The GOP Is Decadent and Depraved

Trump has stepped in it eyeball-deep again, jeopardizing our efforts against terrorism by handing out classified intelligence to the Russkies.  The resistance is getting excited again; maybe this will be the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Trump’s advisors and flunkies have leapt into damage-control mode again; actually, they just seem to stay in that mode.  And, apart from a few mild remarks by people like John McCain and Adam Kinzinger, the GOP is trying to ignore the whole business again.

     In all this uproar, there is one thing we can be sure of—this will not be the straw that breaks the back of the Trump administration.  What McConnell says in this Washington Post story makes that very clear:

I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so we could focus on our agenda, which is deregulations, tax reform, repealing and replacing Obamacare.

There you have it; Trump is just too much of a drama queen, not incompetent or treasonous or mentally disordered.  If Trump would just tone it down a bit, the GOP could get on with looting and pillaging the working and middle classes to benefit their corporate constituents.  

     The GOP has been on a downward spiral of corporate stoogery since the election of Ronald Reagan.  And it has exploited racism (and misogyny and homohysteria and xenophobia and every other form of hatefulness) since Nixon’s southern strategy worked so well.  McConnell exhibited the racism of the GOP when he declared, following the election of Barack Obama, that the entire agenda of the Republican Party was to oppose Obama on all things.  And the GOP leadership’s commitment to corporate stoogery is exhibited by their willingness to tolerate anything Trump does, so long as he remains willing to further their corporatist agenda.

     The GOP isn’t going to do anything about Trump until he does something truly catastrophic, and perhaps not even then.  Eviscerating the EPA doesn’t seem to trouble GOP leadership.  Picking fights with dictators, or cuddling up to them, doesn’t either.  Selling out our allies to Putin is a small matter compared to the money to be made by cooperating with the Russian oil industry.  One is hard-pressed to imagine just what might make GOP leadership do something about the jackass they put in the White House.

     One often hears—from progressives and libertarians and people who are just fed up—that there is really no difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.  There is certainly some truth to this.  Both are captives of the corporate sector.  Both operate on the principle that they know better than you how you should live your life.  Both are corrupt and dishonest.  

     But there are at least two very important differences.  First, the Democratic Party actually has a conception of the public good, inadequate as it may be; the GOP is committed to nothing but serving the wealthy.  Second, the GOP is fueled by hate; it has welcomed in the racists, the woman-haters, the homohysterics, the anti-science crowd—anyone motivated by hatred for someone or something.  The Democrats may be annoyingly prissy and politically correct.  But they are not determined to put anyone back on the plantation, or back in the kitchen, or back in the closet.  These differences are important.

     Meanwhile, as I get ready to post this, the cycle is starting again.  It seems that Comey kept detailed notes on his dealings with Trump.  The resistance is getting excited again….  While we wait for the cycle to repeat itself, perhaps Jackie Gleason has the final word on the matter.