How Republicans have Set out to Change the Game in Washington

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Some of the things that have been happening from the time of Clinton in the White House, and even earlier, have been done under our very noses, but I failed to see their implications.

For twenty years, we know, Republicans have been Gerrymandering all over the US, changing the shape of electoral districts.  Democrats may have also indulged in this little game, but the GOP has embraced the practice wholesale.  As a result, as a commenter on a recent piece on the New York Times website observed, (and even the young fellow in the video I linked a couple of days ago mentioned,) there are an enormous number of Congressional seats that will remain solidly Republican for the foreseeable future (unless, of course, further Gerrymandering takes place, but that is a two-edged sword).

This means that, in these districts, the “only meaningful elections”, to quote the gentleman whose comment sparked off this blog post of mine, “are the GOP primaries” in which the candidate is selected.  This means, of course, that the successful candidate will most likely be the most extreme, least-likely to compromise, reddest of the red among those contending for the party candidacy, in order to present him- or herself as the most Republican among them.  In other words, Republicans will be electing a large number of members of the House who will never compromise, and never work with Democrats on any initiative, no matter how beneficial to the country, or how beneficial to even their own electorate.  The road on which the GOP has set itself is the road for success of the Party, and, not entirely by design, the road of disaster for the USA.  To be fair, they, of course, see the success of the GOP as the salvation of the Nation.

Rank and file Republicans, and, most notably, Tea-Party Republicans, are completely on board with this agenda, even if they don’t see the long-term implications of it.  The GOP is the party of Big Business (though most of them probably don’t see themselves as such), and if Big Business is to increase its profits, the money will come from the American People first (though, again, they may fully intend to get it from other nations, or “Trading Partners”).  But it will be a long, long time before Tea Partyers become disillusioned with the GOP.

Another, separate point made by an observer is that this ploy of threatening to default on the National Debt is not a move intended by the framers of the Constitution.  While we may disagree on whether the original intent of the Liberties, or the Human Rights in the Constitution are as they are understood today, it is an entirely different matter to alter the balance of powers of the three branches of government by these blackmail measures of defaulting on the obligations of the Treasury.  (It could never have been foreseen, two centuries ago, that the national debt would ever reach these proportions, or that the currency structure of World Trade would evolve into what it is today.)  So the GOP has set out to upset the balance in Washington, hoping that things will tumble to their advantage.

A retired caboose from the PA Railroad,
absolutely nothing to do with the blog post.

There is at least a little belief that the GOP is being manipulated by a very few individuals to their own advantage: and the names of the usual suspects keep cropping up, such as the Koch Brothers.  That brings us into the realm of Conspiracy Theory, which is an embarrassment I prefer to avoid.  But my sorrow for what the GOP has become is probably ill-advised.  There will always be people who feel that it is their duty to think first, and only of their own interests, and the two parties being what they are, the Republican Party is now their home.  But it is sad that though even in Republican households, idealists are growing up, questioning the motives and the principles of their parents, the structure these youth will inherit will forever favor dysfunctional politicians, whose agenda will for a long time be focused on programs that ultimately bring about widespread suffering.  Unless something extremely creative is done to forestall this crisis from arriving, things are going to get a lot worse before they become briefly better.  But look on the bright side: the weather today was perfect!

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