Why U.S. Republicans are now adopting Putin-style "managed" democracy
From early spring, a good summation of how and WHY the Russia Thing impacts our politics so grossly.
Why U.S. Republicans are now adopting Putin-style "managed" democracy
More evidence that Republicans are close soul mates of Russia’s President when it comes to restraining democracy
By STEPHAN RICHTER - ALEXEI BAYER
The Globalist via Salon, PUBLISHED APRIL 6, 2021
Excerpt…
As does Putin, so do the Republicans
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and Donald Trump was both flattering Putin in words and imitating him in deeds.
Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch's other U.S. media assets, along with numerous other media outlets even further to the right, functioned as Trump's personal propaganda machine. They flattered the American "Dear Leader" and lied about his opponents every bit as much as Putin's Russia Today does.
Snip…
Marx as an inspiration?
In case you are wondering why this is happening in the U.S. of A., look no further than Karl Marx's works. Marxism claims that politics is a function of economics.
This is exactly what we have seen in Russia and what is now happening in the United States.
The entire raison d'ètre of the Republican Party in the United States is looking after the interests of rich Americans. Hence the party's eternal drive to reduce taxes for the plutocrats, whether income taxes, inheritance taxes or allowing all sorts of tax shelters in quite a few U.S. states.
Continues…
https://www.salon.com/2021/04/06/why-us-republicans-are-now-adopting-putin-style-managed-democracy_partner/
= new reply since forum marked as read
The Real Origins of the Religious Right
They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation.
By RANDALL BALMER
Politico Mag, May 27, 2014
Randall Balmer is the Mandel family professor in the arts and sciences at Dartmouth College. His most recent book is Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter.
Excerpt…
The Green v. Connally ruling provided a necessary first step: It captured the attention of evangelical leaders , especially as the IRS began sending questionnaires to church-related “segregation academies,” including Falwell’s own Lynchburg Christian School, inquiring about their racial policies. Falwell was furious. “In some states,” he famously complained, “It’s easier to open a massage parlor than a Christian school.”
One such school, Bob Jones University—a fundamentalist college in Greenville, South Carolina—was especially obdurate. The IRS had sent its first letter to Bob Jones University in November 1970 to ascertain whether or not it discriminated on the basis of race. The school responded defiantly: It did not admit African Americans.
Although Bob Jones Jr., the school’s founder, argued that racial segregation was mandated by the Bible, Falwell and Weyrich quickly sought to shift the grounds of the debate, framing their opposition in terms of religious freedom rather than in defense of racial segregation. For decades, evangelical leaders had boasted that because their educational institutions accepted no federal money (except for, of course, not having to pay taxes) the government could not tell them how to run their shops—whom to hire or not, whom to admit or reject. The Civil Rights Act, however, changed that calculus.
Bob Jones University did, in fact, try to placate the IRS—in its own way. Following initial inquiries into the school’s racial policies, Bob Jones admitted one African-American, a worker in its radio station, as a part-time student; he dropped out a month later. In 1975, again in an attempt to forestall IRS action, the school admitted blacks to the student body, but, out of fears of miscegenation, refused to admit unmarried African-Americans. The school also stipulated that any students who engaged in interracial dating, or who were even associated with organizations that advocated interracial dating, would be expelled.
The IRS was not placated. On January 19, 1976, after years of warnings—integrate or pay taxes—the agency rescinded the school’s tax exemption.
For many evangelical leaders, who had been following the issue since Green v. Connally, Bob Jones University was the final straw. As Elmer L. Rumminger, longtime administrator at Bob Jones University, told me in an interview, the IRS actions against his school “alerted the Christian school community about what could happen with government interference” in the affairs of evangelical institutions. “That was really the major issue that got us all involved.”
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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/
PS: Thank you for helping connect the last half century of American politics, religion and societal devolution, Thomas Hurt. The GOP can’t win fair and square, so they dumbed down and divided their base and the nation, while stacking the courts with ass clowns.