As an academic, I believe the answer is a very basic backlash against both acceptance of diversity in American culture and - perhaps even more importantly - an attempt to bring women back into their subjugative role in society.
Republicans have suddenly stopped their Biden investigation on accusations from a supposedly credible but confidential FBI source that Biden and his son Hunter accepted bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch. But the Justice Department has since charged that source, former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, with making false statements and revealed his accusation may have been Russian disinformation.
How can any patriotic American vote for these idiots? Their impeachment attempt of our president using a lying Russian informant Alexander Smirnov is pathetic and shameful. House Oversight Republicans have yanked the reference from their committee website.
My gut is the Republican Party was always a four- pronged political machine:
1. The corporate and wealthy elite that always pursued tax cuts as their main, and only issue.
2. The War-hawks or the neo-cons, who are the remnants of the Cold War and American Imperialism.
3. The religious wing-nuts who have been banging on the door and have been on the fringe, since groups like the John Birch Society!going back to McCarthyism.
4. The Southern Racists and White Nationalists, who also occupy part of the religious wing-nut platform.
During Nixon’s Southern Strategy, the fringe, or religious wing-nuts and White Nationalists were welcomed back into the party.
Reagan added legitimacy to these two groups and it was solidified during W. Bush’s presidency.
The War Hawks or neo-cons who were the most powerful group, lost it’s legitimately after the manufactured war in Iraq, and the forever wars including Afghanistan and the War on Terror, which spread across The Middle East, Africa and Central Asia with no end in sight.
And after the Great Recession in 2008, the war hawks lost all credibility, giving rise to the tea party and eventually Trumpism.
Now the party has two factions: The corporate and wealthy elite, as well as the religious wing-nuts and White supremicists. And the neo-cons, like Liz Cheney have all been excommunicated.
This may account for the reason the party has abandoned its global worldview and fomented its support Russia over Ukraine; “it’s not our problem scenario.”
Although, a lot has to do with Trump’s wholesale takeover of the party of chaos, and his transactional ties to Russia, based on the fact that Russian oligarchs, through Putin, have been financing his properties and resorts for decades since no legitimate bank will lend him money.
Bottom line: it’s the perfect storm of a party that has been in chaos, and looking for an identity since Nixon.
If you are the Republican party and you see that you cannot win power by democratic means, due to changing demographics and dependence on factions that resist policy changes that would appeal to the wider electorate, then you will grasp on to any (undemocratic):alternative that can give you that power.
It's possible that IF your God is the ONLY one true God, people of other religions are inferior and should not count as much because their God is false. Once a moral and religious supiorority is established, Democracy and "one person, one vote," goes out the window.
I think it's worth considering why Iraqi Sunni's, Fundamentalist Iranian Clerics, and the Taliban all hate Democracy? In the big picture, perhaps some people/groups oppose Democracy because it threatens their power structure and absolute control of society?
The Founding Father's reasons for enshining the Separation of Church and State are important, under valued and woefully dismissed. The Speration and Church and State is not optional in a fair and just society.
Without the billionaire funded press enabled by social media, the fascist takeover of the R party would not have been possible. Allowing the proliferation of social media technology without accountability is the key focal point of needed reforms.
And, it's not just that they "fear" majorities; they are refusing to accept majority rule, aka "democracy," because they know that they, being mostly white, are now outnumbered by POC, and they fear losing their long-held power to non-whites.
The wealthy have always been against democracy, because it limits what they can do. The Republican party was moribund and held compatible beliefs, so they took it over.
Then they used racism, xenophobia, patriotism, and religion to persuade people to swallow their agenda.
It took around 50 years but they were patient, playing the long game and focusing on their common interests—deregulation and taxes.
Robert Reich is at his best when targeting the anti-labor ridiculousness of the oligarchic class, Musk, Bezos, and the billionaires, along with the wanna be orange one. They lie at the heart of the problem, enabling, for their own selfish purposes, the distractive rise of the right and its confused and theologically bankrupt, conservative evangelical fundamentalist base. We do have to take them on without pulling punches rhetorically. Unfortunately we are lead by those who do pull rhetorical punches, and then give bombs to Netanyahu.
So Lawrence O'Donnell is correct. We do have to dance with Joe Biden. The way the system works you have to start campaigning the day after you win, and as a result there really is not a sane way the change horses now that we are 3/4 the way across the river. That does not mean we should stop critiquing bad policy. First, Republican policy (clumsily and illogically constructed) is bad, so much worse that it is hardly worth the effort to condemn them. Idiocy is not governance. The Democrats have faults that need articulation even as we expose Republican hypocrisy. Forcefully rejecting the anti-woke, anti-immigrant, anti-women, and racist right is not a complete policy even if it is necessary. You need to defend and protect labor, defend and protect women's rights, defend and protect minorities, defend and protect our ecosystems, the environment, clean water and clean air. Being better than Trump is not enough. We have to have good policies and articulate them well. At this point the Democrats, led by Biden, are not doing a good job of that.
Rather than ordering online from union-busting Amazon, we need to consciously support local businesses. We need to pay a few dollars more for a t-shirt that is guaranteed union made. We need to speak with our purses - boycott Starbucks and all who do not honor the rights of workers to earn a decent wage. It’s time to stop being passive consumers, who by default become pawns of the robber barons. There are more of us than of them - time to stand together for democracy and to support honest people who actually work for a living.
Robert & Heather…a correction. Humphrey lost the popular vote by about one half of a percent. You said he was crushed…No, once again the electoral college wins went to Nixon. The popular vote was tight. I couldn’t vote quite yet but I’m familiar w/Humphrey from living in MN, one of 5 states I’ve lived in.
Allowing the right wing to monopolize and privatize, then buy out the media has put us in an extraordinarily dangerous position. All of these things pave the road to Fascism. The Dems have let way too many things slide and it has damaged us. We should have rioted over the removal of Gore as the certified winner of the election, popular AND later found to have won the electoral that SCOTUS took away from us.
And this just in from the Other 98%….Life begins when you leave Alabama. 😂
The GOP is run by rich people whose goal is to reduce taxes, and to use the environment to their economic advantage without paying for its desecration. The Christian right are their pawns to which they have thrown the bone of social issues to gain their loyalty and votes. To wit- obviously a party of limited government would be pro choice and care less about what books are in school libraries, or who has sex with whom. The left takes the bait by running on platforms of the same issues with different outcomes, legitimizing the debate over distractions, thereby being manipulated by the right.
I was sitting here tonight looking at the prospects of The USA and our constitution of the USA, which I have believed in and swore a legal oath to in becoming a US MARINE and serving as a Vietnam-era veteran. I want to make it clear that I will not violate my pledge to my country, freedom, and the constitution of the USA under any circumstances. I also hope that all my brothers in arms-join together to follow their oaths and reject Trump's fascism and his anti-Constitution statements. I will not live under a fascist dictatorship under any circumstances. I will not sit still anymore and be made to watch and live under anything but a Democracy, as I have known it to be for 78 years, under several honest and trustworthy presidents and governments. Should Trump become a dictator, or what used to be the president, I will do everything to move to another democratic country. I beg and plead that the citizens of America see what we will lose if we don’t stand up for our country and our Constitution. Otherwise, you and all your children and family will not have the government and freedom that we have loved for all our lives.
I think what we see is an age-old dynamic... the oligarchs (patricians) are few, the people (plebs, demos) are many.... In the USA, we've seen labor struggling to assert workers' rights, particularly through unions... and that doesn't sit well with the oligarchs, who make more money in a kind of neo-feudal system where unions are suppressed ("evil, socialist" and all that jargon that the simple people swallow whole). You'll hear minimum wage workers declaring that they are "capitalists" meaning they have a pseudo-religious faith in the individual's right to become wealthy. The practical and moral reality is that, while that's fine if done within moral bounds, where one person becomes wealthy, a hundred persons or more will be working for that wealthy person. The workers need unions, they need the backing of government, and all things need to be in balance. The union movement has always been threatened in the US because of cynical pseudo-religious misguidance. Unions (putting it simply) gave us the 40 hour work week, the 8 hour work day, overtime pay, minimum wage, and forbidding child labor. All that is perpetually under threat from the zillionaire class, some of whom are outright sociopaths. The billionaires own the media, and they use (Fox, Newsmax, etc) those platforms to brainwash the simple people. I say: everything in balance! We need entrepreneurs, but we also need healthy, happy workers. Above all, let's stop being the only industrialized nation on earth without universal health care. It's cheaper, has better outcomes, and keeps everyone living longer. There is no excuse for corporate for-profit medical systems, and that is the biggest symptom of what is wrong with the USA. We can do lots better!
As an academic, I believe the answer is a very basic backlash against both acceptance of diversity in American culture and - perhaps even more importantly - an attempt to bring women back into their subjugative role in society.
Republicans have suddenly stopped their Biden investigation on accusations from a supposedly credible but confidential FBI source that Biden and his son Hunter accepted bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch. But the Justice Department has since charged that source, former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, with making false statements and revealed his accusation may have been Russian disinformation.
How can any patriotic American vote for these idiots? Their impeachment attempt of our president using a lying Russian informant Alexander Smirnov is pathetic and shameful. House Oversight Republicans have yanked the reference from their committee website.
All of the above, plus the disinformation of the media
My gut is the Republican Party was always a four- pronged political machine:
1. The corporate and wealthy elite that always pursued tax cuts as their main, and only issue.
2. The War-hawks or the neo-cons, who are the remnants of the Cold War and American Imperialism.
3. The religious wing-nuts who have been banging on the door and have been on the fringe, since groups like the John Birch Society!going back to McCarthyism.
4. The Southern Racists and White Nationalists, who also occupy part of the religious wing-nut platform.
During Nixon’s Southern Strategy, the fringe, or religious wing-nuts and White Nationalists were welcomed back into the party.
Reagan added legitimacy to these two groups and it was solidified during W. Bush’s presidency.
The War Hawks or neo-cons who were the most powerful group, lost it’s legitimately after the manufactured war in Iraq, and the forever wars including Afghanistan and the War on Terror, which spread across The Middle East, Africa and Central Asia with no end in sight.
And after the Great Recession in 2008, the war hawks lost all credibility, giving rise to the tea party and eventually Trumpism.
Now the party has two factions: The corporate and wealthy elite, as well as the religious wing-nuts and White supremicists. And the neo-cons, like Liz Cheney have all been excommunicated.
This may account for the reason the party has abandoned its global worldview and fomented its support Russia over Ukraine; “it’s not our problem scenario.”
Although, a lot has to do with Trump’s wholesale takeover of the party of chaos, and his transactional ties to Russia, based on the fact that Russian oligarchs, through Putin, have been financing his properties and resorts for decades since no legitimate bank will lend him money.
Bottom line: it’s the perfect storm of a party that has been in chaos, and looking for an identity since Nixon.
If you are the Republican party and you see that you cannot win power by democratic means, due to changing demographics and dependence on factions that resist policy changes that would appeal to the wider electorate, then you will grasp on to any (undemocratic):alternative that can give you that power.
It's possible that IF your God is the ONLY one true God, people of other religions are inferior and should not count as much because their God is false. Once a moral and religious supiorority is established, Democracy and "one person, one vote," goes out the window.
I think it's worth considering why Iraqi Sunni's, Fundamentalist Iranian Clerics, and the Taliban all hate Democracy? In the big picture, perhaps some people/groups oppose Democracy because it threatens their power structure and absolute control of society?
The Founding Father's reasons for enshining the Separation of Church and State are important, under valued and woefully dismissed. The Speration and Church and State is not optional in a fair and just society.
Without the billionaire funded press enabled by social media, the fascist takeover of the R party would not have been possible. Allowing the proliferation of social media technology without accountability is the key focal point of needed reforms.
And, it's not just that they "fear" majorities; they are refusing to accept majority rule, aka "democracy," because they know that they, being mostly white, are now outnumbered by POC, and they fear losing their long-held power to non-whites.
The wealthy have always been against democracy, because it limits what they can do. The Republican party was moribund and held compatible beliefs, so they took it over.
Then they used racism, xenophobia, patriotism, and religion to persuade people to swallow their agenda.
It took around 50 years but they were patient, playing the long game and focusing on their common interests—deregulation and taxes.
Robert Reich is at his best when targeting the anti-labor ridiculousness of the oligarchic class, Musk, Bezos, and the billionaires, along with the wanna be orange one. They lie at the heart of the problem, enabling, for their own selfish purposes, the distractive rise of the right and its confused and theologically bankrupt, conservative evangelical fundamentalist base. We do have to take them on without pulling punches rhetorically. Unfortunately we are lead by those who do pull rhetorical punches, and then give bombs to Netanyahu.
So Lawrence O'Donnell is correct. We do have to dance with Joe Biden. The way the system works you have to start campaigning the day after you win, and as a result there really is not a sane way the change horses now that we are 3/4 the way across the river. That does not mean we should stop critiquing bad policy. First, Republican policy (clumsily and illogically constructed) is bad, so much worse that it is hardly worth the effort to condemn them. Idiocy is not governance. The Democrats have faults that need articulation even as we expose Republican hypocrisy. Forcefully rejecting the anti-woke, anti-immigrant, anti-women, and racist right is not a complete policy even if it is necessary. You need to defend and protect labor, defend and protect women's rights, defend and protect minorities, defend and protect our ecosystems, the environment, clean water and clean air. Being better than Trump is not enough. We have to have good policies and articulate them well. At this point the Democrats, led by Biden, are not doing a good job of that.
Rather than ordering online from union-busting Amazon, we need to consciously support local businesses. We need to pay a few dollars more for a t-shirt that is guaranteed union made. We need to speak with our purses - boycott Starbucks and all who do not honor the rights of workers to earn a decent wage. It’s time to stop being passive consumers, who by default become pawns of the robber barons. There are more of us than of them - time to stand together for democracy and to support honest people who actually work for a living.
All of the above.
Robert & Heather…a correction. Humphrey lost the popular vote by about one half of a percent. You said he was crushed…No, once again the electoral college wins went to Nixon. The popular vote was tight. I couldn’t vote quite yet but I’m familiar w/Humphrey from living in MN, one of 5 states I’ve lived in.
Allowing the right wing to monopolize and privatize, then buy out the media has put us in an extraordinarily dangerous position. All of these things pave the road to Fascism. The Dems have let way too many things slide and it has damaged us. We should have rioted over the removal of Gore as the certified winner of the election, popular AND later found to have won the electoral that SCOTUS took away from us.
And this just in from the Other 98%….Life begins when you leave Alabama. 😂
The GOP is run by rich people whose goal is to reduce taxes, and to use the environment to their economic advantage without paying for its desecration. The Christian right are their pawns to which they have thrown the bone of social issues to gain their loyalty and votes. To wit- obviously a party of limited government would be pro choice and care less about what books are in school libraries, or who has sex with whom. The left takes the bait by running on platforms of the same issues with different outcomes, legitimizing the debate over distractions, thereby being manipulated by the right.
I was sitting here tonight looking at the prospects of The USA and our constitution of the USA, which I have believed in and swore a legal oath to in becoming a US MARINE and serving as a Vietnam-era veteran. I want to make it clear that I will not violate my pledge to my country, freedom, and the constitution of the USA under any circumstances. I also hope that all my brothers in arms-join together to follow their oaths and reject Trump's fascism and his anti-Constitution statements. I will not live under a fascist dictatorship under any circumstances. I will not sit still anymore and be made to watch and live under anything but a Democracy, as I have known it to be for 78 years, under several honest and trustworthy presidents and governments. Should Trump become a dictator, or what used to be the president, I will do everything to move to another democratic country. I beg and plead that the citizens of America see what we will lose if we don’t stand up for our country and our Constitution. Otherwise, you and all your children and family will not have the government and freedom that we have loved for all our lives.
Thank you for your time;
Lonney C. Smith
A Marine vet, a patriot, and an American
I think what we see is an age-old dynamic... the oligarchs (patricians) are few, the people (plebs, demos) are many.... In the USA, we've seen labor struggling to assert workers' rights, particularly through unions... and that doesn't sit well with the oligarchs, who make more money in a kind of neo-feudal system where unions are suppressed ("evil, socialist" and all that jargon that the simple people swallow whole). You'll hear minimum wage workers declaring that they are "capitalists" meaning they have a pseudo-religious faith in the individual's right to become wealthy. The practical and moral reality is that, while that's fine if done within moral bounds, where one person becomes wealthy, a hundred persons or more will be working for that wealthy person. The workers need unions, they need the backing of government, and all things need to be in balance. The union movement has always been threatened in the US because of cynical pseudo-religious misguidance. Unions (putting it simply) gave us the 40 hour work week, the 8 hour work day, overtime pay, minimum wage, and forbidding child labor. All that is perpetually under threat from the zillionaire class, some of whom are outright sociopaths. The billionaires own the media, and they use (Fox, Newsmax, etc) those platforms to brainwash the simple people. I say: everything in balance! We need entrepreneurs, but we also need healthy, happy workers. Above all, let's stop being the only industrialized nation on earth without universal health care. It's cheaper, has better outcomes, and keeps everyone living longer. There is no excuse for corporate for-profit medical systems, and that is the biggest symptom of what is wrong with the USA. We can do lots better!