Sea Change In Republican Politics?
Over the last few months, I fear that I have begun to detect a serious change in Republican behavior. I have noticed, in States like Wisconsin, Kansas and Indiana, less and less concern for any effect of their behavior, except as is either serves the hyper-rich, or contributes to keeping the blinders on the 20% or so of the electorate needed to run grassroots electoral campaigns. In these States, as well as in the other usual right wing States, there seems to be a new attitude of open disregard for the disastrous effects that they are causing to the environment, the economy, or anything else, as they rush to either satisfy the inextinguishable greed of hyper-rich psychopaths, or to pass a bundle of deliberately offensive, hate-filled legislation, to satisfy the also inextinguishable ocean of anger that they have synthetically generated to preserve their "base" of people who are willing to work to destroy their own lives, if only it hurts someone else.
This is what I fear: The Republicans, through decades of corrupt behavior, have now reached the point where they simply do not need anything like a majority of voters to support them, in order to capture and retain power. The tsunami of funding coming from no more than a couple hundred people is now greater than the political resources of the entire rest of the country, and other than the "base," which they need to maintain the illusion of democracy, they can simply stop any pretense that they give a damn about the rest of us. And you can count on this: another few years and they won't need the suckers who go out and work for them any more; the electorate will be so reduced and rigged that those couple of hundred rich guys can do it all on their own. At that point, perhaps only a couple of electoral cycles away, all pretense can be abandoned, and they can institute the government that has been their clear goal for decades now: one in which not one percent, but a thousandth of one percent, or a ten thousandth of one percent of the American people will run the country for their own private benefit, and the rest of us will be nothing but serfs.
I think they are already at the point where many of them don't even feel the need to hide their intent any more; they are convinced that they have won, and their dreams of an American Fascist oligarchy are just around the corner, with the rest of us helpless to do anything about it. And they may very well be right.
This is what I fear: The Republicans, through decades of corrupt behavior, have now reached the point where they simply do not need anything like a majority of voters to support them, in order to capture and retain power. The tsunami of funding coming from no more than a couple hundred people is now greater than the political resources of the entire rest of the country, and other than the "base," which they need to maintain the illusion of democracy, they can simply stop any pretense that they give a damn about the rest of us. And you can count on this: another few years and they won't need the suckers who go out and work for them any more; the electorate will be so reduced and rigged that those couple of hundred rich guys can do it all on their own. At that point, perhaps only a couple of electoral cycles away, all pretense can be abandoned, and they can institute the government that has been their clear goal for decades now: one in which not one percent, but a thousandth of one percent, or a ten thousandth of one percent of the American people will run the country for their own private benefit, and the rest of us will be nothing but serfs.
I think they are already at the point where many of them don't even feel the need to hide their intent any more; they are convinced that they have won, and their dreams of an American Fascist oligarchy are just around the corner, with the rest of us helpless to do anything about it. And they may very well be right.
Comments
I believe that the evil game the Republicans are playing really can go on only so long. The British monarchy gave up power, slowly but continuously, over a period of centuries, and in return their country had to endure less than twenty years of religious dictatorship. The French aristocracy would not give up an inch, and consequently they were slaughtered.
I doubt that the likes of the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson can even conceive of a situation in which they are the losers, so I have bewn convinced for years that, as ignorant and passive as Americans are, the time will come when not we, but the people on top will have to decide whether they want a little power, or the tumbrels. Whichever they choose, people will give it to them and move on.
They know what's coming.
And think they're ready for us.
(I'm quoting you at my place, sweetheart. Thanks!)
Republicans act as the Seneschals for their corporate overlords.
As you note Green Eagle they rarely need the serfs to accomplish their schemes relying on a quarter of the population to provide votes when necessary and using vast sums of money and the gerrymandered in rightwing bureaucrats the rest of the time.