The article draws parallels between the modern Republican party and the Communist Party in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Including the gerontocracy, ideological sclerosis, corruption, and...
The article draws parallels between the modern Republican party and the Communist Party in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Including the gerontocracy, ideological sclerosis, corruption, and ideology that's reduced to buzzword mad libs.
Nichols needs to walk this point a little further down the road. The destruction of this "mafia dressed in Marxism" led to, well, just plain old mafia taking its place. Principled conservatism is...
Another lesson from all this history is that the Republicans have no path to reform. Like their Soviet counterparts, their party is too far gone. Gorbachev tried to reform the Soviet Communist Party, and he remains reviled among the Soviet faithful to this day. Similar efforts by the remaining handful of reasonable Republicans are unlikely to fare any better. The Republican Party, to take a phrase from the early Soviet leader Leon Trotsky, should now be deposited where it belongs: in the “dustbin of history.”
The elite leaders of this supposedly classless society were corrupt plutocrats, a mafia dressed in Marxism. The party was infested by careerists, and its grip on power was defended by propagandists who used rote phrases such as “real socialism” and “Western imperialism” so often that almost anyone could write an editorial in Pravda or Red Star merely by playing a kind of Soviet version of Mad Libs.
Nichols needs to walk this point a little further down the road. The destruction of this "mafia dressed in Marxism" led to, well, just plain old mafia taking its place. Principled conservatism is window dressing for the modern Republican party sure -- but does removing it get us anywhere?
Well unlike the USSR the US still has a democratic system, so it stands to reason that alternatives can step in to take their place as long as the voter suppression doesn't lock Dems out of power...
Well unlike the USSR the US still has a democratic system, so it stands to reason that alternatives can step in to take their place as long as the voter suppression doesn't lock Dems out of power indefinitely. Now there are parts of the country that are single-party rule (Dem in big cities, Repub in rural counties) and they also tend to be run by corrupt insider self-dealing. Party competition is pretty important for ensuring accountability it turns out.
The problem is that I don't see the root cause as the Republican Party specifically so much as the grifter-industrial complex that is conservative media. It's completely brain-poisoned a giant swathe of the electorate. It's not that the Republican officials don't know any better, it's that they lack the spine and the institutional power to rein the media in. They used to be the "party of the rich" as in Chamber of Commerce, business owners, and managerial types. But now they're more specifically a party that's guided by a small cabal of ideologically motivated billionaires.
I'd go a step further and say at this point. It isn't that they are spineless and lack the institutional power required to rein in the media, they actively encourage it because they are...
I'd go a step further and say at this point. It isn't that they are spineless and lack the institutional power required to rein in the media, they actively encourage it because they are benefitting from it. Right wing propaganda has solidified their base even as they pass legislation that harms their constituency. It's a classic dynamic: create a dragon on the hill to terrify the masses as you rob them blind. To me, saying they are spineless ignores the active stoking of fear and misinformation these politicians engage in.
Interesting read. I've been thinking about the parallels of the U.S. and the latter stages of the Soviet Union lately. A friend who spent his childhood in the USSR wryly quipped that with all the...
Interesting read. I've been thinking about the parallels of the U.S. and the latter stages of the Soviet Union lately. A friend who spent his childhood in the USSR wryly quipped that with all the shortages, power outages, etc. It's reminding him of those times, too.
The article draws parallels between the modern Republican party and the Communist Party in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Including the gerontocracy, ideological sclerosis, corruption, and ideology that's reduced to buzzword mad libs.
Nichols needs to walk this point a little further down the road. The destruction of this "mafia dressed in Marxism" led to, well, just plain old mafia taking its place. Principled conservatism is window dressing for the modern Republican party sure -- but does removing it get us anywhere?
Well unlike the USSR the US still has a democratic system, so it stands to reason that alternatives can step in to take their place as long as the voter suppression doesn't lock Dems out of power indefinitely. Now there are parts of the country that are single-party rule (Dem in big cities, Repub in rural counties) and they also tend to be run by corrupt insider self-dealing. Party competition is pretty important for ensuring accountability it turns out.
The problem is that I don't see the root cause as the Republican Party specifically so much as the grifter-industrial complex that is conservative media. It's completely brain-poisoned a giant swathe of the electorate. It's not that the Republican officials don't know any better, it's that they lack the spine and the institutional power to rein the media in. They used to be the "party of the rich" as in Chamber of Commerce, business owners, and managerial types. But now they're more specifically a party that's guided by a small cabal of ideologically motivated billionaires.
I'd go a step further and say at this point. It isn't that they are spineless and lack the institutional power required to rein in the media, they actively encourage it because they are benefitting from it. Right wing propaganda has solidified their base even as they pass legislation that harms their constituency. It's a classic dynamic: create a dragon on the hill to terrify the masses as you rob them blind. To me, saying they are spineless ignores the active stoking of fear and misinformation these politicians engage in.
Interesting read. I've been thinking about the parallels of the U.S. and the latter stages of the Soviet Union lately. A friend who spent his childhood in the USSR wryly quipped that with all the shortages, power outages, etc. It's reminding him of those times, too.