What They Really Fear
I've seen a fair amount of speculation about the craven capitulation to the demands of Trump of essentially every single Republican politician. A lot of reasons have been given for this phenomenon, the main one being that they are afraid of the fury of the seventy million mindless Trump voters out there, and like every Republican since around 1912, their concern for our country is negligible compared to their concern for their own careers and fortunes. There is a lot of truth to that notion, however, I believe there is a bigger and much more frightening reason for this strait-jacket behavior.
In truth, at the present time, every Republican leader has decided that they are on the verge of permanent, one party dictatorial rule in this country, and if they just all stay on the train, it is going to bring them into the station by 2025. Unfortunately, as I need hardly say, with their having succeeded at their long time goal of packing the Supreme Court with corrupt Justices, their polluting the voting system in this country in every way they can, and their willingness to commit any crime to get what they want, there is a real chance that they are right.
These politicians know perfectly well that a Republican return to control of all three parts of our government, particularly if it is under Donald Trump, will certainly be quickly followed by a Night of the Long Knives, in which every Republican who took any action against Trump will suffer the fate of Ernst Roehm. This will, of course, be far exceeded by what the Republicans will do to the Democrats, but they obviously don't give a damn about that.
And that is why it is impossible to sway a single Republican who is currently on board with their ravaging of our country: to hop off the train means death, politically and in many cases undoubtedly literally.
All of the honest people in the country now know that this is what they Republican party is up to, but few have had the courage to think about what it really means. I can only suggest that people take the time to read something reasonably accurate* about what happened in Germany from the end of January, 1933, until a couple of years later. I am not a fan of facile comparisons to the Nazis, but there is a truly bleak warning there. Democrats have, sad to say, basically stood by and done nothing while Republicans have gone on their rampage. Is it too late to stop them? Maybe so, but it would be nice if we at least saw some pushback that is in proportion to the real threat facing us.
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*If you would like a good source for information about this period, I suggest the early parts of The Third Reich in Power, by Sir Richard Evans.
Comments
Either way, I fear that the country I spent almost 2 decades serving is over.
Oh, and Pinku-Sensei? Mad Props for Krosp and the Girl Genius reference!
Republicans have held the cards, and have for a very long time. Going back to the 70s the GOP has had gobs of funding. War chests two and three times what the Democrats had.
Media consolidation and the nationalization of markets and domination allowing groups like Sinclair to saturate entire segments. The destruction of the Fairness Doctrine sealed the deal. All of the media billionaires lean right. Some are media arms of the GOP. The Democrats have no major media traction.
Falwell showed that you could manufacture an issue and use it to leverage an unrelated, but adjacent, issue. He used abortion to raise the Moral Majority and then used them to get state funding for segregated religious schools.
Gingrich showed you can openly insult, disrespect and denigrate you opponents and there is no need to be nice about it.
Reagan destroyed unions and the last major resistance to big business. He also handed over regulatory agencies to the industries they are supposed the regulate. Business and industry never had it so good.
This conflict has always been about who gets to control things. Is this about one-man-one-vote nation where individuals have rights to participate in decisions? Or is this a nation run by the people who own it? The markets have been allowed to consolidate and billionaires have been given control.
Top to bottom, wall-to-wall, money rules. Billionaires make and break laws. They wave their hands and millions suffer or smile. They, not elected officials, control the economy. The two resistant senators are puppets to a cluster of billionaires. They bought two because they only needed two.
The game has been rigged since the 70s. Probably since 62 when LBJ signed the voting right act. Then again that had its roots in the failure of reconstruction. Then again race, always an issue. has been a distraction from the larger individual versus property rights debate.
Note: if property right supersede individual rights slavery will return. It will be called something different. Perhaps Right-to-work.
Since I wrote that we've had our very own Mule to Asimov's Foundations, and yet the still conspire ...
now they may not be able to handle the blow back. when some maga hat takes out rupert's private jet with their own, personal, stolen, surface to air missile, they'll realize that their former supporters have turned on them. listen to them boo trump and shit on fox news. when you ceaselessly tweak hyper unstable people who are that well armed and then fail to be equally crazy, they'll come after you too.
or like Caligula, your security detail will kill you for the cash.................