Two authors look into what the MAGAt Republican Party is up to before it succeeds in killing off its base.
Steven Beschloss writes about how the MAGAt Republican Party is "Aiming for Dictatorship" in 2025 and beyond.
... A deeply disturbing New York Times story published Monday described in polite terms a plan for “sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government,” what might be more accurately described as an aggressive effort underway to install dictatorship if Donald Trump retakes the White House.
This plot is committed to concentrating power in the hands of the president by ending liberal government and the independence of the Department of Justice, the civil service and other federal agencies that have been largely protected (by law or tradition) from presidential political interference. And there’s more—and not just the Trump plan to seek retribution by criminally investigating Biden and removing perceived enemies from Intelligence, Defense and State—but a plan to “impound” funds appropriated by Congress if he opposes their approved purpose.
And the people developing this plan are not hiding their intentions. [snip]I urge you to keep all this in mind when struggling to understand why Trump continues to get support not only from a cultist base, but also from Republican leadership and their policy professionals.
They don’t care that he’s a criminal. They don’t care if he’s a convicted sexual abuser or rapist. They don’t care if he’s never read the Bible or espouses violence. They don’t believe in government to make lives better. They reject democracy and the principles of equality.
They want power and they’ll pursue it by any means necessary to get it and keep it. Their plan for 2025 and another term makes clear why so many Republicans have looked away from every desecration and degradation and violation committed by Trump...
To borrow a phrase, when they tell you who they are the first time, believe them.*
Jonathan Metzl, author of "Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland," is interviewed by Vox's Sean Illing, and the familiar (to us) methods Republicans use to keep their base voting for them and against their best interests:
... I look at the rejection of the Affordable Care Act in the South. I look at policies that make it far easier for people to get guns and carry guns everywhere. I look at tax cuts that benefit wealthy Americans but cut roads, bridges, and schools in poor and working-class areas. Every one of those policies has been sold as a policy that will make America great again. But they have devastating consequences for working-class populations, particularly working-class white populations, in many instances.
You can’t really understand why people might support those agendas if you just start the conversation today. There are long trajectories of anti-government sentiment that course through the South that Trump has tapped into. There are also concerns about what it means to have the government intervene in ways that equally distribute resources that working-class white populations fear might undermine their own sense of privilege.
I think the GOP has also been remarkably successful at tapping into this narrative — a narrative that makes people anxious that immigrants and minorities are going to take away privileges that are theirs...
The resentments manufactured by decades of Republican myth- making about "them vs. us," defending "white privilege" in an increasingly multi- ethnic society, the focus on bullying and circumscribing vulnerable populations, actively working against the interests and well- being of the people who nevertheless vote for you... that's the script. As Beschloss notes above, Republicans aren't even trying to hide their autocratic, fascistic intentions anymore; the dog whistles have become bullhorns in their evermore desperate attempt to gain power, then change the rules to stay in power indefinitely.
The frustrating part is that so far they've been successful in convincing millions that they're on their side, when in fact the "politics of racial resentment is killing America's heartland." That's some strategy for gaining and maintaining power!
Meanwhile, this evergreen pictorial says it all:
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* Bonus relevant observation: "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." -- conservative writer David Frum.
