Why do Republicans oppose Democracy?
First off, I have three major examples of what I am talking about here:
- The California Republicans who have decided to form a so-called-“Taxpayers Caucus” in order to take away California citizen’s rights to vote on tax cuts. (Orwellian doublethink on par with the “Patriot Act”)
- Wisconsin Republican State Senate majority leader making the decision to remove Democratic State Senators voting rights illegally because he is holding them “in contempt” for avoiding the vote on their Union busting bill.
- Michigan Governor getting the House and Senate to pass bills to give him “emergency management” powers so that he can dissolve town governments and school boards, fire elected officials, nullify local laws, and declare collective bargaining contracts null and void.
It would probably take much too long to detail the Republican war on women which seeks to remove any kind of rights that they have to make family planning decisions and to redefine the definition of rape so that it only includes violent rape with evidence of physical assault, because otherwise you were obviously asking for it ladies (and women would have to earn that rape ruling from a judge if they wanted to get an abortion).
So while our unemployment rate has blown up and the income gap has grown astronomically, the Republicans have decided to blow their political capital on destroying unions and removing rights from any group that might possibly oppose them.
I distinctly remember the November elections last year where the only thing any candidate was talking about was the economy. How many solutions have the Republicans really come forward with since then?
What has actually happened are measures which are decisively harmful to our economy. Republican governors have railed against… well, rail projects; huge programs which would help us simultaneously rebuild our deteriorating infrastructure and provide many people in the construction industry with useful jobs. They have decided that their state budgets should be balanced on the backs of teachers and other civil servants. They decided that it was more important to give rich people extra money than it is to provide granny with the funds to scrape by without having to resort to cat food for sustenance. (who likes death panels now?) They decided that it was important to give tax breaks to companies which outsource jobs.
In short, Republicans have chosen corporations over people. Profits are more important than worker’s rights. Neo-liberal policies which provide corporate welfare over the welfare of the American people are the most important thing of all, because the mantra is: if we displease our corporate masters they will take away our jobs and it is only through their grace and kindness that we have any employment at all.
Symptomatic of the problem of corporate influence turning Republicans into stooges for the elite is the fact that we are represented by people who have no idea what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck. That is why they have no problem talking about cutting spending on social programs which they would never have to use. Every single member of Congress represents the top 10% of earners in this country. Not to say that they’re all bad people, but to demonstrate that we lack representation. As Michael Moore has stated, 400 people have the same wealth as half of the people in this nation combined. With the Citizen’s United ruling, those people have even more opportunities to leverage their wealth against the rest of us in order to influence laws which could possibly have a negative effect on their profits.
The system is gamed and the only thing which could possibly oppose that order is people powered organizations such as unions and votes from a population sick of being passed over in favor of the rich.
So now that you know the Republican game plan, what can you do about it?
- Support Unions! Donate time and money.
- Encourage people to vote!
- Sign recall petitions for government officials who oppose democracy or spread the news about it.
The only way that a democracy like ours can survive such a concerted assault from within is massive participation and opposition. As much power as corporations have today, we can overcome them with strength of will and numbers like they have never before seen.
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