The History You Need to Know – Part IV

Endgame

The 2008 presidential election was a blowout by present-day standards. Barack Obama beat Republican John McCain by a margin of 52.9% to 45.7%, garnering almost 10 million more votes than McCain.

The Republican leadership had long anticipated that Hillary Clinton would get the Democratic nomination. When it came to Hillary, Republicans were loaded for bear with tons of opposition research (true and untrue), on both her and husband Bill. But when relative political newcomer Obama unexpectedly snagged the nomination, the Republicans were caught flat-footed. They simply did not have the time nor resources to mount a successful challenge against the charismatic Senator from Illinois who was running on a campaign of “Hope and Change.”

McCain was old; Obama was young; McCain was of the Washington establishment; Obama was a new face; McCain was as White as White could be and Obama… wasn’t. Anyway, after 8 years of Bush/Cheney, the country was in the mood for something different.

And for good reason.

Clinton had left Bush with a booming economy, major achievements in international affairs (including over 300 international trade agreements) and four years of balanced budgets with surpluses.

When Bush left office, he had increased the budget deficit by a whopping 1204%, had completely destabilized the Middle East with his actions surrounding 9/11 (see Part III of this series) and was in the midst of the Great Recession, the most severe economic and financial meltdown since the Great Depression.

Obama’s victory was so convincing that some even saw it as the death-knell of the Republican Party. As they say, nothing is more dangerous than a wounded animal, and Republican leadership had most definitely been wounded. But rather than licking their wounds, trying to see how they went wrong and seeking ways to work with the new administration, House and Senate leadership (under the direction of Republican strategist Frank Luntz) took a step that instead was was aimed straight at the heart of the very democracy Republican officeholders had taken an oath to defend:

On Inauguration Day 2009, a group of House and Senate Republicans gathered at a secret dinner at the Caucus Room restaurant in Washington D.C. That’s where they would end up formulating a plot to ensure that Obama would be a one-term president.

How? They would all agree to not letting Obama get a single Republican vote… on anything.

The session lasted four hours and by the end the sombre mood had lifted: they had conceived a plan. They would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it as a spear to mortally wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and White House in 2012, Draper writes.

“If you act like you’re the minority, you’re going to stay in the minority,” said Keven McCarthy, quoted by Draper. “We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.”

The Republicans have done that, bringing Washington to a near standstill several times during Obama’s first term over debt and other issues.

The adherence to the plan by Republicans throughout Obama’s presidency is a clear indication that it gained the approval of Republican House and Senate members up and down the line.

This strategy of pure obstructionism runs directly contrary to the whole purpose of self-governance: to do the will of the people. Perversely, the proposed Republican plot was the complete opposite. Their actions did not reflect the will of the people at all; instead, their plan reflected the will of themselves and themselves alone, invoked solely in the interest of self-preservation.

Now, we don’t want to be naïve here. When it comes to politics, self-interest is a fact of life, pure and simple. But the absolute solidarity that Newt Gingrich enforced as part of the “scorched earth” policy he would use to wrest control of the House from Democrats in 1994 in the aftermath of the “House Banking Scandal” (a “scandal” that wasn’t really a scandal nor did it involve an actual “bank”) was to become an indelible trademark of the Republican Party going forward. From Wikipedia:

According to Harvard University political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky, Gingrich’s speakership had a profound and lasting impact on American politics and health of American democracy. They argue that Gingrich instilled a “combative” approach in the Republican Party, where hateful language and hyper-partisanship became commonplace, and where democratic norms were abandoned. Gingrich frequently questioned the patriotism of Democrats, called them corrupt, compared them to fascists, and accused them of wanting to destroy the United States.

It’s not a coincidence that Gingrich was at the Caucus Room dinner.

This is not democracy. Nor is it really “politics.” By its very definition, “politics” involves “policy.” What Gingrich and his fellow Republicans did isn’t policy. It was – and is – a strategy to gain and maintain power at all costs. For lack of a better term, it could and should be called “political terrorism,” arguably more damaging to our democratic process than any bomb-thrower.

Republicans had run on an anti-government stance since Reagan famously said, “I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”

One could reasonably ask, “if the government isn’t going to help you, well, then who will?” Certainly not the big-money campaign contributors behind the GOP.

But that’s neither here nor there. Of course, government is you and me; that’s the very meaning of self-governance. In fact, in a democracy, government is the only control “We the People” have.

Nevertheless, running against government has been a big political winner for Republicans. Their tried-and-true strategy since Gingrich has been to try to demonstrate that government doesn’t work by doing their best to break it. It’s like putting sand in the gas tank and then complaining that the car won’t run.

With the Caucus Room plot, Republicans were now making a decision to go full-bore in defying the will of the people. It was a conspiracy to cause real harm to the nation, solely in the hope of political gain for themselves.

There are lots of words for that sort of thing. But democracy isn’t one of them.

So January 20, 2009 is the day where the Republican Party ceased to be a party. Instead of a vehicle for self-governance, the Republican Party became a weapon against it, with the ultimate goal of gaining power for themselves, even it took wrecking democracy itself to do it.

Citizens’ United

Spoiler alert: The Republicans were to be unsuccessful in their attempt to make Obama a one-term president. Obama was able to pass legislation that would pull the country out of the Republican recession, reform Wall Street, create the Consumer Protection Board and, most notably, sign the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as “Obamacare”) into law. So Obama thwarted the Republicans’ plans and easily won reelection in 2012, becoming the first Democratic president since FDR to win the popular vote twice.¹

But on the Supreme Court, the Republican agenda was very much alive. And now there was a new wrinkle, harking back to the century-old issue of where corporate and government rights begin and end. Rather than dealing with the knotty issues of business rights versus the rights of society, how about giving corporations the same rights as individuals?

So the the concept of so-called “corporate personhood” crept into Supreme Court arguments.

The idea is utterly absurd. Just about any corporation has wealth that would dwarf that on any individual; corporations don’t need housing, food or clothing; corporations don’t eat or sleep; corporations don’t have children; the list goes on and on and on.

But as patently ridiculous as the concept appears on its face, five of the nine justices on the Supreme court nevertheless proved receptive to the argument, receptive enough to overturn over 100 years of precedent in giving corporations virtually unlimited rights of “free speech” in Citizens United v. FEC.²

Corporations could now and henceforth be allowed to spend as much as they wanted to influence elections. And insofar as money had been deemed Constitutionally-protected “free speech,” the door to corruption of our democratic system had been thrown wide open to a virtually-endless flood of corporate money, with with little that could be done to stem the tide.

A Court Unleashed

Democrats lost the Senate in 2014 and, in flagrant disregard of the Constitution, new Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell denied Obama hearings on judges for the two Supreme Court seats Obama had the Constitutional right to fill. As a result, what should today be a 5-4 Supreme Court in favor of Democratic-nominated judges is now a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority where at least four of the Republican judges are severely ethically compromised:

At least three Republican-appointed justices (or their wives) have received large payments from interested parties, and in a fourth, it’s now been revealed that the FBI, under the direction of Trump, scuttled or illegally withheld or damaging information that would have called his qualifications into question during his Senate hearings.³

All courts in the US have to follow standards of judicial ethics. That is, all courts… except one. What’s the only court in the US that operates without any ethical oversight whatsoever?

You guessed it.

The Republican-appointed majority of the Supreme Court has refused to submit to any meaningful oversight, despite calls to do so from many quarters. And if you think they’ll ever accept any ethical guidelines, don’t hold your breath. They have too much to lose:

• Justices Thomas and Alito have received huge sums of money in undisclosed gifts from right-wing sources.
• Thomas’ wife Ginni has received hundreds of thousands from right-wing groups and was also deeply involved in the January 6 insurrection.
• Gorsuch was involved in a questionable real estate deal with the head of a law firm that had at least 22 cases before the court.
• Justice Roberts’ wife has earned over $10 million as a recruiter for law firms, some of whom had business before the court.
• Justice Alito’s wife showed clear support for the January 6 insurrectionists by flying sympathetic flags outside the couple’s home.

In none of the insurrection-related cases before the court did any of the Republican-appointed justices recuse themselves.

The chances that this court will police itself? Slim and none.

The brazen authoritarian stance the court took in Bush v. Gore in determining the outcome of the 2000 election had now come full force. Emboldened by a majority that may well now last generations along with the unlikelihood of any negative consequences to their actions, the Supreme Court has been on a virtual rampage in overturning long-standing precedent and, instead, seizing decision-making authority for themselves, and themselves alone.

From the PBS News Hour:

After the Supreme Court’s 2010 campaign finance ruling, attorney Burt Neuborne lamented: “At the rate the court is going, soon we will be able to be adopted by a corporation. Maybe even marry one.”

Now, Neuborne calls the latest court ruling “an immense perversion of the Constitution. Robots don’t have rights, trees don’t have rights, and neither do corporations.”

Here are some of the court’s recent rulings:

• Dobbs v. Jackson – The court takes away the constitutional right to abortion, abandoning almost 50 years of precedent, and paving the way for states to ban abortion.
• Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores – the Supreme Court grants corporations rights of religious freedom.
• Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo – The Supreme Court cuts back sharply on the power of federal agencies to interpret the laws they administer and ruled that courts should rely on their own interpretation of ambiguous laws. The decision will likely have far-reaching effects across the country, from environmental regulation to healthcare costs. 
• Ohio v. EPA – In a 5-4 decision that arrives at the court through its emergency docket, the justices severely limit the rights of the EPA  to control pollution.
• Snyder v. United States – The Supreme Court makes bribery legal.
• Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP – The Supreme Court (having already decided that it would take no steps to limit severe gerrymandering), now makes it even easier.
• Trump v. United States – In a stunning and unprecedented ruling, the Supreme Court places Trump above the law, effectively granting him the powers of a dictator.

If you note a pattern here, it’s not your imagination.

1. The court has established a de-facto “ruling class” that’s beyond the law, a class that consists only of themselves and their allies.
2. With the Supreme Court and Republicans in Congress taking a wrecking ball to the regulatory state, their objective is to send America back to the age of the robber barons… or the plantation. (To refresh: In the age of the robber barons, workers had few rights. On the plantation, workers have no rights at all.)
3. The Supreme Court has declared itself to be the final authority when it comes to… not just what legislation means… not just what corporations can do… but what happens in your own body.

This is not what might happen. It’s what’s already happened.

The majority on today’s Supreme Court is a physical manifestation of a ruling class that recognizes no authority other than themselves.

Their recent rulings reflect near total disdain for the democratic process. The ruling class has the right to tell everybody else what to do, but nobody has the right to tell them what to do. Not the people – and not Congress. Just like royalty, the ruling class feels they’re entitled to a set of rules that applies to them and nobody else.

And the ramifications are profound.

Keep in mind that, even if successfully prosecuted for crimes, this new “American royalty” can (for the right price) expect an easily-corruptible president to use his pardon power on their behalf. They’ll be able to get away with anything. Anything at all. Just like the kings of old.

Here are just some of the criminals Trump pardoned in his first term. When (not if) Trump pardons the January 6 rioters, he’ll have a whole personal army at his disposal, an army whose members Trump can absolve of any crime, anytime, anywhere, simply by the stroke of a pen. You don’t think he will? Please.

When it comes to regulations, keep in mind that corporations are engines of wealth generation. The smaller the expenses, the greater the profits, and government regulation is the only limitation on what corporations can or can’t do. Tax cuts (which Republicans craft to primarily benefit the rich) cause deficits that starve the government of the resources they need; with the resulting limitations (or elimination) of regulation, it’ll be a race to the bottom when it comes to cutting corporate costs.

That means salaries, environmental impact, product safety… whatever you can think of. Including you.

And regarding Dobbs and abortion, this is, literally, government intrusion into the womb. What else do you call it when the ruling allows states to force rape victims to bear the children of their rapist? If forcing women to give birth against their will isn’t tantamount to slavery, I don’t know what is.

Welcome to the plantation.

Closing Thoughts

If you’ve read this far, I thank you immensely for your time. Hopefully, putting the pieces together helps make sense out of where we now stand, both as a country and as a democracy. (As we are all too likely to see very soon, the two things are not the same.)

Below is an image that I think holds special significance:

It’s a picture of the New York Stock Exchange, taken from the steps of (a reconstructed) Federal Hall, where George Washington took the first oath of office on April 30, 1789. New York (then New Amsterdam) was the province of the Dutch West India Company, the world’s second corporation, founded in 1621. (The Dutch East India Company was the first.)

So the image speaks to the roots of both modern self-governance and modern capitalism, each within (literally) a stone’s-throw from each other. To add to the historical pileup here, Alexander Hamilton (first Secretary of the Treasury and architect of America’s financial system) is buried a little over a block away.

Capitalism is predatory. Self-governance is cooperative. The two have existed in an often-uneasy balance since their beginnings. And now, to me it looks very much like the predators have won… hands down.

It’s my belief that the character of capitalism has changed. Whereas it used to be enough to make a profit (and outdo your competition), the advent of affordable computers in the 1980s changed everything. Having a successful business was no longer enough; lest the stock price suffer, you had to wring every last cent of profit out of the enterprise. And beating your competition wasn’t enough either; you had to run them into the ground, often to the point where they’d be vulnerable to corporate takeover.

In every case, more money goes to the owner and less to the workers who make it all possible.

The chart on the right makes the dramatic explosion in income disparity since 1980 quite clear. Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich and the deregulatory frenzy that was part and parcel of his administration added gasoline to the fire.

(Note how the top 10% make out like bandits, while earnings for the rest of us remain flat.)

At around the same time, the character of democracy changed, too. Gingrich’s use of Mafia-like tactics to take over the House and kneecap Clinton’s presidency changed the rules of the game for the Republican party. In violating unspoken rules of common decency, Gingrich broke American politics to an extent that it can almost certainly never be put back together the way it was before.

American self-governance is 248 years old. And just like a 248-year-old house would need some serious repairs, so does our democracy. That’s to be expected. But the problem is this:

Forces who fundamentally oppose self-governance have now seized control of all three branches of our government. And to make matters even worse, they also now exercise major influence in all forms of media: TV, radio, print and internet. The extreme right wing has worked hard for over a century to reach this point and now, having achieved their dream of absolute control, I don’t see any way they’ll give it up willingly.

Ever.

Once you know the history, I don’t think anybody could reasonably think otherwise.

Remember: with few exceptions, today’s billionaires are not people who worked their way up from the factory floor. They’re generally people whose talent is in buying things with other peoples’ money and cannibalizing it where possible to make money on the transaction. They seldom actually make anything, yet they’re the ones who walk away with all the money. To put it simply, they’re not producers. They’re predators.

If you think that makes them “parasites,” well, I won’t argue with you.

On the verge of Trump’s assuming the presidency for a second time, his choices for key administration posts give us a pretty good hint at what’s to come. His prospective nominees have not been selected on the basis of competency, experience nor strength of character. Instead, Trump’s choices are based solely on personal loyalty to him and nothing else.

This is exactly what an emperor would do. So nobody should be surprised when Trump starts playing the part.

One thing’s for sure: with the right-wing takeover, the idea of “politics as usual” is out the window. Playing by the rules will only result in Republicans “moving the goalposts,” changing the rules of the game should they think they’re in any danger of losing. The Supreme Court rulings I mention above make that abundantly clear. The “ruling class” will do whatever it takes to retain power. Bank on it.

Republicans have been waging an unrelenting war against “truth, justice and the American Way,” as the old Superman TV series used to say. If we are to banish the forces of tyranny to the dustbin of history (where they belong), the opposition needs to act a lot more like superheroes, and a lot less like politicians.

How to do that is another topic… for another time. But at least we all know now what’s at stake.

– Billy James Cobin