Artwork by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”
–Plato
“Despotic power is always accompanied by the corruption of morality.”
–Lord Acton
American politics has been devolving over the last decade or so. Discourse has become so gridlocked, it’s become nearly impossible for our two major political parties to speak, let alone negotiate. Compromise seems impossible. Rhetoric has become vitriolic and sometimes vicious. Threats of physical harm against election officials, school board members, judicial officials, and government representatives are becoming more and more common.
MAGA Republicans, a small and increasingly militant segment of the party, have demonstrated time and again they are willing to resort to violence to further the ambitions of their leader, ex-president Donald Trump. They even attacked their own Capitol Building on January 6th—at the behest of their fearless leader—in the name of patriotism. They believed the lies—spread by Fox News and others—that the election was stolen. They will attack anyone who disagrees with them either through social media or in person.
And then, after the last election, in which Republicans retook control of the House, far-right extremists Matt Gaetz and Marjory Taylor Green put the brakes on the election of a Speaker of the House, refusing to support Kevin McCarthy until he gave in to some of their outlandish demands. As a result, McCarthy has been forced to acknowledge and to implement some of the far-right’s extreme agenda.
Donald Trump is one of the poster children for this brand of extremist politics, but he is not the cause. He is merely a symptom. There seems to be a pervasive belief in segments of the Republican Party that they possess the sole, true, and just vision of what America should be—and that is a place of intolerance, social elitism, and abridged personal freedoms.
The January 6th assault on the Capitol, the stacking of the Supreme Court resulting in the overturning of Roe -v- Wade, the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation in Florida and elsewhere, and, most recently, the anti-gun demonstration at the Tennessee State Capitol that resulted in the expulsion of two Democratic representatives by the Republican supermajority is only the tip of the iceberg. These occurrences and policies are not only indicative of how this party wants to govern—or control—the citizens of this country, but how they perceive themselves—and that is as royalty.
Marie Antoinette, the queen of pre-revolution France, is notoriously (and perhaps mistakenly) credited with saying, “Let them eat cake” when informed that many of her subjects could not afford bread during the great famine of 1789. But she really didn’t have to say it—she embodied it, living a life of great extravagance while her people starved. She even had a replication of a peasant village, with a real working farm, as a place for her to go and unwind after the stresses of living the high life. The queen was aware that her people were starving. She just didn’t care. She knew that they had no personal freedoms. She just didn’t care.
Today’s Republican party also knows a few things. They know that a majority of American citizens, including denizens of their own party, want legalized abortion—but they don’t care. They know a majority of their citizens want gun reforms, including simple background checks and red flag laws. They just don’t care. They know that a majority of Americans oppose anti-trans legislation and laws that discriminate against sexual orientation. (PBS). Guess what? They don’t care.
The demonstration at the Tennessee House of Representatives calling for stricter gun control measures after yet another mass shooting at a Nashville school resulted in the expulsion of Democratic Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. Angered by their impertinence for entering the chamber with a bullhorn, the Republican House expelled the two African American legislators while not disciplining a third, Gloria Johnson—who happens to be white.
Shocked at the harshness and impunity of these dismissals, which denied tens of thousands of voters of their duly elected voice in government, the hammer of public opinion came down hard on the Republicans. Both men have since been reinstated by their districts. Both have returned. The arrogance and contempt with which this Republican body acted have been roundly condemned.
Yet the trail of Republican egotism and hubris continues. On April 4th, Wisconsin elected Janet Protaseiwicz as its newest State Supreme Court Justice. Almost immediately, and months before she is scheduled to take office, the Wisconsin State Senate has floated the idea of impeaching her, but according to a Wisconsin Legislative Council memo, members can only be impeached for criminal activity or corrupt conduct in office. The fact she has not yet had a chance to take office seems to mean little to these Republicans. They are more concerned with torpedoing a Supreme Court that now has a liberal-leaning majority who may overturn Wisconsin’s draconian 1849 abortion law or throw out the heavily gerrymandered election maps drawn up by State Republicans.
Across the board, the Republican Party, MAGAs and mainstream members alike, are bent on instituting an elitist society in which they are the nobility.
They are attempting, against the will of their own constituents, to take away the personal rights of women, minorities, and voters.
They are marginalizing and denigrating members of minority communities.
They are passing laws against those who want to exercise their rights to express their desired sexual identity.
They have encouraged and abetted white supremacist groups while simultaneously seeking to abolish any school curricula describing white elitism or institutional racism.
They have prohibited the teaching of the history slavery in the U.S., genocide of our indigenous peoples, and other crimes committed in their version of the American dream.
They have summarily and tyrannical exercised the power to silence or expel those who oppose them.
They have cast doubt upon the integrity and viability of our electoral process, the very heart and soul of our democracy.
They have prohibited the teaching—the very mention of—white elitism and institutional racism in our schools.
They have attempted to ban dozens of books deemed to be pornographic or harmful.
We lay all these deeds at the feet of all duly elected Republicans—all of them, because if they say or do nothing to prevent these wrongs, they are complicit and just as guilty as the most vitriolic and strident.
The truth is Republicans don’t represent us anymore. They don’t listen to their constituents, they don’t like their constituents, and they don’t care about their constituents—except during election season, when they wheedle, cajole, and frighten them into keeping themselves in power—even as they exercise that power against their own voters.
Today’s Republicans are all about power: gaining it, consolidating it, and keeping it. They’ve been working toward that goal for years. It started in Wisconsin in 2011 when newly elected governor Scott Walker instituted Act 10, which eviscerated public education in Wisconsin. That Republican government also drew the heavily gerrymandered maps which ensured their control of the Wisconsin House since then. No, this sort of thing has been on the Republican radar for years.
It only became obvious when Donald Trump, in his oafish political style, became the leader of the Republican Party, and, in the treasonous January 6th attack on the Capitol Building, made it patently obviously what he was after. He wanted to be king.
If he had succeeded in usurping the 2020 election and destroying our democracy, I can only imagine him telling his court, “Let them eat Twinkies.”