My friend Maria Vandegrift has just become a new grandmother and she is concerned about her granddaughter’s future. “I don’t get the appeal of our neoliberal bourgeoisie capitalist society that forces people into debt the day they graduate from high school, then saddles them with student loans for college, steep car payments because our public transportation is so sparse, and puts on the pressure to buy a house because it’s cheaper than paying rent,” says Vandegrift. “Our unjust, unequal economic system holds the worker bees hostage until they retire, while enriching a cabal of Republican Fat Cats who now plan to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $100,000 a year, then adding insult to injury by announcing their plans to eliminate social security and healthcare benefits. I know there are other systems of governing in this world where GDP isn’t God, a country like Bhutan comes to mind for example, where the policy is to raise what they call ‘gross national happiness’ and govern for the good of all. That’s what I want for my granddaughter, not what we have here in America, a country that worships the almighty dollar. I mention Bhutan because it has one of the most stable ecosystems in the world and has an enlightened government that genuinely cares about its people.”
The Bhutan reference in the title of this post is just a fun thing, of course, a play on Frank Zappa’s great lyric about going to Montana and becoming a dental floss tycoon, one of Vandegrift’s favorite Zappa nonsense songs, but it reflects a deep truth about the yearnings for social justice that are continually thwarted by our dysfunctional, neoliberal economic system rigged in favor of the wealthy and a justice department that refuses to uphold the law and prosecute known criminals such as Donald Trump and his Republican cronies. With U.S. supplies of baby formula now 43 percent below normal because of a bacteria contamination in the manufacturer’s machinery, snarled supply chains due to the Coronavirus pandemic and U.S. policy restrictions on importation of formula that fails to meet FDA requirements, the issue highlights the ongoing frustration ordinary Americans suffer in their daily lives because of the corrupt political system that’s evolved since the Republican Party declared its onerous class war against their fellow Americans.
Senator John James Ingalls, a Republican during Abraham Lincoln’s time, famously said, “The purification of politics is an iridescent dream.” As recent antics on the part of Trump Republicans and the corrupt machinations of The Donald’s vile family demonstrate, Ingalls was also a prophet. In light of Senator Rick Scott’s revelation of the Grand Old Party’s new plan to abolish Social Security, raise taxes on working people and eliminate Medicare, Ingalls’ quip failed to include the “nightmare” that politics has become in a nation where the rule of law is no longer operable. The Democrats at least pay lip service to that ideal as they commit their legislative betrayals to the American people, but as revelations about the lies told by right-wing Supreme Court Justices during their confirmation hearings reveal, the Republicans ignore the principle with impunity, all the way to the highest court in the land.
Robert B. Hubbell, a distinguished lawyer and author of Today’s Edition Newsletter, eloquently summarized the rogue court’s injury to the nation and the implications for the survival of democracy. “A modern democracy is being disassembled piece-by-piece by radical justices applying a nonsensical, simplistic, absolutist interpretation of the Constitution,” he wrote on May 17, 2022. “The ‘textualist’ and ‘originalist’ approaches would shock the Framers, who believed they were creating an enlightened nation based on reason and the rule of law (with the notable stain of slavery). The reactionary majority has converted the Constitution into a destroyer of laws, a fulcrum of anarchy—the antithesis of the great Charter of Democracy envisioned by the Framers.”
On May 13, 2022, Hubbell reported that House “Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy confirmed that Trump’s effort to overthrow the Constitution is an ongoing conspiracy,” also adding a proviso, stating that the information is “meaningless because U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has failed to indict witnesses who refuse to comply with the Committee’s subpoenas. For example, Garland has not indicted Mark Meadows, who declined to appear before the Committee six months ago (in December 2021). The failure of Garland to support the Committee or to launch his own investigation of the coup is leading to a crisis of confidence in America,” wrote Hubbell. The situation has many Americans asking why Biden doesn’t tell Merrick Garland to speak up. Is this a “Cool-Hand Luke” situation where we have a “failure to communicate” or something more sinister that reflects a dereliction of duty on Garland’s part? Whatever is going on, it’s hard not to agree with a comment by dwayne on Letters from an American that “We continue to look, and talk about the problems that exist in this country without recognizing or taking action to correct their root causes…Unless those qualities are restored there is little hope for the United States.”
Meanwhile, in an incoherent mea culpa on his Substack blog entitled The Warning, Steve Schmidt, a prominent Trump Republican political strategist who worked on Senator John McCain’s campaign for president in 2008, provided a glimpse into the “rats’ nest of evil,” as Berry M of Maine called what the Republican Party has become, as well as revealing how the mainstream media panders myths and lies to the public instead of fulfilling its traditional role to hold power accountable, acquiescing to the moral depravity of the mendacious, treasonous methods of the Republican Party’s corrupt propaganda machine. Peter Burnett’s Substack comment describing the situation as “a criminal conspiracy that hides behind the name ‘Republican Party’” seems especially apt and unfortunately, it doesn’t seem much of a stretch to say the same about the Democrats, whose tepid response to the outrageous assaults on the Constitution by the Republicans raised troubling questions about their complicity in the fascist Republican agenda for the country.
So far, the Democrats’ retort has been whiny and ineffectual, a sad, conciliatory posture defined by what Cathy Learoyd calls “lousy messaging,” and “lousy negative commentary” on the part of the nation’s mainstream media. The failure of the Democrats, the so called “Party of the People, to form a united front against the Republican assault has all but destroyed its credibility, raising ominous implications for the future of Democracy. “The Democratic Party’s hypocrisy and duplicity is the fertilizer for Christian fascism,” writes Chris Hedges. “Its exclusive focus on the culture wars and identity politics at the expense of economic, political, and social justice fueled a rightwing backlash and stoked the bigotry, racism and sexism it sought to curtail. Its opting for image over substance, including its repeated failure to secure the right to abortion, left the Democrats distrusted and reviled.”
There are many other reasons to be outraged. The efforts to restrict the vote, reduce taxes for corporations and the elites of the billionaire class while raising them for working Americans are at the top of the list. “The ruling class in both parties told lies about NAFTA, trade deals, ‘reforming’ welfare, abolishing financial regulations, austerity, the Iraq war, and neoliberalism that did far more damage to the American public than any lie told by Trump,” writes Chris Hedges on his Substack report on May 16, 2022. “The reptilian slime oozes out of every pore of these politicians, from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to Biden, who backed the 1976 Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of abortions and in 1982 voted to support a constitutional amendment that would allow states to overturn Roe v Wade. Their hypocrisy is not lost on the public, even with their armies of consultants, pollsters, courtiers in the press, public relations teams and advertising agencies.”
A true democracy cannot thrive without freedom of a press that’s independent of state power and foreign influence. The Republican agenda stands against this ideal and is the antithesis of the principles of democracy embracing instead a fascist ethos that serves money and power while striving to diminish the development of creative debate and collaboration. The Republican bean counters say we cannot afford the costs of promoting open discourse and civic education any longer, but fail to account for their largess when it comes to a military establishment that consumes more than half of the national budget, an expenditure that recently swelled to include an additional $40 billion to fund the war in Ukraine which has nothing to do with the welfare of the American people who now live in a society in which economic inequality is the widest it has ever been in the nation’s history.
Let’s be clear, the Republican penchant for shameless mendacity is not an “illness” as Senator Elizabeth Warren suggested in a speech recently, it is a crime. If ordinary citizens did what Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and his gang of bootlicking Trump codependents do everyday, under oath, they’d be in prison. Trump, McCarthy, McConnell and their gang of Trump’s useful idiots are elected officials who took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and they are not being held accountable for their actions to the contrary. If these criminals are not arrested and prosecuted for treason, then we no longer have a legitimate democratic government and guerrilla tactics in the quest for justice will likely ensue, a prospect that risks chaos, mayhem and even civil war. Sadly, here we are again deliberating founding father James Madison’s salient point about the necessity of a virtuous citizenry, especially in how that virtue is expressed in upholding the rule of law by officials elected by the people to serve the common good. Madison, our nation’s fourth president, the founder known as “The Father of the Constitution,” wondered “Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government will render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea.” If the American people continue to vote for and enable serial liars like Trump, McCarthy, et al, then we are a nation of fools and deserve to lose the Republic that Ben Franklin challenged us to keep. Rise up America, before it’s too late! “The Barbarians are at the gates,” and we’re not talking about a corporate takeover. These Republican rascals aim to overthrow the government of the United States of America!
As Heather Cox Richardson writes on her May 12, 2022 Letters from an American, “This is no longer your mother’s Republican Party, or your grandfather’s…or his grandfather’s.
“Today’s Republican Party is not about equal rights and opportunity, as Lincoln’s party was. It is not about using the government to protect ordinary people, as Theodore Roosevelt’s party was. It is not even about advancing the ability of businesses to do as they deem best, as Ronald Reagan’s party was.
“The modern Republican Party is about using the power of the government to enforce the beliefs of a radical minority on the majority of Americans.”
On May 17, 2022, Richardson reported that “in the wake of the Buffalo shooting, Miles Taylor—a member of Trump’s administration who warned anonymously of how dangerous Trump was—announced he was leaving the Republican Party and called on others to do the same.”
“In the wake of the mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday,” Taylor wrote, “it’s become glaringly obvious that my party no longer represents conservative values but in fact poses a threat to them—and to America.”
As TC in LA, author of Another Fine Mess on Substack said in his great comment on Richardson’s site: “Duuhh…what was your first clue? Richard Hofstadler figured out these traitors 68 years ago.”
It bears emphasizing that democracy is under assault by Republicans who support the presidential aspirations of the very symbol of treason, Donald J. Trump, a man who reveres Putin and his “genius” attack on Ukraine, a war crime. Meanwhile, Senator Rick Scott has proposed a fascist plan to destroy all aspects of democratic government as established by the Constitution and FDR’s New Deal, including Medicare, Social Security and the policy of fair and equitable taxation of all Americans. Now, more than ever, we must resist the fascist threats to the principles and values of democracy as established by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is our duty as citizens who value democracy to ensure that our society promotes the welfare of all Americans, not just the rich. That means protecting the Social Security system, a far-reaching plan that established basic economic security in case of disability or egregious misfortune. The Republic Party, with help from some Democrats, aims to eliminate it as part of its quest to subordinate the interest of the commonweal to the dictates of the wealthy investor class.
Heather Cox Richardson’s assessment of the situation reflects why her ongoing coverage of the fraudulent Republicans is so important for those who love democracy. Her evidence-based reporting has made a compelling case for bringing these conspirators to Justice, a prospect that unfortunately seems more and more unlikely with Merrick Garland at the helm of the Justice department. Republican senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton, for example, products of America’s “broken” democracy, elected by extremist voters who desired to have these jackals and numerous other anti-democratic Republicans represent them, continue to flaunt the standards and traditions of democratic governance with their fascist antics. The despicable conduct of these and other Republican legislators during Justice Kelanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings reflected not only their ignorance of the law, but their disrespectful, abusive attitudes toward the institutions of American governance as established by the Constitution.
As Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln was referring to slavery, but the prospects for a nation whose people are at such variance with the principles of constitutional governance concerning elections and the rule of law, are hardly promising. The behavior of the Republicans during the Jackson hearings did indeed reflect the truth of our “wretched situation,” but it also highlighted the “poise, patience, and candor,” exhibited by Judge Jackson in response to her interrogators, as Robert Hubbell described her deportment. And as Alice Schaffer Smith commented, “Our vote is our voice,” indicating that it is up to us, We, the People, to follow Judge Jackson’s example and stand in solidarity as citizens to honor the rule of law and promote the values of democracy in the public interest for ourselves and future generations before it’s too late.