There’s not much that the reconfigured Republican Party stands for; mostly it is defined by what it is against. If there is measurable support, it focuses on: 1. blind religious conservatism, which hardly reflects the declining numbers of Americans who affiliate with any formal religion. 2. Pseudo-patriotism (generally viewed as supporting our military and continuing to give police officers uncontained ability to “shoot to kill” power), which has strong roots in maintaining white supremacy, even if voter suppression and gerrymandering are the implementing tools. 3. Supply-side economics (the totally discredited theory that if you cut taxes for the rich, money will trickle down to create jobs… which has never happened ever) mandating lower taxes at the top. 4. Limiting legislation to provide benefits to ordinary Americans vs massive economic gifts to the highest earners and the wealthiest in the land. 5. Unsubstantiatable conspiracy theories that embrace a “stolen election” (aka “the Big Lie”) and rather clear racism. 6. Rejection of any gun control or meaningful immigration reform.
That we have not won a major war since WWII while currently spending over 40% of the world’s military budget, house 25% of the planet’s incarcerated “criminals” (even though we have 4% of the earth’s population) and have more gun deaths than any other nation (excluding civil and other wars). The never-ending reference to “creeping socialism” represents a clear distortion of even the dictionary definition of that term (see my December 17th blog, Socialism, Communism and Social Programs, for specifics), even as corporations get direct government support in the form of subsidies, tax benefits/loopholes designed by corporate lobbyists and exemption from so many of the hard dollar costs of corporate pollution).
Talk about restoring sensible tax rates for the rich, including corporation, proposals that fall way beneath the rates applied during the Reagan years, and you will get that completely discredited response of pushing away investment opportunities and cutting back employment. Not what the numbers tell us. Forget the difference between investing in your people (education, childcare and healthcare), your core business excellence (supporting research and again, education) and your sustainable efficiency (infrastructure) – all of which result in a more vibrant and productive economy – versus raw expenditures (like pay for a vast number of military personnel), which simply generate a deficit with no rate of return.
But the ultimate GOP hypocrisy is best illustrated by the GOP’s claim of supporting the American family unit while opposing every effort to fund that support in a way that most Americans approve. Writing for the May 5th Los Angles Times, OpEd contributor, Michael Hiltzik, makes that point very well: “Let me see if I have this straight. The Republican Party is rebranding itself as the nation’s leading supporter of family and child education.
“Yet it’s launched an all-out attack on President Biden’s proposals to help families pay for child care and provide free preschool and college, painting them as intrusive ‘social engineering… What’s wrong with this picture?
“The short answer is that the GOP has chosen to attack Biden’s $1.8-trillion American Families Plan not on the merits — that is, as an expansion and shoring up of the social safety net for American households — but by painting it as an effort to strangle Americans’ ‘choices.’… Yet this approach is hopelessly self-contradictory and incoherent. Its core is an effort to recast Biden’s proposals for free preschool, free community college and government support for child care not as opportunities, but as coercion.
“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fired a broadside at Biden’s plan the day it was announced. McConnell contended that Biden ‘wants to jack up taxes in order to nudge families toward the kinds of jobs Democrats want them to have, in the kinds of industries Democrats want to exist, with the kinds of cars Democrats want them to drive, using the kinds of child-care arrangements that Democrats want them to pursue.’
“More bizarrely, a plan that offers expanded opportunities for child care and higher education for low-income families is being recast as a mandatory giveaway to the wealthy. This was the theme hit by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) on Fox Business even before Biden gave his speech announcing the plan last week… ‘Three-year-old pre-K, they’re going to mandate this ,’ she said. ‘Two years of college, whether you like it or not.... It favors the urban, it favors the rich, it favors the elitists, it favors those that want power and control over every single minute of your day.’”
No Marsha, it favors the families who cannot otherwise pay for that education, cannot afford the childcare that would let them work and create value for the nation, and want their children to have a more level playing field when they actually enter the world where they have to compete with the children of rich folks who already provided all that for their children. Like the upscale prep-school attendees pictured above.
I’m Peter Dekom, and we cannot reverse the demise of upward mobility in this nation until we restore more equal access to opportunity and education.
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