The A, B, C's of Dictatorship

Harvard prof and Foreign Policy columnist, Steven Walt, has a thoughtful essay, "10 Ways to Tell if Your President is a Dictator."

My fears about Trump’s foreign policy have always been two-fold: that he might pursue a more sensible grand strategy but do it incompetently, thereby weakening America’s international position, or that he will eventually get co-opted by the foreign-policy establishment and repeat the Blob’s most familiar mistakes. Based on some of his early appointments — like Islamaphobe Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security advisor — we might even get the worst of both worlds: unrealistic goals pursued ineptly.

But if you live in the United States, what you should really worry about is the threat that Trump may pose to America’s constitutional order. His lengthy business career suggests he is a vindictive man who will go to extreme lengths to punish his opponents and will break a promise in a heartbeat and without remorse. ...Nor does he regret any of the revolting things he did or said during the campaign, because, as he told the Wall Street Journal afterward, “I won.” For Trump, it seems, the ends really do justify the means.

Walt continues to list 10 warning signs ordinary Americans should watch out for after Trump takes over on January 20th. It's a long but worthwhile read. Follow the link above.

I've been pondering whether Trump might inadvertently do what the moribund Democrats have persistently failed to achieve? Could Trump mobilize the American left? How would it happen? Would it be left versus right? Might America fracture on generational lines - angry old white folks on one side, everyone else on the other?

Trump may unintentionally bring down the very power structure he now thinks he owns, creating the conditions by which he and his order are run out on a rail of unrest. He wouldn't have to check off many of professor Walt's 10 boxes to empower and energize a resistance determined to toss out their mostly corrupt government, Republican and Democrat.

C'mon, Admit It. You Know You're Going to Watch. It's Just Too Good to Pass Up.

"It" being the first debate for the front-runners, all ten of them, vying for the Republican presidential nomination. It'll be the usual collection of rightwing wack jobs plus the biggest, wackiest of them all, Donald Trump.

With reaction like this, the Repug debate is bound to be a ratings monster.

"If the Republican Party is at a crossroads, consider Donald Trump the NoDoz-popping long-haul trucker behind the wheel of a semi loaded with nitroglycerin."

"Imagine a NASCAR driver mentally preparing for a race knowing one of the drivers will be drunk. That's what prepping for this debate is like."

It's a formula for disaster for every other candidate who'll share that stage.

Though some candidates may rely on gravitas to draw a stark comparison with Trump's showy, shallow political positions, others may stoop to Trump's level in a bid for the limelight. Think of it like a child misbehaving to get attention, only the child is hoping to be rewarded with nuclear launch codes at the end of their tantrum.

Candidates like Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul and Rick Perry — nationally-recognized politicians who would be real contenders in any other election cycle — are asphyxiating from a lack of political oxygen. Trump's stratospheric, bordering-on-intergalactic name recognition has already won him a guaranteed spot at the center of the Cleveland debate, an element of chaos that no debate prep can possibly account for. Will he be combative or humorous? Self-absorbed or primed for battle? Ronald Reagan or P.T. Barnum?

Regardless of how other candidates attempt to engage, Trump will drag down the legitimacy of every candidate within reach, baiting serious politicians into unwinnable arguments. As the saying goes, never get into a mud-wrestling match with a pig; you both get filthy, but the pig likes it.

America's Racist Revolution

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Those thoughts from the US president who launched postwar America on the path to building the greatest middle class the world has ever known, the same president whose parting words were a chilling warning about the ascendancy of a malignant threat to democracy, the "military-industrial complex," Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Who could have foreseen back then that the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower would, under Ronald Reagan, begin a turn to the dark side transforming America into a corporatist, illiberal democracy and leaving the once vaunted middle class a pile of bleached bones?

Salon.com's Conor Lynch writes that, along with the dismemberment of American democracy, the Republicans also ushered in a revolution of racism.

1964 was a pivotal year for the rise of modern conservatism. This was, of course, when the Civil Rights Act passed, and outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and ended the racial segregation that had existed for so long in the South. To southerners, this was an enormous betrayal by the Democratic party, especially from President Lyndon Johnson, who was himself a Southern Democrat. The federal government had overstepped in many minds, and this was an opening for the small government conservatives to once again capture the minds of common working class people.

In a truly opportunistic fashion, the Republican Party decided to exploit the racial fears and prejudices of much of the populace, and the Southern Strategy was born. State’s rights had been trampled on by the federal government, so the thinking went, and in 1964, Barry Goldwater ran an election based on anti-New Deal and states’ rights policies. His coded racism was successful, and it earned the votes from five southern states and his own, though he lost every other state to Johnson. Though not as aggressively conservative as Goldwater, Richard Nixon pursued a similar strategy 1968, and won all of the former confederate states, turning the south into the solid Republican territory that it remains today.

Reagan followed similar dog-whistle strategies when he ran, preaching states’ rights at the Neshoba County Fair, just miles from where three civil rights activists had been murdered in 1964, and declaring a rhetorical war on the safety net, adding “welfare queen” to the American lexicon. Today, many benefactors of social welfare programs protest those same programs, some unaware of the racial dynamic that has influenced the current animosity.

Of course, this racial force is more unconscious today than it was when the Southern Strategy began, just as the language has changed over the years. In a candid and originally anonymous interview, Reagan’s 1984 campaign director Lee Atwater described how racial language became more coded over the years:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, “n***er, n***er, n***er,” Said Atwater, “[But] by 1968 you can’t say ‘n***er’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

The Southern Strategy lives on as never before.  It has lost none of its utility as it continues to serve the interests of the plutocracy, who benefit enormously from a deeply divided, distrustful and powerless society - the precariat - and, of course, today's military-industrial-neoconservative-evangelical-commercial warfighting complex.

As a kid of the 60s, the blatant expression of racism even in America's media is jarring.  It's hard to imagine what's left except to reinstate slavery although they'll probably find a better name for it next time.

And then there's this.  The head of America's Federal Election Commission has all but thrown in the towel on regulating the 2016 elections.

You need to know this. The person in charge of our Federal Election Commission (FEC) says she has pretty much given up hope of regulating the 2016 election. That agency has been unable to reach a conclusion on any key vote, because they are perpetually locked in a 3-to-3 tie along party lines. In an interview with the New York Times, FEC Chairwoman Ann M. Ravel said, "The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim." She's not even talking about dealing with new rules to address the massive level of corruption in our political system. She's saying that they can't even hold anyone accountable for violating the inadequate rules that are already on the books. According to that recent piece in the Times, "Some commissioners are barely on speaking terms, cross-aisle negotiations are infrequent, and with no consensus on which rules to enforce, the caseload against violators has plummeted.

So, with the US Supreme Court in the bag to corporatism with the Citizens United decision and American mega billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers intent on buying the election, supported by state administrations working tirelessly to suppress minority voting, and the election regulator, the Federal Election Commission gridlocked, 2016 is shaping up to be the year America's oligarchs cement their control over the nation and the American people.

A Look at How Extremists Have the Republican Party in a Death Grip

Two prominent Democrats have decided to dig into the rotting corpse of the Republican movement to get a look at what lurks inside.

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and political strategist James Carville have announced what they plan to do about that pressing problem: namely, “The Republican Party Project,” which will provide extensive survey research devoted to “exposing, monitoring, and confronting” the Republicans while helping Democrats and progressives to regain the political offensive.

To begin advancing these ambitious goals, Carville and Greenberg released the first in a series of polls on Wednesday that showcased several of their target’s most divisive and dysfunctional features—and revealed some surprising weaknesses that could eventually prove disabling, if not fatal.

...the methodology used by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner oversampled Republicans in order to allow detailed analysis of two subgroups: Republicans themselves and independents who lean toward the GOP.

...as significant as party identification is how voters see the Republican “brand.” Although Democrats as a party and in Congress are not exactly beloved, their net negatives are around 10 points below those of the Republicans, who are regarded with absolute disdain by most of those polled. Only 13 percent believe that the GOP “shares their values” and only 9 percent believe that the GOP has “realistic solutions to the nation’s problems.”

...the gap between the parties among upcoming Millennials is nearly 20 points, with only 21 percent identifying as Republican—a data point that Republican leaders may well find terrifying. Moreover, the Republican base is holed up in rapidly depopulating rural areas, while cities and suburbs strongly favor Democrats. 

It is also worth noting how alienated moderate Republicans are from their own party, with nearly half regarding it as “too extreme.” Up to 40 percent of moderate Republicans regard their party as “out of touch,” a statement that resonates with 46 percent of Republican-leaning independent voters.

Canadian Liberals know what it means when a party alienates a big chunk of its base by heeling hard to the right.   They know because that's what took them from Sussex Drive to Stornoway and straight on to Motel 6 out on the Gloucester highway.

Sununu Can't Walk this One Back.

Romney campaign co-chair, John Sununu, is scrambling to get out from under his imprudent but pretty obviously heartfelt racist comments.

When former Bush state secretary and former US chairman of the joint chiefs Colin Powell endorsed Obama for a second term as president, he gave clear and convincing reasons for his choice.   Among them, he described Romney's vacillating foreign policy as a "moving target."  That speaks volumes for Powell's distrust of the Republican contender.

With that, former New Hampshire governor Sununu, threw out the race card.

''Frankly, when you take a look at Colin Powell you have to wonder whether that's an endorsement based on issues or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama,'' Mr Sununu told CNN.

 "A slightly different reason" is obviously code for here's one black guy siding with another black guy.   The Romney campaign felt the sting, causing Sununu to slither out an apology.

''Colin Powell is a friend and I respect the endorsement decision he made and I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the President's policies,'' he said.

It is not the first time Mr Sununu has been accused of injecting the issue of race into the presidential election. In July he told reporters on a conference call that he wished Mr Obama ''would learn how to be an American'' and was forced to apologise.

 

Sorry, governor, but you're just another hairy racist asshole.   Even once prominent Republicans were motivated to come out and denounce Republican racism.