Thom, there are a number of commenters who are onto the New Confederacy. I wrote on this at tafm.and our old sds comrade Carl Davidson has a discussion group on it. Thorne Dreyer has had several people on Rag Radio discussing this. I have long seen the GOP as the new Confederacy. You have definitely pointed out all the disturbing parallels.
With all the focus on the "new confederacy" please don't lose site of the fact that the 3 or 4 most powerful republicans today (starting w trump, McCarthy and stafanik) all come from solidly blue states, while the next ones under them (Jordan etc) come from what until recently were viewed as swing states.
I hold Bill Clinton, the DNC, and their creation, The DLC-Third Way-New Democrats responsible. Apparently those in the upper tier have no principles or agenda other than self aggrandization and power.
Clinton was a tool of the oligarchs, especially international financial institutions, whom he praised in just about every speech.
His servility to the oligarchs led to him creating the rust belt, the swing states, when he signed NAFTA and the revised GAAT. He, Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, the DNC, DLC, Third way created this mess, and perpetuate it, by appointing right wingers like Merrick Garland, not filling vacancies with Democrats in the Board of the USPS (when he did appoint two members of the board, he made sure that one of them was a Republican, thus maintaining the balance and ensuring the DeJoy would remain as PM General.
In the same waning days of a Democratic congress, the same congress that passed the Respect for Marriage Act, that legalized gay marriage nationally, the democrats could have passed a Respect for Women's rights act, to protect abortions, but failed to, probably because there are a lot of Democrats who weren't on board with the idea.
Someone like Durenberger (who championed an economic bill of rights similar to FDR's) was still a senate committee chair in 1980s. And before that, in 1978, the equal rights amendment was passed in congress on a bipartisan basis. A few years before that, republicans in the senate overrided Nixon's veto to pass the clean water act.
Just by looking at these references we can see how far the center has moved and we can see that modern Democratic Party is to the right of that center. We are left asking why don't we know more about progressive caucus? Why don't we hear from Jayapal more often, why do the Democrats keep the progressive caucus so quiet?
Nancy Pelosi is hostile to the progressives, as is Rahm Emanuel and other power Democrats, They are beholden to the money powers, First things first, they have to protect their own millions.
You nailed it WF... The GOP got rid of the moderate wing in their party because they were corrupt. The Progressives need to do the same with the Pelosi Emanuel wing of the Dem party if we want any progress
Right but that would all be ok if she adavanced the jones-markey bill to reform the Supreme Court. Instead she just said "no" and provided no basis for her simple position in this.
Confusing things, she gave jones a plum committee assignment. Perhaps it was to try to corrupt and soften him.
Of course, they had a chance to pass their voting rights bill. They had a chance to pass a labor bill, and also deal with the debt ceiling. If they had done any one of these things... They had a chance to many things on policy that for one reason or another did not get done.
One thing we know is that there's been a consolidation of power within the houses of Congress and that someone like Pelosi stripped the committee chairs of a lot of their power and refused to let people like Nadler run any kind of high profile oversight or investigations.
I analogize the Democratic Party to the Weimar Republic and the Republican party to a nascent NSDAP, except the NSDAP in the Weimar Republic did not have the percentage of cult members as does the Republican party.
We are in deep shit, with a Democratic party burying its head in the sand, and playing polyanna.
Point made. My brief against Pelosi is that she went out of the way to support so called "centrists" against progressives. In fact the supported the immoral legacy, Joseph Kennedy Jr, a congress critter, when he ran against the progressive Sen Markey D MA.
She also supported another DINO against an out gay running for congress. She hates the progressive caucus, especially AOC and the squad.
The plurality single-choice ballot in a non-parliamentary system, such as we have, creates and maintains the spoiler effect. The spoiler effect creates and maintains the two-party duopoly. The ranked choice ballot destroys the spoiler effect and the two-party duopoly. Is it constitutional possible to mandate the ranked-choice ballot with federal legislation? The state-by-state process is too damned slow! We need the ranked-choice ballot--desperately and now.
This was a great read today! Before reading this I never really questioned the phraseology of using the term "radical republicans" to describe that group in the 1860s. The excerpt from 1868 and consolidation of democratic party in the south shed more light in this andcreally make you wonder about that name. After all, were they really that radical? And what was so radical about them, especially compared to today's republicans as described here.
Another aspect of things that this points to is the democratic donor/ political strategy that involves focusing mainly on federal govt and very little political little work / resources at state level.
David Daly's book showed how problematic this has been - with a relatively limited political donation several companies funded a strategy that wiped out a lot of dems on state level. Unfortunately nobody seems to notice this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratf**ked
The big donors to Democratic Party typically care little about state politics. This seems to be (esp. under citizens United) one of the keys to creating or potential mitigating this mess - democrats need a 50 state strategy. Democrats need to win in Texas.
This needs to be emphasized. Let's not fall into the error of thinking that Texas is unwinable for democrats. Trump won it with less than 6 million votes but close to 30 million live there.
The northern states had better be prepared to guard their borders. The GOP will create third world nation standard of livings. Their poor who are mentally ill because of poverty from too much financial stress will flee and come to the blue States for a better life. Whether the blue states can absorb them and become more prosperous or be drug down to a third world standard of living remains to be seen. When a few have almost all the wealth and resources, it doesn't look very good.
Overblown focus on geography here. Rabid trumphumpers are quite prevalent in upstate ny and pa, and the 3 most powerful republicans in the country all come from solid blue states!
Cut through the media narratives about the midterms to see clearly that the midterms were lost primarily in ny state - where democratic redistricting failed at the state level!
Well-received and accepted and understood, and it's good that you're sharing that experience. That's Mississippi of course.
All I'm adding here is that Mississippi is not Georgia, a bedrock of the old confederacy which voted for biden and 2 democratic senators - as well as the other things I've noted.
And if folks move north expecting a completely different experience, they have to understand that even 40 miles north of New York City, friends of mine teaching public schools are attacked by rabid trumphumpers in the same way that happens in red states.
The biggest differentiator in the urban versus rural geography resident not blue state versus red state.
I just listened to your podcast with May Williamson from a year ago. You shared that the Tea Party movement (ground up, local) is what gave the republicans their power- same as the confederacy. If progressive dems want to emerge as a force, we need to do the same. Nothing has changed.
"The Tea Party movement has been described as both a popular constitutional movement[6] and as an "Astro Turf operation" purporting to be spontaneous and grassroots, but created by hidden elite interests."
(From the first paragraph of Wikipedia's tea party page)
Glad you have opted to breathe, Thom. Thanks for the history as always.
The Republicans have thrown out equal protection under the law, along with throwing out protecting anyone from anything. That's what your gun is for. That's what your insurance you cannot afford is for. That's what that ENORMOUS defense budget is for. It's all so they can sleep at night knowing the general welfare of this country and you are not THEIR responsibility. They have other things to do like making sure you can't easily vote, fighting renewables, and promoting every racist, fascist policy they can dream up.
Has anyone written the Red State Blues? It's coming, and we already feel for our brothers and sisters in them that are trying to fight them where they have to live!
Excellent article, as usual. All of it I need to share with the public, yet people around me seem to be zombies sometimes. I will remember that De Santis showed up with people with Swastikas. This article like most is very well written. Once you said these conservatives hate to be called fascists, and you showed how ubiquitous these supporters of Hitler have been in our own US history. Ever since then I try to use the opportunity to use the word fascist if I can in front of them. Thanks for telling us. Sincerely Harriet Elliott
There was somewhat of an uproar on the left media about the state and local taxes deduction.
Those misguided commenters failed to see that by limiting the salt deduction, the neconfederates were attempting to spread their poison into the blue states like ny that have higher taxes and good education systems.
On "majority report" for example they claimed this deduction is only for the rich and that people didn't use the salt deduction if they weren't vastly wealthy.
They didn't seem to pay any attention when Mondaire Jones - one of the most progressive members of Congress - stated that restoring the full deduction was one of his highest priorities, the reason being that MORE THAN HALF of his constituents were affected by trump's tax law that limited the deduction.
Thom, there are a number of commenters who are onto the New Confederacy. I wrote on this at tafm.and our old sds comrade Carl Davidson has a discussion group on it. Thorne Dreyer has had several people on Rag Radio discussing this. I have long seen the GOP as the new Confederacy. You have definitely pointed out all the disturbing parallels.
With all the focus on the "new confederacy" please don't lose site of the fact that the 3 or 4 most powerful republicans today (starting w trump, McCarthy and stafanik) all come from solidly blue states, while the next ones under them (Jordan etc) come from what until recently were viewed as swing states.
I hold Bill Clinton, the DNC, and their creation, The DLC-Third Way-New Democrats responsible. Apparently those in the upper tier have no principles or agenda other than self aggrandization and power.
Clinton was a tool of the oligarchs, especially international financial institutions, whom he praised in just about every speech.
His servility to the oligarchs led to him creating the rust belt, the swing states, when he signed NAFTA and the revised GAAT. He, Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, the DNC, DLC, Third way created this mess, and perpetuate it, by appointing right wingers like Merrick Garland, not filling vacancies with Democrats in the Board of the USPS (when he did appoint two members of the board, he made sure that one of them was a Republican, thus maintaining the balance and ensuring the DeJoy would remain as PM General.
In the same waning days of a Democratic congress, the same congress that passed the Respect for Marriage Act, that legalized gay marriage nationally, the democrats could have passed a Respect for Women's rights act, to protect abortions, but failed to, probably because there are a lot of Democrats who weren't on board with the idea.
Even so called progressives (centrists) are clients of powerful lobbying groups, like Hakeem Jefferies who sold his soul to AIPAC, but the environment or reforming Wall Street or raising taxes on Wall Street and the 3% not so much https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/new-house-democrat-leaders-ties-us-pro-israel-groups
A centrist Democrat is an old line Republican. We need to reform the Democratic Party,
and we need laws that prohibit nepotism, be it Ivanka and Donald, or Hunter, Ginni Thomas or Gorsuch's wife, even wing waiters like Chelsea
Spot on, as they say here.
Check out (former Republican senator) Dave Durenberger's book:
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/09/11/senator-dave-durenberger-when-republicans-were-progressive
Someone like Durenberger (who championed an economic bill of rights similar to FDR's) was still a senate committee chair in 1980s. And before that, in 1978, the equal rights amendment was passed in congress on a bipartisan basis. A few years before that, republicans in the senate overrided Nixon's veto to pass the clean water act.
Just by looking at these references we can see how far the center has moved and we can see that modern Democratic Party is to the right of that center. We are left asking why don't we know more about progressive caucus? Why don't we hear from Jayapal more often, why do the Democrats keep the progressive caucus so quiet?
Nancy Pelosi is hostile to the progressives, as is Rahm Emanuel and other power Democrats, They are beholden to the money powers, First things first, they have to protect their own millions.
https://www.newsweek.com/how-nancy-pelosi-net-worth-vastly-increased-while-house-speaker-1762361 Her husband is a venture capitalist and a real estate developer, so there is some conflicts of interest there
You nailed it WF... The GOP got rid of the moderate wing in their party because they were corrupt. The Progressives need to do the same with the Pelosi Emanuel wing of the Dem party if we want any progress
Right but that would all be ok if she adavanced the jones-markey bill to reform the Supreme Court. Instead she just said "no" and provided no basis for her simple position in this.
Confusing things, she gave jones a plum committee assignment. Perhaps it was to try to corrupt and soften him.
Of course, they had a chance to pass their voting rights bill. They had a chance to pass a labor bill, and also deal with the debt ceiling. If they had done any one of these things... They had a chance to many things on policy that for one reason or another did not get done.
One thing we know is that there's been a consolidation of power within the houses of Congress and that someone like Pelosi stripped the committee chairs of a lot of their power and refused to let people like Nadler run any kind of high profile oversight or investigations.
On the other hand there is this. The NAZIs are already running (ruining) this country,.
https://heated.world/p/republicans-are-using-wildfire-smoke?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
and this
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGsnBgZcbVQtmQxTwSkNxSSNdfk
I analogize the Democratic Party to the Weimar Republic and the Republican party to a nascent NSDAP, except the NSDAP in the Weimar Republic did not have the percentage of cult members as does the Republican party.
We are in deep shit, with a Democratic party burying its head in the sand, and playing polyanna.
Point made. My brief against Pelosi is that she went out of the way to support so called "centrists" against progressives. In fact the supported the immoral legacy, Joseph Kennedy Jr, a congress critter, when he ran against the progressive Sen Markey D MA.
She also supported another DINO against an out gay running for congress. She hates the progressive caucus, especially AOC and the squad.
The plurality single-choice ballot in a non-parliamentary system, such as we have, creates and maintains the spoiler effect. The spoiler effect creates and maintains the two-party duopoly. The ranked choice ballot destroys the spoiler effect and the two-party duopoly. Is it constitutional possible to mandate the ranked-choice ballot with federal legislation? The state-by-state process is too damned slow! We need the ranked-choice ballot--desperately and now.
Federal elections clause gives congress power that it could potentially use to make rules requiring ranked choice in federal elections.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-4/clause-1/congress-and-the-elections-clause
I wonder if we will get to the point where we start seeing population transfers as liberal-minded people move to blue states and vice versa.
This was a great read today! Before reading this I never really questioned the phraseology of using the term "radical republicans" to describe that group in the 1860s. The excerpt from 1868 and consolidation of democratic party in the south shed more light in this andcreally make you wonder about that name. After all, were they really that radical? And what was so radical about them, especially compared to today's republicans as described here.
Another aspect of things that this points to is the democratic donor/ political strategy that involves focusing mainly on federal govt and very little political little work / resources at state level.
David Daly's book showed how problematic this has been - with a relatively limited political donation several companies funded a strategy that wiped out a lot of dems on state level. Unfortunately nobody seems to notice this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratf**ked
The big donors to Democratic Party typically care little about state politics. This seems to be (esp. under citizens United) one of the keys to creating or potential mitigating this mess - democrats need a 50 state strategy. Democrats need to win in Texas.
This needs to be emphasized. Let's not fall into the error of thinking that Texas is unwinable for democrats. Trump won it with less than 6 million votes but close to 30 million live there.
The northern states had better be prepared to guard their borders. The GOP will create third world nation standard of livings. Their poor who are mentally ill because of poverty from too much financial stress will flee and come to the blue States for a better life. Whether the blue states can absorb them and become more prosperous or be drug down to a third world standard of living remains to be seen. When a few have almost all the wealth and resources, it doesn't look very good.
Overblown focus on geography here. Rabid trumphumpers are quite prevalent in upstate ny and pa, and the 3 most powerful republicans in the country all come from solid blue states!
Cut through the media narratives about the midterms to see clearly that the midterms were lost primarily in ny state - where democratic redistricting failed at the state level!
Well-received and accepted and understood, and it's good that you're sharing that experience. That's Mississippi of course.
All I'm adding here is that Mississippi is not Georgia, a bedrock of the old confederacy which voted for biden and 2 democratic senators - as well as the other things I've noted.
And if folks move north expecting a completely different experience, they have to understand that even 40 miles north of New York City, friends of mine teaching public schools are attacked by rabid trumphumpers in the same way that happens in red states.
The biggest differentiator in the urban versus rural geography resident not blue state versus red state.
I just listened to your podcast with May Williamson from a year ago. You shared that the Tea Party movement (ground up, local) is what gave the republicans their power- same as the confederacy. If progressive dems want to emerge as a force, we need to do the same. Nothing has changed.
Except that....
"The Tea Party movement has been described as both a popular constitutional movement[6] and as an "Astro Turf operation" purporting to be spontaneous and grassroots, but created by hidden elite interests."
(From the first paragraph of Wikipedia's tea party page)
Glad you have opted to breathe, Thom. Thanks for the history as always.
The Republicans have thrown out equal protection under the law, along with throwing out protecting anyone from anything. That's what your gun is for. That's what your insurance you cannot afford is for. That's what that ENORMOUS defense budget is for. It's all so they can sleep at night knowing the general welfare of this country and you are not THEIR responsibility. They have other things to do like making sure you can't easily vote, fighting renewables, and promoting every racist, fascist policy they can dream up.
Has anyone written the Red State Blues? It's coming, and we already feel for our brothers and sisters in them that are trying to fight them where they have to live!
Excellent article, as usual. All of it I need to share with the public, yet people around me seem to be zombies sometimes. I will remember that De Santis showed up with people with Swastikas. This article like most is very well written. Once you said these conservatives hate to be called fascists, and you showed how ubiquitous these supporters of Hitler have been in our own US history. Ever since then I try to use the opportunity to use the word fascist if I can in front of them. Thanks for telling us. Sincerely Harriet Elliott
At red-state fairs, alongside cotton candy, it wouldn't surprise me to see new carnival games such as:
- Bullwhip the leftist college student
- Whip the pinko unionizer
- Whip a commie
- Whip a poor person (any race)
- Whip an illegal immigrant
- Whip a minority (your choice)
- Whip a mystery gender
- Whip a non-Christian
There is a lot we agree on: https://michaelpodhorzer.substack.com/p/congressional-class-inversion-or
There was somewhat of an uproar on the left media about the state and local taxes deduction.
Those misguided commenters failed to see that by limiting the salt deduction, the neconfederates were attempting to spread their poison into the blue states like ny that have higher taxes and good education systems.
On "majority report" for example they claimed this deduction is only for the rich and that people didn't use the salt deduction if they weren't vastly wealthy.
They didn't seem to pay any attention when Mondaire Jones - one of the most progressive members of Congress - stated that restoring the full deduction was one of his highest priorities, the reason being that MORE THAN HALF of his constituents were affected by trump's tax law that limited the deduction.