The GOP / "Trump: has a very deliberate political program that is centered around keeping men; white men like him in power → not to the benefit of all white men in this country but to the benefit of a very small slice of our population; the richest, the wealthiest, the corporate elite.
“That is his program.
“Terrorize people make people fight each other so that they can keep their hands in our pockets and a hold on the power in our democracy..” - Anna Maria Archila
It seems that whenever Civil Rights activists get too close to the truth about the GOP’s donor class agenda, it can be very frustrating when searching for opinions that differ from what makes up the more popular headline material.
The GOP welcomes certain “invasions” when it serves their urge for profits: 1) #TrumpRussia 2016 election hack & attack and 2) when servicing the elite & corporate donor-class that owns them
Co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy Anna Maria Archila, manages to touch on an unpopular topic here, speaking with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi (August 7th, 2019):
(just a bit of transcript beginning @ minute 3:01)
“As a nation, Trump is actually a symptom of a problem that has been at the center of the underbelly for a long time; which is a deep belief in a hierarchy of human life. Where white people, white men are at the center, and the rest of us fall down the slope of that hierarchy..”
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Later that day Anna Maria Archila with Jelani Cobb, an associate professor of history and director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut and staff writer at The New Yorker also sitting in, was even more exacting in her observation and telling of it in this segment (which was not posted/published by MSNBC, but by another outfit so it may be scrubbed).
— beginning @ minute 6:05 of the video segment, Anna Maria Archila observes:
“.. I'll tell your story; I have a colleague her name is Sylvia she's from Chicago. Her family is Mexican America of several generations. Her mother has to get her medication at Walmart and she told Sylvia this morning that she was afraid to go to Walmart.
“That is exactly what the person who shot 22 people in the Walmart in a in El Paso intended. That is exactly the kind of fear that President Trump wants to send to our communities when he says this is an invasion we will round them up; we will send them home; we will separate their families; we will put them in cages.
“It is exactly that message is being received by the people who have the guns and are and are going to shoot regular folks who are doing their daily business inside Walmart and by the communities who are being terrorized.
“President Trump made a point of making anti-immigrant xenophobic rhetoric a centerpiece of his political campaign got him into office and the centerpiece of his political program which is a white nationalist program.
“Not just immigrants not just Latinos, he went on to do the Muslim ban [yes] he has every in every city voting power of communities of color. African American communities in particular.
“He has a very deliberate political program that is centered around keeping men; white men like him in power → not to the benefit of all white men in this country but to the benefit of a very small slice of our population; the richest, the wealthiest, the corporate elite.
“That is his program.
“Terrorize people make people fight each other so that they can keep their hands in our pockets and a hold on the power in our democracy..”
(end of partial transcript)
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In 2013 when attempts on immigration reform was being hammered out with republican politician's doing what they have done for decades, Jamie Dupree posted (the links within are now expired unfortunately) a partial list of the 300 amendments to what was an 867 page bill, covering everything from immigration issues involving same-sex spouses to plans that prevent anyone in the U.S. illegally from becoming a U.S. citizen.
— Jamie Dupree Blog | May 9th, 2013
Here are two from a number of republican amendments that pretty much define the GOP then and now: (ineligible for citizenship; but exploited by corporate industries)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has an amendment that eliminates any path to citizenship for those here in the U.S. illegally, saying "no person who has previously been willfully present in the United States while not in lawful status shall be eligible for United States citizenship." (Cruz #3)
And this: (servicing the elite donor-class)
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has an amendment that excludes certain "domestic service" jobs from the reform bill's prohibition on hiring illegal immigrants; those jobs include, "cooks, waiters, butlers, housekeepers, governessess, maids, valets, baby sitters, janitors, laundresses, furnacemen, care-takers, handymen, gardeners, footmen, grooms, and chauffeurs of automobiles for family use." (Lee #14)
So stopping the “invasion”;.. that “caravan” carrying the biggest “threat to America” according to Trump / GOP Klan, has exemptions — Exemptions that are conveniently tailored for the owners of the GOP — the elite Donor Class (written by Bob Herbert 1998)
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Exposure of these republican politician’s amendments to immigration reform reinforces and confirms a key point that Anna Maria Archila laid out:
“He has a very deliberate political program that is centered around keeping men; white men like him in power → not to the benefit of all white men in this country but to the benefit of a very small slice of our population; the richest, the wealthiest, the corporate elite.
“That is his program.
“Terrorize people make people fight each other so that they can keep their hands in our pockets and a hold on the power in our democracy..”
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Also taking part in the discussion is Jelani Cobb who revisited and wrote on some history and how it connects with today's “conservative” movement GOP:
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here is the video of Anna Maria Archila (@ minute 6:05) — All in with Chris Hayes
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As expected, that video was scrubbed, so here is another covering another side of the cruelty and utter incompetence of the Trump administration, the GOP is complicit in aiding & abetting
— Published on Aug 8, 2019
Chris Hayes on the President’s failed promises and hurtful policies.
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Adding to that:
Just the other day, I’d heard Jeff Daniels, a very fine actor-imo, speaking with Stephen Colbert (video @ minute 7:10) where he touts another third way / no labels / republicans masquerading as progressive - line.
The line, and not-new push, that warns of the “radical” progressive agenda that will “turn-off” those “swing voters”. A fear-mongering based approach designed specifically to convince Dems that they must change our platform to re-attract all those Trump voters in the rust belt / manufacturing states. (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin eg.) — or all is lost
It isn’t the first time that the re-writing of history by those so-called centrists made a splash to sell their “reality”. Daily Kos Doctor RJ did an in-depth piece on the TV series; Newsroom. with Jeff Daniels. A tv show I enjoyed except for the corporate / Third Way/no-labels propaganda it was selling
But first: Here is that same narrative just the other day
Published on Jul 31, 2019
a partial transcript of the segment — selling the “no-labels / third way corporate agenda → in opposition of a progressive agenda:
..YOU NEED TO TALK TO THEM AND YOU NEED TO TELL THEM YOU'RE NOT GOING TO RAISE YOUR TAXES TO GET THESE THINGS DONE, ALL THESE THING-- YOU NEED TO TALK TO THEM, BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ONES WHO ARE GOING TO PUT AN END TO THIS MADNESS.
THAT 20%.
NOT ME, NOT YOU, NOT YOU.
THAT 20% THAT VOTE FOR TRUMP THAT DIDN'T WANT TO—87,000 VOTES IN MICHIGAN HAD DEMOCRATS ON THE UNDERCARD AND BLANK ON THE PRESIDENT. 87,000. SHE LOST BY 11,000 VOTES. DIDN'T TALK TO THEM. YOU'VE GOT-- YOU'VE GOT TO GET TO THOSE PEOPLE.
no. It is us. All of us. GOTV. Keep our progressive agenda. Energize OUR base. And make sure that those 20% know who has been screwing them over — for decades
That message that it’s not us, but those 20% white male “swing voters “ is the anti-progressive narrative Dems should steer clear of — imo
This is something I’ve ranting on for awhile now. I don’t blame Jeff Daniels the actor. I blame the corporate “centrists” / Third Way agenda.
* * *
Here is my comment then, in Doctor Rj’s piece on Newsroom (2014):
Baggage was purposefull imo, and it works..
..I don't think that it was a mistake. I'm not blaming Sorkin (I don't know him at all but I'd bet he's a republican or third-way guy judging by his depiction of women from a short list of typical stereotypes), but the TV powers that be.
The biggest mistake made by Sorkin was setting the series in the real world and having it and the characters move through real news stories of the recent past, instead of creating his own world to play in and explore the issues without the baggage.
Doctor RJ
And as Libby Hill points out:
Will McAvoy serves as a perfect representative of the aging baby boomer. The problem with such a representation is that aged white male baby boomers aren’t some historical heavy, they’re the current heavy. When Will McAvoy harrumphs and bloviates, we aren’t picturing a relic from an era we didn’t experience, we’re seeing a gross replication of the men who still maintain a stranglehold on the Congress, the generation who still has a monopoly on the overarching trajectory of the country.
Libby is correct it seems to me, but those flaws are there to mimic today's bloviating republicans to a purpose as if they can be compared as similar in other ways.
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Build a republican character with a lot of flaws then have the country fall for him/her. People will identify with Will McAvo just as they fell for Michael Douglass in that Wall Street role as a greedy vulture capitalist.
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The audience will see the character as the bloviating asshole, but he's smart, successful, good looking.. and he wins!" - sort of play on emotions.
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And at the heart of it is that the Will McAvoy character espouses progressive values and actually believes what he is saying. He's angry, often conflicted but deep down, a good man. He has grievances and we're made to feel his pain and sympathize.
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Today's republicans also pretend to support many of the progressive values by stealing progressive rhetoric to sound like they do. In reality they mean exactly the opposite.
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Will McAvoy's character believes what he's saying.
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That's the con that media sells and the message being broadcast -> That the current office holding "conservatives" can be compared to Will McAvoy. With a strong dose of "third Way" / "No-Labels" slant thrown in.
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Nothing could be farther from the truth
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I enjoy the show, but realize that with corporate media making most of the decisions on what shows America sees we'll never get a realistic look at what in reality the GOP is.
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A shell corporation for private interests
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That is my beef with the show, and a number of other shoes that have tortured sympathetic republicans as a real thing that actually exists today, when they do not exist. It's very entertaining imo and also what gets me down sometimes
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So this nails it:
If the show wants to make a statement about real-world issues, it has to be willing to put the characters in a reality that's true to their situation.
- Doctor RJ
..even if my long-winded comment doesn't so much.. and is a bit OT
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Thx Doctor RJ for the run down
* * *
Back to the present day
Tiffany Cross suggests an alternative to pandering to white male grievance peddlers bemoaning the perceived loss of white entitlement — a core component of the Trump / GOP propaganda
Tiffany Cross rejects the fear-mongering (all too often a theme put out by the “no-labels” / “third way” crowd; aka as republicans moderates):
and this:
Instead of catering to the so-called swing voters, by adjusting (gutting) the progressive agenda, and adopting a more “centrist” / Third Way (corporate) approach, we Dems have another avenue as spelled out by Anna Maria Archila:
Again this nails it:
“He has a very deliberate political program that is centered around keeping men; white men like him in power → not to the benefit of all white men in this country but to the benefit of a very small slice of our population; the richest, the wealthiest, the corporate elite.
“That is his program.
“Terrorize people make people fight each other so that they can keep their hands in our pockets and a hold on the power in our democracy..”
— that is the reality that near always gets sidelined in what is being discussed and again sidelined by making it less than readily available to re-post online.
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We Dems do not need to cater to the that “20%” of white males by scrapping progressive values and our platform (The Green New Deal pdf, and the jobs created to combat the Climate Crisis).
A far more convincing argument that doesn’t require rolling over for the special interests / donor-class that regularly buy their coin-operated politicians, is to make it absolutely clear who is responsible for example; 40 years of stagnating wages; jobs off-shored; sky-rocking Healthcare, including medications. Factories closing.
The GOP has been fleecing America and blaming PoC / immigrants, anything and anyone — anything but the truth.
— imo, but more importantly is this factual data posted by Meteor Blades in June of 2014:
It's no surprise to anyone who has been paying even cursory attention that the U.S. economy has for quite some time been slipping in regards to middle-class Americans. While there are many factors involved in why this isn't being redressed, one of them is that too many people view the middle class as standing outside the working class and therefore not in need of working-class solutions, like, for example, strong unions.
The chart above, created by Doug Short, illustrates graphically a key effect of how the economy is failing to provide the kind of remuneration a large percentage of Americans in the private sector were receiving not so long ago. The numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has been collecting these data for the past 50 years.
If you look at nominal dollars, average hourly earnings have been on a steady climb for the entire period. But once inflation is accounted for, it's not a pretty picture.
Short points out that there's another ugly trend: the average hours of work per week. These declined from around 39 hours in the mid-1960s to 33 hours when the Great Recession officially ended five years ago. "The post-recession recovery has seen a disappointingly trivial 0.7 bounce (that's 42 minutes)," he writes.
In the charts above, I've highlighted the presidencies during this timeframe. My purpose is not necessarily to suggest political responsibility, but rather to offer some food for thought. I will point out that the so-called supply-side economics popularized during the Reagan administration (aka "trickle-down" economics), wasn't very friendly to production and nonsupervisory employees.
— that is what the “conservative” movement agenda has purposefully wrought. And things will continue and worsen for the middle-class if those so-called 20% fall for the propaganda and vote for republican politicians because they fear what the GOP racist assholes like Tucker Carlson / Steve Miller / Bannon and their president puppet tell them to fear — and not the truth of the matter
meanwhile
Trump brags about crowd size in his latest re-elect campaign torture video (Trump’s torture video NOT posted)
Lawrence O’Donnell describes Trump’s torture video @ minute 8:01
— Published on Aug 8, 2019
While Donald Trump bragged about his crowd size to hospital staff after the shooting in El Paso, the Trump administration was conducting massive ICE raids in Mississippi leaving terrified children in tears and without their parents.
Trump:
“My time spent in Dayton and El Paso with some of the greatest people on earth. Thank you for a job well done!”
Reporters were not permitted to witness any of this. So now Americans end up with a propaganda video. This is a very slippery slope.
one last end note: if anybody has made it this far, apologies for this long winded rant like post. This post was going to be a concise, hard hitting, expose that nailed these “conservative” assholes to the ground. That didn’t happen. Not even close, so it’s probably a good thing it’s due to publish in the wee hours.
Thx for reading. Hope it shed some needed light on a gruesome situation, with a couple of helpful ideas within to consider. Maybe even cause a few people to see that the media’s often used phrase: “deeply polarized nation” is itself a propaganda victory for the donor class. The very real, actual divide is between those .1%ers that have seized as much wealth as the rest (90%) of the populace. The populace that made every penny of wealth possible in the first place
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