How Bad Republicans Are

Wherein historian Eric Zuesse tracks the inevitable effects of the capitalist sickness, rule by the ultrarich.

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I have written many articles documenting how atrocious America’s leading Democrats are — such as “America Is Guilty if We Don’t Prosecute Obama” — but the situation is even more extreme with regard to Trump, because his evilness is far more blatant, not nearly so well hidden as was the case with that silk-tongued Nobel Peace Prize winner. However, no matter how bad Trump is, he still retains the respect of approximately 40% of Americans, and of 86%-89% of Republicans. Here is just some of the most recent evidence of why that 86%-89% range from Republicans is scandalous:

 

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On January 6th, Reuters bannered “Special Report: U.S. regulators ignored workers' COVID-19 safety complaints amid deadly outbreaks”, and reported that:

 

[However, OSHA has issued citations in some cases.] Some of the federal OSHA citations came with no fines at all. …

 

Also on January 6th, The Hill headlined “Congress must pass The Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act”, and two physicians urged Congress to pass into law a bill that had been introduced in the U.S. Senate on July 29th and which the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has blocked even from being considered, “S.4349 - Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act”:

 

 

That bill had been introduced by a Democrat, Senator Tim Kaine, but was blocked from being considered, because Republicans controlled the Senate. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a Democratic-controlled Senate would have passed it into law, but only that Republicans are more blatant about their benefiting only rich donors. Democrats work hard to hide that they are basically the same.

 

Both in the White House and in the Congress, America’s Republican Party has been leading at increasing America’s international failure at controlling the global Covid-19 pandemic, and ultimately the failure of the U.S. economy. The more out-of-control the epidemic is, the more damage it will do to the economy; and the Republican Party has been even worse than the Democratic Party regarding regulation — basically handing the nation off to the billionaires who finance their political campaigns (and who control the massive corporations that are basically being left to ‘regulate’ themselves — to the benefit of their owners).

 

Also, Good Jobs First issued a study on January 6th, headlining “50-state breakdown reveals what private and charter schools got in federal pandemic funds”, and reporting that because of many provisions that the lobbyists who now write America’s laws had slipped into the initial Covid-19 relief law that was passed in the Spring, private and church-operated schools had received from the federal Government “$855,000 per facility on average compared to $134,500 for public schools.” For decades, billionaires’ ‘charities’ have propagandized for federal subsidization of private-school education and denigrated the public schools. Everything was being done to serve the wealthiest at the expense of the public. Consequently, low-income families are now heavily subsidizing middle-and-upper-income families, the ones who can afford private schools. The original basis for creating the public schools — to equalize children’s opportunities — is now gone, and instead there is socialism that’s specifically for the non-poor, to exacerbate economic inequality. This has been done by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, but especially by Republicans — and it has especially been promoted by the Trump Administration.

 

The latest Morning Consult poll on Trump’s job performance, taken on January 6th and 7th (during the DC riots), shows an all-time record low job-approval for him of 76% among Republicans. Apparently, the recent events have reduced by around 10% his support by Republicans, but it still remains very high; and, so, it is clear that Trump, even now, is very respected among Republicans, even after his colossally failed Presidency, and after his having failed to fulfill any of the promises that he had made as a candidate, except to move the courts even farther to the right, and to waste federal money building only a bit of the southern border wall that he had promised to build complete. He obviously reflects the values of the vast majority of Republicans. And American politics will need to deal with the reality that the Republican Party is an extremist right-wing party, nothing that can reasonably be considered moderate. The Democratic Party is (and ever since Bill Clinton’s Presidency has been) a moderately conservative party, comparable to what the Republican Party had been until Ronald Reagan became elected in 1980. Ever since 1980, the U.S. has been moving farther and farther to the ideological right, just as the nation’s inequality of wealth has been growing to reach perhaps the highest level in all of U.S. history.

 

America’s Republican Party is rule by billionaires, even more blatantly than the Democratic Party is. At least the Democrats pretend to be concerned about the welfare of the public.

 

 

On the surface, America’s political conflict is between Democrats versus Republicans (such as between Biden versus Trump); but, deeper down, it is only between the billionaires versus the public. The difference between being ruled by Democratic billionaires, versus being ruled by Republican billionaires, is tiny by comparison with the difference between being ruled by the billionaires (an aristocracy) as compared to being ruled by the public (a democracy). America is not ruled by representatives of the public; it is ruled by representatives of the billionaires.

 

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