McConnell: Gravedigger of American Democracy

[_Maksutov]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... -historian

Yep, a Holocaust historian went Godwin on the GOP:

"If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings. ...

Whatever secret reservations McConnell and other traditional Republican leaders have about Trump’s character, governing style, and possible criminality, they openly rejoice in the payoff they have received from their alliance with him and his base: huge tax cuts for the wealthy, financial and environmental deregulation, the nominations of two conservative Supreme Court justices (so far) and a host of other conservative judicial appointments, and a significant reduction in government-sponsored health care (though not yet the total abolition of Obamacare they hope for). Like Hitler’s conservative allies, McConnell and the Republicans have prided themselves on the early returns on their investment in Trump."

[_EAllusion]

I don't know what to make of using Nazis as the comparison. It's quite clear that America is sliding into authoritarianism and its democracy might be dying. There are lots of experts trying to sound the alarm on that. McConnell is a major villain that story. On the other hand, Naziism as your model for authoritarian slide creates confusion because everything the Nazis did often gets wrapped up in analogies to them. The scholar making the comparison is one of the foremost experts in Nazi Germany, so I get why that's his basis for comparison , but I worry that it may cloud rather than illuminate.

[_EAllusion]

Grassley and Trump pushing the Soros funded protestors conspiracy theory today was eerily reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. False conspiracies of shadow Jews using their immense wealth to destroy countries in the name of socialism by suppressing the people's true voice was a main Nazi message that eventually gave us the Holocaust.

I'm all in favor of pointing out how similar that is to old school Naziism and modern neo-Naziism, but I feel like NPR style press will create a false equivalency between that and what, say, Glenn Beck does with hysterical Nazi comparisons.

[_Maksutov]

I don't know what to make of using Nazis as the comparison. It's quite clear that America is sliding into authoritarianism and its democracy might be dying. There are lots of experts trying to sound the alarm on that. McConnell is a major villain that story. On the other hand, Naziism as your model for authoritarian slide creates confusion because everything the Nazis did often gets wrapped up in analogies to them. The scholar making the comparison is one of the foremost experts in Nazi Germany, so I get why that's his basis for comparison , but I worry that it may cloud rather than illuminate.

Don't use the Nazis. Use some other example of a modern state that faced the possibility of a permanent party. Do you think the GOP has given up on the Iron Dream of Karl Rove?

[_EAllusion]

Don't use the Nazis. Use some other example of a modern state that faced the possibility of a permanent party. Do you think the GOP has given up on the Iron Dream of Karl Rove?

What Rove had in mind with the permanent Republican majority was a governing demographic coalition that was large enough that Republicans consistently would be the dominant party. He was after a state of affairs where instead of political polarization being close to 50/50 like it is now, it would be more 55/45 in favor of Republicans. This is what Democrats owned from 1932 until at least the 1970's and arguably into the early 90's. Rove's dream failed because he couldn't contend with the xenophobes in the party to make larger inroads into the Hispanic vote.

This is very different than the kind of authoritarian takeover being talked about now. The parallel in US history was deep South states after reconstruction failed. The modern parallel are nations like Poland and Turkey. We're teetering on the edge with systemic problems that aren't obviously going to go away.

[_moksha]

One element of comparison is the willingness to always push for the Big Lie. With Trump, it is a pathology, but with others such as McConnell, it is a strategy.

[_Dr Exiled]

I would blame both parties for our slide toward totalitarianism. Both parties support the war state and the terrorist boogie man. Both support the NDAA and the slow stripping away of our rights. Both support the limiting of speech through corporate nannies. We continually have huge, outsized military budgets and now both parties seem to be pushing the start of another cold war with Russia and/or China as it will be great for american military business again. Both parties support the slow march to having one mega corporation govern us all, utilizing slave wage labor overseas, a Romney specialty. Small business is constantly under attack from national and international brands, thereby sucking economic output away from our cities and towns and into the hands of the 1%. The two party system has become a mechanism for a subtle pincer move where the Republicans blatantly are the money party and the Democrats are the gatekeepers. Clinton's "third way" where he came out and said it was all right to take corporate money basically sold out the Democrats to Wall Street. And don't forget how super-delegates ensure that the Wall Street "adults" will control the party.

[_EAllusion]

I think you need to be careful about distinguishing between politics you don't like and authoritarianism in the sense of undermining the institutions of liberal democracy to sustain power. Having a large military isn't inherently authoritarian. Inculcating a worshipfullness towards that military and what it is used to do and punishing dissent regarding it is.

[_EAllusion]

Huh. Now Trump is claiming that Diane Feinstein is an architect of the "Open Borders Bill" that has full Democratic support. This is a bold lie even by Trump standards. I genuinely can't tell if that's deliberately an anti-semetic dog-whistle on the heels of the Soros nonsense or if it's just ordinary Trump lying. Best case scenario, he's whipping up dangerous xenophobia with Orwellian lies. Worst case scenario, he's whipping up anti-semetic sentiments with propaganda. Ladies and Gentleman, the United States right now.

[_honorentheos]

One element of comparison is the willingness to always push for the Big Lie. With Trump, it is a pathology, but with others such as McConnell, it is a strategy.

The question this raises is what the aim of McConnell's strategy might be, specifically. Paul Ryan seemed to have a particular focus on government spending that Trump clearly undermined, and his relationship with Trump was fraught from the beginning. McConnell, OTOH, seems to have easily embraced Trump's non-conservative takeover of the Republican party. Packing the courts with judges with what appear to be a socially conservative view would be an obvious aspect of this strategic aim but there must be more to it. Yet McConnell seems to have little concern for Trump's unconservative economic behavior. What is it that makes McConnell tick?