Day 625

Day 625 Wednesday October 3, 2018 956 Days to Go

I’ve been hearing this right wing stuff for over 60 years and I still don’t know what they want. Isn’t that odd? Sixty years of going on and on. Sixty years of grand statements and still I basically have no idea what they want. I know what they don’t want. However, what do they want? What is their vision? The only ones I’ve ever heard fall apart upon the briefest of inspections.
Remember W’s talk about Iraq? “As the Iraqi people stand up; we’ll stand down.”? Remember that? Did the Iraqi people ever stand up? No. So where did that leave us?
I remember one of the historians* talking about Papa Bush and his becoming President. He said that Bush was a man that once he got to be President really had no idea what he wanted to do. I think that is instructive because it illustrates the problem of the person with a good resume. No vision.
* There are three: Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Meacham, and Michael Beschloss.

I’ve heard conservatives, right wingers, whatever you want to call them, or they want to call themselves say things like:
They are for good conservative values. (that’s Dave Brat’s favorite line);
or
They are pro-life. (that’s the Christian conservative line.)
or
They want a balanced budget, and cut social programs. (That’s the Jim Jordan line.)
or
They want to strengthen the military.
or
They want to stop illegal immigration.
or
They want out of the U.N., Korea, NAFTA, NATO, etc.
The point being They want OUT.

But what does any of that mean? Most of it is either reckless or silly. None of it achieves much. Most of it makes us, as a nation, weaker. None of it empowers people. None of it helps citizens of the Untied States. What’s the point?
When I raise issues with any of these ideas I am berated and told I don’t understand. When I ask for details, facts, and data I’m referred to some wacky website or article that is typically easily shown to be just that with one Google search.
The champions of these causes all seem to be out to lunch. They are either quoting some narrow cherry picked set of facts, minor survey, or made up story masquerading as news. They are good at making fun of people, and dismissing ideas. But real sink your teeth into something that would help a situation or a people? Forget it.
If I bring up an idea that essentially is under the category of “a rising tide lifts all boats.” They scream socialism, and follow it up with “that never works” comments. They point to Eastern Europe examples to illustrate their point.
If asked are they opposed to the military or the government building roads and bridges I get silence, or “You don’t understand” and we are off down another rabbit hole.
If I ask should a government help its people? Well, yes of course, but not that way. Whatever way that is.

Reagan started a revolution. Gingrich hopped on it. But what did they bring about? Has any of what they have done improved your life? Or the life of the people of the United States? Or people around the world?
I have to say no. When did the American middle class begin its decline? (or stagnate?) The charts all point to the Reagan years.

The new round of conservatives; people like Ryan, and Jordan and Brat; seem to have no real sense of what they are doing, at least not publicly. One can make the cynical case that they are either knowingly, or not, engorging the rich and maybe themselves. They seem to espouse a “I got mine, you get yours” mentality, but it is hidden behind a thin veil of indignation at people trying to help others (that’s socialism!)

I don’t get it.

The vets of WWII and the people that fought against Germany and Japan in that time have been referred to as the Great Generation. But what caused that? What fueled it?
Well, having a common foe helped. Before that we had years of government attempts to pull the country and the world out of the worst economic depression ever seen. FDR tried all sorts of things to help the country. Was it his efforts that instilled that “can do” spirit? It certainly wasn’t the Republicans. They stood in his way ever step of the way until Hitler came along and they had to let the war effort sweep up the country. Of course, the businessmen (mostly Republican) stood to make a lot of money.
People saw things for what they were. They saw the problems and they worked to make things better. After the war Truman tried to pass universal health care and the Republicans blocked it. In Britain and Canada they went with systems that provided health care to all. The systems were structured differently but that’s what they did. The system we ended up with was tied to corporations as was our retirement. If you didn’t work for the same company for all of your career you were screwed. Even if you did they could screw you. I’ve heard many a story of someone being fired just before they had enough service to get their pension. (Andrew McCabe comes to mind.)
Throughout the sixties there were stories run in the U.S. press about the terrible British health care system. Socialism! However, most people interviewed, who actually used and were dependent on the system didn’t say the things the press was claiming. In the first decade of this century a similar attack was made on the Canadian health care system. Politician here claimed the Canadian system was broken, that there were long lines and delays, and that you couldn’t get services you wanted or needed. I spoke with my Canadian friends and asked them about such things. They seemed generally perplexed. They hadn’t experienced any of the objections that had been raised by conservative politicians in this country about the problem with the Canadian health care system.
The conservatives yelled that it was socialism. Bad. It’s really a system of private companies overseen by the government to make sure people aren’t getting screwed.
Dave Brat’s contention is that Obamacare is broken and that the best thing to do is to let it fall apart and then “they’ll send in people who really know what they are doing to fix it.” Fine. What do we do in the meantime? Hello? Hello? Dave are you there?

The same thing is true of their economics. They are against all sorts of things. They even have some vague notions of what they would like to see happen. We are seeing some of this in action with the Trump administration: tariffs, pulling out of trade deals, getting rid of illegals. None of these actions can be shown to be good for the economy, but they persist!
The administration along with the Republican Congress has passed some of the biggest tax cuts in history. This will greatly increase the debt. The people getting the tax breaks, the super rich, don’t need the break. The corporations we are told will have tons more money to invest in infrastructure, but they already had tons of cash to do it, and they haven’t. So why would giving them more money help? It wouldn’t. But here we are.

Now there’s a poll showing that the Republican base is energized over the Kavanaugh confirmation. The survey was conducted by the Judicial Crisis Network, a right wing organization that has spent millions to push for Kavanaugh’s confirmation and whose donors are unknown but suspected of being large corporations and right wing billionaires.

Here we are.

956 Days to Go

PS The Goring of the Elephants, The Field Museum, Chicago.