Governance by Spite

 

    Cover page of John Dean’s Memo

I’m sure that this American practice hardly began in the 1970s, but the focus and formality of a political hit list seemed to become normalized in that era. It started as a trickle in the Republican Party during the Nixon administration. It continued under the House leadership of Republican Newt Gingrich, reached extraordinary heights during the Trump administration and now seems embedded in GOP practices in Congress, gridlocking and disempowering with the hopes of usurping congressional majorities in the 2022 election and retaking the presidency in 2024, arguing that the Dems and their president were unable to get legislation passed during their tenure. More on the most recent incarnation of this practice later.  

The beginning of the modern era GOP “party of ‘no’” opposition: An actual list of individuals seen as Richard Nixon’s opponents, thorns in his side if you will, to be targeted for IRS audits and other governmental nasties was revealed during his Senate impeachment hearings following the infamous GOP-directed burglary of the Democratic Party’s offices in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.

“‘Nixon's Enemies List’ is the informal name of what started as a list of President of the United States Richard Nixon's major political opponents compiled by Charles Colson, written by George T. Bell (assistant to Colson, special counsel to the White House), and sent in memorandum form to John Dean on September 9, 1971. The list was part of a campaign officially known as ‘Opponents List’ and ‘Political Enemies Project’.

“The list became public knowledge on June 27, 1973, when Dean mentioned during hearings with the Senate Watergate Committee that a list existed containing those whom the president did not like. Journalist Daniel Schorr, who happened to be on the list, managed to obtain a copy of it later that day… A longer second list was made public by Dean on December 20, 1973, during a hearing with the Congressional Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation…
John Dean's cover memo, dated August 16, 1971.

“The official purpose, as described by the White House Counsel's Office, was to ‘screw’ Nixon's political enemies, by means of tax audits from the Internal Revenue Service, and by manipulating ‘grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, etc.’ In a memorandum from John Dean to Lawrence Higby (August 16, 1971), Dean explained the purpose of the list:

“This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” Wikipedia 

 

After the horrific Citizens United vs FEC Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that uncapped campaign expenditure limits, extremist billionaires effectively funded a new wave of ultra-conservative/nationalist-populist primary candidates, pumping money into right wing radical views much, much earlier than in past elections. Running on “never compromise” campaigns in support of extremist right wing platforms, the result was almost instant Congressional gridlock. Donald Trump turned that notion of an “enemies list” into his most basic axiom of governance: get rid of anyone who will not implement his bidding; reward only the fiercest unwavering loyalty to Trump above loyalty to the Constitution or the country.

 

Exacerbated by a policy of blame-laced vituperatives, aided by a new vocabulary of distortions of both fact and the English language (buzzwords testing loyalty and commitment to Trump), Trump coopted traditional GOP directives with a litany of hate, racial bias and a raw desire for power. Some of those inane buzzwords: “creeping socialism,” “woke,” “cancel culture,” “critical race theory,” “patriotism” applied to domestic terrorists, “Trump clearly won,” “voter fraud” or “election security” and “Democrat radical leftists.” Well over 90% of elected GOP members of Congress yielded to this Trumpian vision, well after he was defeated in a major vote tilt in favor of Joe Biden, a result that Trump and his supporters challenged as fraudulent without any material proof.  

 

Out of power, House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have vowed to block all but the most innocuous Biden legislative initiatives. Taking over that “blocking appointments because we can” mantra that denied Barrack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland (now Attorney General) even a straight up floor vote, the GOP is today taking advantage of archaic Senate rules, from getting bills out of their jurisdictional committees, to using the filibuster/cloture rule to block actual Senate floor votes. We are the only democracy on earth where a majority of the federal legislature cannot pass most legislation.

 

And while the Senate did pass a near trillion dollar bi-partisan infrastructure bill (69-30), an issue that would bring needed dollars even to their constituencies (too dangerous to reject), the GOP almost immediately blocked a budget deficit approval bill that was necessary to implement the infrastructure statute. Without owning the responsibility for a re-spluttering economy because of the Delta variant pandemic among the unvaccinated, mostly diehard Republicans, GOP officials are now blaming the Delta surge on a very small trickle of undocumented aliens entering at our southern border – despite massive surges of the virus far, far away in seriously under-vaccinated red states that refuse to allow medically advisable social safety practices – and predicting a plunging dollar because of the deficits required to implement the necessary fixes to this lackadaisical view of medical facts.

 

Beyond these wrongs mendaciously applied to the detriment of all Americans, Senate Republicans have resumed that pledge to block Biden’s normal and customary federal appointments going forward. They are making sure that these nominations never make their way out of the relevant Senate committees to a floor vote. High on the list of blocking at a committee level, is Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz, with severe presidential aspirations as a Trump-heir and who serves on the following Senate committees (and many of their powerful subcommittees): Foreign Relations, Commerce, Science & Transportation, Judiciary, Joint Economic, and Rules & Administration.

 

Writing for the August 12th Los Angeles Times, Tracy Wilkinson provides these illustrations: “[Cruz] has held back as many as two dozen State Department appointees… Democrats and administration officials are furious, saying the failure to adequately staff the government has harmed American diplomacy abroad, national security at home and other areas of governance. GOP senators say in some instances they have serious objections to the candidate, but in most cases they are using their power to exact policy concessions.

“Foremost among those blocking nominees is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has held back as many as two dozen State Department appointees, on demands that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken penalize all international firms and individuals involved in the construction of a Russian pipeline to Europe… Blinken complained last week that 65 nominations were still pending a confirmation vote. Some of those, including Smith’s nomination, this week squeaked through the Senate approval process on the eve of Congress’ August recess after languishing for months… ‘These are critical national security positions,’ Blinken said, specifically mentioning the assistant secretary of State for diplomatic security…

“Others included the top officials in charge of various regions — the assistant secretaries of State for Latin America, Europe and parts of Asia — as well as consular services at a time of a massive backlog in the issuance of U.S. passports and visas because of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Since Blinken spoke, the nominee for assistant secretary of State for consular affairs was confirmed Monday night.)… ‘The American people need these services,’ Blinken added. ‘The American people need these nominees in place.’

“Administration-wide as of midnight Monday [8/9], according to congressional records, about one-third of Biden’s nominations submitted to Senate committees had been confirmed. At the same point in both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, at least two-thirds of each president’s nominations had been approved. For the Trump administration, which made far fewer nominations, the confirmations at that point were just under 45%.” It’s not a game. Holding your breath till you turn blue is a most infantile approach. It’s bad enough that 30% of the American electorate has voted into office 50% of the U.S. Senate. But without an ability across the board for bipartisan horse-trading, the American system of governance is collapsing on its own arcane rules.

I’m Peter Dekom, and democracy cannot work where one of the two main political parties rejects a normal democratic process for nothing more than usurping total control of the nation.