“We the People” have been hearing the words, that the republican President Donald J. Trump is the symptom of what’s been permeating the GOP world for decades.
As a former GOP member until 2016, I left because of what I perceived was a party, where racism had become an invasive virulent disease that has been growing within the Republican Party ranks.
I discerned that when President Trump began his campaign to become the 45th US president with his rant against immigrants, based on hyperbole, false data, outright lies that this was code that would not only appeal to the anti-immigration hardliners, but many of whom are racists. When the president gave cover to White Supremacist type groups as he did with the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlotteville, VA. by referring to them as fine peoples, he was condoning their behaviors and beliefs, which are mostly Antisemitic in nature. In the USA, the anti-immigration stance against refugees of color and those with Muslim backgrounds equals racism which equals Antisemitism. That’s why after President Trump moved into the White House, hate crimes across the board for all minority communities have spiked.
It’s only logical to question, why on earth would the GOP lawmakers in the US Congress be in the position to recently have to cover for the president’s explicit racist tweets against 4 Democratic Party freshmen House members of color, known as the Squad? He’s been pontificating that if these congress representatives are so critical of him and the USA, then they ought to leave the USA to return to their homes. It mattered little that three of these representatives were born here in the USA and that one was born in Somalia but moved to this country as a 12 year old child before becoming a US naturalized citizen.
Has anyone wondered why there hasn’t been more backlash by the business community regarding the president’s imposition of tariffs on even our neighbors and allies along with the trade war that he’s instigated between the US and China, especially since there’s no sign of a pending trade deal between the two countries. Then there’s the president advertising that he wants to cut back on legal immigration by 50%, which is a policy that’s typically not supported by the business community.
The above scenario only makes sense if the goal has been to establish an authoritarian government in the USA by GOP conservative special interests who have figured out that the future voting demographics favor the Democratic Party, bigly. Does anyone believe that these dark money GOP donors would graciously accept the reality that all the monies they have invested over the years in owning the Republican Party will be for naught? My opinion is that there’s no way that these powerful wealthy conservatives would graciously sit back as they watch their power being diminished.
It’s the same old story…Follow the money…The GOP lawmakers in the US Congress know full well that these big donor monies will dry up if they dare to challenge the president. Then these same donors will fund other more compliant candidates to challenge them when they run for reelection as they ostracize the recalcitrant members, as in the recent case of MI Rep. Justin Amash who just left the GOP and the former NC Senator Mark Sanford.
If President Trump has to cater to the numerous factions of his base with various policies like spouting racist and anti-immigration rhetoric, initiating tariffs against our neighbors and allies, starting a trade war with China, then so be it. He hasn’t acted on any policies that aren’t in his and his rich buddies’ personal best interests and/ or which cater to his base of voters. And if the president’s actions aren’t in the US best national security interests, as per these donors, then so, what?
In March 2019, the US House Democrats passed the election reform bill which requires “dark money” political groups to publicize their donors; and in June 2019 they passed the Secure America’s Future Elections Act or the SAFE Act to prevent Russia and other nefarious actors from successfully interfering in future US elections, as was done in 2016, but both bills have been declared DOA in the GOP led US Senate.
This is just one more reason that I’ve become a strong advocate for the US House of Representatives using the power granted it by the US Constitution to commence an impeachment inquiry/ investigation against President Trump, based on the the detailing of the president’s numerous felonious acts enumerated in the FBI’s 3/22/2019 final report, regarding its 22 months long Trump-Russia probe, led by the Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Here’s a link to several articles regarding authoritarian governing in the USA: support for authoritarianism. Several of these articles are pre-Trump presidency which highlights the reality that this issue was being debated before President Trump moved into the White House. The exception to this is the Jane Meyer book, “Dark Money.”
As per the 4/12/2017 LA Times article, “Jane Mayer discusses her book ‘Dark Money’ and its ongoing relevance” by Kate Tuttle:
Excerpts:
“The nature of truth, Mayer makes clear in her book, is very much at stake in our political system these days. “Dark Money” expands beyond the Kansas-based Republican kingmaker Kochs to explore the way a small number of extremely wealthy individuals, over the last several decades, used tax laws designed for philanthropy to construct a network of institutions, media organizations and political action committees to heavily influence — and at times, subvert — our democracy. As Mayer writes, the Kochs are part of “a small, rarefied group of hugely wealthy, arch-conservative families that for decades poured money, often with little public disclosure, into influencing how Americans thought and voted.”
“Vast sums of money in the form of what Mayer calls “weaponized philanthropy” funds battles against taxes, labor unions, environmental regulation, scientific research and civil rights efforts. Secrecy is a big part of the story. “The covert nature of these maneuverings that really caught my eye,” she explained.”
“Mayer said, but after the book came out they found themselves harshly attacked by conservative pundits and writers. “We were kind of early canaries in the coal mine in seeing what it’s like and how rough it can be when political partisans come at you,” Mayer said. “We thought we were just documenting the facts.”
“When it came to the 2016 presidential election, the Kochs’ network raised $889 million for a candidate they wanted to back — and didn’t find one. Donald Trump, Mayer said, “certainly wasn’t the candidate they had in mind.”
“Although the Kochs didn’t work for Trump’s election, there’re many Koch allies with roles in the administration, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and EPA head Scott Pruitt. “He’s now got a number of people in his administration who are delivering on many things the Kochs want, particularly on the environment,” Mayer says. Most of the families profiled in “Dark Money” made their fortunes in the gas and oil industry; they fiercely oppose any action to address climate change.”
See:
Racial prejudice, not populism or authoritarianism, predicts support for Trump over Clinton]
On February 23, 2016, Matthew MacWilliams of VOX penned the following report, “The best predictor of Trump support isn’t income, education, or age. It’s authoritarianism.”
Excerpts:
“In the 5 days leading up to the South Carolina Republican primary I fielded a survey of 358 likely voters, hoping to better understand who supports Donald Trump, why, and what it may mean for the Republican presidential nominating contest.”
“What I found is a trend that has been widely overlooked. A voter’s gender, education, age, ideology, party identification, income, and race simply had no statistical bearing on whether someone supported Trump.”
“Here is what did: authoritarianism, by which I mean Americans’ inclination to authoritarian behavior. When political scientists use the term authoritarianism, we aren’t talking about dictatorships but about a worldview. People who score high on the authoritarian scale value conformity and order, protect social norms, and are wary of outsiders. And when authoritarians feel threatened, they support aggressive leaders and policies.”
“Authoritarianism and a hybrid variable that links authoritarianism with a personal fear of terrorism were the only 2 variables that predicted, with statistical significance, support for Trump.”
“Put simply, Trump won South Carolina because of the overwhelming, unyielding support of authoritarian voters. This chart shows the predicted relationship between authoritarianism and support for Trump. It is statistically and substantively significant — and, as you can see from the upward plot of the line, stunning.”
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“For some time, I have studied authoritarian attitudes among Americans. This December, under the auspices of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I conducted a national poll measuring authoritarianism, along with more typical demographic and political factors. It found that, nationally, only authoritarian attitudes and fear of terrorism — not income, age, education, or even race — predict with statistical significance whether someone will support Trump.”
“Both surveys measured authoritarianism with a simple battery of four questions related to parenting. Political scientists, including Marc Hetherington, Jonathan Weiler, and Karen Stenner, have used these questions since the early 1990s to estimate authoritarianism because of their accuracy in predicting authoritarian behavior.”
“Individuals with a disposition to authoritarianism demonstrate a fear of “the other” as well as a readiness to follow and obey strong leaders. They tend to see the world in black-and-white terms. They are by definition attitudinally inflexible and rigid. And once they have identified friend from foe, they hold tight to their conclusions. This intransigent behavioral tendency of authoritarians may help explain why Trump’s support can seem, as a strategist for Marco Rubio complained in the NY Times, like “granite.”
Link: The best predictor of Trump support isn’t income, education, or age. It’s authoritarianism…
Gronda Morin 
Gronda, this is an excellent read for all. BrookingsLib had a similar post recently. Here is a comment I copied from that post which will embellish what you wrote.
This actually dates back to the late 1990s when the Koch Brothers saw the future demographics not favoring the GOP. So, a long term plan was fomented that included voter suppression, but also other strategies like changing the governance of public universities once state legislatures went Republican, endeavoring to white-wash history lessening coverage of Native American genocide, Jim Crow, slavery and the Holocaust, funding non-public school options where curriculum could be tailored, limiting the flow of immigrants and even gaining enough states to change the constitution to go back to the state appointing senators.
I recognize this all sounds strange, but I have picked this up from several sources, including a former Republican stratgegist named Steve Schmidt. He forewarned how critical it was for the Dems to retake the House or we might be headed toward “Trumpistan.” The same criticality resides in the 2020 vote. While all of this may sound over the top Machiavellian, Schmidt was a GOP strategist and I had come to a similar conclusion with the future demographics. The autocratic bent goes hand in hand with embracing Russia and the white race being a plutocracy, not a majority in thirty years.
This is why it is so important that people vote. Trump won, in part, because he got many Dems to stay home or vote for Jill Flynn. Trump is a clear and present danger to our democracy, our planet and the Republican Party, the latter of which he has already harmed. This comes from an Independent and former Republican voter. Keith
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Dear Keith,
Once one starts looking at what’s happening today, the support for President Trump and his policies make perfect sense. Our country is being set up to become like you said, a plutocracy under an authoritarian government. Slowly but surely the pillars of our US democracy are being attacked where we can see the heads are those who’ll demonstrate absolute loyalty.
You can now see who’s been bought like the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Senate Judiciary Committee chair Senator Lindsey Graham. It’s no wonder President Trump hated Senator John McCain as he was not a go along type gentleman.
I recall noting the racism bent in the Republican Party with the echo chamber of FOX TV around 2012 during the Trayvon Martin case where the FOX TV hosts where trashing the victim while praising and raising the profile, George Zimmerman who was obviously, a punk. I can recall everyone of the FOX TV hosts attempt to portray the “Black Lives Movement” as a terrorist group
When President Trump moved into the White House, besides those who had been associating with Russian officials, there were the White Nationalists like Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and even the AG Jeff Sessions. One of their first acts was to try to pass the Muslim Travel ban.
This is where the Supreme CT decisions start to bite like the Citizens United ruling and most recently, where the conservative justices ruled against interfering with the US states’ extreme gerrymandered voting district maps.
Like you said, this accounts for most of the GOP led states instituting voter ID laws.
This also explains the president’s push for adding the citizen question to the 2020 census questionnaire
There’s no way that these conservatives who have spent billions on the Republican Party are about to graciously let go of their reign on power.
That’s why in November 2020, it’s important that all decent peoples vote in favor of Democratic Party candidates.
Hugs, Gronda
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Hello Gronda. I agree with your post and with Keith above. The problem is twofold as I see it. Internal and external forces joining to decide what our country should be. The problem is while all these different groups such as wealthy businesses, religious fanatics, and oligarchs all want the same end they also all want to be the one on the top after the dust settles.
As for the sudden shift towards loving Russia and Putin that is fueled in a large part by the evangelicals who agree with, admire, and want to do here all the restrictions / outlawing LGBTQ that Putin put in place. Yes the religious right went from “better dead than red” to hell yes Russia over the idea that Russia is more godly in their eyes about the gays.
About the Republicans in congress they have two issues. The first is their funding, and the huge spike of which is coming from Russia in both pac money / congressional donations ( which from what I understand is legal where it is not for presidential election ) and compromising information. We have clear evidence of both. Lindsey Graham was an ardent anti-tRumper, got his email hacked by Russia, went golfing with tRump, and came out of it so pro trump it gave people whiplash. All in a time frame of days. He then got large donations from Russia. McConnell was anti-tRump, and then got large donations in 2016 from Russia and became a tRump supporter. After refusing to let a vote to keep a Russian oligarch on sanctions, that same oligarch diverted money to McConnell’s state and started plans to open a huge aluminium factor there. Anyone see a pattern? It has been well know that in a closed meeting with Paul Ryan as speaker a few years ago the current minority leader of the house Kevin McCarthy openly said there were people owned by Russia including the president. Ryan immediately told everyone to never repeat that. But it came out.
Gronda I am old enough to remember when Nikita Khrushchev said that to take over the US wouldn’t need military but to simply foster our own internal vices including political strife.
It seems they have done so. Hugs
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Dear Scottie,
What’s really troublesome about all these developments is the US Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell doing his best to kill the possibility of any bipartisan bill regarding securing the integrity of US elections and the updating of voting machines, being passed. This tells me that the GOP are counting on help with love from Russia. This along with the states that have voter ID laws. extreme partisan gerrymandered maps favoring GOP candidates, and other dirty schemes, along with a $100,000 million dollars plus war chest, tells us that Trump could win again in 2020 with electoral college map.
That’s why I’m pushing unity. All decent peoples need to vote in 2020 for only Democratic Party candidates as nothing less than the saving of our US democracy is at stake.
And this is why I’m advocating for the House to commence an Impeachment inquiry. To be blunt, I’m becoming suspicious of anyone who’s not backing this move, as it’s literally the one real tool that the government has for right now, thanks to the US Constitution, to hold President Trump accountable for all of his criminal activities and abuses of power. This would be the perfect opportunity to explain to the public, as to how vulnerable the US voting systems are to external manipulations.
You’re so right, there’s too much Russian monies being directed to folks like Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham to not be suspicious.
Hugs, Gronda
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Gronda, Scottie, good comments. Social media is the dream tool that Putin can exploit. I am glad you mebtioned Bannon, as he certainly a partner in this crime. McConnell is a comsummate politician and I don’t mean that as a compliment. He will say anything, just as Trump will. People must vote. Keith
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Reblogged this on biblebeltsite.
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Dear Biblebeltsite,
Thanks a million for stopping by and for the reblog.
Welcome, Gronda
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