You can probably guess who those people are. Above all, anyone not likely to vote Republican. As Sarah Palin would imply, the people who are not Real Americans. Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn’t look, think, or talk like the GOP base.
…the business wing of the Republican Party consists of the most energetic outsourcers, wage cutters and hirers of sub-minimum wage immigrant labor to be found anywhere on the globe. But [they…] played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations’ bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let’s build a wall on the Southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). Instead of predatory bankers, it’s evil Muslims. Or evil gays. Or evil abortionists.
… after an unprecedented broad and rapid transfer of wealth upward by Wall Street and its corporate satellites, where is the popular anger directed, at least as depicted in the media? At “Washington spending” – which has increased primarily to provide unemployment compensation, food stamps and Medicaid to those economically damaged by the previous decade’s corporate saturnalia. Or the popular rage is harmlessly diverted against pseudo-issues: death panels, birtherism, gay marriage, abortion, and so on, none of which stands to dent the corporate bottom line in the slightest.
– Mike Lofgren, a newly retired ex-Republican Congressional staffer who served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees, explaining how the GOP wants to undermine American faith in government and government itself so their business donors thrive. He says he retired now rather than later because GOP policies will soon rid people of their retirement benefits.
Image via DonkeyHotey
Robert in NYC
What is equally disgusting is that there are gay republicans who support this party of hate and discrimination. Their darling, Ron Paul, is no better. He’s still a republican when push comes to shove and now supports DOMA in those states which allow it or want it.
If this party is so against government, why does it want to be part of it? Wouldn’t it make sense for the GOP to disband altogether?
Their lowering taxes on the wealthy mantra is all they have run with in terms of job creation. Let’s also debunk the myth about that. When Clinton left office, he left a net surplus of $280 billion, taxes were a lot higher, 22 million jobs had been created and unemployment was at 3.9% Enter Bush 43, 8 years of his administration and all he had to show was a meager 4.4 million jobs, huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate elite, deregulation, the biggest deficit when he left office, two wars that weren’t included and weren’t paid for, the subprime rate debacle and the meltdown on Wall Street, and they blame it on the democrats who they think are unamerican? What about the corporate oligarchy funders of the GOP sheltering their biggest profits in history in the Cayman Island, Bermuda and elsewhere to avoid paying any taxes in the U.S., depriving the country of jobs and investing overseas in China, India, you name it. If anything, they’re traitors and so is the GOP for protecting them. It’s all about greed and the money and to hell with the rest of the country. There is something intrinsically evil when less than 1% of the population control government and how things are done or not done and are prepared to see the economy of this country go down the drain all because they don’t want an African American in the White House, let alone succeed where they have failed.
Libertarian Larry
Wowee wow wow. Seems the liberal propaganda machine at Queerty has kicked in to overdrive. Republicans are manipulating DMV hours so that Dems can’t get an ID card so they won’t be able to vote? Seriously? That’s the best you can do to demonstrate how eeeeevil the Repubs are? Better luck next time—this guy’s rant is just funny.
Pocket Otter
@Robert in NYC: While you’re at it, you might want to ask Obama’s jobs czar Jeffrey Immelt why his company, GE, is hiding $3 trillion (with a T) offshore to avoid U.S. taxes. Oh wait, that’s right: That would compromise your ideology of Obama being a selfless man of the people. Wouldn’t want to burst your bubble.
GreatGatsby2011
Gotta love how they only took the parts of the article that blame the republicans for this mess we’re in. Don’t get me wrong, the writer of the article REALLY lays into the GOP for their part in the systematic perversion of our government but the democrats don’t come out of this article smelling like wine and roses either. It’s a fascinating (if long) read if anyone cares to give it a go. The gist of the article is that the two party system has failed because the republicans are bat-shit crazy and the democrats are too scared of losing constituents to stand up to them. Very interesting article and way more in depth than this little blurb.
Little Kiwi
Thank GOD I’m Canadian….
the crustybastard
@Libertarian Larry:
It’s okay, Libertarian Larry. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you’re an ideologue. Nobody expects you to be persuaded by mere evidence.
Daniel Villarreal
@GreatGatsby2011: No, we only took the parts of the article that mention the demonization of gays, which falls heavily on the Republican side. For the most part Lofgren accuses the Democrats of cowardice rather than the out and out corruption and cynicism which typify the modern GOP.
Jim Hlavac
Unfortunately we live in a two party country. And so we rollick back and forth between the two. Right now, the Christian Fundamentalists have taken hold of the Republican party machinery. Barry Goldwater, Mr. Republican himself, warned against this years ago. On the Democratic side, the party machinery has been seized by socialists (yes, some 80 Democratic members of Congress are also in the Socialist party already.) Meanwhile, party registration for both parties has been declining, and the “independent” rational middle is the the vast growing sector of the electorate who just wants to vote for the “Lesser of two evils.”
Whether the rational middle will re-seize the two parties’ machinery remains to be seen, but heaven help us all if the socialists or the theocrats get to do what they wish; for the repression required for either a Marxist state or a Marian state are not much different, and just as dangerous; they both use old books from a continent far away; now the argue over which gets the power.
Meanwhile, there is more and more call for a third or even fourth party. And then the rational middle would be a majority and never let a Democrat or Republican in office again. The problem is that the two parties have so rigged the voting and election laws that a third party would have an inordinate difficulty to even get on the ballot.
However, the only other party with 50-state ballot access is the Libertarians — and that party is filled with some crackpots, true; but it does offer the vehicle on which the rational middle can ride back to some rational government, on which we might agree/disagree on this or that tax, but aren’t trying to make a “new man” for Marx or God.
Robert in NYC
Nos 2 & 3, too bad! I never said the democrats are squeaky clean, far from it, but they’re not supporting DOMA, hate legislation. Your party still has not authored or sponsored one piece of lgbt equality legislation and never will. It overwhelmingly endorses DOMA as does Ron Paul and only 8 republicans voted for repeal of DADT. You can’t even acknowledge that or take some resposibility for it by voting for them. How does it feel voting against your own interests? Oh I forgot, it’s not important, just go on voting for a party that persistently votes against you and the majority of us. Sick isn’t the word.
GreatGatsby2011
@Daniel Villarreal: I’m just making sure people are aware that this guy isn’t some “bleeding heart liberal” bashing the republicans. The article points out the faults in both parties and is actually a very well written piece. I wanted to inform the people who won’t bother reading the whole article that there is much more to it than what is posted here so they don’t draw inaccurate conclusions as to the motivations or Mr. Lofgren. I was actually very happy to see this posted here today, as I had read the article yesterday and enjoyed it very much.
Sorry if it sounded like I wanted to place blame.
styvan
im a liberal republican and i dont like what most of either parties are doing. that said, i do support having the ID or some kind of form to show your a US citizen when your voting. Almost every other country does it. And on top of that, its the right of a citizen not an illegal immigrant to vote. Im sure, in some way shape or form, a college student can go to a DMV and get a state issued ID and not a drivers license, (heck when i was still straight and not sure I was gay, I had a gf who was poor beyond her means, but she wanted to get a state ID, which she took the local transit system, and even tho it took her roughly 1.5 hrs, she got her license).
the crustybastard
As a preliminary matter, the Constitution doesn’t require or even anticipate political parties. The United States was conceived and operated for its first few years as a nonpartisan nation.
Many of the country’s founders disapproved of political parties for the same reason most disapproved of corporations. Political parties are themselves corporations. Like any other corporation, their product is meant for public consumption, but the reason for their existence is profiting themselves and their stakeholders.
Profit is not in itself a bad thing. The problem is that the corporate profit-motive eventually and inevitably comes at the expense of all other considerations. Currently, corporate principals are actually legally obligated to maximize profits, other considerations — including the public interest — be damned. That should be shocking.
This is the case because business corporations are the real stakeholders in the two political corporations — not the public.
If you can ignore the red meat — abortion, guns, religion, unions, gays, immigrants, etc. — that the parties wave to distract the public, you will clearly see who the winners and losers are. Regardless of whether the red team or the blue team is in power, the rights and benefits due to the public have been constantly eroded while laws allow corporations to get larger, richer, less regulated, less responsible and more powerful.
One of the duopoly’s greatest successes has been in virtually eliminating their competition by shutting third-party candidates out of the public debates (by placing the debates under the auspices of a “bipartisan” commission) and excluding third parties from sharing the public funds they’ve generously allowed to themselves. Having fully gerrymandered the country, the current trend is to allow voters only a choice of the 2 highest vote-getters in the primary — inevitably 1 Democrat and 1 Republican. That means in an actual election, it has become an almost a functional impossibility to vote for anyone who is not a Democrat or Republican.
In short, the public enemy is not the Democratic Party because you imagine the Republicans have your interests at heart, or the Republican Party because you imagine the Democrats care about you.
The public enemy is the two-party system who have, together, spent the last few decades dismantling everything that was admirable about a once-great nation.
Caliban
Everyone should read the entire linked article because it’s a really good overview of the political quagmire we’re in. While it’s primarily about the Religious Right/Tea Party takeover of the GOP’s platform, Lofgren doesn’t spare the Democrats either for their cluelessness about messaging and their gutlessness in general; I agree with ever word of it. FWIW, Lofgren isn’t an Obama supporter but a Republican who truly hates the way his party has been highjacked by religious/far-right ideologues whose policies already divide the US and will eventually destroy it.
To those whining about the parts excerpted, if you don’t think vote suppression s MAJOR goal of the Republican party you’re either blind or stupid. Which is it? All you have to do is look back to the 2000 election and read up on how the governors in Texas and Florida (both Bushes, coincidentally I’m sure) purged thousands of people from the voting rolls right before the election, mainly of African Americans, in what they said a move to prevent felons from voting. They knew and approved of the fact that the criteria for being purged from the voter rolls were so broad (having the same name as a felon, even an alternate spelling of a felon’s name, living at the address on file for a felon even if you don’t have a criminal record) that thousands would be stripped of their voting rights unfairly. They were warned about the voting consequences of the needlessly vague criteria but it was OK with them because it was removing the “wrong people” from the voter’s list.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Voter_roll_purge_in_the_2000_Florida_election
If you think the ACORN “scandal” and subsequent stripping of funds was really about a fake pimp with a hidden camera and not about ACORN’s voter registration efforts you’re not thinking very hard. (And don’t give me that “They registered Mickey Mouse to vote!” bullshit because it IS bullshit. ACORN was required by law to turn in ALL voter registrations they received even if they KNEW them to be inaccurate or false. The system worked; Mickey Mouse was NOT registered to vote and did NOT vote!) It was about vote suppression.
Just recently a memo was released from a Wisc GOP official to DMV workers, telling them NOT to volunteer information about FREE state IDs available for the purpose of voting, that people had to specifically ASK for them. Further, it instructed the DMV workers that if someone asked about requirements to vote to send them to the state voting office rather than just answering the question! This of course would just put one more level of hassle between an eligible voter and voter registration.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/08/us-wisconsin-voter-id-idUSTRE78713P20110908
Then there’s the recent article in the far-right online magazine American Thinker with the headline “Registering the poor to vote is Un-American,” written Matthew Vadum. Lest you think Vadum is some fringe character no one takes seriously, he was invited to speak on the Fox News Network AFTER the article was published.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/registering_the_poor_to_vote_is_un-american.html
Republican lawmakers have made state picture IDs a requirement for voting even though there is NO evidence of widespread voter fraud and they’ve made it more difficult for out-of-state college students to vote. What do all these things have in common? They ALL primarily effect groups who traditionally vote Democrat, in other words they’re the “wrong people” whom the GOP does not want to be able to vote.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/30/eveningnews/main4490682.shtml
So enough with the BS, m’kay? The truth is well documented.
milhouse
Please read the whole article. It is quite chilling.
Chuck
The very fact that so many libertarian or Republicans read Queerty tells you everything you need to know about America. Tragic.
tjr101
If every American’s right to vote was not infringed in any way, the GOP would lose handily in most federal election races and they know it. The Republican party doesn’t and never will represent the will of the masses. Just the bigot right- wing and greedy corporatists.
huh
this reads like a unibomer conspiracy theory