After closely watching the past eight years, I’ve learned a few things about the Republican party. Though much of the past eight years is beyond rational explanation, it can be pieced together to form some sort of irrational logic. First though, the big picture, what makes up the Republican party. It takes a master of marketing to have seamlessly connected corporate America, evangelicals and much of the religious population, and the "patriots" into the same political party. They have done a mighty successful job in creating this "coalition." If some of the members were aware of the planned deception to create this coalition, it would dissolve rather quickly.
As I see it, there are three types of Republicans. The driving force behind the party are the ones in it for economic reasons, mainly lower taxes. The People in this group can be the top 1%, but can also include anyone who is "well-off" and feel they don’t need the government taking a percent of their money. They feel they do just fine with or without the government. The top 0.1% who are the backbone of the modern Republican party have had great benefits from electing politicians who implement their deceptive economic policies into law. I could go into detail about this, but I’m sure you can think of your own favorite example. These wealthy Republicans fund the majority of the Party’s activities, but don’t care to be the foot-soldiers or get involved in the politics. They want their lower taxes and their "corporate friendly" policies implemented.
Then there are the Religious crowd. To understand this group, you first have to realize that these religious people believe the Bible is factual. They feel their morals and ideas are right, and there is no question in their minds. They feel a need to spread the message of "Jesus" and they are in a "holy war" to do it. Obviously the leaders, Pastors and other Fallwell-likes, realize it’s bullshit, but they are making millions and millions off it, so they just continue to lead the heard and distort the meaning of religion for their own profit. This group is dedicated to their beliefs, so they become very active in the Republican party, they are defending their values after all... Talk radio and Fox News (to some extent) has connected the religious values to the Republican party. In this groups mind, voting for a Democrat is as horrendous as saying Jesus isn’t real. That’s what years of Rush and the Evangelical Church can do to a trusting mind.
Finally there are the "Patriots" who care so deeply about America, they are convinced half of the country is out to destroy it. The Republican party has done an amazing job of dressing themselves up in the flag over the past 60 years, and have sold this group that only the Republican party will make America the best it came be. The motivation for this is to connect a better America with a stronger Military. This plan was devised by the Military Industrial Complex to encourage spending on the Military when none is necessary. The Strongest America would be one where we no longer need a military budget at the levels we have today, but then how would we prove to ourselves we were the strongest?
In future diaries I will explain how events of the past 8 years have fit into each of these three categories. They have started with the Economic reason, and then used the other two to get the ideas implemented. We live in a complex and unclear world today, but it has become that way because the full explanation of events has not been shown to the average citizen. When the scheming nature of it all is laid out, it will hopefully make many on the political-right question their allegiance.... or maybe I’m just a dreamer...