Two horrific headlines, and then another look…
…and then, there’s this…
Category Archives: Republican Party
Benicia Author Stephen Golub – From Russia, With Love
Lessons for the Republicans’ leadership, starting with 1917.
Adopting a policy of “no enemies to the left,” Russian prime minister Alexander Kerensky freed Vladimir Lenin from jail shortly after he tried but failed to overthrow Kerensky’s government in July of 1917.
In November, Lenin succeeded.
An excellent essay by Slate’s Fred Kaplan draws parallels between Kerensky and most of today’s Republican leaders. Kerensky thought that his greatest threat was forces seeking to return czarist rule to his country. He accordingly sought to align with the very Marxists who soon toppled him.
As for our own situation, Kaplan explains:
“Republican leaders in America today have, in effect, declared a policy of ‘no enemies to the right.’ With very few exceptions, they have declined to impeach or even criticize Donald Trump for inciting the attempted insurrection of Jan. 6. They have awarded a House committee seat to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who believes in QAnon’s wildest conspiracy theories, who has told right-wing protesters they should feel free to use violence, and, before she was elected to the House this past fall, called for the assassination of Democratic leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Several GOP lawmakers still refuse to acknowledge that President Joe Biden fairly won the November election…”
“[They] embraced Trump and now refuse to dissociate themselves from his most fanatical followers because they were, and are, seen as potent bulwarks against the Democrats’ liberal programs, which they see as the real enemy.”
In Kaplan’s view, the upshot of this all is that the Republican Party will “likely lie tattered in shambles, regardless of which side prevails in its internecine battles.”
I’m not so sure. I can see Mitch McConnell, who has suddenly discovered a self-interested spine in pushing back against Trump and Greene, reverting to jellyfish mode if he decides the political tides again favor Trump. I hope that I’m wrong.
There’s another historical lesson here, obvious but ignored: If someone tries to destroy your democracy or government, don’t let them off easy.
That lesson clearly applies to Kerensky’s mistake in relying on Lenin…
And to the German establishment’s error in indulging and then releasing Hitler from incarceration just nine months after his failed 1923 “Beer Hall Putsch,” with the likely expectation that he was “tamed by prison” and “no longer to be feared”…
And to post-Civil War Republican leaders’ cynical calculation, which robbed Southern Blacks of democracy and rights for nearly a century as a result of the 1877 deal that installed Rutherford B. Hayes in the presidency in exchange for the Republicans ending Reconstruction in the South…
And, today, to many Republican leaders’ similarly cynical calculation, as they let off wackadoo Greene with just a quasi-tough talking-to and continue to back Trump, despite his incendiary broadsides that ignited the January 6 putsch at the Capitol.
For there’s a third historical lesson for those GOP kingpins who still kowtow to Trump: The revolution eats its own.
That was the case for the French Revolution’s leaders as they turned on and guillotined each other. Though it may serve their short-term interests, the Republican honchos who have enabled Trump and his increasingly fanatical followers for years could yet end up politically dead, should they continue to cave to those conspiracists.
Given what the GOP has become, it couldn’t happen to a nicer party.
#RemoveNow: New data on GOP support for Trump removal
Overnight polling shows GOP support for removing Trump from office with growing fissures in formerly loyal base
[For Organizers: see below.]
Trump voters, who had proven immovable throughout his tenure including the tumultuous post-election period, now appear to be fracturing in reaction to the attack on the Capitol Building. New findings from a survey fielded Thursday, January 7, 2021 (n=2,009) by Avalanche Insights show that a quarter of Trump voters agree that action should be taken to immediately remove him from office. Further, 41% of Trump voters believe he has “betrayed the values and interests of the Republican Party.”
This emerging disapproval is not only of Trump, but also of fellow Trump supporters who engage in violence. Two-thirds of Trump voters in the survey oppose the actions of Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol with 44% saying these actions “betrayed American values.” Over half (55%) say they should be prosecuted for their actions and 29% believe they committed treason.
More broadly, 62% of Americans hold Trump responsible for yesterday’s events and say he should be removed by the 25th Amendment or impeachment. This call for immediate action extends well beyond Trump, with 71% of Americans saying the Republican Members of Congress who promoted or supported yesterday’s actions should either resign or be censured. Half agree that Capitol police actions demonstrate preferential treatment to white people. Finally, 75% of Americans want the people who stormed the Capitol building to be prosecuted.
FOR ORGANIZERS…
This brand new data shows support, not merely overall, but among Trump’s base for removing him from office. It’s critical to get this information out as widely as possible and your help is needed in amplifying these data points on your channels in social media, coalescing under #RemoveNow. Check out this social media toolkit for some sample content and join a Twitter storm at 3pm ET.
Trump energy policy: more fossil fuels, less regulation
Repost from ThinkProgress
Trump ‘Completely Rethinks’ U.S. Energy Policy By Doubling Down On Fossil Fuels
By Ryan Koronowski, August 8, 2016
On Monday in Detroit, Donald Trump sought to reset his campaign again with a speech about the economy to begin “a great conversation about economic renewal for America,” portraying Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as “a nominee of yesterday.”
Trump aides told Politico prior to the speech that Trump economic vision also involved “a complete rethinking of our energy policy.”
What does this “complete rethinking” look like?
More fossil fuels. And less environmental regulation. A Trump administration would follow the same rhetorical stance on energy as the RNC and the Romney campaign, and the Bush administration’s policy playbook.
The 2016 Republican presidential nominee cited “energy reform” as a priority midway through the speech, attacking “the Obama-Clinton war on coal” and boasting how his own plan to cut regulations on the fossil fuel industry would create jobs.
“I am going to cut regulations massively,” Trump said. “Massively.”
Beyond vague anti-regulatory rhetoric, Trump’s speech cited studies from the Koch-funded Institute for Energy Research, the Exxon-funded Heritage Foundation, and the American Petroleum Institute, all purporting to prove the economic ruin wreaked by the Obama administration’s environmental actions.
Further detail was provided by a Trump campaign email sent to the press which outlined “policy highlights” from Trump’s economic vision:
While Trump may not be able to accomplish all of his stated energy agenda, these policy highlights are essentially the same as the energy plan he outlined in May. His vision lines up almost perfectly with that of the fossil fuel industry.
“Donald Trump’s energy proposals read like a gift registry for the fossil fuel and financial industries,” Greenpeace executive director Annie Leonard said in a statement. “If a U.S. president would attempt to enact any of these proposals it would not only undo the the progress millions of people around the world have achieved on climate change, it would set this country on a path to economic ruin and environmental devastation.”
Trump would “immediately cancel” President Obama’s executive actions, singling out the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the United States rule. Trump doesn’t mention that the Climate Action Plan’s carbon rule would lower electricity bills and the Waters of the U.S. rule actually helps protect small farmers against pollution from big agribusiness.
He promises to “save the coal industry” — though international coal market dynamics are to blame and U.S. coal jobs are not coming back even with a President Trump.
Bringing back the Keystone XL pipeline and drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf are goals that have been on the conservative drawing board for decades — hardly something that belongs in a completely rethought economic vision.
Cancelling the Paris Climate Agreement and defunding U.S. contributions to United Nations climate programs would drag the United States and the world back decades.
“Lift restrictions on American energy,” to Trump, means fossil fuels and not renewable energy sources like solar and wind, which are growing faster than fossil fuels and getting cheaper at a truly astonishing rate. Trump, however, said last week that renewable energy “is not working so good.”
What the billionaire did not mention on Monday is how much climate change is projected to hurt the global economy: the United States will take a 36 percent GDP hit by the end of the century if its leaders allow it to suffer an unmitigated climate, according to research from ICF International and NextGen Climate Action. Globally, that number jumps to $44 trillion by 2060, according to Citigroup.
Trump called Clinton “the candidate of the past” while his own campaign was “the campaign of the future.”
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