CONTEXT
The news lately has been dismal. It looks like Russia is going to pound the Ukraine into sand. Millions of Ukrainians now face a possibility of starving, dying from thirst and/or freezing to death. If the GOP takes control of the House or Senate, aid to the Ukraine will probably be mostly or completely cut off.
At the same time a veritable hurricane has been unleashed in American law after the radical right Supreme Court began taking aim at secularism, church-state separation, civil liberties, business regulations and the rule of law itself. Gun regulations are now falling in multiple states after a radical Supreme Court ruling made it almost impossible for any regulation to stand. We all know what happened to abortion rights. Not surprisingly, tragic stories of adversely affected women and families are now coming out. The GOP wants a national abortion ban, so the situation could go from bad to much worse.
Equally concerning, in its 2022-2023 term the Supreme Court will decide a critically important case, Moore v. Harper. Experts are predicting the court will probably rule to end free and fair elections in states that choose to give the legislature essentially unlimited power over elections. That outcome will mean the end of free and fair elections nationally, to the extent they have existed in recent decades. State legislatures will be free to openly ignore what a majority of voters voted for and simply install the candidate they choose. Voters who do not like it can just go pound sand. Elections will go from mostly democratic to mostly tyranny-theocracy-kleptocracy.
In another target for radical right attack on consumers and consumer protections, the brass knuckles capitalism wing of the GOP has always hated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That federal agency is a major financial regulator. The capitalists want to get rid of the CFPB because it has passed consumer protection and other regulations. Republicans and the capitalists call the CFPB a rogue socialist, deep state tyranny operation. Now it looks like the CFPB is going to be completely obliterated by the Supreme Court, probably in its 2023-2024 term. A federal appeals court panel of three Trump judges has just held[1] that funding for the CFPB has been unconstitutional right from the get-go. All CFPB regulations are now susceptible to being nullified once the case gets appealed to the Supreme Court and the lower court ruling is upheld. Being hard core brass knuckles, government-hating capitalists, the six Republicans on the high court are going to want to get rid of the CFPB. That tells us how that case is very likely going to turn out.
The CFPB and all of its regulations are probably toast (~90% chance?). Bye-bye consumer protections. Here come the predatory lenders, snake oil sellers and grinning grifters running free, wild, and butt naked unregulated. Fine products and services, such as those provided by the former Trump “University” will be out there trolling for dollars with no accountability for anything. We are going right back to something akin to the capitalism of the 1800s. Corrupt capitalists just can't wait to feast.
MORAL RESPONSIBILITY?
What is behind all of this upheaval? When asked about specific things, most Americans say they do not want the things that radical right elites are now getting handed to them. Most Americans say they want things like free and fair elections, reasonable access to abortion services, reasonable consumer protections and gun regulations, a separation of church and state, and secular public education. Most of the authoritarian-Christian theocratic impacts are things that transfer both power and wealth from government and consumers to special interests who stand to accumulate even more power and wealth than they have now. When government loses power to protect consumers or the environment, that power flows to the interests and people in a position to benefit from those lost protections.
So why do so many Americans still vote for Republicans who are imposing a corrupt autocratic theocracy on all Americans? There are multiple reasons, but first and foremost, decades of ruthless, relentless dark free speech is a major cause. America's radical right has spent billions to deceive, poison and distract tens of millions of Americans into false beliefs that lead them to support corrupt and bigoted autocracy and Christian theocracy. In 2016, few understood who and what Trump was. Even fewer understood what the Republican Party had significantly degenerated into by that time. Both Trump and the GOP were and remain steaming piles of moral rot.
For a while, one can mostly excuse rank and file voters for being deceived and manipulated. But only for so long. Now it is years later. There is plenty of evidence that Trump and his Republican Party are anti-democratic, anti-civil liberties, pro-autocracy, pro-Christian theocracy and corrupt. None of that is reasonably debatable any more, just like the major aspects of climate change are not reasonably debatable any more.
Why don’t most rank and file Republican voters see that what they are supporting is anti-democratic and bad? Yes, the endless lies, slanders, irrational emotional manipulation and crackpot reasoning is still here. It’s still poisonous. But in time adults in our democracy have to take responsibility for their behaviors and the beliefs that cause them. Failure to do so arguably constitutes moral cowardice. Reality is too painful, self-disaffirming and socially unpleasant for most people to face honestly. So, they do not face it. Instead they accept the lies, and slanders that comfort them and make them feel self-affirmed and part of a righteous tribe or cult.
Time has run out for there to be any reasonable defense of what is obviously indefensible. To stay with Trump and the Republican Party, moral courage would dictate that the rank and file be honest about what they are supporting. What they support is acceptance of all means to the radical right cult’s stated ends. That includes lies, slanders, and all the rest of the dark free speech weapons that radical right elites have used successfully to get the power they now control to destroy democracy, civil liberties and inconvenient truth.
Is it time to call rank and file Republicans moral cowards? Domestic terrorists at least for the ones who openly support radical right violence in the name of the elite’s causes, e.g., stopping the non-existent steal or allegedly rigged elections? Or, are those judgments too harsh or irrational? If so, why?
Why give as much weight to a person’s opinion when the opinion is based on anti-democratic, pro-autocratic-theocratic lies, falsehoods, slanders, emotional irrationality and/or crackpot reasoning? Is there equivalence between a true, well intentioned opinion and one that is false and without serious regard for truth?
Footnote:
1. The NYT writes:
A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said the funding method improperly ceded too much authority to the bureau and insulated it from being accountable to Congress and the American people.
“Wherever the line between a constitutionally and unconstitutionally funded agency may be, this unprecedented arrangement crosses it,” Judge Cory Wilson wrote in the ruling. All three judges on the panel were appointed by former President Donald J. Trump.
The ruling, if it stands, could upend every regulation and enforcement action undertaken by the bureau since its creation in 2011. The decision is widely expected to be stayed pending appeal. The consumer bureau can ask the full Fifth Circuit to reconsider the case, or it could appeal directly to the Supreme Court.
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