Georgia Republicans are using Senate candidate Raphael Warnock’s sermons against him (but it's not working with the Black voters) By
Ella Nilsen 12/14/2020
Of course you know that this guest posting from VOX will be with my commentaries interspersed throughout - in RED - EBN = ECLECTICALLY BLACK NEWS
Over the course of the Georgia Senate campaign, Sen. Kelly
Loeffler (R for Repuglycon) has repeatedly referred to her Democratic opponent Rev.
Raphael Warnock as “radical liberal Raphael Warnock.” She repeated the
phrase 13 times in a recent debate ahead of the January 5 runoff
EBN: (she's doing that to hypnotize/brainwash her redneck caucasoid followers even though she knows it's totally untrue. It's her code to them. So, in response to her, let's not forget she is appropriately characterized as a "Becky", a "Karen", and for those of us from the Old/Real/School, "Miss Ann." If we put her in the context of being the female front for her redneck cronies I'm sure we'll get the full picture of who Warnock is dealing with, and why we have to really make sure we roll out the votes on January 5, 2021!)
“The Democrats want to fundamentally change America, and the
agent of change is my opponent, radical liberal Raphael Warnock,”
Loeffler said during the debate, claiming that Warnock has attacked
police and the American military “from the pulpit.”
EBN:(Actually that's partly true. DEMOCRATS WANT TO FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE AMERICA BACK TO A COUNTRY PEOPLE RESPECT, AND AWAY FROM OUR BEING PUSHED TO THE BRINK OF FASCISM UNDER THE CURRENT INCUMBENT ERSATZ PRESIDENT AND HIS HENCHMEN IN THE SENATE WHO HAVE LITERALLY HELD 478 ESSENTIAL LEGISLATIONS OFF BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT TO HELP PEOPLE AND DON'T WANT SPEND THE MONEY UNLESS IT'S GOING INTO THEIR OWN POCKETS. In reference to attacking the police and the military - what he's really doing is saying that corrupt police make it bad for those who are dedicated to the principle of "protect and serve," and cannot be allowed to continue in that manner. Not only has Warnock not cast aspersions against the Military, he respects the military - which is the exact opposite of the current incumbent ersatz president - who calls military men/women losers.)
Warnock is the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta — the church Martin Luther King Jr. preached at in the 1960s.
And Republicans have been using excerpts from Warnock’s own sermons to
attack him. (Taking the truth and twisting it to serve their own nefarious ends. Nothing new here - it's methodology - we call it faux news)
This rhetoric carries a specific connotation, Black theological
experts told Vox. It’s not just pointing out that Warnock is a Democrat
running in a state that’s historically more conservative than the
nation as a whole; it’s also negatively emphasizing the long tradition
of activism and social justice in Southern Black churches.
In interviews with Vox, experts said this is not a particularly
new tactic. Republicans used a similar playbook in 2008 when they
attempted to tie former President Barack Obama to his former church
pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Georgia Republicans also ran an ad linking Warnock to Wright, which Politifact rated mostly false).
“Particularly in Georgia, which is struggling between the old
South and the new South, Black religion has always been thought of as
being potentially a very dangerous political force,” Rev. Stephen Ray,
the president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, told Vox. “I don’t
think you can talk about the weaponization of Rev. Warnock’s sermons
apart from that.”
The runoff elections are all about which party can turn out
more of their base, so Republicans are branding Warnock “radical” and
“dangerous” with a clear goal: To motivate the GOP’s conservative base
to turn out on January 5.
EBN: (And we have to make sure that our people know that these are exactly the traits and qualities we need for our senator - given who we have had in the past - make sure we keep in focus that the caucasoids are essentially fearful of a Black man or woman with Blackbone and intelligence).
While Republicans lost the presidency in the 2020 election,
they had success in many House and Senate races by launching this kind
of attack on Democratic candidates — tying even moderate candidates to
socialism and activist-led calls to defund the police (something Warnock
and fellow Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff have repeatedly said they’re against).
With control in the Senate hanging in the balance in the two
Georgia runoffs, Republicans plan to keep hammering that messaging home.
EBN: (Which means we have to be more "woke" than ever before. Make sure you don't fall for the okeydoke - make sure our newly registered voters don't get confused. Make sure they understand the act that 99.44/100% of Republycon/republican statements are lies to deceive, distort and deprive us of our rights.
“Fear will motivate much more strongly than any other emotion
in the runoff,” Republican consultant Brian Robinson told Vox recently.
“Republican [voters] are aggrieved, many have listened to the
president’s messaging on the election, and they’re scared of a
Democratic Senate joining Pelosi and Biden.”
EBN: And don't you forget it!!! It is just as essential that Democrats - Black, white, or otherwise - realize there is so much more to be afraid of if we don't win this run off and make sure both OSSOFF and WARNOCK are victorious and elected as U S SENATORS in this JANUARY 5 RUNOFF -
BE VERY AFRAID FOR YOURSELVES AND AMERICA IF MITCH McCONNELL and his cronies are in charge of the REPUGLYCON party - which would render much of the good BIDEN CAN DO INEFFECTIVE. There is no margin for error or half stepping. It's winner take all - which had better mean the DEMOCRATS - we don't need 2, 4 o4 6 more years of incompetence, insensitivity, and underhanded activities undermining any progress we need to make for ourselves and our children.
Republican attacks against Warnock, briefly explained
As the Senate race enters its final three weeks, Republicans
are launching a volley of negative attacks on Warnock in particular
(EBN: BECAUSE HE'S BLACK AND GEORGIA HAS NOT HAD A BLACK SENATOR SINCE RECONSTRUCTION - WARNOCK WILL BE THE FIRST!!)
Warnock has enjoyed a relatively easy campaign up until now, with
Loeffler fending off a challenge from Republican Rep. Doug Collins on
November 3. Polling showed Warnock entered the runoff with relatively
high likability numbers.
In particular, Republicans have been circulating a clip from a
2011 sermon where Warnock said, “America, nobody can serve God and the
military,” as he quoted Bible scripture to make a larger point about
faith and service to God coming before anything else. Sen. Marco Rubio
(R-FL), who regularly quotes Bible scripture on his Twitter page,
blasted Warnock’s sermon in a tweet last month. (Twisted by knaves to make a snare for fools [From "IF" by Rudyard Kipling] By the way, a "knave" is an evil unscrupulous man - Webster)
Warnock’s longer quote was, “America, nobody can serve God and
the military. You can’t serve God and money. You can’t serve God and
mammon at the same time. America, choose ye this day who you will
serve.” In Biblical scripture, mammon refers to the corrupting influence
of money and riches, and Warnock was in part quoting Matthew 6:24 from the Bible.(Twisted by knaves to make a snare for fools [From "IF" by Rudyard Kipling])
“The part I was most disappointed in was them taking sermons
out of context to make that connection,” Justin Giboney, president of
Christian civic engagement organization AND Campaign, told Vox. “This is
supposed to be a group — when it comes to conservatives in Georgia —
that has a certain level of respect for religion, for religious freedom,
for what the pulpit means.”
EBN: The rightwing nuts have been using religion against Black people for centuries; and have tried to undermine Black ministers from taking any leasership role by casting aspersions on the motives and messages of the ministers.
A Warnock campaign spokesperson pushed back on Republican
attacks in a statement to Vox, saying, “Kelly Loeffler’s dishonest
attacks say a lot about Kelly Loeffler.”
EBN: WE CONCUR. Though Rev. Warnock couldn't say it, we at EBN will - this is the kind of behavior those of her ilk have been using for centuries - mendacity and manipulation.
“Just like he has since he got in this race, Reverend Warnock
will continue to talk to Georgians about how he will work for them in
the Senate, fighting for affordable health care, for fair wages and the
dignity of working people. That’s the kind of Senator that Georgia
needs,” campaign spokesperson Michael Brewer told Vox in a statement.
EBN: WE also need him to correct the errors that have been perpetrated against the US under the misguidance of the current incumbent's administration and a republican/repuglycon dominated Senate - and to get back to the constitutional responsibility of protecting and defending the constitution of the US against all enemies - foreign and domestic - which is something the current Sentators under McConnell have egregiously failed to do.
When Vox reached out to the Loeffler campaign for comment on
whether the attacks against Warnock lacked the necessary context, a
campaign spokesperson reiterated that “Georgians know how radical he is
when they hear him.”
EBN: Just like they know racist innuendos and lies when they hear them - especially having been inundated with them over the past 4 years under the current incumbent.
“For decades, Raphael Warnock has used his pulpit to oppose the
2nd Amendment, attack the police, condemn Israel, disparage the
military, and embrace communists and Marxists alike,” Loeffler campaign
spokesperson Stephen Lawson told Vox in a statement.
EBN: More trickery, lies and deceit fabricated by Loeffler and the repuglycons - It's their stock in trade!.
Some say Georgia Republicans are playing off heightened political polarization and “the politics of fear."
EBN: WE CONCUR! WHICH IS WHY WE ARE TELLING OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN GEORGIA "DON'T SLEEP! NOT ONLY IS THE US DEPENDING ON YOU TO MAKE SURE OSSOFF AND WARNOCK WIN - THE WHOLE WORLD IS DEPENDING ON YOU AS WELL!!!
“Fear that antifa and the socialist left is going to take over
and gain control in certain areas,” said Giboney, who lives in Atlanta.
“They’re doing their best to attach Rev. Warnock to that fear.”
EBN: On the flip side we have the Pride Brothers, KKK, NeoNazis, and a host of others who are indicative of my Loeffler's followers, and who are supportive of the current incumbent soon to be ex-ersatz president to be much more afraid of! I wonder which, on balance, would be the more detrimental?
Georgia will decide who controls the Senate, and Republicans
have also been playing up a clip of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
talking about flipping Georgia’s Senate seats after Biden won the
state, where he said, “Now we take Georgia, then we change America!”
EBN: OF COURSE WHAT SCHUMER WAS REFERRING TO WAS THE FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE OF AMERICA BACK TO A COUNTRY PEOPLE RESPECT, AND AWAY FROM OUR BEING PUSHED TO THE BRINK OF FASCISM UNDER THE CURRENT INCUMBENT ERSATZ PRESIDENT AND HIS HENCHMEN IN THE SENATE - again, having his words twisted by knaves to make a snare for fools is something the repuglycons do quite well.
To add a dash of reality, even if Democrats manage to win both
Georgia Senate seats, they will be at the barest of Senate majorities.
The Senate would then be split between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans,
with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking
vote. Unless Democrats abolish the filibuster (something conservative
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has unequivocally said no to),
they’ll need 60 votes and vast Republican buy-in to pass most bills. In
other words, winning Georgia does not give Democrats an unfettered
ability to change the country.
EBN - SO YOU SAY, BUT IT'S BETTER THAN WHAT WE WILL HAVE AS A COUNTRY IF WE DON'T TAKE THOSE TWO SEATS. So the rationalization doesn't carry water or weight with us! WE WILL WIN THE TWO SENATE RUN OFFS AND BE CONCERNED ABOUT THOSE EVENTUALITIES AFTERWARDS!
“Anybody would agree that Chuck Schumer is a savvy political
mind, but he was playing to his audience in New York and he handed
Georgia Republicans a huge gift with that clip,” Robinson, the
Republican strategist, told Vox recently. “He not only scared fervent
Georgia Republicans; he scared independents with that kind of talk.”
EBN: Like we've repeated several times, never underestimate the Repuglycons' trenchant for twisting your words and concepts around to dupe the facile minded into thinking the worst, and acting on it, rather than checking the truth of their statements. Hence the quote "twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools" from Kipling's poem, "IF" is so appropriate when it comes to the repuglycons.
Still, some think that Republicans painting Warnock as
“radical” could backfire by potentially rallying the base of Black
voters that Democrats need in order to win Georgia.
“The performance by Loeffler was so disconcerting ... that
people really are mobilized in a way I hadn’t noticed before,” said
Robert Franklin, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta. “You’re now
insulting our most beloved and cherished institution — you’re insulting
our faith.”
The Black church is rooted in social justice; white evangelical churches are about personal salvation
While the white Christian evangelical church is more concerned
with personal salvation, the Black Christian church has a long tradition
of pastors focusing on social and racial justice.
“At its best, it tries to hold the country to account on
morality,” Anthony Pinn, a professor of religious studies at Rice
University, told Vox. “Martin Luther King Jr. and others are from a long
line of church leaders who understood themselves to have an important
role beyond saving souls. They understood the church as having an
obligation to demand justice.”
Several theological experts Vox spoke to agreed the
significance of the Black church is that it is an institution wholly
created by and for Black people. Words like “radical” have long been
used to describe Black ministers, dating back much further than Martin
Luther King Jr. Some see the GOP’s laser-like focus on Warnock as having
a racial component as well; experts Vox interviewed said “radical” is a
coded word.
“I would argue that what you see here is a continuation of an
understanding of Black leadership and Black churches as a threat, that
these institutions and these people threaten the system as it is,” said
Pinn.
EBN: THE SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE DEALT WITH - Here we are in the 21st century dealing with issues, prejudices and problems that should have been resolved centuries ago.
For instance, in the 1950s and ’60s, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover started monitoring King and went to great lengths to link him to the Communist movement (King was not a communist). A 1968 FBI document
called him “a whole-hearted Marxist who has studied it (Marxism),
believes in it and agrees with it, but because of his being a minister
of religion, does not dare to espouse it publicly.”
EBN: J. EDGAR HOOVER and the FiB were also responsible for what happened to Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers and so many of our other Black Leaders - elected and activist - who step into the fray and the forefront to bring equality to Black people, and stability to the world. What they could not prove, they would plant - or use propaganda and set up plots and plans to compromise their innocense and efforts to save Black people.
Pinn and others added the current dialogue in Georgia can’t be
separated from the context of the long struggle for racial justice in
America. The existence of the Black church itself also cannot be
separated from that struggle, as it is “the only institution in America
that has been wholly controlled by Black people,”according to Ray.
If Warnock manages to win his race, he would bolster Black
representation in the Senate (there are currently just three Black
senators, which will fall to two with Vice President-elect Harris going
to the White House).
“He would be the living embodiment of while it will be a hard fight, it will not be impossible,” Ray said.
EBN: SO SUMMING IT UP Georgia it's in your hands.
BUT YOU KNOW THIS ALREADY.
AND, YES, THE PRESSURE IS ON! BUT ONCE YOU COME THROUGH WITH TWO DEMOCRATIC SENATORS YOU WILL BE THE S/HERO OF THE WORLD, AND THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE.
WE, your fellow brothers and sisters wish we could relocate there to help you, and are praying for you, donating funds for OSSOFF AND WARNOCK'S campaigns; helping to register others to vote, manning the phone banks and trying to make sure you are not inundated with ultra rightwingnut propaganda - intimidation, trickery, lies and deceit. We stand with you and the amazing Stacey Abrams, Keshia Lance Bottoms and all who have come together in a show of strength, force and solidarity to save Georgia and save America.
Just like we did for OBAMA, and for the recent BIDEN/HARRIS election, VOTE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT, LIKE YOU ARE UP AGAINST THE WALL!
WE'RE WITH YOU GEORGIA!!
12/16/2020: LOEFFLER POSES WITH THE KKK - SENDING SIGNAL TO THE RACIST BASE THAT SUPPORTS HER - https://www.newsweek.com/kelly-loeffler-slammed-posing-former-kkk-leader-ahead-georgia-runoff-elections-1554401?fbclid=IwAR0ih-suj-QB3rp-vwjHZ6UPD6Z7mCkJ1ayfwQk1qkxEs-EOdu-a5km8p3Y
I received this from the Daily Kos today. Needless to say, T-rump and the repuglycons have no compunction about stepping on the backs of Americans and they are making sure that they play every trick in the book to deprive us of our rights to vote, and to live happy, equitably and free.
This is egregious and disgusting! Not to mention illegal. The Daily Kos is asking for contributions to help pay these "taxes" and I'm not going to say no. But I also want to tell Black Floridians to not take it lying down. Make sure that, if and when you pay these bogus taxes, that you DEFEAT EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THE REPUGLYCON CANDIDATES BY MAJOR LANDSLIDES, AND SEND NOTHING BUT DEMOCRATS TO DC, OR TO THE STATE LEGISLATORS OR MAYORS OR SCHOOL BOARDS OR DOG CATCHERS - or whatever else!
There is no way that the wishes of the majority can be ignored and disrespected and dismantled by the minority. It's time to dismantle that evile empire with swamp rats in Mar A Lago and their surrounding areas. Make them pay for the hell they're putting you/us through! Defeat each and every one of them. Additionally, for those of us who have friends, relatives, associates in Florida, please help them out in this measure - of course, verify first - and make sure they aren't caught short. To my friends who are there - rally your troops. Draining the swamp is not only necessary for DC, but you need to the the Repuglycon boot off your necks there as well.
Be advised - we are all in this fight for our rights together - and if you thing that what happens in Florida - a repuglycon stronghold - doesn't affect you, guest again! Remember the Al Gore fiasco where they literally dumped Democratic votes into the ocean. These are the same evil ones. It cost us the election and we ended up with Bushwacker !! and later the World Trade Center, and, and - as they say, the rest is a a tragic history!! As always, the writing in yellow highlights are mine - and I also highlighted several passages in red for even greater emphasis. ### GDW
The right to vote is a foundational constitutional right for United States citizens, but more than 700,000 Floridians are being denied this fundamental right until they can pay a modern-day poll tax.
After a hard-fought 2018 campaign, Florida voters overwhelmingly passedAmendment 4--a state constitutional amendment restoring the right to vote to folks who fully complete their sentences--which enfranchised 1.4 million Floridians who had previously been banned from voting for life.
The Florida state legislature moved immediately to undermine the will of Florida voters and steal this victory, passing a law that requires people to pay all court-ordered fines and fees before the state restores their voting rights.Now 700,000 Floridians cannot vote unless they meet a financial requirement. This is a poll tax, plain and simple.
The presidential race is extremely tight in Florida right now, and the 2016 election was decided by only around 112,000 votes. Restoring voting rights to citizens returning from incarceration certainly has the potential to determine the outcome for the whole state.
Clearly many Florida legislators would rather play political games than uphold their constituents' right to vote and have a say in who represents them. But the role of legislators is not to manipulate elections or select voters for more favorable results.
People who've been convicted of crimes do NOT forfeit their citizenship, and their civil rights must be protected. This poll tax is chipping away at voting rights and must not be allowed to stand. In the meantime, you can help people exercise their right to vote.
We have been watching with horror, disgust, anger as the Repuglycons and Teabaggers appear to be launching more and more negatives against President Barack Obama. The latest of which, of course, is Boehner's lawsuit against the President for helping the people of America have comprehensive health care.
Facebook has been full of the insanities on the part of the Repuglycons - we've laughed at the cartoons, and the idiotic statements by Palin, Cruz, Bachmann, and those of their ilk. But now it's gotten out of hand, and the animals are threatening to take over the zoo.
It's time for Americans - Black Americans, especially - but all Americans to stand up and say this far and no more. WE STAND WITH AND BY PRESIDENT OBAMA -
Post it, share it, and make it viral!
President BARACK OBAMA
Add Your Name:
President Obama is ready and willing to work with Republicans in
Congress if they decide to get serious and do something for the American
people. But he is also committed to acting however he can to help more
working families -- even as Congress won't. So if you stand with President Obama, say so:
My Fellow Americans - we have a big role to play in how our country should be run. We made our choice clear when we elected President Obama. It appears the Modus Operandii of the Republican party is to do anything other than what Americans want done. It is clear by their actions that they will do nothing positive to benefit Americans - they have, thus far done nothing to benefit Americans, and will continue to undermine anyone who tries to do anything that benefits Americans. They did the same thing to President Bill Clinton, as well.
We should, by now, recognize that it's not what the Repuglycons want, it's what we, the people want. And if we are going to get that message across, we not only have to sign this petition showing our support for President Obama, but we have to make our voices heard through OUR VOTES. We cannot just sit on the sides and grumble, gripe, Tweet, post on Facebook. We now have to show up and show out, and show the Repuglycons the door.
This country is built on democratic rules - not an oligarchy. We have an equal stake in this country and deserve life, love, liberty, health, happiness, decent affordable homes, a good education, and peace. This is what President Obama stands for, and has consistently stood for since entering the White House.
STAND UP AMERICA AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD - ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS, SO BACK IT UP WITH YOUR VOTES - IN THE UPCOMING PRIMARIES AND IN THE GENERAL ELECTION ON NOVEMBER 4, 2014
Stay Blessed & ECLECTICALLY BLACK Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Now, I didn't write this article. It was forwarded to me by one of my favorite blog-sisters, Eduadvocate. It is, however, so full of information, and so compelling a blue print as to why we have to get our acts together, and be both on the offensive and defensive, not only in reference to this upcoming re-election, but throughout the entire year, that I had to put it out here. You need to read it all, take notes, and begin to strategize what we can do individually and collectively to save ourselves and our country. And, yes,I said our country - for our cynical friends who have a problem with that, unless you've made definite plans to move permanently out of the USA, this, for all intents and purposes is our country. And WE, THE PEOPLE, Black, white, blue green and purple, are under seige by the rapacious rep-ugh-blicans who mean us absolutely no good. This article came out prior to the massive Occupy Wall Street movement. As more and more Americans wake up to this nightmare, and more and more Occupy movements form, I want to make sure that you are occupying the correct perpetrators - so that there is no knee jerk occupy copy cat against the wrong people - like the idiocy that wanted to demonstrate against President Obama in Harlem in front of the Apollo. Clearly clueless as to what the real deal is, and where these actions should be appropriately directed. At the same time, Democrats must step up their game and stop trying to appear to be Mr. and Ms. Nice person. We need to relanguage what we are about so people really get the message.
So read, and respond. We've got a lot to do to make sure that we don't let this information go to waste, and that we don't all end up on some soup and bread line somewhere, while they and their cronies live in these high rise, ugly assed glass houses that have been constructed to tower over us here in New York, a symbol of their disdain for those of us who work (or try to) every day and raise our families in the middle of this madness.
As you watch the Rep-ugh-blican clown show evolve on national TV, remember one of those clowns could end up being the president if we don't do our job, and VOTE.
Not only that, if you don't support those who are running for office in opposition to their oppressive ways, we will still not have delivered the goods we need to make American humane again.
Read the following and be afraid, be very afraid (if you thought Vampires were scary, check out the real ones below):
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult Saturday 3 September 2011 by: Mike Lofgren, Truthout | News Analysis
The article opens with two quotes from a movie entitled "Double Indemnity" (1944) Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!" Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten."
Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.
But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.
To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.
It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.
The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.
Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might - the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was "bring it on!"
It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.
In his "Manual of Parliamentary Practice," Thomas Jefferson wrote that it is less important that every rule and custom of a legislature be absolutely justifiable in a theoretical sense, than that they should be generally acknowledged and honored by all parties. These include unwritten rules, customs and courtesies that lubricate the legislative machinery and keep governance a relatively civilized procedure. The US Senate has more complex procedural rules than any other legislative body in the world; many of these rules are contradictory, and on any given day, the Senate parliamentarian may issue a ruling that contradicts earlier rulings on analogous cases.
The only thing that can keep the Senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. During periods of political consensus, for instance, the World War II and early post-war eras, the Senate was a "high functioning" institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. Now, one can no more picture the current Senate producing the original Medicare Act than the old Supreme Soviet having legislated the Bill of Rights.
Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.
John P. Judis sums up the modern GOP this way: "Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."
A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.
A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).
The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness. Paul Krugman has skewered this tactic as being the "centrist cop-out." "I joked long ago," he says, "that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read 'Views Differ on Shape of Planet.'"
Inside-the-Beltway wise guy Chris Cillizza merely proves Krugman right in his Washington Post analysis of "winners and losers" in the debt ceiling impasse. He wrote that the institution of Congress was a big loser in the fracas, which is, of course, correct, but then he opined: "Lawmakers - bless their hearts - seem entirely unaware of just how bad they looked during this fight and will almost certainly spend the next few weeks (or months) congratulating themselves on their tremendous magnanimity." Note how the pundit's ironic deprecation falls like the rain on the just and unjust alike, on those who precipitated the needless crisis and those who despaired of it. He seems oblivious that one side - or a sizable faction of one side - has deliberately attempted to damage the reputation of Congress to achieve its political objectives.
This constant drizzle of "there the two parties go again!" stories out of the news bureaus, combined with the hazy confusion of low-information voters, means that the long-term Republican strategy of undermining confidence in our democratic institutions has reaped electoral dividends. The United States has nearly the lowest voter participation among Western democracies; this, again, is a consequence of the decline of trust in government institutions - if government is a racket and both parties are the same, why vote? And if the uninvolved middle declines to vote, it increases the electoral clout of a minority that is constantly being whipped into a lather by three hours daily of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. There were only 44 million Republican voters in the 2010 mid-term elections, but they effectively canceled the political results of the election of President Obama by 69 million voters.
This tactic of inducing public distrust of government is not only cynical, it is schizophrenic. For people who profess to revere the Constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document. This is not to say that there is not some theoretical limit to the size or intrusiveness of government; I would be the first to say there are such limits, both fiscal and Constitutional. But most Republican officeholders seem strangely uninterested in the effective repeal of Fourth Amendment protections by the Patriot Act, the weakening of habeas corpus and self-incrimination protections in the public hysteria following 9/11 or the unpalatable fact that the United States has the largest incarcerated population of any country on earth. If anything, they would probably opt for more incarcerated persons, as imprisonment is a profit center for the prison privatization industry, which is itself a growth center for political contributions to these same politicians.[1] Instead, they prefer to rail against those government programs that actually help people. And when a program is too popular to attack directly, like Medicare or Social Security, they prefer to undermine it by feigning an agonized concern about the deficit. That concern, as we shall see, is largely fictitious. Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. But if this technique falls short of producing Karl Rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's New Jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back. Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in Wisconsin, Republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in Democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.
This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want those people voting.
You can probably guess who those people are. Above all, anyone not likely to vote Republican. As Sarah Palin would imply, the people who are not Real Americans. Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn't look, think, or talk like the GOP base.
This must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of President Obama. I have joked in the past that the main administration policy that Republicans object to is Obama's policy of being black.[2] Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. Ragheads. Secular humanists. Blacks. Fags. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.
It is not clear to me how many GOP officeholders believe this reactionary and paranoid claptrap. I would bet that most do not. But they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base with a nod and a wink. During the disgraceful circus of the "birther" issue, Republican politicians subtly stoked the fires of paranoia by being suggestively equivocal - "I take the president at his word" - while never unambiguously slapping down the myth. John Huntsman was the first major GOP figure forthrightly to refute the birther calumny - albeit after release of the birth certificate.
I do not mean to place too much emphasis on racial animus in the GOP. While it surely exists, it is also a fact that Republicans think that no Democratic president could conceivably be legitimate. Republicans also regarded Bill Clinton as somehow, in some manner, twice fraudulently elected (well do I remember the elaborate conspiracy theories that Republicans traded among themselves). Had it been Hillary Clinton, rather than Barack Obama, who had been elected in 2008, I am certain we would now be hearing, in lieu of the birther myths, conspiracy theories about Vince Foster's alleged murder.
The reader may think that I am attributing Svengali-like powers to GOP operatives able to manipulate a zombie base to do their bidding. It is more complicated than that. Historical circumstances produced the raw material: the deindustrialization and financialization of America since about 1970 has spawned an increasingly downscale white middle class - without job security (or even without jobs), with pensions and health benefits evaporating and with their principal asset deflating in the collapse of the housing bubble. Their fears are not imaginary; their standard of living is shrinking.
What do the Democrats offer these people? Essentially nothing. Democratic Leadership Council-style "centrist" Democrats were among the biggest promoters of disastrous trade deals in the 1990s that outsourced jobs abroad: NAFTA, World Trade Organization, permanent most-favored-nation status for China. At the same time, the identity politics/lifestyle wing of the Democratic Party was seen as a too illegal immigrant-friendly by downscaled and outsourced whites.[3]
While Democrats temporized, or even dismissed the fears of the white working class as racist or nativist, Republicans went to work. To be sure, the business wing of the Republican Party consists of the most energetic outsourcers, wage cutters and hirers of sub-minimum wage immigrant labor to be found anywhere on the globe. But the faux-populist wing of the party, knowing the mental compartmentalization that occurs in most low-information voters, played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations' bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let's build a wall on the Southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). Instead of predatory bankers, it's evil Muslims. Or evil gays. Or evil abortionists.
How do they manage to do this? Because Democrats ceded the field. Above all, they do not understand language. Their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The what? - can anyone even remember it? No wonder the pejorative "Obamacare" won out. Contrast that with the Republicans' Patriot Act. You're a patriot, aren't you? Does anyone at the GED level have a clue what a Stimulus Bill is supposed to be? Why didn't the White House call it the Jobs Bill and keep pounding on that theme? You know that Social Security and Medicare are in jeopardy when even Democrats refer to them as entitlements. "Entitlement" has a negative sound in colloquial English: somebody who is "entitled" selfishly claims something he doesn't really deserve. Why not call them "earned benefits," which is what they are because we all contribute payroll taxes to fund them? That would never occur to the Democrats. Republicans don't make that mistake; they are relentlessly on message: it is never the "estate tax," it is the "death tax." Heaven forbid that the Walton family should give up one penny of its $86-billion fortune. All of that lucre is necessary to ensure that unions be kept out of Wal-Mart, that women employees not be promoted and that politicians be kept on a short leash.
ARE YOU LISTENING DEMOCRATS??? HELLOOOOOOO!
It was not always thus. It would have been hard to find an uneducated farmer during the depression of the 1890s who did not have a very accurate idea about exactly which economic interests were shafting him. An unemployed worker in a breadline in 1932 would have felt little gratitude to the Rockefellers or the Mellons. But that is not the case in the present economic crisis. After a riot of unbridled greed such as the world has not seen since the conquistadors' looting expeditions and after an unprecedented broad and rapid transfer of wealth upward by Wall Street and its corporate satellites, where is the popular anger directed, at least as depicted in the media? At "Washington spending" - which has increased primarily to provide unemployment compensation, food stamps and Medicaid to those economically damaged by the previous decade's corporate saturnalia. Or the popular rage is harmlessly diverted against pseudo-issues: death panels, birtherism, gay marriage, abortion, and so on, none of which stands to dent the corporate bottom line in the slightest.
Thus far, I have concentrated on Republican tactics, rather than Republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation. Rather, this mindset seeks polarizing division (Karl Rove has been very explicit that this is his principal campaign strategy), conflict and the crushing of opposition.
As for what they really believe, the Republican Party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets I have laid out below. The rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing: 1. The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. The party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public. Whatever else President Obama has accomplished (and many of his purported accomplishments are highly suspect), his $4-trillion deficit reduction package did perform the useful service of smoking out Republican hypocrisy. The GOP refused, because it could not abide so much as a one-tenth of one percent increase on the tax rates of the Walton family or the Koch brothers, much less a repeal of the carried interest rule that permits billionaire hedge fund managers to pay income tax at a lower effective rate than cops or nurses. Republicans finally settled on a deal that had far less deficit reduction - and even less spending reduction! - than Obama's offer, because of their iron resolution to protect at all costs our society's overclass.
Republicans have attempted to camouflage their amorous solicitude for billionaires with a fog of misleading rhetoric. John Boehner is fond of saying, "we won't raise anyone's taxes," as if the take-home pay of an Olive Garden waitress were inextricably bound up with whether Warren Buffett pays his capital gains as ordinary income or at a lower rate. Another chestnut is that millionaires and billionaires are "job creators." US corporations have just had their most profitable quarters in history; Apple, for one, is sitting on $76 billion in cash, more than the GDP of most countries. So, where are the jobs? Another smokescreen is the "small business" meme, since standing up for Mom's and Pop's corner store is politically more attractive than to be seen shilling for a megacorporation. Raising taxes on the wealthy will kill small business' ability to hire; that is the GOP dirge every time Bernie Sanders or some Democrat offers an amendment to increase taxes on incomes above $1 million. But the number of small businesses that have a net annual income over a million dollars is de minimis, if not by definition impossible (as they would no longer be small businesses). And as data from the Center for Economic and Policy Research have shown, small businesses account for only 7.2 percent of total US employment, a significantly smaller share of total employment than in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.
Likewise, Republicans have assiduously spread the myth that Americans are conspicuously overtaxed. But compared to other OECD countries, the effective rates of US taxation are among the lowest. In particular, they point to the top corporate income rate of 35 percent as being confiscatory Bolshevism. But again, the effective rate is much lower. Did GE pay 35 percent on 2010 profits of $14 billion? No, it paid zero.
When pressed, Republicans make up misleading statistics to "prove" that the America's fiscal burden is being borne by the rich and the rest of us are just freeloaders who don't appreciate that fact. "Half of Americans don't pay taxes" is a perennial meme. But what they leave out is that that statement refers to federal income taxes. There are millions of people who don't pay income taxes, but do contribute payroll taxes - among the most regressive forms of taxation. But according to GOP fiscal theology, payroll taxes don't count. Somehow, they have convinced themselves that since payroll taxes go into trust funds, they're not real taxes. Likewise, state and local sales taxes apparently don't count, although their effect on a poor person buying necessities like foodstuffs is far more regressive than on a millionaire. All of these half truths and outright lies have seeped into popular culture via the corporate-owned business press. Just listen to CNBC for a few hours and you will hear most of them in one form or another. More important politically, Republicans' myths about taxation have been internalized by millions of economically downscale "values voters," who may have been attracted to the GOP for other reasons (which I will explain later), but who now accept this misinformation as dogma.
And when misinformation isn't enough to sustain popular support for the GOP's agenda, concealment is needed. One fairly innocuous provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill requires public companies to make a more transparent disclosure of CEO compensation, including bonuses. Note that it would not limit the compensation, only require full disclosure. Republicans are hell-bent on repealing this provision. Of course; it would not serve Wall Street interests if the public took an unhealthy interest in the disparity of their own incomes as against that of a bank CEO. As Spencer Bachus, the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, says, "In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."
2. They worship at the altar of Mars. While the me-too Democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the Joneses with respect to waging wars, they can never match GOP stalwarts such as John McCain or Lindsey Graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries. McCain wanted to mix it up with Russia - a nuclear-armed state - during the latter's conflict with Georgia in 2008 (remember? - "we are all Georgians now," a slogan that did not, fortunately, catch on), while Graham has been persistently agitating for attacks on Iran and intervention in Syria. And these are not fringe elements of the party; they are the leading "defense experts," who always get tapped for the Sunday talk shows. About a month before Republicans began holding a gun to the head of the credit markets to get trillions of dollars of cuts, these same Republicans passed a defense appropriations bill that increased spending by $17 billion over the prior year's defense appropriation. To borrow Chris Hedges' formulation, war is the force that gives meaning to their lives.
A cynic might conclude that this militaristic enthusiasm is no more complicated than the fact that Pentagon contractors spread a lot of bribery money around Capitol Hill. That is true, but there is more to it than that. It is not necessarily even the fact that members of Congress feel they are protecting constituents' jobs. The wildly uneven concentration of defense contracts and military bases nationally means that some areas, like Washington, DC, and San Diego, are heavily dependent on Department of Defense (DOD) spending. But there are many more areas of the country whose net balance is negative: the citizenry pays more in taxes to support the Pentagon than it receives back in local contracts.
And the economic justification for Pentagon spending is even more fallacious when one considers that the $700 billion annual DOD budget creates comparatively few jobs. The days of Rosie the Riveter are long gone; most weapons projects now require very little touch labor. Instead, a disproportionate share is siphoned off into high-cost research and development (from which the civilian economy benefits little); exorbitant management expenditures, overhead and out-and-out padding; and, of course, the money that flows back into the coffers of political campaigns. A million dollars appropriated for highway construction would create two to three times as many jobs as a million dollars appropriated for Pentagon weapons procurement, so the jobs argument is ultimately specious.
Take away the cash nexus and there still remains a psychological predisposition toward war and militarism on the part of the GOP. This undoubtedly arises from a neurotic need to demonstrate toughness and dovetails perfectly with the belligerent tough-guy pose one constantly hears on right-wing talk radio. Militarism springs from the same psychological deficit that requires an endless series of enemies, both foreign and domestic.
The results of the last decade of unbridled militarism and the Democrats' cowardly refusal to reverse it[4], have been disastrous both strategically and fiscally. It has made the United States less prosperous, less secure and less free. Unfortunately, the militarism and the promiscuous intervention it gives rise to are only likely to abate when the Treasury is exhausted, just as it happened to the Dutch Republic and the British Empire.
3. Give me that old time religion. Pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation in the GOP. Beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance in this country and grew into the major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson's strong showing in the 1988 Iowa Caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. The results are all around us: if the American people poll more like Iranians or Nigerians than Europeans or Canadians on questions of evolution versus creationism, scriptural inerrancy, the existence of angels and demons, and so forth, that result is due to the rise of the religious right, its insertion into the public sphere by the Republican Party and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary or quaint beliefs. Also around us is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science; it is this group that defines "low-information voter" - or, perhaps, "misinformation voter."
The Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding, there is now a de facto religious test for the presidency: major candidates are encouraged (or coerced) to "share their feelings" about their "faith" in a revelatory speech; or, some televangelist like Rick Warren dragoons the candidates (as he did with Obama and McCain in 2008) to debate the finer points of Christology, with Warren himself, of course, as the arbiter. Politicized religion is also the sheet anchor of the culture wars. But how did the whole toxic stew of GOP beliefs - economic royalism, militarism and culture wars cum fundamentalism - come completely to displace an erstwhile civilized Eisenhower Republicanism? It is my view that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism (which is a subset of the decline of rational problem solving in America) may have been the key ingredient of the takeover of the Republican Party. For politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes - at least in the minds of followers - all three of the GOP's main tenets.
Televangelists have long espoused the health-and-wealth/name-it-and-claim it gospel. If you are wealthy, it is a sign of God's favor. If not, too bad! But don't forget to tithe in any case. This rationale may explain why some economically downscale whites defend the prerogatives of billionaires.
The GOP's fascination with war is also connected with the fundamentalist mindset. The Old Testament abounds in tales of slaughter - God ordering the killing of the Midianite male infants and enslavement of the balance of the population, the divinely-inspired genocide of the Canaanites, the slaying of various miscreants with the jawbone of an ass - and since American religious fundamentalist seem to prefer the Old Testament to the New (particularly that portion of the New Testament known as the Sermon on the Mount), it is but a short step to approving war as a divinely inspired mission. This sort of thinking has led, inexorably, to such phenomena as Jerry Falwell once writing that God is Pro-War.
It is the apocalyptic frame of reference of fundamentalists, their belief in an imminent Armageddon, that psychologically conditions them to steer this country into conflict, not only on foreign fields (some evangelicals thought Saddam was the Antichrist and therefore a suitable target for cruise missiles), but also in the realm of domestic political controversy. It is hardly surprising that the most adamant proponent of the view that there was no debt ceiling problem was Michele Bachmann, the darling of the fundamentalist right. What does it matter, anyway, if the country defaults? - we shall presently abide in the bosom of the Lord.
Some liberal writers have opined that the different socio-economic perspectives separating the "business" wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. I am not so sure. There is no fundamental disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far in that direction they want to take it. The plutocrats would drag us back to the Gilded Age, the theocrats to the Salem witch trials. In any case, those consummate plutocrats, the Koch brothers, are pumping large sums of money into Michele Bachman's presidential campaign, so one ought not make too much of a potential plutocrat-theocrat split.
Thus, the modern GOP; it hardly seems conceivable that a Republican could have written the following:
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." (That was President Eisenhower, writing to his brother Edgar in 1954.) It is this broad and ever-widening gulf between the traditional Republicanism of an Eisenhower and the quasi-totalitarian cult of a Michele Bachmann that impelled my departure from Capitol Hill. It is not in my pragmatic nature to make a heroic gesture of self-immolation, or to make lurid revelations of personal martyrdom in the manner of David Brock. And I will leave a more detailed dissection of failed Republican economic policies to my fellow apostate Bruce Bartlett. I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans, like Gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. And, in truth, I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.
During the week that this piece was written, the debt ceiling fiasco reached its conclusion. The economy was already weak, but the GOP's disgraceful game of chicken roiled the markets even further. Foreigners could hardly believe it: Americans' own crazy political actions were destabilizing the safe-haven status of the dollar. Accordingly, during that same week, over one trillion dollars worth of assets evaporated on financial markets. Russia and China have stepped up their advocating that the dollar be replaced as the global reserve currency - a move as consequential and disastrous for US interests as any that can be imagined. If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power.
Footnotes:
[1] I am not exaggerating for effect. A law passed in 2010 by the Arizona legislature mandating arrest and incarceration of suspected illegal aliens was actually drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative business front group that drafts "model" legislation on behalf of its corporate sponsors. The draft legislation in question was written for the private prison lobby, which sensed a growth opportunity in imprisoning more people.
[2] I am not a supporter of Obama and object to a number of his foreign and domestic policies. But when he took office amid the greatest financial collapse in 80 years, I wanted him to succeed, so that the country I served did not fail. But already in 2009, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, declared that his greatest legislative priority was - jobs for Americans? Rescuing the financial system? Solving the housing collapse? - no, none of those things. His top priority was to ensure that Obama should be a one-term president. Evidently Senator McConnell hates Obama more than he loves his country. Note that the mainstream media have lately been hailing McConnell as "the adult in the room," presumably because he is less visibly unstable than the Tea Party freshmen
[3] This is not a venue for immigrant bashing. It remains a fact that outsourcing jobs overseas, while insourcing sub-minimum wage immigrant labor, will exert downward pressure on US wages. The consequence will be popular anger, and failure to address that anger will result in a downward wage spiral and a breech of the social compact, not to mention a rise in nativism and other reactionary impulses. It does no good to claim that these economic consequences are an inevitable result of globalization; Germany has somehow managed to maintain a high-wage economy and a vigorous industrial base.
[4] The cowardice is not merely political. During the past ten years, I have observed that Democrats are actually growing afraid of Republicans. In a quirky and flawed, but insightful, little book, "Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred," John Lukacs concludes that the left fears, the right hates.
[5] The GOP cult of Ayn Rand is both revealing and mystifying. On the one hand, Rand's tough guy, every-man-for-himself posturing is a natural fit because it puts a philosophical gloss on the latent sociopathy so prevalent among the hard right. On the other, Rand exclaimed at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing but contempt for Christianity. Apparently, the ignorance of most fundamentalist "values voters" means that GOP candidates who enthuse over Rand at the same time they thump their Bibles never have to explain this stark contradiction. And I imagine a Democratic officeholder would have a harder time explaining why he named his offspring "Marx" than a GOP incumbent would in rationalizing naming his kid "Rand." Creative Commons License
Again, I didn't write this, but I did warn you!!
NOW THAT YOU KNOW, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? Stay Blessed & ECLECTICALLY BLACK Gloria Dulan-Wilson
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