Republican Greed Now Dominates Americans' Lives

[thomhartmann]

It doesn’t matter how many people die, struggle in poverty, or are poisoned, as long as the profits roll in and taxes are low

Republican greed is why Americans can’t have nice things.

Every developed country in the world has some variation on a free or low-cost national healthcare system, and free or even subsidized higher education. In most developed countries homelessness is not a crisis, nobody goes bankrupt because somebody in their family got sick, and jobs pay well enough and have union pensions so people can retire after 30 or 40 years in the workforce and live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

But not in America. Republicans would never allow any of those things to happen.

It’s not about ideology. Republicans don’t hate Social Security and Medicare, for example, because they’re afraid that thos programs are going to somehow turn America into a communist country. They hate those programs because they’re paid for with tax dollars, and greedy Republicans hate to pay their fair share of taxes.

It’s not about racism, although it often appears that way. The reason Republicans work so hard to keep Black and Brown people down is because they subscribe to a weird economic theory that “requires” an underclass who do most of the hard work for very little money so rich Republicans, being part of the overclass, can reap the benefits and stuff the extra cash into their money bins.

If their use of racist language and iconography brings in a few more low-IQ white voters, that’s just icing on the cake. They can use the racist yahoos to get themselves reelected so giant corporations will continue to stuff their SuperPACs with lobbyist cash they can use for their own retirement.

It’s not about charity, although they love to say that the housing and healthcare needs of poor people should be taken care of through charity. What they’re really saying is that they don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes to maintain a healthy society.

It’s not about Christianity, although they’re constantly invoking Jesus for everything from pushing the death penalty on women who want to get an abortion to giving bigots the legal right to discriminate against gay and trans people. Jesus never once mentioned abortion and decried bigotry, but they regularly ignore and even flaunt His teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and His warnings in Matthew 25. They protect multimillionaire evangelists’ tax-free status, and the preachers repay them by preaching politics from the pulpit.

It’s not about saving Americans from the pandemic. Trump used the Defense Production Act to force mostly Brown and Black meatpackers back to work, not to keep Americans safe. As long as the factories are humming and the stock market is rising, a few hundred thousand dead Americans are just collateral damage.

It’s not about conservatism. They’re not interested in slowly or “cautiously” improving society, or “conserving” anything other than the balances in their own checking accounts. They like to use the word “conservative,” but they’ve rendered it meaningless at best and code for “racist” at worst.

It’s not about making the world a better place. They deny climate change, deregulate industries that poison our air and water, and do everything they can to screw working people out of unions, good wages and decent benefits. They’re totally down with pesticides that are killing our pollinators while they poison our atmosphere with their carbon emissions, all just to make a buck.

It’s not about having a better-educated electorate or populace. They’ve spent decades trying to destroy our public education system that was, in the 1960s, the envy of the world. When they did away with free and low-cost college education during the Reagan years they kicked off almost $2 trillion worth of student debt which is preventing people from starting families, opening small businesses, or even buying their first house. But it sure is profitable for Republican bankers!

It isn’t about “culture.” They do a good-old-boy NASCAR/Duck Dynasty routine to bring in the rubes, but there’s no way Donald Trump would ever invite the average Republican voter with a giant flag and a pickup truck to any of his golf clubs, nor would Ted Cruz want to vacation with one of them or their families in Cancun.

It’s not about “gun violence.” As long as their investments in weapons manufacturers are profitable and the problem of gun violence is limited to poor- and working-class Americans, Republicans don’t give a rat’s ass about “gun safety.” Althought they’re happy to use guns as a wedge issue to bring in male voters who are insecure about their own masculinity.

It’s not about immigrants taking jobs from working-class Americans. Ronald Reagan stopped enforcing the laws against wealthy white employers hiring people who are here without documentation. As a result, entire industries like construction and meatpacking that once provided good union jobs have been de-unionized, their former American-citizen union employees replaced by low-wage workers without documentation. And when the spotlight gets shined on them, Republicans are more than happy to put poor, hard-working Brown people in jail but there’s no way they’re ever going to go after wealthy white employers. They don’t give a damn about your job, particularly when they can find somebody else to do it cheaper.

It’s not about America “first.” Reagan and Bush the Elder negotiated NAFTA and revived the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) so businesses could offshore entire factories. Since the Reagan administration, over 60,000 factories have left America, along with at least 5 million jobs. Donald Trump‘s rewrite of NAFTA even gives American companies a huge new tax break if they move factories from America to Mexico.

At the end of the day, all Republicans care about is money. Greed is their principle animating force.

It doesn’t matter how many Americans die, how many humans struggle in misery and poverty, how many children’s growth is stunted or are poisoned by industrial and mining waste being poured into our air and rivers.

As long as the money keeps rolling in and their billonnaire patron’s taxes remain absurdly low, that’s all Republicans care about and are willing to fight for.

Original post: HartmannReport.com

[Wounded Bear]

1. K&R...nt

[DFW]

2. It's not quite that simple, though

The masses out there in "Jerkwater, USA," as the fictional Sam Trautman put it, don't know or care about billionaire patrons. That is a class of people they will never meet, interact with, or know the desires of.

The masses, the ones that watch Fox Noise 24/7, and will never travel more than 500 miles from the place where they were born--they will fight for a myth that they have been sold by Republican propagandists. They aren't consciously fighting for the Koch Brothers or the Mercer family. They'll never have any contact with those people in their lives. They THINK they are "fighting" to protect their families, their religion, their country, and their way of life, which they have been convinced is unimprovable.

Agreed that the mass of Republicans supports their privileged few, but they do so unconsciously. To THEM, it really is America first, but they can't be allowed to realize which America is really coming first. They must THINK (thus, Fox and National Hate Radio) that their almost-Mayberry is the paradise they are protecting with all those guns in their basement. If they KNEW that they are being exploited, and in fact are valued as nothing more useful than a screwdriver, they might not be such enthusiastic supporters of the Republican Party.

Our problem is that we have allowed Fox News and the propagandist media to convince them that their votes are protecting themselves. In fact, their votes protect those who would deny them--along with the rest of the country--the very best that our country COULD be.

[appalachiablue]

13. If US broadcast media isn't altered

soon to be more honest after 40 years of hate media and propaganda, I fear for the stability of this country and democracy. As it is, it's almost too late to reform.

Hartmann is a rare voice of light in a sea of dark waters.

[DFW]

14. To the masses that oppose us,

Thom Hartmann is a "commie libbrul" who has no idea what he's talking about. If Fox Noise says that 2+2=5, they will assume that their calculators have been wrong all this time. People that far gone won't be convinced overnight that they have been lied to for decades--not by you, not by me, not by Thom. They just don't want to hear it, and thus they refuse to hear it. To lighten up those dark waters, it will take a force the likes of which none of us have seen or imagined yet.

[colsohlibgal]

3. And......

It’s that the Republicans are a minority party clinging to power. To that end they have the Electoral College......despite getting fewer votes Dubya and Dufus Donnie “won” and did their damage.

If we were a real democracy Gore and Clinton would have been elected......and it’s almost certain we would not be in the mess we’re in.

[Progressive Jones]

4. K & R

[moondust]

5. GOP (Gang of Predators)

I believe the other "developed countries" had more homogeneous populations when their social programs were established; more like extended families that tended to care about the well-being of their "kin." U.S. "melting pot" diversity, on the other hand, has made it easy for the GOP to "divide and conquer" rather than trying to serve them all as equals.

Multiparty systems probably also tend to be more responsive to the electorate as they have to have a platform and stand for something to win votes -- something more than "we ain't got no platform but we ain't them damn other guys so vote for us!" No wonder they want to get rid of voters.

Let's see now...what was their dear leader Trump's theme song? Oh yeah:
Money money money money...money money money money.

K/R

[FakeNoose]

8. GOP Greedy One Percent

[DFW]

15. The multi-party system hasn't done Germany much good of late

Last edited Thu Apr 22, 2021, 08:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Germany had the sharp and capable Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt take over from Willy Brandt when he had to resign over having being infiltrated by the "socialist" East Germans. He had a rocky, but decent leadership until his coalition partners, the "Free Democrats," bolted and decided to go with the opposition Christian Democrats, where Merkel later played a big role when the East fell.

The Free Democrats are one of those fringe parties that wear ties and look respectable, but are hard to pin down as to what they stand for.

Now, we also have the Greens, who went from a group of environmentalist activists to a mature common sense party, easily surpassing the Social Democrats who have tired leaders and even more tired slogans.

Plus, there is the "Left," basically a loose group of the old west German far left coupled with the unreformed Berlin Wall killers of the east. Socialism as it really exists! (So they said).

And now, due to the fact that the East Germans said, "no Nazis here, only us socialists!" we also have a newly un-repressed far right movement that worries everyone else. And now, no one party can govern alone, or even with just one other party (on a national level).

Don't think a multi-party system is necessarily the cure to all that ails us. It sure as hell hasn't made Germany or France any stronger.

[moondust]

16. What's the answer?

Of course parties can evolve and overlap and get confusing for an average voter. I tend to think a multi-party system will always have someone paying attention to the needs and wants of "the people" while in a binary system one or both parties can too easily become beholden to special interests (GOP).

With your experience with both, which do you favor for responsive government?

[DFW]

18. Here in Germany, they have definitely evolved

The Social Democrats had rock solid talent like Schmidt and their finance expert Ingrid Matthäus-Meier. They pulled the rug from under Schmidt, and were too macho to allow a capable woman to lead them. So they started a slow fade, and are still fading.

The multi-party system has the many parties desperately trying to keep themselves above the 5% hurdle. Because the Weimarer Republik got nothing done due to letting every party that got ten votes have a representative, post-war Germany said that if you don't get at least 5% of the vote, you get no representation in parliament. The parties scramble to get into parliament at all, so they end up appealing to smaller slivers of the voters than parties of a 2 party system would. In a 2 Party system, there IS always the danger that well-funded bad guys, whether foreign (i.e. Putin) or domestic (i.e. the Kochs) will try to buy off one or both. The ones that scream the loudest, "You don't need to check on us, we're patriots!" are the ones you most have to worry about.

In Germany, Merkel NEVER got an absolute majority, so she always needed a coalition partner to drag her down when she had an initiative she wanted to try. What used to be the common sense left here hasn't had anyone with Schmidt's (and Clinton's, and Obama's, and Biden's) combination of charisma, competence and benevolence since Schmidt left office almost 40 years ago. Lack of inspiration, fear of initiative, and inability to make use of what HAS to be some imagination has damaged the main parties here. They are not interested in moving forward, they are only interested in keeping themselves from drowning in a sea that is growing more crowded in every election cycle. No one is interested in helping the country any more (except Merkel, who is retiring). They are all too terrified of missing that 5% mark. "People? WHAT people? We're talking self-preservation here!" The Greens have evolved, gotten rid of their extremist wing ("no one can take more than one plane flight every five years!" ). Their pragmatic wing now rules the party, has wide acceptance, and may even be choosing the next chancellor from their ranks. The once high-flying Social Democrats will struggle to get 25% of the national vote. But getting 40% of the national vote remains a pipe dream for any of them at the moment, and that sucks for Europe's biggest economic engine.

While ANY party in ANY system CAN become beholden to special interests, It is my opinion that it takes more effort (and thus, the greater risk of exposure) to corrupt one major party. Here in Germany, if a ruling coalition needs some of the smaller parties to survive, the corrupting of just a few politicians in one of the tiny parties is enough to influence the direction of the whole country. With us in the USA, they have to buy the whole party--like you said, the GOP. The bad guys need to corrupt a LOT of people to buy the whole party. Sure, it'll work with some of them, like McTurtle and McCarthy, but it also nets them whack jobs like Gaetz and Greene. Weakest link, and all. For that reason, I favor, with all its obvious flaws, the two party system for responsive government.

I can tell you this: for all the disdain my overseas colleagues heaped on me, both in jest and in earnest, during the Trump years, they are paying close attention to what Biden has accomplished in just a few short months, aware of the fragility of his majority, and are all yelling "Bravo!" Nowhere in the EU would that be possible. As an old friend of mine used to say, "'nuff said."

[seta1950]

6. Very true

I’ll also add that white people are afraid of being the minority, losing their power.

[wnylib]

12. The wealthy upper class is afraid of

losing its power. The lower classes of whites fear minorities because they have been encouraged by the upper 1% to believe that that's who they need to fear. As long as the upper level can keep the middle and working classes divided, they can maintain their power. So long as people in middle and working classes can point to someone else as "the other" on the lower rungs of society, they can feel elevated. The upper 1% or 10% knows this and stokes it.

[Evolve Dammit]

7. "As long as the factories are humming and the stock market is rising, a few hundred thousand dead

Americans are just collateral damage" That nails it. Another good piece by Hartmann.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. very sad but true, we must all fight this how best we can

for me, it's underconsumption, durability, living locally. But it's sort of like you can't fight the system unless you disconnect from it. It's satisfying, but does it change anything?

[peppertree]

10. Well, them oceanfront mansions don't buy themselves

[cate94]

11. GOP

Greed or Power, it is all they care about.

[msfiddlestix]

17. As it has always been. Where has Thom Hartmann been? Why is someone using his name to post

here as if it were really Hartmann?

I don't get that.

[thomhartmann]

19. I don't know what you're talking about...

but I am definitely me. And I write these things myself, all by myself, every day. Put a lot of work into them, in fact. And I’m so happy to have them here on DU.
— Thom

[msfiddlestix]

20. Well, pardon me! Please accept my apologies.

[thomhartmann]

22. Hey, all good...

Thank you for your kind words and implied sentiments about my work. It’s appreciated.

Here’s hoping to a new and better world for life on Earth.…

[msfiddlestix]

25. Of course!

I honestly thought someone was faking your name, even though the content would suggest otherwise.

My "spam" alert apparently was malfunctioning. probably needs new batteries.

[betsuni]

23. Also, lust for power. Politics as total war. It's not enough to win, the enemy must be destroyed.

The enemy: your fellow Americans. Everything's politicized. Thanks, Newt Gingrich, for really getting the ball rolling with that. Demonizing other countries and the people in them as enemies is terribly old-fashioned.

How nice to see Republicans blamed for what they have done to this country! I'm happy that the era of hysteria about Democrats being corporate neoliberals ignoring the working/middle classes is over, the ridiculous idea that people working for corporations or financial institutions donating legal amounts to Democratic campaigns or whose campaigns are supported by PACS makes them corrupt and evil. That was nutty!

[Brother Mythos]

24. If the Party of Sedition (POS) had a completely honest campaign slogan, it would be ...

"We're only in it for the money."

[Victor_c3]

26. I saw an argument a while back that all republican policy boils down to cheap labor

You touched on that in your above post.

https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/defeat-the-right-in-three-minutes/