The right wing has taken over the Republican Party and exploited flaws in our democracy to regain control of government. It has stolen two elections in this century and then mismanaged government both times. Now it is attempting a third coup and may succeed unless a misled public becomes better informed.
The great Republican moderates of the past are gone and the few remaining moderates are being exiled. The right wing has the money, but not the votes or the agenda to win elections. Nor do many of its members truly believe in the democratic process. Still living in the last century, they believe they have a divine right to govern. To remain alive they steal elections as shown in a new book, The Right-Wing Threat to Democracy.
The current right-wing coup of government is relying on a shift of political power to the very wealthy, suppression of voting rights and stonewalling efforts at economic recovery. The chain of events began with:
An improper transfer of power to the right-wing following its use of unethical, illegal and unconstitutional means to undo the people’s choice of twice-elected President Clinton.
In control, the right wing administration quickly abandoned Clinton’s top priorities of (1) balancing federal budgets and (2) responding to Osama Bin Laden’s prior acts of war against the United States.
A flagrant breach of national security on 9/11 then followed when the White House failed to respond to, or even inform the public of, repeated warnings from top experts, friendly countries and three heads of state that the 9/11 attacks were coming.
A reckless right-wing war-like mentality followed and led the United States into two unnecessary wars costing at least four trillion in taxpayer money, without improving our national security.
A double cover-up of the 9/11 catastrophe (White House and 9/11 Commission) allowed a failed presidency to serve a second term and appoint two more right-wing justices to the Supreme Court.
The new Supreme Court membership used a narrow legal case to change our election laws improperly and permit unnamed big money interests to influence election outcomes anywhere in the United States.
The right wing also reversed Clinton’s tax policy and redistributed income to the wealthy to create jobs. The worst job record in at least 50 years followed and the wealthy are now using this income to influence election outcomes and lobby members of Congress.
At the end of eight years, the right wing handed over to a new president a structured and massive long-term debt, an economy losing 800,000 jobs a month, a housing market in crisis, and a decline in world leadership.
The right wing immediately redirected its efforts to undo (a second time) the peoples’ choice of President, plotting his downfall on the very night of his inauguration, then portraying him as un-American, blocking his recovery agenda, passing laws to suppress voting rights, and unleashing hundreds of millions of dollars from unnamed wealthy sources to influence presidential and other elections.
For the country to fully recover from the right-wing’s two failures will require painstaking efforts and enduring change for a decade or more -- and we might as well get use to it.
Tens of millions of Americans fought in WWII to guarantee our freedom and they returned to make the United States the greatest nation on earth. During the last decade the right wing has wrecked havoc on our nation. Unwilling to accept responsibility, it has used a well organized attack machine to gradually shift responsibility for the nation’s decline to a new President and grandson of a WWII veteran.
It would be very unwise to return the Republican Party to power until it has purged itself of right-wing extremists, returned its moderates to influential positions and found new leadership with statesmanship qualities to unite the country.
Thomas Jefferson said “the only security we have is a free press.” We’ve not had one in over two decades. For example, the book documents that press disclosures could have easily prevented the Iraq war, revealed the truth about 9/11 and easily prevented reelection of a failed right-wing administration. With right-wing control of the Republican Party, Congress has lost its way too.
The right wing is not to be underestimated. A lust for power blinds it to ethical, legal and constitutional requirements. Political terrorism is widespread in its ranks. In the words of recently retired Republican Senator George Voinovich, the right-wing attitude is “We are going to get what we want or the country can go to hell.”
As a moderate Republican, Voinovich saved Cleveland from default as Mayor, made Ohio number one in the nation as Governor and served two terms as U.S. Senator. Other highly placed Republicans have expressed similar views, and their views are in the book.
Any relationship between the GOP of yesterday and the right-wing controlled Republican Party of today is purely coincidental. Former Governor Jeb Bush recently said that neither President Reagan nor his father would qualify in today’s Republican Party. The bottom line is: you can have right-wing control of the Republican Party or a working democracy – you cannot have both.
All these matters and others are fully documented in The Right-Wing Threat to Democracy, www.renewingourdemocracy.com The book lays out clearly how major setbacks to the nation, such as 9/11 and two costly wars, could have been avoided and what can be done to prevent them from recurring again. E-books and hard copies are available on Amazon. Royalties are going to the Wounded Warrior Project and Clinton Foundation.
The book contains thirty-three corrections to our system of government, along with thoughts on reconstituting a more effective Republican Party. Removing the right-wing threat to democracy, however, will also require fundamental changes:
• Educating the public on why our democracy is not working the way it should,
• Holding the right wing clearly accountable for past and current misdeeds,
• Changing the way Congress does business so it can get back to work again,
• Putting more women in leadership positions, and
• Renewing our democracy, as our founders wanted us to do. Criteria for doing this are in the closing chapter of the book.