For the past fifty years, America has been guided primarily by Republican influenced values, ethics and laws. Since the Cultural Revolution that was primarily embodied in the anti Vietnam War protests, the civil rights movement and the feminist movement of the 1960s, America has been engaged in a steady drumbeat of political and economic pressure to undo the progressive thinking that emerged out of those movements. When viewed in retrospect, one has to conclude that Republican dogma has had its way with America since 1968. There have been islands of Democratic progressive backlash able to moderate the Republican objectives to some degree, manifested by the elections of Jimmy Carter for one term and for two effective years of the Barack Obama administration. Bill Clinton was unable to become a true champion of Democratic progressivism because he was able to stay in power only through his ability to placate Republican ideals and objectives. The extent to which Republicans could identify with his overall agenda determined the extent of Democratic progressivism he was allowed to move forward. For the most part, the Republican Party and all its auxiliaries such as the Heritage Foundation, the Koch Foundations and numerous other Republican think tanks have shaped our attitudes and values as Americans. The mysticism of Reagan/Gingrich trickle down economics, the dog-whistle politics embedded in Nixon’s “Silent Majority” and the first George Bush’s Willie Horton identity politics and the second George Bush’s Dick Chaney led Neocon hysteria that promoted the idea that all of America’s ideals, principles and rule of law must be set aside to protect America from all of the brown and yellow people who threaten the American way of life, have combined to produce the values and logic the majority of white Americans have applied to the world we live in.
I think it is important to understand exactly what is it that Republicans have sought to gain in the past 50 plus years. Exactly what is it that Republicans want us to be? To get at the answer to that question, you first have to understand that the answer has nothing to do with political parties. Instead, it has to do with two opposing philosophies of life. At any given time, either party, Democratic or Republican, will champion either philosophy depending on which philosophy is being represented by the party in power at any given time.
So what are these two opposing philosophies? One philosophy favors people of means and the other favors every day workers and common laborers. The philosophy that favors people of means says that people of means should be allowed to build their own private kingdoms, without interference from the government and without regard for how they treat anyone in their kingdom. The opposing philosophy states that even the common man has rights and laws should be such that neither the government nor men of means may have the power to enslave a common man by threat to life, property and family, as was the practice in Europe at the time of the American Revolution. Back then; both philosophies had in common the need to free themselves from the government that negated the possibility to pursue either philosophy. Over the centuries both Parties have represented both philosophies. For example prior to the 1960s the Republican Party championed civil rights. When the Kennedys and the Democrats took over that cause in the 1960s, the Republican Party became the party of those who advocated for the status quo and continued separation and marginalization of black people.
It should be clear at this point that the Republican Party is the one that currently champions the philosophy of the persons of means (now called the corporate elite) and the Democratic Party is the party of the common man, or as we refer to it today, the middle class. America’s tragedy in this competition between the two philosophies is that the competition could have been a healthy one that ebbed and flowed between the two based on economic and environmental factors. The problem is that half of the corporate elite from very beginning of our democracy became addicted to the unhealthy opioid called slavery. The American business model of success is completely dependent on the virtual enslavement of its work force. Modern day Republicanism seeks to have every working person in America completely at the mercy of his/her employer. Like the feudal lords of old Europe, they want to be able to impose their will sexually, politically, lifestyle wise or in any way they please, on the American worker. They want you to live paycheck to paycheck so you don’t dare resist the number of hours they want you to work or the conditions under which they want you to work, for fear of loss of your home and your health. That’s their vision of a healthy economy. I call it slavery.
As a result, the fact that a healthy society cannot sustain itself if it deliberately attempts to cultivate poverty and lawlessness in over 20% of it’s population, has been completely lost on the majority of the American electorate. Poverty and lawlessness is like a disease that will eventually spread to the entire population if it is allowed to flourish on any level. Most people in the developed world understand this and perpetually seek to eliminate poverty from all segments of their population. Only Americans believe that poverty can be contained in ghettos and confined to only certain types of people. America’s Republican bias has given the corporate elite absolute power over the American people. Consequently it has taken over every aspect of our lives. It has taken over the food industry and consequently has rendered more than 50% of the population clinically obese while they starve for the vitamins and minerals needed to sustain a healthy body free of diabetes, high blood pressure and diseases of the kidneys, liver and pancreas. It controls health care, the cost of which siphons as much as 30% of the average American’s income. It has facilitated its takeover of all things American by using the passions of religion and racial myths and stereotypes to destroy the educational system in the population, resulting in a work force that many of whom are too ignorant to understand the simple concept of wearing a mask for thirty to sixty days to prevent the spread of a deadly virus.
This is just a fraction of what 50 years of Republican dogma and philosophy has given us. Most of us have been made too dumb to understand that the prosperity and real wealth we have enjoyed since 1968 has been made possible primarily by the modicum of Democratic influence we’ve had over that period. I asked the question about a year ago regarding Republican dominance of American politics and now I ask it again. How’s it working for you America?
