Republicans keep people Down For Profit

GOP vs Dem
...as the incomes of middle- and working-class people flatlined, Republicans pooh-poohed rising economic inequality and insecurity , economic insecurity does correlate with greater religiosity, and for white Americans, greater religiosity does correlate with voting Republican. For Republican politicians and their rich-getting-richer donors, that’s a virtuous circle, not a vicious one. Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, Kurt Anderson.
...the fundamental truth about the right is that it has always wanted one and only one thing: to keep down those who are already down. This is what unites Edmund Burke and Sarah Palin. (From a review by Mark Lilla of the Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin by Corey Robin.
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 ..., a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid. Dwight Eisenhower
wage growth for the vast majority of U.S. workers decelerated radically in the post-1979 [Reagan] era. This near-stagnation of wages ... left a large excess available for the top 10% to grab, and most of it went to the top 1% and, especially, the top 0.1%. ... just the mirror image of wage suppression at the bottom. The forces that weighed on wage growth for the majority (excess unemployment, stagnation of the minimum wage, deunionization) largely do not slow wage growth for the top 1%; instead, they just allow more income (income, wages, and profits that are not going to typical workers' paychecks) to be claimed by the very top. In a sense, the wage suppression felt by the bottom 90% was zero-sum (or even negative sum), as their loss financed a sharp redistribution of wages and incomes to the very top. Identifying the policy levers generating wage suppression and wage inequality By Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens (5/13/2021)
The whole U.S. private sector is passionate about destroying the union movement. This has been going on for a long time, but now they really think they can strangle it because it's the core of activism for almost anything. Take a look at, say, healthcare. In Canada, in the 50s, it was the unions who were pressing hard for national healthcare, and kind of interestingly, in the U.S. the same unions were pressing for healthcare for themselves, auto workers in Detroit. These are two pretty similar countries, but with this striking difference in outcomes on healthcare. Noam Chomsky

Poverty, Inc.
Government’s decades-old experiment in letting corporations deliver social services has been a disaster—for taxpayers and the poor. (6/24) Washington Monthly

Why Poverty Persists in America by Matthew Desmond

I’ve just recently come to the realization that Republicans keep people down for profit. Here’s why I think so.

Republicans (Rs) never liked the New Deal. If they are not allowed to sunset Social Security and Medicare are threatening government default on the debt. Not only would that crash the economy, but would be a bonanza for banks and other financial interests, because there would be a shower of taxpayer money for bail outs. That’s very profitable, happens when R’s are in office. markets would be chaotic. It would be a disaster but R’s are quite ready to do it.

Rs have become even more racist in their messaging, which demonizes people of color and other minorities, especially immigrants, so that they remain in working poor jobs and neighborhoods, vigorously policed. Their propaganda makes targets of ‘welfare queens’ so that poverty programs are fair game for cuts. They chant ‘build the wall’. Real democracy requires inclusiveness.

Republican Agenda

Privatization opens the economy to deregulated corporations to plunder the environment without restraint, roll up into monopolies without competition so prices can soar, buy off media and oversight, and spend lavishly on lobbying and election propaganda. Corporations moved jobs off shore stripping the US of factories and jobs. Private equity buys up healthy businesses, puts them in debt, downsizes, removes assets, bankrupts them. Capitalism needs regulation, especially for its largest entities that have little or no competition.

This played out in US healthcare making it expensive, complicated, bureaucratic, profitable, with mediocre outcomes, covering only people who can pay, and bankrupting the sick.

R’s vigorously oppose minimum wage and union organizing. Not surprisingly that removes a traditional funding source for Democrats. It also removes democracy from the workplace. Germany requires workers on corporate boards. It is possible that many corporations might have not moved off-shore if workers had a voice. What we got was a landscape of empty factories, and manufacturing that migrated to more favorable countries with lower wages, less environmental protection, lower taxes, and often more authoritarian. It is easier to bribe a dictator.

R’s most effective strategy, though, was tax cuts which removed progressivity and mostly benefited their wealthy donors. It also starves the beast so that it will not provide solid social programs. Lawrence Lessig commented politicians “always lean to the green, but they are not environmentalists.” There’s not much news coverage of politicians who quickly become wealthy while in office. That’s corruption.

Rs removed progressivity from the tax code, a proven way to keep down wealth disparities. After WWII the highest marginal tax was over 90%, the GI Bill proved a good investment. We had a thriving middle class. Built big things like the national highway network and the Marshall Plan.

Trickle down, Voodoo economics was always a scam. Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, wrote a book: Arguing With Zombies, Economics, Politics, and the Fight For A Better Future, describes how and why Rs mishandle the economy.

Republican States are poorer, more polluted, have stricter voting rights, looser gun laws, harsher abortion regulation, poorer healthcare, worse virus response, lower education levels, higher religiosity, shorter life expectancy, altogether worse right-wing government, poor social programs, less women's rights, less union rights, school indoctrination, restricted higher education, library, book bans, harsh policing, all are worse.

By allowing voter suppression, gerrymandering, big dark money in elections, and corporate supremacy, the Supreme Court has been a co-conspirator with the GOP.

R’s obstruct the possibility of civilized social programs compared to other developed countries. According to a UN report from 2014 surveying 185 countries and territories, only two did not guarantee any paid maternity leave; Papua New Guinea and the United States. The United States is also one of only a handful of countries that don”t guarantee their workers any paid time off for illness – others include Angola, India and Liberia.

Rs policy brought us to extreme wealth inequality, which is not compatible with democracy.

Nordic countries have free markets, strong unions, but also taxpayer funded healthcare, free higher education, and more. They think they get good value from their high taxes, they trust their government, and they are the happiest countries in the world.

Because of the flawed US Constitution, government institutions do not represent the popular vote, which is how we get unpopular Presidents, a radical Supreme Court, a Senate that obstructs every needed change, and elections that are for sale.

Republican Agenda

Donald Trump, leader of the Rs, has a history of failed businesses, bankruptcies, grifting, lying, making bad decisions, and enriching himself, looked a lot like a mob boss running a protection racket, wanted NATO countries to pay more for their protection, wanted Ukraine to come up with dirt on his political opponent for arms assistance (benefited Putin who he admired a lot.) As President, he couldn’t be indicted, could pardon his cronies, stack the Courts and DOJ with loyalists, …, He admires authoritarians like Putin and mused that he would like to be dictator for life. Evangelicals call him the ‘chosen one’.

It is right wing tribalism: class, race, religion and nation, that assures forever war. All those heroic empire builders in history were the heads of authoritarian, right wing government.

Victor Orban, Jair Bolsonaro, Narenda Modi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or Donald Trump all blame an ethnic minority as a threat and promise to stand up to them. Russia, right now invading Ukraine, is a prime example. So was Hitler's Germany. Don't let it happen in the U.S.

Republicans don’t like government. They are self-serving, aka corrupt. Like other far-right government, they are dangerous, which is why they shouldn’t be in it.

Most of our challenges are trans-national: climate, inflation, wealth inequality, pandemic, immigration, war. Rs don’t respond to them.

R’s favor dictatorship, not democracy, have brought us to the brink of fascism. If they win another election, we’ll probably get there. They are armed and many are violent.

If humanity does not reject right wing government, it will likely go extinct sooner than later. In time, unrestrained fossil fuel use will probably do us in.

Don’t vote Republican.

How is the Republican Party Like Jim Jones ?

(See also Fox News and Tea Parties.)

Bibliography

Republicans Declare War on Themselves (12/31/2013)

The Republican Autopsy Report Revisited: 5 Ways The GOP Got Worse In 2013 (12/30/2013)

Republican To-Do List (12/9/2013)

Meet The 37 House Republicans Who Could Lose Their Jobs For Shutting Down The Government (10/24/2013)

The Republican Coup of 2013 (10/20/2013)

Republican Party Favorability Sinks to Record Low (10/9/2013)

Staring Down the Irrational Wing of the GOP(10/4/2013)

Supply-Side Jesus and the Death of Shame (10/10/2013)

Half the Republicans You Know Are Insane (10/2/2013)

The GOP Is Committing Treason (9/29/2013)

Death of the Republican Party (8/31/2013)

Fresh Off Hikes to Student Loan Rates, Congressional Republicans Vote to Abolish Food Stamp Program (7/12/2013)

Study: Republicans Lie More (5/28/2013)

The Wisdom of Bob Dole (5/28/2013)

The GOP's Real Agenda (3/13/2013)

The Ignorance Caucus: Paul Krugman (2/11/2013)

60 Outrageous Republican Congressional Votes (10/25/2012)

Why Republicans Have to Lie (8/16/2012)

Five Adjectives That Scream "Don't Vote Republican !" (8/6/2012)

Let's Just Say It: Republicans Are the Problem (4/27/2012)

Top 10 Reasons to Vote Republican (9/25/2011)

Goodbye to all That (9/3/2011)

This Fall's Election is about Right and Wrong (9/7/2010)

"Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox" David Frum

Oklahoma Republicans and Tea Parties forming anti-government Militia (4/13/2010)

Dishonesty and Hypocrisy have become the Hallmarks of the Republican Party

Countercoup 2002

The Only Republican Plan Is to Destroy Democrats, Not Solve Problems (4/2/2010)

Scary New GOP Poll Republican attitudes about Obama (3/23/2010)

An Open Letter To Republicans (3/22/2010)

Why Didn't The Bush Tax Cuts Create Jobs ?

The Despicable Ryan Budget

Message for Republicans

Republicans have no idea what they're Doing (8/13/2011)

From Raleigh Myers

Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been GOP ?

We have to ask because of the slant the GOP puts on everything. You can't believe a thing they say or want. The corruption is so rampant the GOP are just a group cover-up in locked step.
The GOP put everybody through that sort of embarrassment with their HUAC
in the fifties where they were looking for so called Communists when it
was the anti-fascist dissidents they were after. Today the terrorist is
the alleged target when it's the dissidents and the first amendment they
want to compromise. Today we really have an the same GOP infiltration
with a seamless path all the way back to NAZI Germany.
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/randy/swas5a.htm