Why Republicans Are Wrong

Fascism has come to America, and as predicted, it is wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
Steve Schmidt

Decapitation Strike: Preserving America from Trump's Appointments Timothy Snyder (11/15/2024)

What people don’t understand and are failing to appreciate is they’ve erased all the guardrails. They’ve tested all the defenses. They have the House, Senate, SCOTUS, White House, and the most powerful man and media empire in the world. MAGA won. America’s fate is in their hands.

— Luke Zaleski (@ZaleskiLuke) December 5, 2024

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

“Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America. When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower

the worst kind of one-party state "invariably replaces all first-rate talent, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty." Hannah Arendt wrote in the 1940's. The American Crisis, What Went Wrong, How We Recover P150

"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

What’s at stake with a second Trump presidency – in charts and maps (12/3/2024)

The Strongman Fantasy And Dictatorship in Real Life
Timothy Snyder (11/20/2024)

Think you know how bad Trump unleashed will be? Look at the evidence: it will be even worse (11/8/2024)

'Frightening to consider': fears grow over Trump’s threats to political foes (10/30/2024)

What to expect in Trump's next term.

We’re in a pivotal moment in American history. We cannot retreat (5/15/2024) Bernie Sanders

The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025 (1/2024)

We must start urgently talking about the dangers of a second Trump presidency (1/25/2024)

A dictator on "day one": The time to push back on Trump is now (12/7/2023)

Change is coming. The question is: what kind of change will it be? Bernie Sanders in the Guardian (11/30/2023)

‘A revenge term’: what would another four years of Trump look like? - (11/11/2023)

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.

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) July 1, 2024

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 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)

The battle has always been authoritarians against democracy.

Right wing government is always bad because democracy is better than authoritarianism.

As nations get larger, there is a slippery slope to the right, political power and wealth concentrate to a few at the top leaving masses of people in poverty, so there is no longer enough to go around. It is a policy choice and doesn't have to be that way.

It has been all down hill for the US since 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 who are laser focused on extracting even more from people.

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

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.

Are Republicans right for you ?

Right institutions include the GOP, religion, corporations, oligarchs, plus their media, all of them inclined to expand by any means, many governments with dictators who go to war for empire.

Left includes academics, scientists, non-profits, unions, consumer groups, the independent press, educators, and others vital for democracy.

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.

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, empowers a minority, 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, where it was allowed on the ballot people rejected it. (See abortion)

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.

The GOP is dragging us down fast.

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/LjKRL3FM4w pic.twitter.com/pwztpsYnNk

— David Roberts (@drvox) June 19, 2020

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.

Democracy

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. Although the Constitution is very hard for people to change, the Supreme Court can twist it into something the founders never would have tolerated, a fascist dictatorship immune from the law.

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, poor social programs including healthcare,child care, 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.

Project 2025 Bullet Points

Media

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.

Misinformation

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.

Economy:

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.

Corporations

Anti-Trust is the tool that undoes concentration in industries, but it has been neglected for a long time.

Workers

The right is passionate about destroying unions, just as it opposes democracy, which is just as important in the economy as it is in politics.

Republicans keep people down. Wages have increased much more under Democrats than under Republicans. Wealth disparities have become extreme.

Well…. This is Horrific. pic.twitter.com/0HpphHGZhU

— M-A.Stay’Legit ™️🇨🇦🇩🇪 (@BagdMilkSoWhat) March 20, 2023

Social Programs

You are not free if you don’t have the basics.

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]

Miserable poor people become religious and Republican, a vicious cycle, good for the GOP.

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.

Don’t let your State turn red.

Candidates

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.

GOP Congressional Report Card

Political Power flows from the barrel of a gun

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.

Environment

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.

Reform

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.

Republicans are operating a scam.

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.

The Catholic Church, usually a far right political ally, would not acknowledge population overshoot. Like other right wingers, they think decisions about child bearing should be made by law, not people. A majority of Catholics are Trump supporters.

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.

America is now in fascism’s legal phase (12/27/2021) Jason Stanley in the Guardian.

January 6 Was Practice (1/2021) The Atlantic

New Rule: The Slow-Moving Coup (10/8/2021) Video 8 minutes.

Senate Judiciary Committee: Report on Donald Trump's Scheme to Pressure DOJ & Overturn the 2020 Election (10/7/2021)

Republicans once called government the problem – now they want to run your life: Robert Reich (9/12/2021)

The Republican Party’s flirtation with Fascism is becoming a Marriage (8/31/2021)

It is Time to Call Republican Rejection of Vaccines and Masks what it is: Selfish (7/29/2021)

'Our Entire Democracy Is Now at Risk' Because of GOP Attacks, Warn 100+ Scholars (6/1/2021)

The Banality of Democratic Collapse (5/24/2021) Paul Krugman

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

The G.O.P. Has Some Voters It Likes and Some It Doesn’t (3/30/2021)

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

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

When Did Republicans Start Hating Facts? (12/14/2020)

Trump Ousted. The Spirit of Insurgent Democracy Is Rising. (11/10/2020)

Researchers on Atrocity Prevention Warn: US on Path to Widespread Political Violence (6/10/2020)

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

The plan is to have no plan (5/4/2020)

Republicans don't like government. Their single-minded goal is not about good government, it is about profiting from it (corruption), reversing Obama's accomplishments or, beyond that, reversing the New Deal. The high values advocated by FDR, the commitment to human rights, the social safety net, responsible government, and the fight against Fascism, have been replaced by extreme nationalism, partisanship, suppression of democracy, militarism, corporatism, theocracy, racism, and authoritarianism.

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.

There is broad agreement that US government is dysfunctional now, and that our institutions do not function for the people. Democracy is not working for us. See, for example, Francis Fukuyama in Foreign Affairs September 2014)

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.

Republicans now have all of the attributes of Fascists.

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

Doomsday Clock: 100 seconds until the end of the world (1/24/2020)

On global warming, we have 12 years left until the point of no return (10/09/2018)

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

Signs of Creeping Fascism Are All Around Us (11/14/2018)

We Have a Year to Defend American Democracy, Perhaps Less ... Timothy Snyder, Yale History Professor (2/13/2017)

We’re heading into dark times. This is how to be your own light in the Age of Trump: Sarah Kendzior (11/18/2016)

pic.twitter.com/HhY4XlbTeR

— 🇸🇴⭑ ☭ ⭑ 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

— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) January 22, 2020

Budgets, Bad Faith and ‘Balance’ (2/15/2018)

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

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

America's Slow-Motion Military Coup (9/19/2017)

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

No, Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along (11/23/2016)

Facing Down Trump's Demagoguery: Lessons From Weimar Germany (7/22/2016)

You're Either For Trump Or Against Him (6/10/2016)

WOW - Michael Cohen’s new anti-Trump ad is incredible.

pic.twitter.com/VH2dmC59jF

— A Worried Citizen (@ThePubliusUSA) August 24, 2020

Republican Economic Policy

"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.

Congress responds to the funders, not to the people. * The US Congress is thoroughly corrupted by money. (See this video of Larry Lessig.)

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)

We have seen that deregulation favors polluters, encourages financial corruption, results in public health hazards: all from loss of public accountability.

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.

Dynamic Voodoo: Paul Krugman (9/9/2015)

Krugman Takes Down Right-Wing Deficit Scolds (8/21/2015)

How the Republican Budget Cons Conservatives (5/7/2015)

Refuting Conservative Economics (3/1/2015)

The US Debt Ceiling For Dummies

How to Ruin An Economy: Some Simple Ways (video) 2/10/2014

Watch Bernie Sanders CRUSH Every Argument Against Raising the Minimum Wage in Under 6 Minutes! (Video)

...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).

Republicans Are Determined to Cut Social Programs

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.

Republicans have wrecked US media

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.

Uncontrolled capitalism can not long co-exist with democracy. The late stage of capitalism is Fascism.

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.

Almost all corporate entities caved to government and collaborated in implementing universal surveillance. The Supreme Court can't seem to find privacy in the Constitution.

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.

Republicans oppose civil liberties

Republican strength in the former Confederacy was rooted in dog-whistle racist discrimination. It still is.

Republicans continue to lead in obstruction of women's rights. They roll back abortion rights ignoring the threat of over population, the primary driver of climate destruction.

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.

U.S. law does not apply to the wealthy

Republicans are Theocrats

* 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?

Republicans do not Govern for the people

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 Fascists

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.

* The Supreme Court, packed with corporate supremacists and right-wing ideologues, in Citizens United and other decisions, has accomplished a coup: we now have a corrupt government by the corporations instead of government by the people. We have, as Lawrence Lessig has documented so well, lost our Republic

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.

Police are being militarized, universal surveillance implemented without public discussion, and the US is number one ... in incarcerations.

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.

Republicans Disdain International Institutions

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.

Republicans work tirelessly to weaken the UN.

War is profitable. Although our economy has been nearly bankrupted to support it, it is necessary to renounce our empire to avoid complete ruin, but Republicans will not. So we are building a new generation of nuclear weapons which will cost a trillion over the next 10 years. "The risk of a nuclear catastrophe is far greater than we think."

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.

Summary

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 selected W 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.

Expect destruction of democracy and a new Dark Age in America. Here's the forecast.

...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)

or see What's Wrong With Republicans ?

Consider also Republican History.

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

Bibliography

• Tyranny from Plato to Trump by Andrew Fiala
• The Conspiracy to End America, Five Ways My Old Party is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy by Stuart Stevens
• American Psychosis, a Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy by David Corn
• How Fascism Works, The Politics of Us and Them: Jason Stanley
• The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics by Steve Benen
• Losing Our Way: Bob Herbert
  
• It's Even Worse Than It Looks: Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein
• Dark Ages America: Morris Berman
  
• The Party is Over: How Republicans went Crazy, Democrats became Useless, and the Middle Class got Shafted: Mike Lofgren (2012)
• The Wilding of America: Charles Derber
• Hostile Takeover, How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government - and How We Take It Back: David Sirota
  
• Corporation Nation: Charles Derber.
• The Republican Brain: Chris Mooney
• Why Some Politicians are More Dangerous Than Others: James Gilligan
  
• Republican Gomorra: Max Blumenthal
• The Death of Conservatism, Sam Tanenhaus
• The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Matt Miller
• One Nation Under Fear: Scaredy Cats and Fear-Mongers in the Home of the Brave (And What You Can Do About It): Bob Cesca (Author), Arianna Huffington (Foreword) 2008
  
• The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives rule by Thomas Frank
• Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics by Glenn Greenwald
• What's the Matter With Kansas: Thomas Frank
• The Sorrows of Empire Chalmers Johnson
• Made in Texas: Michael Lind
• Blinded By The Right: David Brock
• Right is Wrong, How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America: Arianna Huffington
• Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth:. Conason, Joe,
• Unchecked and Unbalanced: Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr. and Aziz Z. Huq
• Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy: Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson
• Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency: Charlie Savage
• The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot: Naomi Wolf
• The Republican War on Science. Chris Mooney
• Censoring Science: Inside the political attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming. Mark Bowen.
• You Don't Know Me: Win McCormack
• Shrub: Molly Ivins
• October Surprise: Gary Sick
• Richard M. Nixon: Elizabeth Drew
• Sleepwalking through History: Chalmers Johnson
• Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches: John W. Dean
• Up From Conservatism: Michael Lind
• The Coors Connection: Russ Bellant
• The Price of Civilization: Jeffrey D. Sachs
• The GOP Hater's Handbook: Jack Huberman
• Books on Republicans
• Books on Trump
• books on Fascism.
• books about Russia
• books about religion
• reading list

Links

Elizabeth Warren Wants to Stop Inequality Before It Starts (1/3/2019)

It's the last week of Republican misrule in Washington — and, oh dear Lord, chaos reigns (12/21/2018)

Stop the Republicans' Wall Street Giveaway: Elizabeth Warren, (12/11/2014)

New Poll Shows Bernie Sanders is the most Popular Politician in America (4/22/2017)

World War III is Coming (3/10/2017)

Steve Bannon Wants To Start World War III (2/8/2017)

The Executive Action Tracker: How Trump’s 13 Latest Moves Will Affect You (1/27/2017)

The Deep State Wants to Deep Six Us (1/13/2017)

We Are the Last Defense Against Trump (1/26/2017)

The 2016 Election underscores why we need reform

Want to Fix Our Dysfunctional Congress? Vote Right-Wing Republicans Out of Office (10/29/14)

The GOP’s victim-blaming strategy

The GOP Autopsy Had 11 Proposals To Change Its Image. How’s That Going? (12/5/2013)

Republicans Are Too Expensive In Jobs and Dollars For America (10/8/2013)

Republican Lunatics vote against the Rights of Disabled People (12/4/2012)

Mitt Romney's Real Agenda (9/28/2012)

Republicans Filibuster the disclose Act so Wealthy Donors Won't Get their Feelings Hurt