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    A Lesson in Republican Hypocrisy and Distortions

    By Wattree on Thu, 03/03/2011 - 5:53am |

    Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

    A Lesson in Republican Hypocrisy and Distortions
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    Is the modern Republican Party really “the party of Lincoln,” and responsible for freeing the slaves? I don’t think so. But the GOP regularly, routinely, and with a straight face makes that claim. One Republican recently confronted me and stated the following:
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    "It was Republicans who beat Democrats in the Civil War, thus freeing the slaves. It was Democrats who started the KKK as its military wing to intimidate the (largely black) Republican party who were running the south after the war. Can a leopard change its spots?? Are the Democrats now the party FOR the black people after being against them for so long? So many of you are duped by the Devil's trickery. a few table scraps from massa's table and you run right back to his side. The Democrat is the racist."
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    The above assertion is a prime example of how many Republicans can take a kernel of truth and create a banquet of lies. The truth is, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and so was Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King. But since the Civil War the Republican and Democratic parties have completely changed their relative political positions, so relative to political philosophy, the modern Republican party bears absolutely no relationship to its predecessor.
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    Prior to the Civil War the Republican Party was made up of big business interests and Northern aristocrats, and the Democratic Party was made up of Dixiecratcs and Southern agrarian interests - farmers and slave owners. Thus, the Republicans were progressive liberals and the Democrats (or Dixiecrats) were Southern conservative slave owners.
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    But that began to change during the Great Depression when Democratic President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, came out against the corporations and to the aid of the poor with his "New Deal for the American People." With the “New Deal,” Democrats ushered in workers’ rights. They created Social Security so the elderly wouldn't have to go to the "Poor House" or become a burden on their children when they became too old to work.
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    The Democrats also created unemployment insurance so people would have something to fall back on if they lost their jobs, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set rules of conduct for corporations that allowed workers to work with some semblance of dignity. The new law set a minium wage, overtime pay, child labor standards, and many other regulations protecting workers.
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    Prior to the FLSA corporations could work employees for as many hours as they liked, and they often set wages so low that families had to send their children to work just to survive - and many of those children were maimed or killed because they had to work under the most horrific conditions, such as in coal mines and the like.
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    But after President Roosevelt brought relief to the people with these “big government, socialist programs,” the Democratic Party began to become associated with the common man, and the Republican party embarked upon a single-minded mission to reverse these "bleeding heart liberal" policies and return America to what had previously been the status quo.
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    Then during the fifties the Democratic Party came out in support of the Civil Rights Movement. As a result, during the fifties and sixties the Southern Dixiecrats became disenchanted with the Democrats and migrated to the Republican Party. At the same time, many Southern Blacks began leaving the Republican Party to become Democrats.
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    Thus, the Republican Party is now a coalition of three separate constituencies with confluent interests. The first group is made up of traditional conservatives. These are highly patriotic Americans who believe in limited government, the primacy of the people over government, and fiscal responsibility. But the other two groups that have coalesced within the GOP are much more malevolent - international business interests, and social bigots.
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    It is the former of these two, international business, that controls the GOP. It's made up of wealthy and highly educated individuals with huge amounts of monetary resources, and thus, political influence - and they use every bit of that leverage to manipulate what has become their citizen army - the social bigots. These are the people who hate any and everybody who doesn’t look, think, and act like themselves.
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    The social bigots are the people we see armed to the teeth at presidential speeches, disrupting town hall meetings, and fighting against their own interests. In short, these are the “Joe the Plumbers” of the world who are being deluded by corporatist propaganda. Also among their ranks are the diehard racists who are still fighting to promote a segregationist agenda.
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    But the social bigots are merely the soldiers of the party. The corporatists, who control the GOP, have never lost sight of their seventy-year-old mission to undo the New Deal. But they've found that the safety-net that President Roosevelt provided for the people is much too popular to attack head on, so they had to devise a plan to chip away at it.
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    Then came 9/11, so they decided to used the war in Iraq to ravage the national treasury. They then gave themselves a $4 trillion taxcut to further deplete the treasury, and now they're telling the poor and middle class, "Sorry, but we no longer have the revenue to fund the programs that you've come to depend on for the past seventy years. And in the meantime, Gov. Scott Walker is hard at work in Wisconsin trying to dismantle the Fair Labor Standards Act.
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    So, can a leopard change its spots? Yes it can - and with regard to the Democratic and Republican parties, the leopard has changed in a very big way. But the modern GOP has never been prone to allowing the facts to distort a well-crafted lie. That's why they have such a fierce aversion to a well-educated electorate.
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    Thus, the facts dictate that the modern GOP’s claim to have any connection with President Lincoln whatsoever - other than the enemy of everything he stood for - is not only a gross distortion of history, but a flat out lie. The fact is, if the Civil War was being fought today, the GOP would be the Confederacy.
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    . . . Don’t mention it, Abe. I got this.

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    Eric L. Wattree
    http://wattree.blogspot.com/
    [email protected]
    Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

    Wattree, I believe that you have eloquently articulated what I would call the great Democratic myth--powerful moneyed interests who manipulate ignorant bigots into voting for the Republican Party. It's an appealing myth to Democrats because:

    1) It makes Republicans seem really, really evil (which by lets us feel good ourselves)

    2) It explains why the really, really evil Republicans keep winning elections (without blaming ourselves for failing to attract voters)

    There are elements of truth to the myth. The Republicans Party does tend to appeal to both business people and bigots, the former for financial reasons, the latter for racist reasons. And Republican leaders since the time of Goldwater have often cynically exploited racist sentiments. You are correct that the party long ago left Lincoln's legacy behind.

    But here's where the myth begins, for the Republican party has no shadowy corporate rulers. Like the Democratic party, it's a large headless mixture of people with diverse interests and diverse economic backgrounds who often work together for practical reasons.

    There is no army of bigots with corporate generals at their head. In fact, cultural conservative wing of the part which tends to attract the bigots has often been at bitter odds with the fiscal conservative wing. Read What's the Matter with Kansas to learn about the all-out political war between the business establishment "mods" and the religious right "cons" in Kansas. We saw a classic example of such a battle last year in Delaware, when Tea Partiers elected Christine O'Donnell over the bitter objections of corporate conservatives who supported Mike Castle.

    A few weeks ago, I spoke to a prominent Republican analyst who is an associate of Roger Ailes. He's predicting that the GOP will soon split in half. I wouldn't go that far. I've seen the opposing sides put aside their differences too often before. But the fact that they can occasionally put up with each other is still a long, long way from the metaphor of hierarchical martial discipline that you describe.

    I understand that you're making a political appeal here, but you're preaching to the choir. I think more intellectual honesty about who the Republicans are and how they've won elections would go a long way towards helping Democrats figure out how to defeat them.


    by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 03/03/2011 - 8:56am

    Thank you, Genghis - I think.  You said,

    "But here's where the myth begins, for the Republican party has no shadowy corporate rulers. Like the Democratic party, it's a large headless mixture of people with diverse interests and diverse economic backgrounds who often work together for practical reasons."

    Oh? an you say, "Koch Brothers?"

    You also said,

    "There is no army of bigots with corporate generals at their head. In fact, cultural conservative wing of the part which tends to attract the bigots has often been at bitter odds with the fiscal conservative wing. Read What's the Matter with Kansas to learn about the all-out political war between the business establishment "mods" and the religious right "cons" in Kansas. We saw a classic example of such a battle last year in Delaware, when Tea Partiers elected Christine O'Donnell over the bitter objections of corporate conservatives who supported Mike Castle."

    I discussed this issue in the Article immediately previous to this one:

    A Retrospective Against GOP Revisionism

    "One of the founding fathers of conservative thought was Alexander Hamilton. He was an aristocrat who advocated that poor and middle-class Americans should be relegated to second-class citizenship, and the GOP has fully embraced his agenda. Hamilton said the following:

    "All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people.... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government."
    Debates of the Federalist Convention (May 14-September 17, 1787).

    "While Hamilton’s position was resoundingly rejected by the vast majority of the founding fathers - whose primary reason for coming to America in the first place was to get away from the European class system - there were many of Hamilton’s ilk who chose not to recognize the American ideal that "All men [and women] are created equal." Then they were later joined by Southern Dixiecrats, or social bigots, who also rejected the ideal of human equality.

    "These are the people who currently run the modern day GOP - corporatists and social bigots who tend to believe that America belongs to them, and the rest of us are simply tolerated due to their "good will and Christian charity." This is the primary reason that the Republican party’s platform is fiercely hostile to education (‘elitistism’), labor unions, and ‘big government.’ That’s also why they’re such strong advocates of state’s rights.

    "The corporatists within the GOP are hostile to education because they don’t want the "lower-class" social bigots within in their ranks to realize that they’re being duped into working against their own interests - like healthcare reform, for example. They’re hostile to organized labor and big government because both institutions also tend to protect the rights of the poor and middle class. And they’re strong advocates of state’s rights because the social bigots within their ranks blame big government for usurping the rights of the Southern states by ushering in integration and civil rights.

    "Thus, the GOP is a party that’s made up of oil and water. The corporatist agenda of those who control the party is diametrically opposed to the interests of their lower-class soldiers who they depend on to stay in power. "


    by Wattree on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 8:49am

    Thanks, Wattree. The Koch brothers have donated a lot of money to very conservative causes, and they have had a real influence on elections, but they hardly control the Republican party.

    Consider, over the past decade, they've only spent a little over $10 million of their own money on election campaigns, not all of which has gone to Republicans. They've spent over $50 million on oil & gas lobbying efforts, but that's a drop in bucket in the lobbying industry. And both amounts are far less than the $160 million that David Koch has donated for cancer research.

    The Koch's biggest election impact is from their fundraising activity; they apparently plan to raise $88 million for the 2012 election. Now $88 million an awful lot of money, but it's only 2 percent of the $4 billion spent on elections in 2010, and that was only a midterm election. For comparison, Obama raised in $150 million in a single month in 2008.

    Then there's also the question of what money buys a political candidate. The authors of Freakonomics have famously concluded, not as much as you think. I find their argument plausible though not conclusive. Nonetheless, I certainly wouldn't make the assumption that $88 million buys you an army of racist voters who will do as you command.

    Finally, the Koch's are not exactly from the corporate wing of the GOP. They are rich businessmen to be sure, and they hate taxes, but they are also extremely ideological. The establishment Republicans will certainly take their money, but the Koch's tend to send most of it to cultural conservatives and Tea Partiers.

    In short, the Koch's have a pernicious influence on American politics, and we should be very concerned about them, but let's not make them into omnipotent evil geniuses in order to support a mythical representation of the Republican party.

    As for your last blog, if you have some evidence that I don't have demonstrating that Republican businessmen are trying to destroy public education in order to keep their dupes ignorant, I encourage you to reveal it. Otherwise, I will interpret it as speculation.

    PS For the record, Hamilton was certainly an elitist, as were many of the founders, but he was hardly an aristocrat. Have you read about his childhood? He was also staunchly opposed to states rights and in favor of Federal taxes. So I'm not sure how his elitist ideas are relevant to today's Republican Party any more than Abraham Lincoln's anti-slavery, pro-union ideas are.


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 1:41pm

    make them into omnipotent evil geniuses in order to support a mythical representation of the Republican party

    To elaborate on my other comment.

    I think this is a very pernicious syndrome for a society or group to keep pounding--the bogeyman that's the source of all our troubles--it's not something to take lightly. Here's what happens when you take it to the max--mass delusion about what's really going on.

    I knew about the Koch involvment in the Tea Party early on but found myself censoring myself about it on TPM because I knew where introducing the story would lead. That's a sorry state of affairs when you're afraid of bringing something up because you know it will fuel things in the wrong direction and you won't be able to stem the tide without spending a ton of time.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 4:25pm

    Try to think of a Republican you know well.  Easy for me. I have them as relatives and friends. Nice people.

    The idea is not to try and change them. That's not going to happen. But be honest about who they are. Not to win elections but  because it's always better to be honest and clear thinking. Like chicken soup, might help, won't hurt.

    Our opponent is not Republican voters but their deeply flawed  theories of a self-regulating economy and self governing society. Good things don't happen, they have to be made to happen.


    by Flavius on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 9:19am

    "Our opponent is not Republican voters but their deeply flawed  theories of a self-regulating economy and self governing society"

    The problem is a matter of scale.  To the individual republican voter those theories reasonate because that's how the world works at the scale of thier expeierences.  These theories do a reasonably good job of describing how they interact with the world (and I think that these are often valid).  They don't have the time (because they are busy), or the inclination to think about a larger scale where those simplistic theories fail.  The real question is how do you get working folks to understand and embrace the larger scale implications, without talking down to them?

    That's where we and the democrats fail, becuase it is hard.


    by Saladin on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 5:19pm

    I think more intellectual honesty about who the Republicans are and how they've won elections would go a long way towards helping Democrats figure out how to defeat them.

    A request to regularly point to and support voices in liberal blogosphere besides you and articleman and perhaps a few like Yglesias that regularly do this.I mostly see it only in the "MSM," and  not only that but I see the main narrative of the liberal blogosphere as bashing the MSM for doing that, that the most popular in the blogosphere have a vested interest in continuing the simplistic bogeymen narratives.

    I'd truly like to support the "intellectual honesty" thing with my mouse clicks and further discussion. Not only did the "preaching to the choir" thing grow quite tiresome for me several years ago, I am convinced it's a very bad thing for the country. Being an atagonist to the syndrome doesn't work, it just supports it. I believe solving the problem requires some site owners to take a stronger editorial stance. And no I'm not volunteering for the job, I'm lazy and "just sayin'."  I'm just sayin' because if people like me continue to not "say," which is what i think many of us do,  not wanting to waste more time with what is basically manichean agitprop, nothing will change.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 4:10pm

    This fits right into Ramona's blog.

    Well stated!!


    by Richard Day on Thu, 03/03/2011 - 9:30am

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