What if the Republicans are Right?
What if they really are being unfairly targeted by an out-of-control Justice Department?
What if the Republicans are right? What if the Justice Department and its enforcement agencies have been systematically targeting America’s conservatives? From their point of view, this may actually be the case.
Consider that the Republican Party has become an insular institution whose worldview is defined by a narrow ideology of tax avoidance and corporate hegemony, along with a large dollop of cultural grievances to keep the churchiest among them in line. Their fight is simple: keep as many dollars in their own pockets as possible. Their weapons for that fight are the politicians and Supreme Court Justices they bankroll and appoint, all of it perfectly legal thanks to dark money laws they themselves wrote with the assistance of the legal foundations and think tanks whose wheels they keep greased. It’s more than one hand washing the other. It’s one hand flying the other hand on a private jet to a luxury spa for a full body massage and happy ending.
No wonder they get resentful when there’s pushback from the institutions they believe they control. I mean, it’s gauche when underlings correct the boss in front of the whole company, no? Is it really corruption for a Supreme Court justice to accept gifts from billionaires when the entire reason he’s on the court to begin with is to give carte blanche to these same billionaires? Of course not. It’s a positive performance review, nothing more.
Is it not appalling when a former president is indicted –the word “indicted” is so ugly, is it not – for a few discreet hush money payments? Yes, the same president was also indicted for mishandling some papers, but are we really going to make a spectacle out of it when he did so much for the moneyed class? It hardly seems fair. And it certainly doesn’t seem just. Especially when their political opponents are doing the exact same thing!
When it’s pointed out that their political opponents actually aren’t doing the same things, they become irate because it’s impossible for them to imagine that everybody isn’t using every lever of power at their disposal to enrich themselves. In their world, the crime isn’t the self-dealing and influence peddling, it’s the persecution for doing nothing more than what they believe everybody is doing.
Which raises the question: are Democrats equally guilty? On balance, I think the evidence suggests no. Yes, Democrats may also benefit from dark money and influence peddling, but they do not enjoy billionaire largesse to the same extent as their Republican counterparts for the simple reason that their agenda is different. Some absolutely serve masters more powerful than themselves (perhaps Wall Street, perhaps Big Pharma), but their larger agenda is to spread American wealth out more fairly, to broaden opportunities, and to make the nation work for more people, not fewer. From a nakedly self-serving position, one could argue they believe this agenda only because they believe it will gain them more power since, in a sane world, such an agenda would appeal to more voters. If this agenda also happens to be the right thing to do, all the better. In a world like that, of course corruption gets punished.
But that’s not the world in which today’s Republican party and its conservative movement lives.
If you have a chance, check out the new Amazon documentary Shiny Happy People. This four-part series is about the Duggars, the 19 Kids and Counting family whose son Josh molested his sisters and eventually went to prison for possession of child pornography. The documentary’s aim, though, is larger than this single family. Instead, it paints a compelling portrait of the Quiverfull culture, a fundamentalist, uber-patriarchal Christian sect whose purpose is the eventual recreation of America according to its tenets. The reason they have so many kids is to fulfill this goal – they need as many arrows in their quivers as possible.
The Quiverfull movement is closely aligned with the Republican party. Mike Huckabee, for example, plays a prominent role. Madison Cawthorn, the former Congressperson, comes out of this movement. Amy Comey Barrett grew up in a similar Christian sect. Others, the so-called “Joshua Generation,” are on their way.
These Christian fundamentalists neatly align with the interests of the conservative American moneyed class because they all subscribe to the same belief that the head of the family can do no wrong. This might be the father of a literal family or an elected official they installed, a Supreme Court Justice, or a preferred President of the United States. To prosecute such people is heresy.
So what if Clarence Thomas takes a couple vacations with his benefactor? So what if Samuel Alito does the same? That isn’t corrupt. Corrupt would be voting against these same benefactors when they have cases before The Court. Corrupt would be not using the Justice Department to go after your enemies for, crimes real or imagined, because doing so furthers your aims. The prosperity gospel and the worship of money are one and the same. The meek may inherit the Earth one day, but not today. Not with these guys at the helm. Daddy is in charge and he ain’t going nowhere.
If that’s the way you look at the world then you’re damned right the Justice Department is corrupt. Their guys may have skirted the boundaries of propriety here and there, but that is nothing – NOTHING – in comparison to the good they have done for their masters. I mean, when you consider how low the effective tax rate is for the richest among us, how can you reach any other conclusion? So yeah, throw Hunter in the gulag. Tax evasion may not matter much among the conservatives. But when your political opponents commit the same crime, the fires of Hell are too good for such people. Toss Sleepy Joe in the slammer, too, along with Barack and Hilary and all the rest. It hardly matters whether or not they committed the crimes for which they are accused. Their guilt is their policies. Their sin is their lack of fealty to those who would build a new nation in their image. The retribution upon them shall be divine.
🙄
Well said.