I said I was not going to spend a lot of time writing or sharing posts on Russia because I believe the mainstream media is already hyperventilating quite a bit on the subject. But the Paul Krugman article “Judas, Tax Cuts and the Great Betrayal” is a must read. It does not only touch on Russia but on the depths of failure the Republican orthodoxy has become.
Krugman makes a necessary observation the current crop of Republican politicians and patriotism.
For generations, Republicans have impugned their opponents’ patriotism. During the Cold War, they claimed that Democrats were soft on Communism; after 9/11, that they were soft on terrorism.
But now we have what may be the real thing: circumstantial evidence that a hostile foreign power may have colluded with a U.S. presidential campaign, and may retain undue influence at the highest levels of our government. And all those self-proclaimed patriots have gone silent, or worse.
Later he explains the genesis of the un-Americanism of the new GOP.
How did a whole party become so, well, un-American? For this story now goes far beyond Trump.
In some ways conservatism is returning to its roots. Much has been made of Trump’s revival of the term “America First,” the name of a movement opposed to U.S. intervention in World War II. What isn’t often mentioned is that many of the most prominent America-firsters weren’t just isolationists, they were actively sympathetic to foreign dictators; there’s a more or less straight line from Charles Lindbergh proudly wearing the medal he received from Hermann Göring to Trump’s cordial relations with Rodrigo Duterte, the literally murderous president of the Philippines.
But the more proximate issue is the transformation of the Republican Party, which bears little if any resemblance to the institution it used to be, say during the Watergate hearings of the 1970s. Back then, Republican members of Congress were citizens first, partisans second. But today’s G.O.P. is more like a radical, anti-democratic insurgency than a conventional political party.
Krugman ends with a reality that one hopes most Americans will not only appreciate but do something about with their vote.
It’s time to face up to the scary reality here. Most people now realize, I think, that Donald Trump holds basic American political values in contempt. What we need to realize is that much of his party shares that contempt.
I think Krugman may be a bit too optimistic. Now if Progressives do their jobs effectively managing the resistance, then most people will, and then we can clean house politically.