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LINK Letters From An American 05/25/2022

Heather Cox Richardson

All day, I have been coming back to this: How have we arrived at a place where 90% of Americans want to protect our children from gun violence, and yet those who are supposed to represent us in government are unable, or unwilling, to do so?

This is a central problem not just for the issue of gun control, but for our democracy itself.

It seems that during the Cold War, American leaders came to treat democracy and capitalism as if they were interchangeable. So long as the United States embraced capitalism, by which they meant an economic system in which individuals, rather than the state, owned the means of production, liberal democracy would automatically follow.

That theory seemed justified by the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The crumbling of that communist system convinced democratic nations that they had won, they had defeated communism, their system of government would dominate the future. Famously, in 1992, political philosopher Francis Fukuyama wrote that humanity had reached “the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” In the 1990s, America’s leaders believed that the spread of capitalism would turn the world democratic as it delivered to them global dominance, but they talked a lot less about democracy than they did about so-called free markets.

In fact, the apparent success of capitalism actually undercut democracy in the U.S. The end of the Cold War was a gift to those determined to destroy the popular liberal state that had regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and invested in infrastructure since the New Deal. They turned their animosity from the Soviet Union to the majority at home, those they claimed were bringing communism to America. “​​For 40 years conservatives fought a two-front battle against statism, against the Soviet empire abroad and the American left at home,” right-wing operative Grover Norquist said in 1994. “Now the Soviet Union is gone and conservatives can redeploy. And this time, the other team doesn't have nuclear weapons.”

Republicans cracked down on Democrats trying to preserve the active government that had been in place since the 1930s. Aided by talk radio hosts, they increasingly demonized their domestic political opponents. In the 1990 midterm elections, a political action committee associated with House Republican whip Newt Gingrich gave to Republican candidates a document called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.” It urged candidates to label Democrats with words like “decay,” “failure,” “crisis,” “pathetic,” “liberal,” “radical,” “corrupt,” and “taxes,” while defining Republicans with words like “opportunity,” “moral,” “courage,” “flag,” “children,” “common sense,” “hard work,” and “freedom.” Gingrich later told the New York Times his goal was “reshaping the entire nation through the news media.”

Their focus on capitalism undermined American democracy. They objected when the Democrats in 1993 made it easier to register to vote by passing the so-called Motor-Voter Act, permitting voters to register at certain state offices. The next year, losing Republican candidates argued that Democrats had won their elections with “voter fraud.” In 1996, House and Senate Republicans each launched yearlong investigations into what they insisted were problematic elections, one in Louisiana and one in California. Ultimately, they turned up nothing, but keeping the cases in front of the media for a year helped to convince Americans that voter fraud was a serious issue and that Democrats were winning elections thanks to illegal, usually immigrant, voters.

In 2010 the Supreme Court green-lit the flood of corporate money into our political system with the Citizens’ United decision; in 2013 it gutted the provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requiring the Department of Justice to sign off on changes to election laws in some states, prompting a slew of discriminatory voter ID laws. In 2010, REDMAP (Redistricting Majority Project) enabled Republicans to take over state legislatures and gerrymander the states dramatically in their own favor.

At the same time, the rise of a market-based economy in the former Soviet republics made it clear that capitalism and democracy were not interchangeable. An oligarchy rose from the ashes of the USSR, and U.S. leaders embraced the leaders of that new system as allies. That allyship has gone so far that this week, the Conservative Political Action Conference held a conference in Hungary, where leader Viktor Orbán, who was a keynote speaker at the event, has openly rejected democracy. At the conference, he called for the right in the U.S. to join forces with those like him; yesterday, he declared martial law in his country.

At home, where our focus on free markets has stacked our political system in favor of the Republicans, the vast majority of Americans want reasonable gun laws, reproductive rights, action on climate change, equality before the law, infrastructure funding, and so on, and their representatives are unable to get those things.

Capitalism, it seems, is also trumping democracy at home.

HippieChick58 9 May 26
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Bingo! 🎯 A very accurate explanation for how we got here. One thing I would add: it's not just capitalism that the right has been touting; it's UNREGULATED capitalism they want. They want corporations to be able to lay waste to the Earth with impunity. They don't care if they leave nothing for future generations; they want maximum profit now. So they foul the air, despoil the land, pollute the water, all the while privatizing the profits while the public picks up the tab for their mess. They are nominally against the welfare state, want to dismantle the social safety net, such as it is. That is, with the exception of corporate welfare. It's just fine for huge corporations making obscene profits to suck the government tit. The fossil fuel industry receives tens of billions in subsidies from Uncle Sugar every year. Meanwhile, student debt skyrockets. I'm so glad she mentioned Rush Limpdick, that "conservative" scourge whose award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom was a slap in the face felt around the country. It still stings, and it's little consolation that the son of a bitch is rotting in his grave. The damage is done. With his specious arguments demonizing the welfare state, the "dangerous" liberal elites, and the unwashed hordes of immigrants, he ginned up fear better than Orson Welles with his seminal broadcast of the radio play, War of the Worlds. Limbaugh, with help from that raging demagogue Newtie Gingrich and smooth operator Grover Norquist, got every rancher, farmer, construction worker, and oil man running for his gun. Meanwhile the Supreme Court gave the green light to corporations to flood the political system with dark money. And it's not like conservatives didn't already have the huge advantages of an electoral college AND a Senate designed at first to keep slavery in place and now serves to maintain minority rule. The Dakotas, with only 1.5 million people, are represented by four senators, while California, with 40 million people, only gets two. And so the Senate is where bill go to die. And that is exactly what the right wants: for government to be as absolutely ineffective as they can make it. Then they can say, "Look! Government doesn't work!" The self-fulfilling prophesy; the true lie. Ronald Reagan famously said the scariest words he ever heard were, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." And 50 years later we stand at the edge of the anarchic abyss. The fools don't realize they better be careful what they wish for. The Pandora's box they are opening is full of unpleasant surprises. They may succeed in dismantling the regulatory state, but they, we all, will literally reap the whirlwind. We have already fought one Civil War. We may fight another, this time on a battlefield where climate change-induced crop failure is the wild card. They are not just taking down the regulatory state; they're bringing down civilization. Stay tuned.

I believe your comment is absolutely correct and also terrifying. I fear for the future of my grandchildren.

@Redheadedgammy Me too dear. Me too

Having stoked doubt in the election process, followed by a campaign to undermine elections, it's impossible to imagine the Civil War NOT going from cold to HOT in November.

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How do we save our Democratic Republic? Is it already too late?

We've all got to start doing what Beto did yesterday. Showing up, confronting the ones who are accountable, and bringing the receipts.
That's the only way forward.

@KKGator I’ve been calling and writing (handwritten) letters to those in power. I vote, I help other people register to vote, I drive people to the polls. I am feeling more and more defeated as it seems none of what I’ve done personally seems to change much of anything. I remember the Vietnam protests and how they seemed to move the leaders. Maybe we need a few million of us to start that again? 😉

@Redheadedgammy That's what I'm talking about!

It is too late. The arrogance of Putin and Hillary have killed us.

@racocn8 It'll never be over.

@Redheadedgammy It's hard to "see" how one person's efforts make any difference. But what you don't see is all the others like you who are doing similar positive things. It's GREAT what you are doing! I think it's more rewarding and sustaining to try to do as many of those things that you are doing - driving people to the polls, writing letters - in an organized group, ideally local and able to meet face to face sometimes, rather than alone. For example, working with the local League of Women Voters.

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Capitalism is another failed system.
The religious-reich has planned this for decades.

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