The real Republican platform
There was an article in the paper today that made me think Republicans may be a little smarter than I thought. I hope voters are too. The article was about changing the language in the republican platform regarding abortion. The statement change was made in order to accommodate the views of candidate Trump who believes a more restrictive national abortion law can cost him votes. He’s right on that, of course. Most voters are in favor of the language used in the overturned Roe vs Wade abortion ruling. Unfortunately the platform they have posted on their website is for show and not implementation. The real power behind Donald Trump’s throne is the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society and several other think tanks that inhabit the way right world. They provide the base of the foundation that the Republican Party has become and they have published their own platform for the coming new America they want. It’s presented clearly and completely in the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise”. What they are promising is to reset our country to 1950 or perhaps even before that. It’s a blueprint to free our economic system from any government restraint and our social system from any limits on religion in government. It turns the agencies we count on to make “expert” decisions on our health, environment and many other matters over to political appointees chosen based on their loyalty to the administration not their knowledge of the science. If Trump is elected and this plan is implemented there will be no return to anything like what we have now. Even if Trump is not the next President this document will be there to provide direction to any Republican President in the future and any control they might have in Congress.
Thank Ronald Reagan
What we see in the Republican Party now took root when Ronald Reagan became President in 1980. He is thought of mostly for the economic reforms including tax cuts and regulation reduction he implemented but he also began the push to change America’s view of our social contract with one another. That contract included very popular programs like Social Security and Medicare but also some programs various sections of the country thought of as overreach. Those included legislation that had become known as “the Great Society”. Other than speaking out against some of those issues he had little effect on how they were working. Then along came Newt Gingrich. He became the speaker of the house in 1995 and promoted the idea that Democrats were not merely their opponents but their enemies in implementing their conservative worldview. Newt wanted to change the way the political conversations were going. He was the architect of the “Contract with America” that claimed to outline the conservative Republican view of what America should become. Many of the ideas in this Contract came from Reagan’s speeches. Since that time Republicans have been gradually removing people who didn’t get with the program and the program has been getting more extreme.
The evidence of the extreme nature of the Republican Party can be seen with Donald Trump and his rhetoric. It can also be seen in the actions of the supreme court and their willingness to grant powers to the President never before given to any American. Most recently, the new example of Republican Extreme views can be seen in Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise” . It took 20 years but at this point the Republican hierarchy and donor class is willing to say out loud what they’ve been thinking all along. Most of the movements by society in those years has been toward a more egalitarian view. People were becoming more likely to be judged by their abilities, and not their gender, race or religion. Americas traditions as a society being dominated by white male power was being threatened. Project 2025 will reverse that if put into practice. The powers behind it would have us revert to the America ruled mostly by white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian, males who have successfully navigated our capitalist economic system. If we go back there it is unlikely we will ever return.
Power to the state but not the people
Gerrymandering equals power to the state. It’s interesting to hear Republicans talk about giving power to the state when it comes to abortion law. In fact that’s what they say when they talk about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade. They returned the abortion decision to the state. I haven’t heard any of them say it was returned to the people. In fact it wasn’t. Florida, for example, is a heavily gerrymandered state. That means in any given election the major contest is between the primary candidates. Florida is also a closed primary state so only registered party members can vote for their party’s candidates. Republicans will forever be in charge. That means, for example, even though 57% of Floridians want a less restrictive abortion ban the elected officials have no intention of giving it to them.
More people need to vote
Most Americans are not affected by what Washington does in the short run. It may be years before a program instituted there will have an effect on their lives. It’s easy for them to ignore the political turmoil that so many of us are embroiled in. But make no mistake, they will be affected. Florida is a good example of what happens when people choose not to vote. At the time of the 2022 election Florida had over 14.5 million registered voters. 4.6 million of those voted for Ron DeSantis and that won him the governorship. As a result a dedicated minority is dictating the laws and policies 100% of us have to live by.
Is it really OK to kill innocent people
At some point you have to decide if it’s OK to randomly shoot rockets or drop bombs on people just living their lives. It doesn’t really matter if you’re engaged in political turmoil. It’s simply a matter of being willing to kill folks for your own political purposes. Most of us think that’s wrong but most of us are willing to let it happen if it doesn’t directly affect us or our wellbeing. I’m sure it’s happening in other places but right now it’s most visible in Gaza and Ukraine. Any conversation about Gaza has to begin by saying what Hamas did by attacking the Jewish settlements was unimaginably horrific. It screamed for a response. It seems to me that it is only marginally less horrific to engage in a military effort to eliminate those Hamas fighters by shooting through the people they are using as human shields. The shooting in this case is most often done by rockets and bombs. The world is watching but doing nothing. Admittedly it’s not clear what it could do. That in itself is perhaps the saddest part of this situation.
Ukraine is a simple matter of territorial aggression. The all-powerful President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, believes that Ukraine is rightly a Russian territory and he intends to make it so. Lives and property are being sacrificed at his will until he gets his prize. The world is watching and in this case some of it is helping Ukraine survive a little longer. None of us want the kind of destruction a full blown regional or wider war would bring but there has to be more we can do. The one thing we should never consider doing is saying a nice word about Putin or offering support in any way. Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un or Xi Jinping should not have a kind word spoken about them in any way that would encourage their continued dictatorial power.
Cheap oil trumps moral decency
Russia’s got cheap oil. That seems to make it OK for countries who want to buy cheap oil to make nice with a dictatorial power randomly killing innocent people. India’s leader can rebuke Putin all he wants about bombing children’s hospitals, but as long as he’s buying Russian Oil he is helping Putin kill those children. If the hope that sanctions could put pressure on Putin to restrain his aggressive tendencies ever existed they are now mute. China, Vietnam, Hungary, Belarus and other nations are willing to ignore or perhaps even support Putin’s destruction of the European democracy that exists, so far, in Ukraine. We have our own potential issues here because Trump and his most avid supporters praise strong leadership like they see provided by the Russian leader. You may remember Trump’s appearance on the Bill O’Reilly’s show when the host said Putin was a “killer”. Trump responded by saying “”We’ve got a lot of killers… you think our country’s so innocent?” Insulting our nation and comparing us to Putin should not qualify anyone to be President.
