GOP - Wants One-Party Rule, A Warning

1934 Nazi Rally at Nuremberg were orderly by comparison to the Trump campaign
 rallies, but they are both built around a cult of an infallible leaders. (Bundesarchiv)

"Congressional GOP Wants One-Party Rule for a Thousand Years.  They Aren't Fearful of Trump.  They Want Him to Succeed." by Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash 2/17/2020

No, Congressional Republicans (with the exception of Mitt Romney) will not suddenly reveal themselves as principled even if Trump were to resign, which is near impossible to consider.  Democrats who pride themselves on civility and honorable behavior make the mistake of projecting those virtues onto Senate and House Republicans.

Yes, the rumors of some Senate Republicans who only voted to acquit Trump out of fear may have some truth, but then again, it may be nothing more than Bill Barr’s contrived claim that Trump’s tweeting was making his job more difficult.  In the end, Barr has just been engaging in a cover-up, most likely coordinated with the White House, of multiple cover-ups of acts of injustice to get Trump capos not to reveal evidence of Trump’s criminal behavior and to investigate Trump’s “enemies.”  Not to mention Barr’s dishonest summaries of DOJ investigations that concern Trump.

There is no reason to believe that Congressional Republicans want to rein in Trump anymore than to believe Barr is engaged in carrying out impartial justice.

No, Republicans didn’t acquit Trump just our of fear.  To the contrary, they share Trump’s goal of one-party rule — attained through stolen elections and massive disinformation campaigns — that would last, as Hitler declared for his Third Reich, a thousand years.  Lost in Democratic leadership speculation that it was Trump’s vindictiveness and fear that he would support primary challengers to anyone who voted against him on impeachment, lost to that simplistic explanation is that the Republican Party has been engaged in trying to suppress the two-party system for decades.  Not to mention, the Neo-Confederacy brand of the Republican Party since Nixon.

With the advent of an unhinged vengeful despot demagogue in the White House, who is openly soliciting help in stealing the 2020 election, the Congressional Republicans probably have two thoughts: 1) The Trump campaign’s open commitment to use dirty tricks, voter suppression and foreign interference to steal the election for Trump will help those up for re-election down ballot; and 2) The Republicans know that they are now a minority and cannot win a popular vote nationally and that they control the Senate only because of the artifact of (at the time of the Constitution) slave states (now including rural Western and Midwestern Red States) being granted two senators.

Thus a state such as Wyoming has two senators as a population of 580,000, while California has two senators, with the same power, with more than 40 million people.  So the Senate Republicans control the Senate under the pernicious and underhanded Mitch McConnell even though Democratic Senate candidates received 12 million more votes than Republican candidates in 2018.  So don’t rule out that the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate were thinking more about a strong man who would preserve minority Republican rule without the least compunction of fair play.

It is hard for many Democrats who believe in the Constitution and the lore of American democracy being a role model for the world to accept that the Republican white Christian minority are looking to hold on power at all costs even it means they are helping dismantle democracy and emboldening an aspiring dictator.  The reality is that democracy is a threat to their rule, and Trump is their leader in suppressing majority rule and enfranchisement, and a Republican dictatorship preserving minority rule would be just fine with them.

As Barry Craig noted in LA Progressive:  “Trump isn’t driving Republican opinion.  He’s just reflecting it.”

In 1947, while a Congressman John F. Kennedy said in a speech:  “There is nothing in the record of the past two years when both Houses of Congress have been controlled by the Republican Party which can lead any person to believe that those promises will be fulfilled in the future.  They follow the Hitler line – no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.”

For those Democrats who are squeamish about any comparisons to Hitler and the Third Reich, JFK was right on the money.  Trump is, it goes without saying, the master of the big lie, more than 15,000 and counting.  Like Hitler, he believes in one party rule.  Like Hitler, who damned the democratic Weimar Republic, Trump believes Democratic leaders are “vermin” and “scum” and should be imprisoned.  Like Trump, Hitler used mass audiences to appeal to the basest instincts of his followers, to lure them into the fanciful notion of a pure German bloodline, to promise them that he would make Germany great again (ergo The Third Reich).

Don’t for a minute think that the Republicans in Congress are abandoning principles out of fear alone.  Trump is their leader advancing the minority white Christians into a thousand years of one-party rule.

U.S. SENATE - Change Confirmation Process?

Note the GOP already has changed some of the Confirmation Process, the so-called Nuclear Option (temporally) change approval to just majority.  The GOP does not believe in the 'rule of law.'

"How a rule change for Senate confirmation process could affect federal courts" PBS NewsHour 4/2/2019

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The Senate is considering changing the confirmation process for some nominees to federal courts and administration roles.  Republicans want to limit debate time to speed up approvals, while Democrats argue that would compromise senators’ ability to vet nominees.  Judy Woodruff talks to Kristine Lucius of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the Heritage Foundation's Tom Jipping.

AMERICA POLITICS - Republicans and Race

"GOP faces identity crisis as some candidates stoke racial divide" PBS NewsHour 9/19/2018

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  This year, a handful of GOP congressional candidates have openly expressed or supported racist views, opening up a divide in the party over how to address the issue and who Republicans want to be.  Lisa Desjardins takes us inside a Virginia Senate race, where candidate Corey Stewart is a polarizing figure.

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 7/27/2018

"Shields and Brooks on Trump’s role in the economy, Michael Cohen, and the Russia probe" PBS NewsHour 7/27/2018

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including a blockbuster new report on U.S. economic growth, the fallout from President Trump’s trade wars, plus the latest developments in the Russia investigation, including whether the President knew about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting ahead of time.

Judy Woodruff (NewsHour):  So, from the Russia investigation to the economy, and other things, it’s been a busy week for this President.

We turn now to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

It is so good to see both of you together.

Mark Shields, syndicated columnist:  Thank you.

Judy Woodruff:  Sometimes, in the summer…

Mark Shields:  I have been here, Judy.

(LAUGHTER)

Mark Shields:  I haven’t been missing.

Judy Woodruff:  So, let’s start — David, we’re going to start with you, because you have been away — with the economy, our lead story tonight.

Blockbuster numbers for the past second quarter of the year, growth off the charts.  The President said today several times that he deserves the credit for this, his policies have led to a turnaround in the American economy.

Does he deserve the credit?  What’s the significance for him?

David Brooks, New York Times:  Totally.  We would be back in medieval economy if not for Donald Trump. [sarcasm]

No, it’s just a truism that Presidents get the blame when it’s going down and they get the credit when it’s going up.  But their effect on the economy is generally over the long term.  It’s not a short-term thing and not a quarter-by-quarter thing.

I think, if you look at the economic data, there is a lot of consumer spending.  And that probably, as David Wessel said earlier in the program, because of the tax cuts.

I think the business investment is not as high as you would think it would be.  The whole idea of corporate rate cuts is, you’re handing a lot of money back to corporations, and they’re going to blow out the ceiling.

And it’s fine, but it’s not what you would expect.  And, earlier, I thought the tax cut really was having an effect in inducing corporations to invest.  That seems not to be the case.  It’s not bad, but it’s not fantastic.

And so I would say the tax cut gets some credit, but not a lot.

Judy Woodruff:  Mark, how do you look at these numbers and the President’s role in all this?

Mark Shields:  I look at it, Judy, that Donald Trump is capable of convincing people of just about anything.

I mean, recall, if you will, November 2016, when he got elected, he convinced enough voters that the country was at the brink of desolation and destruction.  We, at that point, had — were in a point of 89 consecutive months of economic growth, of 80 months (an historic high in the country) of job growth, consecutively.

Judy Woodruff:  When he was elected.

Mark Shields:  When he was elected in November 2016.

He somehow was able, at a time when longevity was an all-time high, graduation rates were at an all-time high, pollution, other than greenhouse gases, were at an all-time low — I mean, it was — it was really a good era.  And yet he was able to say, this is the worst time in America, it’s the darkest moment.

Now, David’s right.  He does — the President does either get credit or blame.  And I would just point out to him, as a cautionary note, the last time the economy grew at a faster rate was third quarter of 2014, when it grew — Barack Obama was President.  It grew at 5.2 percent, David Wessel mentioned.

And that election of 2014, the Democrats’ numbers in the House of Representatives lost to the point where they had their lowest number since 1928, they held fewer state legislatures than they had at any time prior to the Civil War.

And so, when the economy is bad, the economy is the only issue.  When the economy is good, the elections are oftentimes about other issues.