Think about this for a minute. It started on inauguration night in January of 2009, when GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell held a secret enclave in an Italian restaurant, and vowed to make newly sworn Democratic President Barack Obama A one term President.Â
McConnell’s plan was to forego any normal legislative process, to forego any actual GOP programs, agenda, or ideology, and instead become the the party of obstruction. The object being to make Obama so unpopular through his lack of accomplishments that he would be easy pickings in 2012. Thankfully it didn’t work.
Romney ran in 2012, and to his credit he at least tried to put forward programs and an agenda. It didn’t work. And in 2016, Trump basically ran on a platform of Burn the motherf*cker down! Which magically worked when combined with the sleazy fingers of Vlad the Imp. But in neither 2016 nor 2020 did the GOP actually propose an actual agenda or program to move the country forward. Screw that, they already know their ideas suck. Go with power.
That’s the basic layout today for the national GOP and political landscape. But if you really want to know what’s going on in the GOP, and what their goals are, look at the state level;
- As I have already written, Florida Governor and all purpose scumbag recently signed a law that basically criminalized being an undocumented immigrant
- Alabama and Mississippi have both passed extremely anti immigrant laws that have driven undocumented immigrants from their states, even though the states themselves are suffering severe economic hardship from their shortsighted polici9es
- Texas Governor Greg Abbott has taken to literally taking loads of immigrants in his state, some of them there legally, and plunked them on buses to go to distant Democratic cities like Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, and San Francisco, stretching their human services limits
- Texas also passed an anti abortion law that basically deputized civilian vigilantes to chase down people trying to assist women in getting an abortion, and then sue them for $20,000
- North Carolina, a true purple state in national elections, rode one turncoat judas Democrat in the House who switched parties to override Democratic Governor Roy Coopers veto to keep a poison pill laden 11 week abortion bill into law
- GOP controlled legislatures all over the country are in a Death race 2023 to pass the most restrictive anti abortion laws they can. Not just to drive out women who may need the services, but also to drive out health care providers who want to follow their oaths and provide those services
Read the list again if you need to. I wrote previously that Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis is hell bent for leather to create a pure, white, homogenous state in Florida. A GOP stronghold that can’t be broken. Everything he and the Florida legislature are dong is for one reason, to drive out the impure. He wants to make Florida a bulwark against democracy.
Now, look at all of the other GOP legislature dominated states. From their anti immigrant to anti abortion, to anti LGBTQ laws, they are striving to drive out every last citizen in the state that doesn’t already agree with their far right, white supremacist view of what their state should be.
The GOP already knows, and has for some time, that it can’t win a fair fight in the arena of policies, ideology, or ideas. And so todays GOP is in the process of setting up a new Confederate States of America. But this time they’re not going to secede. This time they’re going to use their new, concentrated legislative power in the House, and especially in the Senate to obstruct the Democrats from doing anything at all from solving problems and moving the country forward. The new Civil War is already being fought. Pray for our national soul.
The GOP has gone from bad to worse ….
Should this be the way the ‘pubes are heading and they succeed in driving out everyone who disagrees with them, they will suffer economically just as the southern/confederate states did in the 1860’s. Remember, the south had no industry other than textile mills. It was an agrarian group of states. The United States (the North) not only had industry but actual important industries that aided their effort to defeat the southern traitors-think military industrial complex. The south lost the war in great part because they could not afford to be at war.
When they drive out much of their female population, all of their LBGTQ+ population, their professional class including all their medical professionals, their teachers, professors, the press, etc. they will become essentially sh!t hole countries. As they become sh!t hole countries they will either continue to lose much of the rest of their populations or those populations will get their heads out of their a$$es and vote the fools out of office…or revolt against them. Regardless, all these asinine things the ‘pubes are doing will make red states poor states.
I honestly with they would secede-they would be driven into shit hole country status that much quicker and the feds could then march in, take over the mismanaged mess, and do to the traitors what should have been done in 1865/1866-hang their a$$es for treason. Had Grant punished the traitors at the conclusion of the war I believe we would not have this problem now.
The South was allowed to pretend they were not the losers they were and are and now we are paying for that mistake.
It’s not that simple. I suggest those who feel as you (and spike) do take some time and do some serioius digging into Lincoln’s plans for Reconstruction. And Grant for that matter. We had a chance to get it right but greed got the chance to work its damage in the wake of Lincoln’s assassination. His murderer John Wilkes Booth died broken in spirit precisely because he’d learned that instead of being regarded as a hero the leaders of the confederacy were condemning what he’d done, knowing it would be a disaster for their states. Oh, they knew many of them were in deep sh!t, and some like Jefferson Davis were making plans to say farewell to our shores and go into exile rather than face prison or a hangman’s rope – to allow for a chance their family’s fortunes might be at least partially assured and their loved ones wouldn’t suffer too badly.
However, as is often the case when a war ends winning the peace fails. Take a look at history beyond the Civil War, both after and for centuries before. Winners grab spoils and those who win wars the other side started have an understandable desire for retribution – especially those regular folks who did almost all the fighting and dying or had loved ones who did so. Add in the wealthy ruling class’s desire for ever more than they already had including and especially the war-profiteers with power and connections and what do you get? A handful of greedy a-holes (what became known as the Carpetbaggers in the aftermath of the Civil War) exploiting the situation and imposing harsh sanctions of a populace that got led into disaster.
Lincoln, and Grant later on understood this and had no intention of letting the rignleaders of the Confederacy off the hook. Lincoln was ok with Jeff Davis and some others slinking into a shameful exile rather than go to the fuss of trials and hangings, and Grant, even as President was fine with going after those who refused to accept the south losing and kept trying to stir up trouble. But with Lincoln’s death and the force of his will and leadership gone even if it took a while the Carpetbagger mentality took control. And a rank & file population that might have remained receptive to becoming not only loyal to but strongly supportive of The Union grew bitter.
It’s a story that’s played out again and again in history. WWI was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. The overly harsh treatment of Germany (and its friends), not to mention the dismissive treatment of allies of OURS like Japan led to the climate that caused WWII. Something even worse! But what happened after? The Marshall Plan rebuilt war torn Europe including Germany (Russia refused to be part of it – keep that in mind) and a similar effort took place with Japan and other countries in the Pacific without the well known “Marshall Plan” moniker. As a result enemies became allies and though far from a perfect world we saw international cooperation and increasing prosperity both here and abroad for decades. And war profiteers made out just find for themselves. Just not as much as their greed, something which no amount of money was or will ever be enough couldn’t stand it. They’ve spent much of my life trying to tear all that down and have made much progress in doing so.
I could keep going, and in fact write all day about all this but my point is that the aftermath of a war and how people who live on the losing side are treated is a BFD. And that the gratification many want from extracting maximum punishment to any and everyone on the losing side is not only counter productive but historically has often led to disaster.
I don’t know denis. By not properly punishing the confederates we are saddled with this mess. Reconstruction might have been partly messed up by greed but you have to agree (well, you don’t have to I guess) having people who went to war to keep black people enslaved isn’t going to result in those same people welcoming their former slaves with open arms most especially if those same former slaves were to get property. Let’s not even get into the former slave owners’ dismay–how about your average white southerner? These people did not have much before the war, had less after it, and they got the added bonus of watching black people become land owners. Reconstruction was going to fail if the people who rose up against our nation weren’t punished for treason. There was no other outcome regardless of greed, grifting, or what have you.
I don’t disagree with you-how you treat the losers of a war is vitally important. Thing is rising up against your own country and wars waged to determine the balance of power overseas are in no way comparable. Oh, and being Jewish I think the losers of WWII got off way too easy: every effing concentration camp guard, secretary, warden–ALL of those who had anything to do with those obscenities in any way shape or form, should have been executed. When people commit atrocities, you sure as shit don’t reward them like we did in rebuilding Germany.
But, yeah, you are absolutely correct-how you treat the losers is very, very, important. I just think you treat them as if they actually are criminal f*cks-because they are. And yes, hindsight is remarkably clear vision and quite meaningless.
You do give us something to think about tho’. You always do.
It never had a chance of going smoothly. Issues with adjusting were bound to happen between freed slaves and poor whites, and remember most whites were poor. However, the rich plantation owners were a common source of resentment. In that agrarian economy all those white sharecroppers got screwed over, and for many being drafted/pressured to go and fight in the Civil War didn’t sit well. Not that gobs of white folks, even the poor ones weren’t racist because the bulk of them were. And many poor and working class confederate soldiers gladly fought for the confederacy.
Grant, both while still a General after the war and later as President clamped down on the organized crime (terrorism by the Klan and those with money that funded it) and had that continued there’s a fair chance blacks & whites would have sorted things out to a significant degree by the turn of the century. In fact there were places that for a time did so. But the folks who called the shots (or their families/fathers had) during antebellum times went to a LOT of effort to turn the whole “Lost Cause” thing into a mythology made real in the minds of the masses. Well crafted propaganda works. Add in the appalling fact that chaos worked to the benefit of the carpetbagger types and rich northerners who didn’t like the idea of competing with a whole new better industrialized chunk of the country and things led to where they led.
Like I said, the whole thing is complex as hell and filled with tragic “what ifs?” But here’s a universal tragic fact that has nothing to do with race. People that “have” exploit those who do not. Working class and poor people in particular are sheep to be sheared and for the “Haves” it doesn’t matter what color, gender or other trait the masses have. Race happens to be a particularly easy thing for the “Haves” to exploit and it was particularly easy in the aftermath of the Civil War. There has always been a class war between a relative handful of people in any society/country and the masses. To paraphrase comedian George Carlin the rich use the poor to scare the sh!t ouf of the middle class. In a country like ours made up for so long of mostly white people almost all black people are easily identifiable. And easy targets for a propaganda campaign designed to get the masses fighting amongst themselves instead of focusing on those with enormous money and power who have so much control over the system.
So what Lincoln and later Grant wanted to do which was keep those rich southerners in check, and to when necessary punish THEM instead of the masses in the confederate states went by the wayside because northerners saw their own chance to team up with the old-moneyed folks in the south. Being able to use race as a tool made things easier for them. And racism is an EASY crop to grow.
Trust me,,I was told in 1988 that the South didn’t lose the Civil.War. I pointed out that when your top general surrenders and your elected officials are,arrested,it means you lost. They have wanted a,rematch since 1866.
The majority of the red states/former confederates you speak of already are, and long have been shiitehole places. Back in 2004 The Stranger published a rant titled F**k The South (only the f-word was properly spelled out) in response to the culture war aspect of that year’s campaign that sadly met with success as Bush got re-elected and the GOP made gains. Much of what was in there holds true. There were and remain states like Texas that because of oil have some prosperity but still have large swaths of them that might as well be third-world countries. Oil money hasn’t helped most people (WHITE people I might add) in states like Oklahoma or Louisiana. Yet all those white voters keep voting for the same kinds of candidates that have kept the well-heeled, rich conservative’s boots on their necks since before I was born! If anything working class and poor whites are MORE determined to vote for their masters who frankly don’t care about them or how hard their lives are any more than they give a rat’s a$$ about minorities! Now we have a state like FL that has almost turned into a dictatorship. We’ll see how long their relative prosperity lasts if they don’t start unwinding some of what DeSantis has wrought.
For decades I felt like a lonely voice at times trying to convince fellow progressives and also moderates and even some Republicans that didn’t automatically vote straight ticket of what was taking place. Sadly, Democrats in particular usually only got worked up and motivated during Presidential election years, and even then not enough of them which is how at the state and local level the GOP got so much control as to be able to gerrymander their way to minority-majority rule. Even in 2016 with SCOTUS hanging in the balance we had a problem, including (incredibly) with women voters. Again and again both in person and in the news I’d hear from WOMEN, Democratic voting women the refrain that was something along the lines of “We are long overdue to have a woman President. But Hillary… Well, she’s qualified and would do a good job but… I just can’t get excited about HER being the first.” It was bad enough hearing that crap from guys, and minorities of any gender but from white women? WTF? Well, you self-righteous a-holes who just couldn’t bring yourselves to vote for Hillary Clinton and either sat at home, left the Presidential spot blank or worse voted for Trump as a “protest” how’s THAT been working out? One term and he got TWO picks on to SCOTUS and a slew of RWNJ hacks on to federal benches at both the District (like Cannon in FL or Kasmerick in TX!) and at the appellate level. It’s not just abortion rights they have taken a meat cleaver to but voting rights too. And they are itching to take that meat cleaver to more reproductive rights (prescription birth control), but lots of other stuff from worker’s rights (people’s eyes have glazed over when I talk about the Lochner Era but that’s been a Federalist Society Goal, even more than abortion all along!) and so many other rights. Conservatives ALWAYS showed up to vote and way, WAY to many on our side didn’t.
I realize many if not most here on PZ have been active and voting all along but I’ll bet there are some who if they’ve read this feel stung. Because if they want to know HOW things got to where we are, WHO is responsible all they have to do is look in the effing mirror!
Mr. Elliott, you are absolutely right about this problem being far more complex than most Northerners are willing to admit. First off, a large chunk of Southerners voted to stay in the Union and Davis had to use the draft to man his armies after the first year of war. Tens of thousands of Southerners fought for the USA and not the CSA. Vicksburg was a Union town where as Natchez was a pro-secession town, yet Vicksburg was destroyed by Grant because of its position on the Mississippi. Which brings up another issue for the current Northern pro-secession crown on here, Dkos and elsewhere. Does anyone really think the North would flourish without the ports in the south? Or the agriculture? Or the people? We aren’t all in the KKK, but most of us had ancestors that fought for the South and many of us live in towns that were burned to the ground by the invaders. They also forget many Northerners sat in their segregated schools while applauding the forced desegregation of the South. No, it ain’t just Republicans that are hypocrites.
I understand the pro-secessionist feelings though. But my simplistic solution is the DOJ going after ALL of the slaver states for their bigot laws and voter suppression. Mississippi has the most regressive voting laws in the world, yet no one talks about it because we are a small state. Robert’s end of racism never happened and the Voting Rights Act should be enforced anew. Let the scum scream and yell. Let them sue. Then the DOJ should use the media to point out the clear racism and the Robert’s lie. They should start doing the same with gun laws, censorship laws, and all the crap related to sex, including abortion. Form a special prosecutor to investigate bribes and the Supreme Court and include the Federalist Society. Go after the insurrectionist in Congress. We should burn their house down.
Don’t you mean WHEN they succeed? They are wel on the way, and those of us who can see it don’t seem to have any concerted plan to stop them, I know I have no suggestions. To fight devious it jhelps to be able to think devious, and I can’t, nor can most of us on the correct side.
Every state that is willing to self immolate due to sick ideology is like the legs on a spider. You pull each leg off until there’s nothing left to stand on much less move. That’s how you kill a democratic country in total.
I hear you Denis. Until the voters smarten up, seek the truth, and VOTE these fascists out of power, we’ll remain on the razor-sharp edge of disaster. By the way spike, the moneyed people in NYC were supportive of the south since 4 million slaves generated a lot of profit. Nothing is ever simple where human beings are involved. Oh, and although the fascists are alive and well in Raleigh, North Cackalacky is a wonderful place. I should know. I grew up here but have lived in Florida, California, Oregon and Massachusetts. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Please don’t mention it since people are continuing to move here. California was probably nice a hundred years ago,(not for the original inhabitants), until hordes moved in. Now I wouldn’t live there if paid to do so.
And I will.never go past the Mason Dixon line because racism.and religious bigotry are rampant. I am Wiccan. I had to lie about my religion and hide my pentacle.
Never been hassled in New,England, NY,or Baltimore. You can have every Confederate state.
Many red states are already poor and propped up with tax dollars from blue states. The sad thing is that the laws they are passing are designed (like in Florida) to drive away free thinkers and intellectuals and to keep the general populace ignorant. It’s harder to con someone who pays attention and uses critical thought processes to arrive at a conclusion than it is to con someone who is undereducated, overly religious and bows to a master.
Gillian. I lived all over and found racism everywhere. I lived in New England on the Cape over 8 years. My best friend grew up on the Vineyard. He’s a mix of native American and African American. We were camping one winter and went into a Vermont town near the Canadian border. We went into a busy morning dinner full of white folks. I am also a white man. The hustle and bustle went dead silent when we walked in. It was clear a black man walking in was the reason. It pissed me off and I said to my friend in a loud voice, “how do you put up with this sh*t?” We left. Everytime they tried to integrate the Boston schools, blood flowed. It’s a total myth that only the south has a race problem. A total lie.
Anyone who wants a list of issues that has and is destroying our country, check out Thom Hartmann’s article on Daily Kos. Scary but true.