February 1, 2023
Unraveling of the Republican Party
By Arthur Kane Scott
The inability of the 2023 Republican Caucus to elect a chair has a long history going back to Ronald Reagan who invited conservative evangelicals to become active participants in the political process undermining separation of Church/state to maintain America’s WASP dominance.
Their agenda was to keep the US white, Christian, and male centered, and to resist the impulses of science/modernity. Their basic principle was `less government better,` `that the Federal Government was the problem.`
Likewise, America needed to resist the seduction of globalism by following a policy of isolationism (Ukraine) and should restore the rule of an elitist white social order by controlling the Supreme Court as the arbiter of national morals.
In addition, it seeks to maintain class inequity/income inequity through keeping debt ceiling low, taxes in favor of the rich and opposes all welfare legislation even social security as it spawns dependency on the state and represents a terrible drain on the national treasury and takes money away from the rich.
This conservative agenda or` Reaganomics `was pushed ever farther to the right with Knute Gingrich`s `Contract with America` in the mid-nineties, to the emergence of the Tea Party in 2010 (opposed taxes) and to rise of Mark Meadows `Freedom Caucus` in 2015 (opposed immigration). They all subscribe to the` Great Replacement Theory `arguing that there is a cabal fostering the` browning` of America.
It culminated with the Presidency of Donald Trump in 2016 with Meadows being appointed Chief of Staff. Trump picked up on many of these Far-Right ideas including the nihilism/violence of Steve Bannon (crazies) which call for the overthrow of constitutional norms/democracy.
Indeed, it became the accelerant used by Trump to deny he had lost the 2020 Presidential election leading to the failed coup d’état of January 6, 2021.
One of the principles of revolution is that revolutions become increasingly more violent until they burn themselves out. And that’s what we are witnessing right now as Trumpism has trumped Trump. Thirty percent of Americans have bought into Maga magic of not wearing masks; a magic fed consistently by Fox New and Tucker Carlton, and the Rupert Murdoch Media.
This extremism has shattered the Republican Party as witnessed by the ugly display to select a chair. After countless roll calls McCarthy was chosen only after selling his soul to the `crazies` thus ensuring that the House will not legislate on behalf of the people but will instead investigate Democrats to muddy the waters about their involvement on January 6.
Other agenda items include pandering to the rich by reducing the debt ceiling through lower taxes, going after social security and Obama Care, and of course reneging on student indebtedness.
Another major area will be embracing the cultural wars revolving around a woman`s right to have autonomy over their bodies, right to marriage, sexual preference, gun control, and of course the matter of immigration and by implication the great fear of the browning of America known as `Replacement.`
Finally, they will go after Biden with one investigation after another including his son Hunter son, along with the poorly choreographed withdrawal from Afghanistan and the insidious alleged deep state organs including FBI,IRS, Homeland Security. All done to sow distrust and weaken democratic institutions.
Jim Jordan leads this strategy, in similar fashion as did Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s witch-hunt of communists, by jumping on the discovery, for instance, that Biden like Trump had taken home classified documents even though they lack the scale and seriousness of those discovered at Mara-a-Lago which compromised national security by exposing protecting sources and intelligence methods.
He plans to turn the House Judiciary Committee into an avenging battering ram to get even with the January 6 Committee. McCarthy has removed two seasoned members, Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff, from the Intelligence Committee.
It will be a wild ride for the next two years in which the People’s business will be pushed aside by the Magas within the Republican Party, who will use their position not to legislate, but to create one cultural crisis after crisis to sustain their corrupt bargain of sustaining power in the tradition of the` no nothing party` of the 1850s.` Violence and terror will be centerpieces of their strategy to retain power a la Paul Pelosi.
George Santos, recent Republican House Member of Long Island, is the latest bizarre example of lying well neigh about everything on his resume thus mirroring the principle that the ends justify the means, the `Maga` calling card.
When it’s all over, however, the Republican Party will be a shell of its former self lacking credibility, relevance, and ethics. It will find itself a minority party as a new America emerges based on inclusiveness, diversity, plurality, and opportunity. Demographics, both color and age, spell the doom of the `Maga` forces unleashed by Donald Trump pointing ultimately to a National/Cultural Renaissance as the Maga forces like Vandals turn on themselves and burnout.
Arthur Kane Scott is Professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies of the Dominican University of California and Fellow of American Institute of International Studies.
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The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
