The Republican Road to Fascism in America

WE ARE CONFRONTED WITH POSSIBLE AMERICAN FASCISM. WE MUST RESIST. 

ANY WHO WANT A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY 
MUST RESIST. 

ANY WHO WANT A LIBERAL CULTURE OF BROAD TOLERANCE AND RESPECT FOR ALL 

MUST RESIST!

Salon article: Nixon was more like a proto-Trump

Backstory: Ever since Nixon's appeal to the backlash against greater racial equality, the Republican Party, the party of the wealthy/powerful elite, has increasingly appealed to hatred and anger against racial minorities, women, and now more than any time since the early 20^th century, immigrants – and thereby has divided America more and more, demolishing a center (e.g., Independents, ticket-splitting). 

Starting with Reagan, the Republican agenda to protect billionaires and the profit of powerful corporations has become more obvious – for example, by reforming the tax code thereby putting more burden on the bottom 99.99%, and attacking regulations (put in place to protect the lower 99.99%) by using the wealthy propaganda myth of the “free market”.          

To begin with, the Republicans captured the religious fundamentalist vote by flipping on cultural issues starting with a woman's right to an abortion (Reagan). But the fundamentalist vote and the economically Conservative vote was not enough in 2008.

As a result, the wealthy elite created the “virtual” Tea Party to build a larger angry white constituency – angry about a feeling of economic precariousness. And Americans should feel greater economic vulnerability – before the G.W. Bush “Great Recession” starting in 2008, median family income had been stagnant for more than three decades (even with more family members working more jobs) and job and retirement pension security was being progressively diminished for the almost all workers.

The Here & Now: Trump is not only illiberal but anti-democratic, questioning and challenging Constitutional constraints on the Executive and chilling any criticism by individuals or by the media (i.e. the 1^st Amendment right to free speech) by veiled and not so veiled threats of violence by his supporters or retaliation by himself (e.g. restricting the libel law). Twentieth century Americans do know something about how speech was chilled during the McCarthy era – Trump's threats during the primary campaign are consistent with his on-going twitters etc. and threaten to chill speech in a much more profound way - indeed, more similar to fascist regimes.

"In the interim, there are a slate of policies on his docket that would entrench not only his kleptocratic interests, but also allow him, together with the GOP, to create an internal empire less responsive to the plurality of voters and more responsive to wealthy and regressive special interests. "(From The warning signs of fascism that Americans should be watching for under president Donald Trump, by Casey Michel)

No surprise then that a lightning-rod-of-hate-and-anger demagogue like Trump could divide America as much as it was in the Civil War era. Trump's "MO" is:

• spouting a message that he could bring all the (better paying?) jobs back
• saying only he could fix things & “make America great again”
• bring back traditional values
• modeling illiberal behavior
• unapologetically demeaning women
• unapologetically demeaning ethnic, and national minorities
• unapologetically demeaning any critics 

But Trump is not only illiberal but anti-democratic, questioning/challenging Constitutional constraints on the Executive and chilling any criticism by individuals or by the media (i.e. the 1^st Amendment right to free speech). His challenges are by veiled and not so veiled threats of violence by his supporters or retaliation by himself (e.g. restricting the libel law). 

Twentieth century Americans do know something about how speech was chilled during the McCarthy era.Trump's threats during the primary campaign are consistent with his on-going, headline making tweets, etc., and threaten to chill speech in a much more profound way - indeed, more similar to fascist regimes.

The Republican Party and its elite economic backbone have paved the way for Trump's demagogic appeal to angry, hateful emotions (rejecting rational analysis entirely) and for his illiberalism and anti-democratic inclinations. 

WE ARE CONFRONTED WITH POSSIBLE AMERICAN FASCISM. WE MUST RESIST. 

ANY WHO WANT A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY MUST RESIST. 

ANY WHO WANT A LIBERAL CULTURE OF BROAD TOLERANCE AND RESPECT FOR ALL 

MUST RESIST!

#TheResistance

War Against the 99+% - AND WE MUST FIGHT BACK!

Mitch McConnell thanking Charles and David Koch

We must ELECT A DEMOCRATIC HOUSE MAJORITY in spite of SUPER WEALTHY AND CORPORATE “DARK MONEY”.

Our weapon in this class war against the 99+% is:

•  UNDERSTANDING THAT THE REPUBLICAN MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE IS A PUPPET OF THE VERY WEALTHY AND POWERFUL
• INCREASING voter REGISTRATIONS
• INCREASING VOTER TURN-OUT
• VOTING A DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE

This is OUR ONLY WAY FORWARD TO AVOID THE WORST OF GLOBAL WARMING.

Given the misleading media coverage of election donations (focusing mainly on regulated donations raised for the “campaign” committees), it is crucial to understand how unlimited “soft” and “dark” money have completely thwarted the 1974-2010 attempts to limit the “buying” of the Presidency and Congress by donations of very wealthy individuals.

In 1971, the first "modern" finance law was passed (FECA). As part of the Watergate investigation, it was discovered that Richard Nixon won reelection with the economic support of ONLY roughly 1200 individual and corporate donors. In reaction, Congress passed amendments in 1974, 1976, and 1979. Upon the basis of these laws, “hard” money donations to campaigns by corporations and individuals were severely limited in specific ways with maximum $3000 corporate donations given through entities called Political Action Committees or PACs for short.

Matson cartoon: Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance

On the other hand, “soft” money donations to political party committees could be unlimited and were nominally intended to promote “party building activities” including “get-out-the-vote” efforts and “ISSUE ADS”, i.e. supporting positions, not candidates. In fact, from 1996 onward an increasing bulk of the “soft” money was spent on ads that were effectively perceived as campaign ads.

After the partisan Federal Court decisions in 2010 (commonly known as Citizens United and SpeechNow), unlimited donations that have paid for the ever increasing, EVEN GREATER flood of attack and “issue ads”. The vast bulk of attack and issue ads are now paid for by corporate (or union) donations explicitly to “advocacy groups” under Citizens United, or individuals, or (technically ) “social welfare” groups NOT REQUIRED TO PUBLICLY DISCLOSE THE SOURCES OF THEIR FUNDING, “DARK MONEY”.  The primary limitation of these new super pacs is that their “political” ad spending is not coordinated with the candidate campaign committees. 
 

              

In short, the 1973 “discovery” that about 1200 individuals and corporations could finance a Presidential campaign, and the consequent attempt to diminish the influence of great wealth in electing candidates that protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful and not those of 99+% of the public, has been DEFEATED! 

"The Kochs are poised to play a momentous role in financing hundreds of candidates across the country and launching attacks on those who oppose their goals. ..." Koch Brothers Move to Influence Congressional and State Races

We MUST ACTIVELY WORK TO:

1. INCREASE VOTER REGISTRATIONS
2. INCREASE VOTER TURN-OUT
3. VOTE A DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY INTO THE HOUSE

This is OUR ONLY WAY FORWARD TO AVOID THE WORST OF GLOBAL WARMING.

#UniteBlue #FlipItDem

Politics and Money?

The Koch Brothers

We need a MAJORITY in the Supreme Court TO REVERSE Citizens United!

The founding States of the newly formed United States, very much aware of the exploitive practices of British “corporations” in the colonial period, severely limited the rights and powers of all corporations granted charters by the States – including forbidding influencing elections.

The growth of the railroads and the production of Civil War related industrial goods transformed the U.S. from an agricultural society (where land holdings were a major measure of wealth) to an industrial society with great monetary wealth concentrated in an extremely small portion of the population which, in turn, used its wealth to influence government in their favor. This was the era of John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Mellon, Andrew Carnegie, etc.

The Tillman Act of 1907, passed during the Teddy Roosevelt Progressive Era, was the first law to attempt to regulate campaign financing – “universally” in the interests of the very wealthy. The Act was, effectively, never enforced.  The Watergate Scandal led to the passage of the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments and was the basis for campaign finance regulation until 2010.

In 2010, the Republican majority Supreme Court fundamentally reversed campaign finance regulation by their Citizens United decision which legalized unlimited corporate campaign contributions. The Citizens United decision was the basis for further decisions which legalized unlimited donations by “social welfare” associations but without public knowledge of the source of donations: hence, “dark money”.  The influence of great wealth upon American elections where the donors cannot be known or are very difficult to identify is probably best studied in the case of the Koch brothers and their affiliated network of anti-regulation billionaires etc.