Abetted by the ruling government in Washington hate is increasing in the US and lies are the norm. Some decry the hateful rhetoric on both sides, they blame both Republicans and Democrats for the dysfunction in
Washington. However, there are not two sides to the issue of hate speech in contemporary American politics just as there are not two sides to the scientific consensus on global warming. While Democrats are far from blameless, to suggest that
there is some kind of equivalency between the two parties is like the President’s suggestion that
there is some form of moral equivalency between Neo-Nazis and those that
oppose fascism. To illustrate this point the vast majority of terror attacks are
committed by white people associated with the radical right. Only a tiny fraction of this violence comes from the extreme left.
While Trump certainly bears the the lion’s share of the responsibility Republicans have been flirting with racism, sexism and xenophobia for a long time before Trump made them his minions. The cornerstone of Republican efforts to seize power has been about othering their political opposition. Trump’s racism would not have resonated had the GOP not been
stoking the fires of hatred and division for so long.
It all started in 1978 when the Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the presidency. One man hatched
a plot to end their rule by ending bipartisanship. He surrounded
himself with an unscrupulous few who conspired to gain power by
fostering division. The movement steadily grew and over the years it has
manifested in different ways. In recent years the purveyors of this
mass manipulation began planting hateful narratives in the minds of the
disenfranchised and those who lament the loss of their privilege. Forty
years later the president of the United States is using this hate filled narrative to sew
divisions that gird his hold on power
While
Trump may wear the crown of the hater-in-chief, it is the Republicans who
are responsible for creating the political climate that facilitated his rise to power. Trump is the
culmination of a virulent strain of Republicanism.
For
years the GOP has done one thing to captivate public interest while
working on a far more sinister agenda that has come to fruition with massive tax cuts to corporations and wealthy Americans along with a policy of radical deregulation. The third tier is doing away with “entitlements” like social security and
medicare.
Obstructionism and the virulent othering we
see in Washington is the creation of the GOP. Republicans crafted
narratives in a cynical bid to seize power. They then began working with industry to dupe
the
American people. In this context Trump is the
culmination of Republican
malfeasance.
It started with
Republican legislator Newt Gingrich and more recently Mitch McConnell was the torch bearer for this hateful brand of politics.
According to the November 2018 Atlantic article, Newt Gingrich is “The
Man Who Broke Politics.” Forty years ago Newt Gingrich addressed a group
of Republicans and lamented the GOP’s failure to get “nasty”. Gingrich
played a key role in making the party combative and obstructionist
This is the man who sought to kill
bipartisanship. He characterized politics as a war to power and
dehumanizing Democrats was the key to his strategy. To broaden his reach
Gingrich made a series of cassettes that contained, among other things,
a recommended list of words to describe Democrats. Here is a list of
these words:
- Sick
- Liar
- Traitor
- Corrupt
- Pathetic
- Anti-flag
- Radical
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took a page from
Gingrich’s playbook during the Obama presidency. His obstructionism will
go down in history. He
infamously bragged that his proudest moments were obstructing
the legislative agenda of President Obama.
In a cynical bid to deny the
Democrats any legislative success, McConnell even refused to support
legislation that had previously been sponsored by Republicans. This cynical
Republican tactic led to
accusations that Washington is broken. This is exactly the outcome that Gingrich was seeking.
Disagreement was always the intent of the
founding fathers, however they could not have anticipated the extent to which partisanship
would take precedence over the national interest. They could not have
anticipated the utter lack of moral fiber and absence of character we
see from Republican legislators, they could not have anticipated the self-serving narcissism of a man like Trump.
