others.
The happiest countries, the Nordic ones, are secular democracys
with taxpayer funded social supports, well funded public media, strong unions,
high wages, time off for family leave and vacations. They pay high taxes, but know they get a good deal.
They trust their government.
US government does not respond to the people. As Jimmy Carter said “the US has no functioning democracy.”
Constitution, by over representing rural States,
allows the President to be elected without the popular vote,
tends to make the Senate and the Supreme Court Republican, and anti-democratic.
After Corporations elected Reagan, began decline of the middle class and acceleration of extreme wealth inequality.
Trump packed the Supreme Court with religious radicals who not only are a threat to democracy, but rolled back Roe.
Because States became responsible, the decision was unpopular and people rejected it.
The Supreme Court should, in important matters, be over ruled by the national popular vote,
the President elected, and the Constitution Amended that way also.
Something everyone in US politics should understand: the GOP is the farthest right major party in any developed democracy. To find analogues you have to look to splinter neo-fascist parties in the EU. https://t.co/LjKRL3FM4wpic.twitter.com/pwztpsYnNk
There is a pattern in red States: voting rights, social programs, women's rights,
healthcare,public institutions, gun rights, union rights,
school indoctrination, higher education, pandemic, book bans, harsh policing, all become worse.
Republicans don’t like democracy in politics,
just as they don’t like democracy in the workplace, like unions.
Reagan’s pick for the Supreme Court, John Roberts, was key to destroying democracy.
By rolling back the Voting Rights Act, allowing gerrymandering, loosening the law on corruption, allowing big money into elections, and ruling against campaign finance reform, assuring individual gun rights, he has all but killed democracy and brought us to the brink of fascism.
Supreme Court decisions have severely damaged democracy,
rolling back the Voting Rights Act resulted in renewal of Jim Crow voter suppression, gerrymandering poisoned elections, Citizens United allowed big dark money to corrupt politics, striking down Campaign Finance laws and weakening law on corruption.
GOP politicians, including Trump, are natural allies of authoritarians, have taken large amounts of Russian
money, done a lot to please Putin, withheld arms from
Ukraine, weakened NATO, and rendered the State Department impotent.
Rs are authoritarians and act out the authoritarian playbook.
At CPAC they invited Orban, Bolsanaro
to be featured speakers, even meeting in Hungary.
Notice that Republican leadership is extremely wealthy, and never let on that powerful
wealth extraction policy like tax cuts for themselves has brought on extreme wealth inequality.
These wealthy politicians don’t think Social Security or Medicare are important.
Their most important value is money. They are sociopaths.
Removing progressivity from taxes has indeed resulted in smaller government, but the US continues to have the world’s largest prison population and military. The consequences of that have been high college tuition that drives students into heavy debt burden, poor social programs including healthcare, and declining life expectancy.
Corporations gamed politics assisted by the Supreme Court
granting corporations personhood, so big money can finance, lobby, and bribe politicians. Many of the largest, most profitable corporations pay no taxes. CEOs are often sociopaths compensating themselves at 100’s of times the earnings of their workers. They moved much of manufacturing to countries with cheaper labor and lax environmental law leaving behind a landscape of empty factories and workers needing retraining.
Citizens United and loosened law on corruption
have brought on dysfunctional, undemocratic politics.
Republican deregulation has brought on train wrecks, bank failures,
pollution, child labor, corruption, and other institutional failure.
It could get much worse with another Republican government, because with their planned
Project 2025
it will be the end of the republic.
Does media determine culture or does culture determine media ? Since media is concentrated into a few corporations, they get to decide what to broadcast.
Murdoch, in a courtroom, claimed it is the latter. That Tucker and the others had to broadcast Trump lies because that’s what the audience wanted. At other times, he said he wanted Trump to win. His other media engaged in climate denial.
He is in it for the money, but like other oligarchs he favored Trump.
It works both ways.
It is the job of Fox News and other right wing media to convince their
Republican audience that they are right to blame immigrants, people of color, gays, cling to Christian nationalism, and not notice that the GOP is actually working for their wealthy donors, not them.
Trump lies a lot, people keeping track counted thousands.
His big lie, that he won the 2020 election, and his incitement to insurrection was a clear violation of his oath of office.
Fox News, the propaganda outlet for Trump and the Republicans, also broadcast his lies, and lied about that.
So did the rest of the right wing noise machine.
Somehow the lies have convinced many, including workers, that the very wealthy Republicans
are somehow on their side. They are not. It’s a scam.
Workers get lower wages than they did years ago, face hostility if they try to form a union, have less job opportunity as automation and AI takes over, and dwindling social mobility. Democracy is just as important in the workplace as it is in government.
Religion accustoms people to believing without evidence. All major religions keep women down, and seek to control sex life. As Voltaire said
"those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
Education now includes censorship, book bans, particularly in red States.
Republicans are attempting to privatize schools.
The GOP wealthy minority are market fundamentalists, do all they can to keep people down and extract as much wealth as they can. They denigrate government and spend lavishly on media to convince people that the market should rule, not democracy.
An unconstrained economy is dangerous. They may refuse to be replaced in real elections, and may use violence to retain power. They are fascists.
After WWII we thought fascism was defeated,
the highest marginal tax rate was over 90%, CEOs worked for $1 a year, we had a thriving middle class, world class education, and good government.
Progressive taxes reduce inequality and can pay for child care, education, health care, old-age pensions and protection against severe deprivation. See A BRIEF HISTORY OF EQUALITY By Thomas Piketty
One of the most damaging things done by Republicans to the US, was removing progressivity from taxes. “Tax progressivity is a proven tool to combat rising income and wealth inequality at the top.” World Inequality Report 2018.
Hard work is now taxed more heavily than capital gains. Many large, profitable Corporations paid no Federal income Tax. The GOP opposes any effort to increase the minimum wage and enables union busting.
The result is an economy where rising productivity of hard working Americans flows mostly to the wealthy,
resulting in extreme wealth inequality, toxic side effects, polarized electorate, and more poverty
The middle class has sunk. Social programs are poor.
Many people are without basics, miserable, angry, blaming minorities,
and Republican.
Republicans oppose paid sick time, maternity leave, child care, minimum wage, unions,
and are prepared to cut Social Security, Medicare, even tried to dismantle Obamacare,
with no replacement.
Healthcare should be a human right. US healthcare is a feeding frenzy for corporations,
a cause of bankruptcy for the sick, doesn’t cover everyone, so in a pandemic is ineffective.
Republicans regularly dismantle public health infrastructure.
US Education is also in decline. We could learn a lot from the world’s best, which is Finland’s.
Senator Bernie Sanders describes the difference in some detail in his book,
It’s OK to be Angry About Capitalism.
Poverty programs are disgustingly misdirected in red States, such as Mississippi,
which diverted TANF money to build a stadium. [john oliver]
There is a pattern in red States: voting rights, social programs, women's rights, healthcare,
public institutions, gun rights, union rights, school indoctrination, higher education, pandemic, book bans, harsh policing, all become worse.
It has been all down hill since Reagan, Republicans have been consistent giving tax breaks
to the wealthy paid with cuts to the poor and vulnerable.
That is not just bad policy exacerbating wealth inequality, propelling the standard of living down,
but the very opposite of Christian morality.
That's why Republicans have to be sociopaths.
People should determine policy. Unfortunately, Republicans, when in charge, do not govern for the people.
The Supreme Court is shaping the law to the will of
oligarchs and the church by empowering a corrupt wannabe dictator.
The Supreme Court enabled uncontrolled gun ownership.
Republicans have motivated violent political rhetoric, encouraged gun ownership,
seen a rise in armed political intimidation, violence, and hate crimes.
Mass shootings are an every day occurrence.
Formerly safe spaces like schools, airports, churches, hospitals, Courts now need police presence.
Guns are the leading cause of children's deaths, but Republicans block sensible restraints,
even campaign with military weapons. Police have responded by becoming militarized.
The US is a lot less safe. As Chairman Mao said, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Republicans have turned a blind eye to violence.
There is no way to feed a population of 8 billion without continuing to burn fossil fuel.
Everyone wants a livable climate,
so who would want a Republican government of climate deniers
anxious to mine more fossil fuel ?
Fossil fuel companies have known for a long time that they are putting the planet at risk,
the future looks bleak.
As Benjamin Franklin said: "It's a republic, if you can keep it."
To reform, restore voting rights, remove big money from politics, and recognize that the GOP will obstruct any attempt to improve our outlook.
To deal with extreme wealth inequality renew progressive taxes. Under Ike the top marginal rate was over 90%, corporations had an excess profits tax, and CEOs not uncommonly worked for a dollar a year.
With the additional revenue make Medicare available for all, child care affordable, community college free, assure a dignified old age, and strengthen other social programs.
Although R's claim they don’t like government,
they are prepared to use dirty tricks, insurrection, and violence to control it.
The definition of fascism is rule by corporations or, more broadly, the wealthy.
It could be the new world order... and the end of habitability of the planet.
If the GOP wins, the US will become a fascist country, unwilling and unable to deal with looming problems
like climate collapse. wealth extremes, economic volatility, gun violence,
The GOP cult will head us toward self destruction.
As the world burns
and computer models warn we have only a few decades until
civilization collapse, the political right and their allies are
mobilized to be sure that nothing is done to slow it down. In fact,
they are speeding it up.
The next generation will inherit a hostile planet.
The maximum safe level of CO2 in the atmosphere was estimated at 350
parts/million, but now it is beyond 450 and rising. Global warming,
melting ice, stronger storms, sea level rise, droughts, forest fires, and
extinction events are accelerating. The kids will inherit a hostile planet.
There is a strong
case that an aggressive Green New Deal could slow
climate disaster, but Republicans won’t hear of it.
They are in denial of science, many of them reject the vaccine
that could prevent the worst of the pandemic.
Right wing misinformation like Fox News is deadly.
Corporations
continue pollution of various kinds. The fossil fuel industry funds a
misinformation campaign, lobbying, and accelerated fossil fuel mining.
The Supreme Court
ruled in Bush V Gore to make the environmentalist, Al Gore, the loser
of the 2000 election. At that time, there was a possibility that
sensible action might slow damage to the environment.
"the U.S. Supreme Court didn't rule that the Second Amendment
guarantees an individual's right to own a gun until 2008, when District of Columbia v. Heller struck down the capital's law effectively banning handguns in the home. In fact, every other time the court had ruled previously, it had ruled otherwise."
That decision not only made the U.S. less safe, but has contributed to serious political instability
headed for fascism.
Republicans are now a radical, far right party, admire other authoritarian leaders, and
follow a wannabe fascist dictator. They have rendered US government
dysfunctional, tried an armed insurrection, and, having failed
at that, are attempting to gerrymander and change voting laws so they cannot lose. It
wouldn’t surprise anyone if Vladimir Putin is advising Trump to
follow the authoritarian playbook.
It is politically almost impossible to ask people to change their lifestyle.
Coincidentally the US has reached extreme levels of wealth inequality.
Keeping the underclass down breeds racism and is toxic
for democracy.
The choice between democracy and dictatorship should not be difficult.
The question now is will we be able to vote for it.
Right wing government is never good. This time it can lead to a dystopia and
destruction of habitability of the planet.
We won't get a second chance in space.
Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright.
The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them.
The Cruelty is the Point, Adam Serwer
Because Republican values are mostly about money, their priorities are warped. In
short, they are determined to get power, and they don't much care how they do it, even
inciting insurrection. They may win by gaming elections, gerrymandering, voter
suppression, foreign interference, misinformation, or even dirty tricks. That's how W
won Florida (with the Supreme Court and his brother's help) that resulted in massive tax
cuts for the wealthy, pointless wars, and his legacy, clueless Supreme
Court that revoked the Voting Rights Act,
decided that the Second Amendment bestowed robust gun rights,
and assured the corruption of the US with Citizen's United.
It was hard to believe that Republicans could come up with a worse President than George W. Bush, but, with Trump,
they outdid themselves.The Trump tax cut was a huge reward for oligarchs, including many Congressmen and Trump himself,
paid for with $1.4 Trillion deficit and also prospective cuts to consumer protections and social programs that most effect the vulnerable.
I’ve decided that right wing government is never good, neither is right wing media.
It doesn’t care about people, trust experts, leads to extreme inequality, corruption, militarism, dictatorship, and fascism.
The public needs to know that the Republican Party is culpable for the present crisis, just as it was culpable for the Great Recession, even if it did not originate either. It needs to know that in the face of a deadly pandemic, some Republican lawmakers appear to have looked to profit rather than to prepare.
It needs to understand that the deadly incompetence of Republican governance is a feature, not a bug.
Don’t Let Trump Off the Hook. Jamelle Bouie NYT (3/20/2020)
...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.
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
— 🇸🇴⭑ ☭ ⭑ Justice for the Damned ⭑ ☭ ⭑🇸🇴 (@tekstone) October 19, 2020
...what we are now seeing are the obvious characteristics of
the West after the fall of Rome: the triumph of religion over reason;
the atrophy of education and critical thinking; the integration of
religion, the state, and the apparatus of torture -- a troika that was
for Voltaire the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment world; and the
political and economic marginalization of our culture. Of course, the
Dark Ages were not uniformly monochromatic, as recent scholarship has
demonstrated; but then, neither is present-day America. The point is
that in both cases "dark" is the operative word. Morris
Berman
no one could have predicted that the party of Nazis, compromised Russian assets, pedophile wrestling coaches, sex-trafficking plutocrats, blackout-drunk rapist judges, concentration camp fanboys and bone saw murder apologists would also be the party of sham trial aficionados
And for the Republicans in Congress, there’s another
interest—namely, to undermine anything that Obama, you know, the
Antichrist, might try to do. So that’s a separate issue there. The
Republicans stopped being an ordinary parliamentary party some years
ago. They were described, I think accurately, by Norman Ornstein, the
very respected conservative political analyst, American Enterprise
Institute; he said the party has become a radical insurgency which has
abandoned any commitment to parliamentary democracy. And their goal for
the last years has simply been to undermine anything that Obama might
do, in an effort to regain power and serve their primary constituency,
which is the very wealthy and the corporate sector. They try to conceal
this with all sorts of other means. In doing so, they’ve had to—you
can’t get votes that way, so they’ve had to mobilize sectors of the
population which have always been there but were never mobilized into
an organized political force: evangelical Christians, extreme
nationalists, terrified people who have to carry guns into Starbucks
because somebody might be after them, and so on and so forth. That’s a
big force. And inspiring fear is not very difficult in the United
States. It’s a long history, back to colonial times, of—as an extremely
frightened society, which is an interesting story in itself. And
mobilizing people in fear of them, whoever "them" happens to be, is an
effective technique used over and over again. And right now, the
Republicans have—their nonpolicy has succeeded in putting them back in
a position of at least congressional power. So, the attack on—this is a
personal attack on Obama, and intended that way, is simply part of that
general effort. But there is a common strategic concern underlying it,
I think, and that is pretty much what U.S. intelligence analyzes:
preventing any deterrent in the region to U.S. and Israeli actions." Noam
Chomsky comments on Netanyahu talk to the Congress 2015
America's fundamental problem, in my opinion, since
Ronald Reagan came to office January 20, 1981, and declared the
fateful words: "Government is not the solution to our
problem, Government is the problem" we have been on a more
than a 30 year jag of dismantling the very means to address the
challenges we face as a society. Jeffrey Sachs
CSPAN 2/17/12
"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
"The Republicans have a pretty simple philosophy:
they say if those at the top have more — more power for Wall Street players to
do whatever they want and more money for tax cuts than somehow they can
be counted on to build the economy for everyone else. Well, we tried it
for 30 years and it didn’t work. In fact the consequences were nearly
catastrophic." Elizabeth
Warren
Republican economic policy is short-sighted, regressive, widely discredited, destructive,
and, let's just say it, corrupt.
It was a mistake to remove progressivity from the tax code.
We are headed for wealth inequality that polarizes and leaves most people miserable.
A
Princeton study determined that the U.S. is an oligarchy,
not a democracy. The Republican tax plan
exacerbated income inequality, penalizes
hard work while benefiting wealthy, and also runs up $1.4 trillion debt for gifts to the wealthy.
The stock market soars while, not coincidentally, homelessness increases. This IS class warfare, and the billionaires won
the 2016 election. There is no guarantee that the system is self correcting.
Government is not a business and shouldn't be run like one.
Business people are not particularly good at economics.
They relax bank regulation and cash in with the subsequent market collapse and government bailout.
In spite of the evidence, Republicans continue to argue
that tax cuts increase revenue. In a particularly short-sighted piece of
legislation, they cut the budget of the IRS. Republicans are not just
irresponsible tax dodgers, government under
Trump looks like a get rich quick scheme.
Republican tax policy is always
regressive. The estate tax (aka the death tax) doesn't apply to
99% of the people, its elimination benefits only the very wealthiest
but Republicans are determined to eliminate it. To make matters worse,
Republicans have changed tax policy so that unearned income is taxed at
much lower rates than income from actual work.
* History shows that every democracy
is short lived. Republicans economic policy is always regressive.
As wealth becomes concentrated,
people in general lose their voices, an oligopoly
then governs, financial volatility
increases, an empire ensues, and finally
it is all destroyed. The US is well along this
path. When most people do not agree with the opinions of the
affluent, studies show that the
wealthy prevail. Republican initiatives have created an oligopoly, a
strong-man head of state, ripped off
the middle class, crashed the economy,
downsized our civil liberties, and
are putting the next generation into debt servitude. The Constitution was designed to protect us
from concentrated power, but Republicans are not paying attention to
that part. What they intend is treasonous: Government by
Corporations. (aka fascism)
Republicans motivated the dismantling of New Deal
economic stabilizers like Glass-Steagle, they are worked tirelessly to
eliminate safeguards in Dodd-Frank, the Republican Senate assured
banks that they will be bailed out if their derivative trades go bad.
Not only is the economy more volatile, it prepares the way for
the next financial crisis.
There is a strong correlation of Republican
Presidency's and massive bank bailouts. Banks are even larger now than when they
were too big to fail. Next time, and there is almost certain to be a next time
(coincidentally the bailouts always seem to occur when Republicans are
in office) we should nationalize the banks. Congress committed to bail them out again.
GOP policies have propelled the U.S. to
unprecedented income inequality
with all of the toxic consequences that brings: a volatile economy,
anemic demand, corrupt government, weak democracy,
rising poverty, a sinking middle
class, failing schools, rotting infrastructure,
and dysfunctional institutions no longer able to address the critical problems we face.
Republicans not only don't acknowledge the problems, they are making them
much worse. They deny science, not only the pandemic,
but also the existential threat of climate collapse.
Republicans only care about deficits
when public money is being spent on people. When they are in office deficits don¨t matter.
'Supply
Side' economics has been completely discredited.
Bush senior rightly called it Voodoo
Economics. The Congressional Budget Office has been packed with
supply-siders to do "dynamic
scoring". The Trump tax plan was and is a huge windfall for the wealthy.
Under President Obama, in the face of massive unemployment, Republicans decided,
against advice of our best economists,
that austerity should be at the top of
the agenda and they proposed a budget to
match. Since unemployment was certain to go up with their policy, many
of us think they intended to crash
the economy to win election. History shows
austerity doesn't counter recession. Ask the Europeans. Paul
Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, elaborates this in
his book:
End This Depression Now! There is no need for austerity when Republicans control all three branches of government.
In Republican states, austerity
resulted in massive public sector layoffs, degradation of services, reduced pensions, devastated
schools, and more unemployment. 17,000
people may die because they live in a State that refused Medicaid
expansion. Republicans are openly hostile to labor
unions, and, as in Wisconsin, rolled back public sector bargaining
rights. Republican logic: Low wages accompanied by tax cuts for
the wealthy makes a State "business friendly". When the tax cuts
cause revenue decline, Republicans cry emergency and they find the
easiest cuts to make are for public sector pensions. New Jersey
underfunded pensions for a long time, until Governor Christie decided
to fix the problem by having employees pay more and cutting benefits.
When he found that the New Jersey was still over $800 million out of
balance, he decided to hit the pension fund again. Although lower
wages, shrunken pensions, and corporate welfare widen income
inequality, many State's compete to sink the middle class, bribe corporations with taxpayer money, and
pursue fastest possible path to the bottom.
Since Reagan, the U.S. has not seriously enforced anti-trust,
and that has led to concentration in many industries. That has driven out
competition, a pre-requisite for a free market, and created oligarchs who lobby to further game the
system. It has been particularly damaging to media.
Americans are very badly misinformed. The middle class has collapsed. Oligarchs and Corporations rule.
Members of Congress are quite
wealthy. So it is no surprise that the US is now a feudal state, one run by the
very wealthy. See
this video
(Joseph Stiglitz)
Republican austerity did
more harm than good. It led to more unemployment, crumbling infrastructure,
degraded internet, poor
services, and a depressed economy. Everyone loses. Trump has shown that austerity
is only necessary when Republicans are not in control.
The Federal budget is the opposite of what
people, when polled, would want. That's because Republicans govern for the wealthy,
not the people.
Instead of providing needed services for people or repairing crumbling infrastructure, Republicans expanded the military,
continuing the forever war, building a new round of nuclear
weapons, denying climate change, and
attempting to rule the far-flung empire.
Growth cannot be unlimited, it has
only lifted yachts, and it will not solve any of our problems. More
likely it will exacerbate them.
...a doctrine that even Republican economists
consider dangerous nonsense has become party orthodoxy.
And what makes this political triumph especially remarkable is
that it comes just as the doctrine’s high priests have been setting new
standards for utter, epic predictive failure. Paul
Krugman (2/20/2015).
Just about everywhere in the West except the United
States, where there is no mandatory paid time off, workers not only
get vacations but also short work weeks, government health care,
large pensions, high minimum wages, subsidized childcare, and so
forth. Why is the United States the exception?"
Claude S Fischer, Boston Review
When Republicans vow to make
government smaller, the most important cuts for them are for people.
The GOP has been planning cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs for a long time.
Trump said he wouldn’t cut Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare. His 2020 budget cuts all 3.
The better to pay for the $1.4 trillion hole in the budget from their tax plan.
Republicans want to downsize Social
Security, food stamps, Head Start. block grant Medicare, reduce any
programs that actually benefit people. They are waging a
war on the poor. Just as income
inequality has reached new levels of unfairness, they are
driving the massive downward mobility of the US middle class.
A failure of the social contract.
Although the GOP had no credible substitute, they
attempted many times to roll back Obamacare.
In Republican States, rather than
help the uninsured, they would rather let people die. They shrink
healthcare options for women.
They are pro-life only for the unborn.
This is not new. Republicans
have, at least since Ronald Reagan, opposed any effort to assist the underclass.
A strong social safety net is not
just an economic stabilizer, it is a moral attempt to assist the poor.
As automation, corporate consolidation,
off-shoring, and overpopulation, resulting in labor surplus,
makes paying jobs more scarce, it will be increasingly
important to strengthen the welfare state.
Welfare 'reform' cut support for the vulnerable. As overpopulation and technology
advances lead to higher unemployment, the social safety
net should be stronger. Higher productivity should make for a better standard of
living, but because all the gains have gone to the top, the opposite
has happened. Americans are working longer hours for less pay and benefits.
It is unpardonable that there is not a healthcare system that covers everyone.
Republicans do not acknowledge the toxic effects of income inequality, which can propel
most people into debt servitude and crash the economy.
Although polls show it is very popular across the political spectrum,
Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage.
Wealth inequality is not only unfair, socially corrosive, but also slows social mobility, lessens
demand and weakens the economy and the Constitution.
Rs would privatize education,
shrink the post office, but they have no problem growing the
world's largest military. Privatizing prisons has been profitable but
counterproductive. The US has the world's largest prison population,
another technique for minority voter suppression, since felons often cannot vote.
In 1995 we had a government shutdown. Newt Gingrich was
Speaker of the House. Than, as now, Republicans were determined to
cut Social Security, Medicare,
and welfare was also a target. They
haven't changed. Now they are determined to gut the Affordable Care Act, voucherize Medicare,
and block grant other programs for the truly vulnerable. However they
can always find money for tax cuts for the wealthy,
corporate welfare, the world's largest military,
the burgeoning National Security
State, and the world dominating empire they
envision. The reality is that a weakening US economy can no longer
support the American empire, although, since
Republicans cannot give it up, we are losing our standard of living to pay for it. There must be
great secrecy for this policy, and black
agencies are well funded so that Americans are ignorant about it.
* Republicans have been engaging in brinkmanship with full
awareness that the economy could crash, They didn't care very much
if the US loses financial stability or if the
world economy crashes, what they want is to cut programs that
actually benefit people: like Social
Security, Medicare, head start, food stamps, and especially Obamacare.
It is extortion. They have broken the social contract.
* Republicans oppose efforts to assist the middle (working)
class. They oppose unions or raising the minimum wage, which would lessen poverty and be
an economic stimulus. They would cut social programs, they would privatize Social Security, voucherize
Medicare, cut food stamps, save money on head start. have no
credible answers for health care
issues, and have a stealth program to privatize education.
Cuts to higher education pushed tuition higher and graduating students now face heavy debt (which
they cannot escape with bankruptcy), but Republicans have not
stopped student interest rates from doubling. and in the House of
Representatives attempted to repeal Obamacare
48 times
in what was not only a complete waste of time. They have NO concern with the millions of
Americans who are uninsured and no credible improvements. Universal healthcare is not part of
the Republican dream for America. Republican States have managed
to sabotage Obamacare though, thus depriving their uninsured of any
benefit. Oddly, these Republican States are quite poor and more in
need. Conservative States, mostly the old Confederacy, are more
backward.
Republican policy caused the middle class and
the economy to sink. Demand dries up, and a
vicious downward cycle causes recession and misery.
No doubt the drug crisis and other problems of despair are related.
While protecting tax breaks for
millionaires, they oppose relief for working Americans. They bust unions, oppose consumer
protection agencies, and don't even protect school children from fast-food
companies or guns. The Ryan Budget reflected the mean spirited, regressive Republican
approach. See this video
of Elizabeth Warren.
* Concentrated wealth
leads to oligarchy, economic instability,
toxic media, political corruption, social pathology and fascism, It can be damped
down with stiff graduated taxes or a strong social safety net, but
Republicans think a flat tax is a good idea, although,
not surprisingly, quite regressive. Since they are the party of oligarchs, R's are anxious to abolish the estate tax
also. Such
policies DO redistribute wealth...upward. Republicans are
the party of the very wealthy, and their
concerns are much different than most of the people.
Democracy cannot survive extreme wealth inequality.
This is a Weimar moment.
If Republicans get their way, our shredded social safety net will be cut further.
the economy will sink as a result of austerity, poverty
will continue to soar, the wealthy
will continue to receive benefits from the government that they
have bought, the wall between church and
state will be smashed. People will suffer because Republicans impoverish the
poor to benefit the already wealthy.
Yet another vicious cycle occurs as the wealthy game the system even
further for their own benefit. This is yet another short-sighted
Republican policy in which everyone becomes poorer as a result.
James
Gilligan, formerly at the Harvard Medical School,
Director of Mental Health Services for Massachusetts prisons, and now
Professor of Psychiatry at the New York University has written a book "Why
Some Politicians are more Dangerous that Others”. In it he
gathers statistics for the U.S. and finds that violent deaths (murder
and suicides) are strongly correlated with Republican Presidencies.
* Although US infrastructure is
in poor condition, many jobs might have been created by repairing it.
Interest rates were low, and it would have been a good investment,
Republicans opposed all real job creation efforts, and there is no
doubt that repairs will be much more costly later. An initiative to
repair or improve infrastructure would create jobs, the economy would
recover, but Republicans wouldn't get credit...so they won't approve.
You are no safer. (See Bob Herbert's book Losing
Our Way.) Our infrastructure is old, deteriorating, unsafe,
and wasteful. Instead of fixing it, Republicans would rather build a
wall across Mexico. Remember when Reagan said "Tear down this
wall ?" The Trump infrastructure plan went nowhere.
The Republican mantra is YOYO: your on your own. It is every
man for himself, and you should be armed with
automatic weapons for your own safety. Picture those old wild west
movies enhanced with assault weapons. Check out Charles Derber's
book, Wilding of America, for some of the consequences.
Media concentration, motivated by the GOP, pollutes information streams, and become a threat to democracy.
There are a lot of good reasons for a vigorous anti-trust effort.
Right wing media, like Fox News, has become a danger to democracy.
Media, when it is not otherwise
distracting us, mostly covers elections
like a horse race, but unwittingly, we actually vote for an agenda because the winning candidate will think
its a confirmation of his beliefs. He may or may not do what he said he would.
Republicans work to undermine democracy because they are a minority, and people do not agree with them.
Usually the most important issues are not discussed.
When Reagan did away with the Fairness
Doctrine and suspended enforcement of anti-trust laws, corporate America
rolled up into a few large monopolies. No where has this been more
damaging than in media.
The FCC
buried a report that concluded that concentration of media causes loss of local jobs, loss of local news, and loss of
local accountability. Republicans usually try to bury information that is not consistent with
their ideology...even if the facts contradict them. Now they are ready to reject net neutrality, potentially
an assault on free speech.
The corporate friendly Supreme Court decided that money is speech
and its Citizens United decision
assured that floods of dark money foul our media, culture, education, politics, and
recent media coverage is funded by Republican oligarchs.
Expensive media assures that only the wealthy can have a strong voice or
opportunity in politics. It is shameful and quite dangerous that
wealthy families are the eligible candidates for the Presidency.
Similar ancestry dominates the Congress.
Toxic political commentary has resulted from Republicans
turning over media to oligarchs and relieving them of public
responsibility. Media concentration has not only created a few billionaires, it has
contributed mightily to income
inequality, cut local jobs, made elections
obscenely expensive, forced politicians to be fund-raisers, corrupted
politics, reduced much that is broadcast into propaganda, outrage, trivia, stealth
advertising, and misinformation, and made a mockery of the
competitive 'free market' (a free market, by definition, has reliable
information and many competitors. US media has neither.)
Fox News has made itself gate keeper for
Republican Presidential
candidates and Trump relies on it for policy direction.
Republican ideology is streamed
constantly by Fox News, Sinclair, OAN and the rest
of the right-wing noise machine. Citizens United
guaranteed a cash bonanza for media owners, but you won't hear about it
from them. They successfully killed net neutrality.
Corporate media, over the last decades, has corroded American culture.
You need only take a close look at your TV screen... or schedule.
The oligarchs are
politically powerful, so we are no longer a democracy.
Journalism is on life support, universal surveillance stops
informed comment, whistle blowers are harshly punished, ideologues
dominate the news, conglomerates judge the election
as a competition for money freezing out candidates
without deep pockets, and
all the while keeping Americans distracted, pacified, and ignorant
compared to people in well-governed countries.
The internet
is subject to the same consolidating forces as the rest of media, but has the additional
danger of becoming a universal
surveillance panopticon. The FCC rolled back net neutrality and a Republican Congress did not object.
Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon and AT&T together have spent more than $374
million lobbying to block Net Neutrality legislation. Not surprisingly,
Republicans are fighting net neutrality.
Democracy, like journalism, is on a death watch. So are civil
liberties. Increasingly, the US is immersed in propaganda.
Republicans Have embarked on a National Campaign of Voter Suppression
*
US elections do not meet international
standards. The two parties have a lock on the discussion. Citizens United
enables a flood of dark money that funds Candidates selected
far in advance by plutocrats.
They are backed by corporate media that renders anyone without money invisible.
Republicans have blocked laws requiring financial disclosure. This
guarantees corruption, institutional failure. Download Lawrence
Lessig's book: Republic, Lost.
Election rigging is
rampant...and mostly Republican. Republicans
restrict registrations to exclude unwelcome voters (minorities,
students, and others). That's how they win without a popular majority. It is ominous that they are not willing
to fully fund the next census.
To add to election difficulties, Russians interfered in 2016, and they are poised
to do it again. Mitch McConnell has no interest in stopping them.
Trump has seemed to be their agent.
* Republicans, in states that they control, after
gerrymandering Congressional districts, have attacked public sector unions, laid off massive numbers of employees
(further depressing the economy ) and are engaging in a campaign of voter suppression. They have been
empowered to do this by partisan hacks on the Supreme Court.
* Given Republicans effort to make voting more difficult, we
should have substantial election
reform. The last Republican primary was an ugly, negative campaign by
remarkably undistinguished candidates trying to sell bad policy.
They call themselves 'conservatives', but they are anything
but.
* Illegal
immigration is, of course a stealth Republican wedge
issue, (others are God, Gays, and abortion) a continuation of the
Republican war on the underclass.
Like the "war on drugs", it also
benefits for-profit prisons.
Because felons are often not allowed to vote again, harsh crime
policy effectively suppresses minority votes.
The US record levels of incarceration are a win-win for Republicans
because they profit private prisons, they are a tool for increasing the population of rural areas,
they suppress voter eligibility, and they are a source of very low wage labor. Michel Alexander has written that
they are the new Jim Crow.
* They celebrate Reagan's 'Tear Down This Wall' speech in
Germany, while declaring an emergency for an even more secure wall the length of the
Mexican border. This is profitable for a number of military contractors
and rouses the xenophobe base.
* Having been paid off by UPS and Fedex, they have made the Post
Office a casualty of their privatization
efforts. Next, with Betsy DeVos, Rupert Murdoch and Jeb Bush leading, will be privatization of schools.
* Republicans, in opposing any
sensible regulation of firearms, brought an epidemic of gun violence upon us. They are funded by
the NRA, a front group for the arms industry, and apparently only pro-life for the unborn. They are not
too concerned about the 137,000 deaths that result from Americans
who live in Republican States without health insurance coverage.
deaths resulting from widespread famine in other countries, or
deaths from the pandemic. Although the Republican House talked a lot about jobs, what they spent
time on was abortion. Their policy on population is, long-run, self destructive.
See
this video for example.
* The right-wing government of Israel
has contributed millions of dollars to the GOP, so the one thing the Republicans agree
on is that they will support Israel
in all circumstances. Israel is seriously considering
military action against Iran. All Republican
Presidential candidates favored war with Iran.
The Republican agenda is about the opposite of what people, when polled, want.
They are a minority that must cheat at elections to gain control
and they are willing to use violence to win control.
LGBT rights are still strongly resisted
by Republicans, especially the religious
fundamentalists.
When people enter the work place,
they give up almost all liberty. The right to organize a union was
written into the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, but Republicans resistance to union
organizing has been a powerful damper on wages and benefits.
The universal surveillance
programs, implemented by Bush Neocons, that
have proved so ineffective did destroy trust in US based
multinationals, and will accelerate the Balkanization of the internet.
Except for the Libertarian branch, Republicans are rolling back the Bill of Rights. Forget about the fourth
amendment, we have lost all privacy.
* The single most important indicator that someone is a
Republican, is whether they are regular church attendees.
* Republicans often proclaim religious
zeal. Many of them are trying to break down the wall between church and state. Notice that the most
religious countries (or states) are also the most
backward. Our most prosperous and highly educated communities
are also the most liberal. Republicans frequently
deny climate change, evolution, and many of them
say higher education is indoctrination or
snobbery. It appears that they are waging a war
on science and, using large money incentives, are politicizing
higher education and funding ideology
driven 'think
tanks'.
* For every major religion,
doctrine says: love thy neighbor. So who are Republican's neighbors ? Mexicans ? Immigrants ? Muslims ?
Poor ? It seems not, but they love their guns.
* Republicans religious hypocrisy is on full display as they
cut taxes for the wealthy,
and then cut health care, welfare, food stamps, meals on wheels, and other services for
the poor.
* Republican policy has led to increased poverty. Poverty
drives people to religion for comfort. Religion is media that denies science, so its
education casts doubt on evolution,
climate change, and fuels the tribalist beliefs that breed terrorism.
A bake sale is no substitute for a robust social safety net.
* Republicans claim to favor small, unintrusive government,
but they have no problem defending the Patriot
Act, the universal spying,
government secrecy,
or mandating invasive procedures for women.
Women were not allowed to testify about
this. Further, this was used as an excuse to allow employers to
tailor their health insurance coverage any way they want. It appears
that the hidden hand of the health insurance industry and the Catholic
church are motivating these policies. They have opposed equal pay
for women (the Lily Ledbetter Act). They are
doubling down on the
war on women.
* It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that religion
is the main motivator for terrorism.
Why should it be tax exempt when we have massive military
expenses to be prepared for the consequences of religious intolerance.
* Many religious beliefs are in direct contradiction of
settled science, so we ought to
call them what they are: failed science
or destructive ideology. Religious 'education' is, in many cases,
profoundly contrary to the public interest. If you are poor in this
life, feel a duty to further the religious cause, want to speed up your reward in the after-life, why not blow
yourself up?
When Republicans claim to want
small government what they mean is they are for privatizing everything,
expanding the military, but
cutting consumer protection, voting rights, equal rights, the minimum wage, Social Security, social programs, the EPA
so that there will be freedom to pollute, in short they want to give
corporate predators everything that they want.
They want small government and deregulation, they say, but
they would regulate your sex life.
They are 'pro-life', they say, but,
unlike other advanced
countries, they favor the death penalty,
see little reason to regulate guns,
and in many Republican States
turn a blind eye to the thousands of deaths resulting from their
refusal to expand Medicare.
Nor do they attempt to mitigate humanitarian crisis occurring
in the rest of the world.
They are destroyers of the commons.
As a result, our infrastructure is in sad need of repair. (See Bob
Herbert's book Losing
Our Way.) They sell off public lands for mining, drilling and other exploitation.
They are terrible stewards of the environment. Their denial of climate damage
is just plain ignorant.
Republicans are corporate supremacists. Government run by
corporations is, by definition, fascist.
The GOP is now the party of Trump.
The 'conservative' justices of the Supreme
Court, being corporate supremacists, have accomplished a coup:
they have removed the government of the people and replaced it with
government by the corporations. That
is, by dictionary definition, fascism. Our
government is not broke, it is bought. Congress overwhelmingly decides
for the wealthy, not the people.
Corporations are not
people, and they should not be
allowed to pour cash into politics. It is corrupting. Cash is
not speech. Profit is not their highest goal. Citizens United assures government
by corporations, not people. Rule by corporations is, by definition, fascism.
* Republicans are corporatists.
they represent the interests of the already wealthy.
They want regressive tax cuts, suppression of labor unions, and religion
that subjugates people. Deregulation,
like
privatization, is a strategy that removes oversight,
transparency, accountability, and it is a major cause of the latest
market crash. Just as Bush I, taxpayers had to bail out the banks
again because Republicans have not learned the lessons of the great
depression and continue to fight for less financial regulation. Expect another crash,
only this time it will be worse because banks are even larger than last time.
* We have media that Congress allowed
to become dangerously concentrated. Rupert
Murdoch, found unfit to run a major corporation in Britain, not
allowed in Canada, owns the Republican
party and is actively spreading misinformation. Since he has not been
held accountable, toxic politics will continue in the US. He can be
credited with incitement to right-wing
terrorism: the assassination of abortion
doctors,
death threats on high-profile liberals, and other civil
disorder. See this video.
(Robert McChesney)
* Except for Ron Paul, Republican candidates agreed that water
boarding is effective. Although they strongly defend the second
amendment (they are well
funded by the gun industry), they stood
by silently as the rest of the bill of
rights has been eviscerated.
Republicans, like other fascists in history, don't care about
the well-being of the people.
That's why they are persistent in cutting all constructive social programs.
When Republicans don't like other countries
politics, they criticize them for human rights violations...while
condoning torture , renditions, capital punishment,
and even assassinations.
Republicans
demonize Muslims, Russians (formerly), Chinese, Iranians, and others in the 'axis
of evil' to justify increasing funding for the military. They don't
believe in diplomacy. The Trump State Department was stripped of career diplomats.
War is
a deeply counterproductive way to conduct foreign policy, it has been disastrous for the Middle East,
we are engaged on a world-wide battlefield in an apparently endless
war, yet Republicans are clearly planning for much more of it. Don't think that we
are safer as a result. In passing the AUMF, the Congress about abdicated its
Constitutional power to authorize war. SCOTUS was silent.
The US not only has the world's largest
military, it is number 1 in WMDs, and Republicans want to spend even
more.
The US has a seemingly unbreakable habit of relying on Military
Keynsianism. Weaponry is the source of jobs for a large majority of
Congressional districts, and it is not only a terrible jobs program,
deprives us of civil liberties,
civilization, and may prove to be our own self-destruction. No one is
exceptional, but Republicans don't accept that.
The Republican appetite for military spending is insatiable,
and it comes at the expense of the general
welfare. U.S. military misadventures have inflamed the world and
made us much less safe. Those
drones that we now deploy will one day fly over our cities.
Nuclear weapons will proliferate.
Since there is no credible
threat to justify it, Republicans provoked threats from Iran and tryed to revive the cold war
relationship with Russia. Since Russia provided funding for the GOP and is now a far right country,
the GOP is allied with them.
* Republicans are the party of the military-industrial
complex, so although we have no major enemies in sight, they refuse
to cut the military budget. Like any fascist government, they would expand the
military by cutting programs that actually benefit people, With the
exception of Ron Paul, they are always ready to arm themselves to go to war. They have funded expensive, provocative
weapons programs like 'star wars' that
cannot and will not work. This benefits corporate war profiteers, and robs
people of necessities like health care as well as efficient
infrastructure like high-speed rail. Because the US is now an empire, the US military,
now the largest in the world is dispersed to over a hundred countries.
It is the reason we are facing financial ruin, opposition abroad, loss of our civil liberties, deteriorating services,
rotting infrastructure, declining standard of living, and a
militarized country. See this video.
(Chalmers Johnson.)
Republicans have no desire to stand down nuclear
weaponry. We will spend a trillion dollars on nuclear
weapons over the next ten years even though
it is in violation of international law,
but Republicans do not care about that. What you prepare for will surely come to pass.
The Bush family for generations,
had strong connections with the military-industrial profiteers.
The Republican government in waiting, as selected by Bush or Mitt
Romney, was staffed by the same
warmongers who lied to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan
and are determined to build a world-dominating empire.
Republicans have not been held accountable
for criminal acts including wire taps, torture,
renditions, and lying to
go to war and that means the
felons are back and will continue if they can win elections.
A large part of the US 'defense' budget is secret because it is used for purposes
that citizens would never approve and to fund state terrorism
world wide. (See, for example, SOAW.org)
If Republicans had the moral superiority that they claim, they
would want peace. They would have some
respect for international law,
join the
International Criminal Court, and pay their dues to the UN. Instead they oppose efforts to reduce
numbers of nuclear weapons and support the provocative star wars boondoggle. But war is
profitable, and world-dominating empire is
their goal, so they are warmongers. Like fascists
in history, they are not concerned with
the well-being of actual people. Only corporations.
Someone said: We might as well have burned the four trillion
dollars we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. See Nobel Prize winning
economist Joseph Stiglitz book: The
Three Trillion Dollar War: Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
(Stiglitz revised his estimate: It's
now more like $4 trillion.
We embarked on perpetual war, because war is profitable.
It is also hollowing out infrastructure at home and causing rapid US cultural decline.
By electing fascists, we have finally lost WWII making every single US war unsuccessful.
Face it. Republicans are war mongers and profiteers.
After WW II the US signed the UN Charter which allowed
war in only two circumstances: one, self-defense from an outside attack, or two, with
the unanimous agreement of the UN Security Council.
We did not get such agreement, and additionally there is now recognition that the case for
war was fabricated. The Iraq war caused world opinion of
the US to plummet. Republicans don't like the UN and are in arrears for its dues.
The Bush administration's prison at Guantanamo
showed that American law stopped at the waters edge. Torture made NEOCON officials war criminals.
Criticism of other countries human rights activities can only be seen
as hypocrisy now.
"TeleSur" - An international poll found that the United
States is ranked far in the lead as “the biggest threat to world peace
today,” far ahead of second-place Pakistan, with no one else even
close. (1/17/2015)
or (10/21/2014)
Our most serious challenges are global: pollution, climate
degradation, over population, nuclear proliferation, ...
Global challenges require global institutions, yet Republicans undermine the UN, back out of the
Paris agreement, and trash the Iran nuclear agreement with no plan except to go to war.
Many Republicans think torture
is ok. Some should be prosecuted for war crimes. That's why the U.S.
cannot join the International Criminal Court.
History shows that Republics cannot survive empire.
Since Fascism has been reborn in the US,
it looks like we lost WWII.
As we continue to destroy the habitability
of our planet, our most severe
challenges are global. (See Kishore Mahbubani's book 'The Great Convergence'
for that argument.) It seems apparent that the US has great disdain
for international opinion and
institutions since it has consistently opposed adequate funding for
the UN, and crippled the WHO and the IAEA . It
cannot bring itself to join the ICC (International Criminal Court).
Republicans oppose science: They are Climate Change Deniers
With one exception, none of the Republicans running for the
Senate - including the 20 or so with a serious chance of winning -
accept the scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible
for global warming. New York Times editorial 10/18/2010.
We are destroying nature: an extinction is
underway, temperatures rising, forests burning, glaciers melting, drought intensifying, deserts
expanding, soils depleting, pollution
growing, oceans rising, and population is
out of control and unsustainable.
* Republicans, representing polluters
and corporate oligarchs, using tobacco
industry tactics, have been the force behind climate destruction
denial, ignoring scientists with actual
evidence. This, alone, is sufficient reason not to vote for them.
(See Merchants of Doubt.)
* Corrupt media sides with money,
and never lets on that there is a problem with climate.
* The most profitable corporations, notably the fossil fuel industries,
back the climate denying 'experts' and the Republicans.
While real conservatives would leave carbon in the ground, Republicans cheer for the polluters, the XL
pipeline, fracking, and more drilling. We should repeal payroll taxes and replace
them with a carbon tax, but we won't because Republican tax policy is short-sighted, self-serving,
regressive, misguided, and corrupt.
The Republican cult
includes racists, theocrats, oligarchs, tax dodgers, polluters,
corporate supremacists,
Neocon war mongers (see Iraq or Iran),
misogynists, bigots, racists, theocrats, homophobes,
fascists,
gun lovers, felons and other
right-wing nuts. They have brought on us a corporate
empowering Supreme Court that selectedW
and his wrecking crew,
and with SCOTUS assistance has all but destroyed the republic.
Supreme Court decisions severely damaged democracy,
rolling back the Voting Rights Act resulted in renewed voter suppression,
gerrymandering made State elections unrepresentative,
Citizens United allowed big dark money to corrupt politics,
striking down Campaign Finance laws, weakening law on corruption, and
ignoring the militia clause in the Second Amendment has brought on
political violence and the wilding of America.
The Republican Congress is the
most obstructionist, dysfunctional and unproductive in our history.
Their misguided agenda will put the
majority in debt servitude to profit the oligarchs
that own the party. But they are primarily tax-dodgers unwilling to pay for
services required by a civilized country.
Many of the Republicans are theocrats, the sign of a backward country.
They are the party of ideas...only bad ones.
Republicans values are all about money.
They do not think the American dream includes healthcare for
all, nor do they respect the role of science in establishing fact
(they deny the looming climate
crisis), they twist their religion to invert
its dictum to burden the poor and profit the wealthy,
they reject economists
assessment of the damage from their austerity [only when not in office] and
brinkmanship, they are corporatists which by definition is
fascism, their voter id laws and gerrymandering degrade elections
and reveal their racism,
their 'stand your ground' laws grant a right to vigilantism, their
appetite for all things military is insatiable, they cry out
for small government but don't worry about the NSA,
or the growing national security
state. They don't like government which is why they are so bad at
it, their YOYO (your on your own) attitude
is largely responsible for the "Wilding of America" (see Charles
Derber's book of the same title), their obstruction has made US
government dysfunctional. Although they yell they are defenders of
the Constitution, their actions have
shredded it. Carrying the confederate flag into the capital, it is apparent that many of them are
secessionists.
The insurrection didn't succeed, but they are still trying to take over using aggressive voter suppression.
Should you vote for them ? Not if you are an actual patriot.
Real authoritarians never lose an election.
When Republicans control
the Senate, if they stay on their course, they will continue denial
of climate change and head for certain
disaster. They are somewhat responsible for the new round of nuclear weaponry,
and insatiable appetite for guns, and the lack of effort for peace because they are
driven by fear, paranoia, and greed.
They turn a blind eye to the the unfairness of extreme inequality
and the corrosive social consequences.
They passed tax cuts for the wealthy putting an additional $1.5 trillion on taxpayer debt,
then cut programs for the poor
and vulnerable claiming that the deficit is more of a threat.
They will continue the corrupt privatization of public
facilities including public lands, schools, the internet,
media, Post Office, and more. Universal surveillance
will continue, civil liberties will
be a distant memory, real journalism will shrink, and, as the
economy tanks (Banks too big to fail are even bigger now) militarization of
the police will be appropriate for an arms race with
right-wing protesters heavily armed with assault weapons.
A recent study determined that the U.S. is an oligopoly
now, and Thomas Piketty's, Capital in the Twenty-First Century,
forecasts that the one percent are going to benefit from an even greater
concentration of wealth which will be accelerated by Republican policy.
Former President Trump insisted on further expansion of the military,
to continue the endless war, appointed even worse
judges to the Supreme Court,
appointed cabinet heads who oppose the very agencies that they lead,
and accelerate our move to a fascist
police state. Existential threats will be unaddressed because Republicans are
rewarding themselves from the public trough.They are all about denial of
facts and short-term profit. The good news is that they were unable
to pass any major legislation except for their ugly tax plan (a major theft from the taxpayers.)
Republicans despise democracy, so they undermine all of its supports: press, elections, courts, social programs, and
also effective the massive expansion of the military. The forever war is sure to eliminate civil liberties and
result in a police state.
...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)
The test of our progress is not
whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is
whether we provide enough for those who have too
little.- FDR
"The refusal to provide very minimal living standards
to people who are caught in this monstrosity — that's just pure savagery." –
Noam Chomsky
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