There are really two major Republican political stories dominating the news these days. The more obvious of the two is the attempt by former president Donald Trump and his followers to destroy American democracy. The other story is older, the one that led to Trump but that stands at least a bit apart from him. It is the story of a national shift away from the supply-side ideology of Reagan Republicans toward an embrace of the idea that the government should hold the playing field among all Americans level.
While these two stories are related, they are not the same.
For forty years, between 1981, when Republican Ronald Reagan took office, and 2021, when Democrat Joe Biden did, the Republicans operated under the theory that the best way to run the country was for the government to stay out of the way of market forces. The idea was that if individuals could accumulate as much money as possible, they would invest more efficiently in the economy than they could if the government regulated business or levied taxes to invest in public infrastructure and public education. The growing economy would result in higher tax revenues, enabling Americans to have both low taxes and government services, and prosperity would spread to everyone.
But the system never worked as promised. Instead, during that 40-year period, Republicans passed massive tax cuts under Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump, and slashed regulations. A new interpretation of antitrust laws articulated by Robert Bork in the 1980s permitted dramatic consolidation of corporations, while membership in labor unions declined. The result was that as much as $50 trillion moved upward from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.
To keep voters on board the program that was hollowing out the middle class, Republicans emphasized culture wars, hitting hard on racism and sexism by claiming that taxes were designed by Democrats to give undeserving minorities and women government handouts and promising their evangelical voters they would overturn the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion. Those looking for tax cuts and business deregulation depended on culture warriors and white evangelicals to provide the votes to keep them in power.
But the election of Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 proved that Republican arguments were no longer effective enough to elect Republican presidents. So in 2010, with the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision, the Supreme Court freed corporations to pour unlimited money into U.S. elections. That year, under Operation REDMAP, Republicans worked to dominate state legislatures so they could control redistricting under the 2010 census, yielding extreme partisan gerrymanders that gave Republicans disproportionate control. In 2013 the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision greenlighted the voter suppression Republicans had been working on since 1986.
Even so, by 2016 it was not at all clear that the cultural threats, gerrymandering, and voter suppression would be enough to elect a Republican president. People forget it now because of all that has come since, but in 2016, Trump offered not only the racism and sexism Republicans had served up for decades, but also a more moderate economic program than any other Republican running that year. He called for closing the loopholes that permitted wealthy Americans to evade taxes, cheaper and better healthcare than the Democrats had provided with the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., and addressing the long backlog of necessary repairs to our roads and bridges through an infrastructure bill.
But once in office, Trump threw economic populism overboard and resurrected the Republican emphasis on tax cuts and deregulation. His signature law was the 2017 tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy at a cost of at least $1.9 trillion over ten years. At the same time, Trump continued to feed his base with racism and sexism, and after the Unite the Right rally at Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, he increasingly turned to his white nationalist base to shore up his power. On January 6, 2021, he used that base to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Republican senators then declined to convict Trump of that attempt in his second impeachment trial, apparently hoping he would go away. Instead, their acquiescence in his behavior has enabled him to continue to push the Big Lie that he won the 2020 election. But to return to power, Trump has increasingly turned away from establishment Republicans and has instead turned the party over to its culture war and Christian nationalist foot soldiers. Now Trump has taken over the Republican National Committee itself, and his supporters threaten to turn the nation over to the culture warriors who care far more about their ideology than they do about tax cuts or deregulation.
The extremism of Trump’s base is hugely unpopular among general voters. Most significantly, Trump catered to his white evangelical base by appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, and in 2022, when the court did so, the dog caught the car. Americans overwhelmingly support reproductive freedoms, and Republicans are getting hammered over the extreme abortion bans now operative in Republican-dominated states. Now Trump and a number of Republicans have tried to back away from their antiabortion positions, infuriating antiabortion activists.
It is hard to see how the Republican Party can appeal to both Trump’s base and general voters at the same time.
That split dramatically weakens Trump politically while he is in an increasingly precarious position personally. He will, of course, go on trial on Monday, April 15, for alleged crimes committed as he interfered in the 2016 election. At the same time, the $175 million appeals bond he posted to cover the judgment in his business fraud trial has been questioned and must be justified by April 14. The court has scheduled a hearing on the bond for April 22. And his performance at rallies and private events has been unstable.
He seems a shaky reed on which to hang a political party, especially as his MAGA Republicans have proven unable to manage the House of Representatives and are increasingly being called out as Russian puppets for their attacks on Ukraine aid.
Regardless of Trump’s future, though, the Reagan Era is over.
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have quite deliberately rejected the economic ideology that concentrated wealth among the 1%. On their watch, the federal government has worked to put money into the hands of ordinary Americans rather than the very wealthy. With Democrats and on occasion a few Republicans, they have passed legislation to support families, dedicate resources to making sure people with student debt are receiving the correct terms of their loans (thus relieving significant numbers of Americans), and invested in manufacturing, infrastructure, and addressing climate change. They have also supported unions and returned to an older definition of antitrust law, suing Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple and allowing the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.
Their system has worked. Under Biden and Harris the U.S. has had unemployment rates under 4% for 26 months, the longest streak since the 1960s. Wages for the bottom 80% of Americans have risen faster than inflation, chipping away at the huge disparity between the rich and the poor that the policies of the past 40 years have produced.
Today, in an interview with Jamie Kitman of The Guardian, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who negotiated landmark new union contracts with the country’s Big Three automakers, explained that the world has changed: “Workers have realized they’ve been getting screwed for decades, and they’re fed up.”
Heather Cox Richardson
Notes:
https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/04/07/trump-vs-biden-who-got-more-done-on-foreign-policy/
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/13/shawn-fain-president-uaw-union-interview
https://www.meidastouch.com/news/trump-glitches-yet-again-during-rally
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-175-million-civil-fraud-bond-valid-new-york/
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/05/1222714145/jobs-report-december-labor-wages
https://www.salon.com/2024/04/10/theyre-still-playing-games-ex-prosecutor-warns-may-face-asset-seizure-over-invalid-bond/
@phranny saidI read first sentences above, could you square away in no uncertain terms how Donald Trump is going to destroy democracy. Not your opinion, but what he is going to do. You see the difference I hope. Then it will give us all of footing with which to follow reading your post.
There are really two major Republican political stories dominating the news these days. The more obvious of the two is the attempt by former president Donald Trump and his followers to destroy American democracy. The other story is older, the one that led to Trump but that stands at least a bit apart from him. It is the story of a national shift away from the supply-side ideo ...[text shortened]... /2024/04/10/theyre-still-playing-games-ex-prosecutor-warns-may-face-asset-seizure-over-invalid-bond/
@AverageJoe1
Why don't you believe what he SAID he will do? Oh, I forgot, you think he is joking. Guess what. He NEVER jokes. If you don't take him at his word don't come crying to us who KNEW what he will do if elected again. You will not like what kind of governing he will do. Unless you WANT voting to disappear and personal rights gone like the freedom of assembly, you may have heard that IS in the constitution but your orange fascist anti Christ wants to stop that immediately, he said he would invoke our military to quell protests which BTW are entirely legal as of now. Trump will not allow that. Then you will see other rights disappear one by one.
@averagejoe1 saidThe whole post is credited to Heather Cox Richardson. Instead of doing your usual rubbish post here, you should consider looking for a commentator with equal gravitas and community standing who can refute her arguments competently. Sonhouse, the same applies to you: not a rant, just a sober statement, please.
I read first sentences above, could you square away in no uncertain terms how Donald Trump is going to destroy democracy. Not your opinion, but what he is going to do. You see the difference I hope. Then it will give us all of footing with which to follow reading your
@phranny saidI like Heather Cox Richardson a lot and have been reading her regularly for years now. She is a historian from Boston College and very sharp.
The more obvious of the two is the attempt by former president Donald Trump and his followers to destroy American democracy.
Donald Trump has tried to overthrow an election, wants to replace the entire government with flunkies that will ignore the law and do his bidding, has appointed partisan justices (whom he thinks will support him no matter what), and has said he will be a dictator from day 1 (yes, he said, 'for one day' but there are no dictators that go away after 1 day.)
Any of his loyalists that are accused of crimes, he will immediately pardon (including himself). He will assert that a President cannot be charged or held accountable while in office - and then he will refuse to leave office, and this time his attempt will be successful because he will have purged the army of 'disloyalists.'
Trump literally wants to get rid of American democracy and replace it with dictatorship.
@spruce112358 saidDictator for a day was a joke, that people get so hung up on it indicates they don't have anything real or substantial.
I like Heather Cox Richardson a lot and have been reading her regularly for years now. She is a historian from Boston College and very sharp.
Donald Trump has tried to overthrow an election, wants to replace the entire government with flunkies that will ignore the law and do his bidding, has appointed partisan justices (whom he thinks will support him no matter what), ...[text shortened]... alists.'
Trump literally wants to get rid of American democracy and replace it with dictatorship.
@sonhouse saidYOu silly goose. He tells jokes, littel feller. Since you absolutely hate his guts for liking women and having 24% of his many businesses go under, etc, you cannot fathom that he tells jokes. Since he does, then your entire post is a waste of ink. What was your favorite? Oh, the " I will Be A Dictator". It was too much for your closed mind, it literally fell into your demented ideas about him. Too bad he was just kidding. Here is one of the million articles, written for people like you that we wantto win over. He jokes. See the twinkle in his eye.
@AverageJoe1
Why don't you believe what he SAID he will do? Oh, I forgot, you think he is joking. Guess what. He NEVER jokes. If you don't take him at his word don't come crying to us who KNEW what he will do if elected again. You will not like what kind of governing he will do. Unless you WANT voting to disappear and personal rights gone like the freedom of assembly, you m ...[text shortened]... ely legal as of now. Trump will not allow that. Then you will see other rights disappear one by one.
https://theweek.com/articles/836330/what-all-president-trumps-jokes-have-common
@sonhouse saidYOu know you hurt Shav's feelings when you say antichrist in a mean-spirited way. He is obviously very proud, you know. Tells us all the time. Too much, really.
@AverageJoe1
Why don't you believe what he SAID he will do? Oh, I forgot, you think he is joking. Guess what. He NEVER jokes. If you don't take him at his word don't come crying to us who KNEW what he will do if elected again. You will not like what kind of governing he will do. Unless you WANT voting to disappear and personal rights gone like the freedom of assembly, you m ...[text shortened]... ely legal as of now. Trump will not allow that. Then you will see other rights disappear one by one.
@spruce112358 saidStopped reading when you said he said he would be a dictator. I cannot imagine writing like Sonhouse.
I like Heather Cox Richardson a lot and have been reading her regularly for years now. She is a historian from Boston College and very sharp.
Donald Trump has tried to overthrow an election, wants to replace the entire government with flunkies that will ignore the law and do his bidding, has appointed partisan justices (whom he thinks will support him no matter what), ...[text shortened]... alists.'
Trump literally wants to get rid of American democracy and replace it with dictatorship.
@sonhouse saidNo display of emotions is ever acceptable on a debate stage. Trust me, I know. This is why I don't mind harrassing the Sonhouse debater.
@Kewpie
Criticism noted. Sorry, they get my Irish up, I tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve. I have somewhat modified my stance lately however.
Hey can anyone here tell me the color os Biden's eyes? No, you can't. Can't see 'em.
@wajoma saidHere is an interesting article about Trump's twisted sense of humor and how he uses it - a style very similar to Goebbels, Mussolini, and Stalin.
Dictator for a day was a joke, that people get so hung up on it indicates they don't have anything real or substantial.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/17/how-donald-trump-uses-humor-to-make-the-outrageous-sound-normal-00146119
“He’s always been funny,” Jen Mercieca, the author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, told me — “branding” and “framing” his foes in a way that “undermines their credibility” and “reaffirms the us-versus-them polarization” all “under the guise of just joking.” Practically every joke is “an in-group and out-group joke,” and “laughing at the joke is a sign of loyalty,” Mercieca explained.
“That,” she said, “is how autocrats work.”
@spruce112358 saidMany people use humor for different things to make a point. Reagan did it, and did it perfectly. So, I can only surmise tht you are not in agreement with the ppint he is making? You ought to get together with a guy named Sonhouse, he absolutely hates his points.
Here is an interesting article about Trump's twisted sense of humor and how he uses it - a style very similar to Goebbels, Mussolini, and Stalin.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/17/how-donald-trump-uses-humor-to-make-the-outrageous-sound-normal-00146119
“He’s always been funny,” Jen Mercieca, the author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Geni ...[text shortened]... at the joke is a sign of loyalty,” Mercieca explained.
“That,” she said, “is how autocrats work.”
Do you are uncomfortable with humor, Tell us about that.
@spruce112358 saidSo you concede it was a joke, now you want to debate joke categories.
Here is an interesting article about Trump's twisted sense of humor and how he uses it - a style very similar to Goebbels, Mussolini, and Stalin.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/17/how-donald-trump-uses-humor-to-make-the-outrageous-sound-normal-00146119
“He’s always been funny,” Jen Mercieca, the author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Geni ...[text shortened]... at the joke is a sign of loyalty,” Mercieca explained.
“That,” she said, “is how autocrats work.”
What is funny, what isn't funny, the root of humor.
I find it funny there are people taking what he said seriously, which makes them the butt of the joke. In the same way anyone attempting some ludicrous impossible feat in a serious manner is funny.
There's also an uneasy tinge of pity there too, as I feel for lil sunstroker fella when he goes on a rant, like a cockroach on it's back flailing it's legs.