I’ve written time and time again, here and elsewhere, that the Republican Party exists for one reason and one reason only:
- To ensure that the wealthy, powerful men, corporations and industries that own that Party enjoy maximum profit at minimal risk, and are never held accountable for the harm they cause to the public, workers, consumers, or the environment.
When Republicans talk about the “radical far-left agenda,” or deploy their favorite all-purpose scare word “socialism,” that’s what they’re talking about. Meaning, they know that if Democrats control Congress, the White House (and, thus, administrative/regulatory agencies) and/or the courts, they might use them to hold the GOP’s owners — polluters, profiteers and plunderers — accountable for the harm they cause. Republicans want to get rid of “government” and privatize everything because their owners can’t abide anyone other than themselves having the power, the capacity, the means, or the inclination to hold them accountable for their malfeasance, or to prioritize the interests of the public, workers, consumers, or the environment over their own.
Apply the foregoing concept to everything Republicans have done and said publicly over the last ~20 years or so, and it all makes perfect sense.
And before we start Both Sidesing the Shit out of this, it should be noted that when Democrats have held power in Washington, they have at least made efforts (some more successful than others) to legislate, regulate, and otherwise use the levers of government for the benefit of the public, workers, consumers, and the environment, often at the expense of the wealthy, powerful men, corporations and industries (polluters, profiteers and plunderers) that own the Republican Party. (See, e.g., the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank and the CFPB.) When’s the last time Republicans did anything like that? I can’t think of one example.
Perhaps, but to a far lesser degree, the Republican Party also exists to ensure that straight cis white conservative Christians retain the social advantages and privileges they’ve always had, and are never held accountable for treating racial, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities like shit. That, really, is an illusion born of politics rather than policy; as I’ve written before, the things the Right truly wants cannot be achieved legislatively or administratively, certainly not at the federal level. It’s certainly a key component of Republican election efforts, viz., getting people to vote against “wokeness” or “political correctness” or “cancel culture” or “critical race theory” or other things that Republicans (a.) don’t actually care about, and (b.) couldn’t really do anything about even if they did hold power in Washington.
In other words, Republican voters vote Republican to Own the Libs™, viz., to make the imaginary “woke” liberals who exist only in their personal heroic fantasies feel like shit and, I guess, force them to rethink their tactics and become conservatives. But we’re off the point. Republicans understand perfectly well that if anyone understood what their real agenda is, as spelled out above, very few people would vote for them. So they need to disguise it as something else, and spit out distractions like “socialism!!” and “woke!!” and “CRT!!” and “AOC!!” and “her e-mails!!” and “Benghazi!!” and “Hunter Biden’s laptop!!!!!” and substitute “The American People™” as the subject (and “freedom” as the object) of sentences that are really about themselves and/or the corporations and industries that own them.
So, let’s look at what Ginni Thomas wrote to Mark Meadows (all of which can be read here), and see what these loony ravings actually mean:
“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”
OK, this is simple: “America’s constitutional governance” herein means maximum profit, minimal risk, and no accountability for the wealthy, powerful men, corporations and industries that own the GOP; “the greatest Heist of our History” means holding those polluters, profiteers and predators accountable for the harm they cause to the public, workers, consumers and the environment.
“Sidney Powell & improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved.”
Here, “Fraud” means the audacity of anyone voting for politicians who would prioritize the interests of the public, workers, consumers, and the environment over those of the wealthy, powerful men, corporations and industries that own the GOP, and “America” means immunity from accountability for polluters, profiteers and plunderers.
“Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.”
Again, “America” means maximum profit at minimal risk for the GOP’s owners, and “taking America down” means holding them accountable for the harm they cause to the public, workers, consumers and the environment.
“The lower level insiders are scared, fearful or sending out signals of hopelessness vs an awareness of the existential threat to America right now.”
See above, and just substitute “existential threat to America” for “taking America down”; they both mean the same thing.
“We are living through what feels like the end of America. … The end of Liberty.”
See above; here, “America” and “Liberty” mean the same thing, viz., maximum profit at minimal risk for the GOP’s owners.
Thomas also used the word “evil” (or “good and evil”) a couple of times; by now it should be clear what those words actually mean. Republicans are paid very handsomely by their owners to shield them from accountability for the harm they cause to the public, workers, consumers, and the environment; they can’t have anyone other than themselves (or anyone they don’t control) deciding if, when, how, for what, and to what degree they should be responsible or held accountable for such harm.
This concept may be too complicated for an effective political message, and in any event Democrats probably can’t use it because for all their efforts (both real and rhetorical) to take the side of the public, workers, consumers and the environment against the polluters, profiteers and plunderers that own the GOP, Democrats have their paymasters too and they can’t let that well dry up. But that doesn’t mean there’s not a stark difference between the parties in terms of who’s pulling their respective strings and what their actual governing record in recent decades tells us about who they represent and why.
The point, though, is that whenever Republicans talk about the “threat” to “America” posed by Democrats or “the Left” or whomever, in however colorful terms, we should always be cognizant of what they actually mean.
