“Conservative” monkey wrenches
Many Americans are old enough to remember when we had a functioning democracy. They can remember when adversaries like President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill could rail at one another during the work day and then sit down over drinks and dinner to work things out and get things done.
But that was half a century ago. Before the plutocrats really got their hooks into the Republican party. Before they fully weaponized their all-out program to destroy democracy no matter how much it cost. Before they co-opted the “religious” right, the mindless haters and racists, and the Republican political class.
In the 1980s, the Moral Majority—a moniker straight out of Orwell’s Newspeak, since it was neither moral nor the majority—brought the low-intelligence churchmen and church ladies over to the plutocrats’ project. In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich brought the vicious Republican political class over. In the 2000s, the ruthless Dick Cheney and his sidekick dumbass W brought the neocon contingent inside and outside government over. And in the 2010s, the racist Tea Party and Trump brought the white supremacists over.
The plutocrats project was always to break government. They learned their lesson in the first half of the twentieth century. Teddy Roosevelt and then FDR showed them that government was fully capable of shutting down their insatiable greed. Antitrust reform first and then the New Deal demonstrated that government, when deployed in the interests of justice, could limit their esurient rapaciousness and force them to contribute to the nation that makes their wealth possible.
By the time Trump rolled around, the plutocrats had everything in place. As soon as Trump took over, they started pushing the buttons. And their mindless robots started breaking every aspect of government. Now all the Republicans try to do is throw monkey-wrenches into every government machine they get near.
Republicans the saboteurs of democracy
You probably know that the term “saboteur” comes from French industrial workers who would throw their sabots—their wooden shoes—into the machinery to shut down production when their labor demands went unmet.
The plutocrats, offended by the success of such methods agains them and their class of rapacious capitalists, seek to deploy the same tactics against government—the only power capable of resisting them. And now they own the whole Republican party apparatus, all the brainless Republican politicos, the entire evangelical religious confidence racket, and every neo-confederate knuckle-dragger in the nation.
When their confederates in Congress try to hold government hostage by threatening the nation’s ability to pay its bills, as Kevin McCarthy pretended to do a little while ago before selling out his MAGA reptiles; when they hold up military readiness, as the abysmally stupid and repellent Tommy Tuberville is doing in the Senate; when they launch fake investigation after fake investigation, as the House Republicans are doing in concert with nearly every “conservative” think tank and Federalist Society organization arrayed against government—all this is nothing but the plutocrat version of throwing wooden shoes into the machinery of government.
They have been working at breaking it for several generations. And they are finally damn close to doing so.
Decent America the last best hope of mankind.
The plutocrats are powerful. They have nearly half of the voting public in their pockets, either because they pay them off or because they pay off stooges to feed pablum to the ignorant masses. Its the plutocrats who pay for the swill of misinformation that “conservatives” choose to drink.
But the people—the decent people—are more powerful. At least they are right now.
The red states are bought and paid for and they are doing their best to break the Union, just as the plutocrats want. But the majority of eligible voters are not red. That has been proved by the relentless political losses of Republicans since the Trumpist right tried to tear down democracy on January 6.
And that is where Decent America’s hope resides. We can have a functioning democracy dedicated to justice again. We just have to rise up in numbers and do three things.
First, we vote the saboteurs—that is, as many Republicans as possible—out of government.
We have our new representatives launch a modern wave of antitrust laws that decapitate the hydra of plutocracy.
We have our new representatives reform the Supreme Court to reverse everything “conservative” justices have done to further the plutocratic cause.
That’s it.
Then we get back the America that has inspired the world for several centuries, the America that upholds Enlightenment principles of justice for all.
This hope is not irrationally exhuberant. Nor is it doomed to be defeated by the dark forces of plutocratic avarice.
It is well within our power to revivify this hope, to crush the plutocrats and their “conservative” minions, and to make America the leader again in the fight for universal justice.
Now is the time. Nothing could be more appropriate and satisfying than to knock the stocks out from under the plutocrats just when they think they are about to win it all.
Let’s make our hope a reality, Decent America—and then savor the gnashing of teeth that will follow our well-deserved victory for the future of democracy.
Thanks, jana.
When I finished the book, it seemed to me that some sort of key to the many facets of "conservative" depravity was needed. The table was the result. I'm glad you find it helpful!
Thanks for your kind words. If you do enhance to paid, I'll be extremely grateful!