By Addissu Admas
The preeminent American dissident Noam Chomsky has on various occasions described the US Republican party as the most dangerous party in the world. To be clear, Chomsky does not endorse, as far as I am aware, any other US party. For him, who at the age of 96 is still considered to be not only the greatest living linguist, but also the most intellectually endowed critic of the US government’s domestic and foreign policies, to make such a bold statement he must have some very good reasons. In this piece, however, I don’t intend to report, neither in part nor wholesale his very abundantly reported reasons for his contention. I would like instead to provide my own reasons, some of which may inevitably coincide with his.
As much as the Republican party (or the GOP, as is commonly referred to) would like to present itself as being monolithic, it is in effect a coalition of the most diverse political constituencies. One may in fact easily identify four of them: 1. The populist, anti-immigrant, pro-gun, white supremacist, anti-DEI, anti-affirmative action, devoted blindly to Mr. Trump alone. This is the constituency often referred to as the MAGA people. 2. The capitalist libertarian faction that is solely interested in free-market, limited government, deregulation, minimal taxation, opposed to any form of social welfare. 3. The self-styled Christian nationalist determined to establish the supremacy of their own version of Christianity and their morality over the entire United States, and possibly on the world through their missionary works 4. Not exactly a separate coalition as such, but an opportunistic faction formed of people dedicated to one or two issues promoted by the other three factions. To better capture why a coalition of these constituents creates a dangerous mix, we need to see the motivations of each coalition’s political agenda first. It will also give us a more objective perspective of what the GOP stands for and why it constitutes a dangerous “mix”.
The Republican party’s current dominant faction, the so-called MAGA, though it may have in its midst a sprinkling of non-whites, it is overwhelmingly a white-supremacist movement hankering for a bygone America when other races “knew their places” and lived only at the mercy of their white overseers. Regardless of whether they are Christian or not, what unifies them is their utter terror of the browning and “equalization” of races in America. Most subscribe, if not in thought but at least in practice, a certain male chauvinism and misogyny. They are the most vociferous anti-immigration advocates, the declared enemies of Affirmative action and DEI, fierce proponents for building a border wall to prevent “the brown invasion”. They are mostly but not exclusively working class, the least educated of their party. Maybe because of this, they are the declared enemies of all the civil rights’ gains achieved for people of color and women, seeing them as a real threat to their place in the racial and class hierarchy of the nation. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they continue to believe in the superiority of the white man regardless of his actual educational achievement or experience. They are also the ones who fail to understand that the vast majority of poor migrants entering “illegally” the southern border of the US are here only because no ordinary member of their own race is willing to do the work, they, the “illegal aliens” as they call them, are more than willing to do. At least not for the pay they are willing to accept. It will not take much time for them to realize how valuable these “illegals” are when their lives become unsustainably expensive.
The MAGA people are the least intellectually equipped to appreciate the justice and value of affirmative action and DEI. White people have been given the privileges that white skin afforded them since the arrival of the first African slaves on continental US in 1565 in St Augustine, Florida. Black people were freed from enslavement in 1865. From this date until 1965, i.e. until the Voting Rights Act, they lived under racial segregation, political disenfranchisement, legally sanctioned persecution, economic exploitation and subordination under a system often referred to as “Jim Crow”. It is only in the last 60 years that there has been some semblance of a democratic rule of law for black and brown people in America. Barely two generations! However, even in these past sixty years, life for them has been far from smooth sailing. They still suffer from job discrimination, a justice system forever intent at devising methods to keep them behind bars, as Michelle Alexander has amply documented in her book, a prosecutorial culture forever biased against them, police brutality, poor education, unequal pay, malnutrition, substandard health care, etc.…. Yet for MAGA, most of whose members are woefully uneducated and suspicious of educated people, the “Black Question” boils down to black people’s “collective lack of personal responsibility”, inherent incapacity, and even moral depravity. The fact that there is massive inequality in opportunity and advantages in every sector of life between blacks and whites is not something they want even to consider for a minute. Just like the current Supreme Court tends to decide in “historical vacuum”, MAGA people are unwilling and unable to consider for a moment the historical disparities brought forth by more than four hundred years of injustice. Thus, their cruel and blind endorsement of the current regime’s war on Affirmative Action and DEI, and their gleeful encouragement of the dismantling of all the gains achieved since the Civil Rights Movement.
Let’s not forget that Affirmative Action and DEI were adopted to address centuries old inequalities that white men had created. Regardless of what the ideologues of the Trump regime maintain, white male preferential treatment has never ceased despite MAGA’s protestations to the contrary. Suffice to look at Mr. Trump’s own cabinet members. How many of them are truly qualified? How many of them have any experience related to the department they are heading? Their only qualification appears to be, with but very few exceptions, being white, male and loyal to Mr. Trump. The MAGA crowd inveighing against the incompetence of people of color appears to be totally unconcerned by the abysmal incompetence and unprofessionalism of Mr. Trump’s white male cabinet and the other persons holding cabinet level positions. It is even more disconcerting why the Republican establishment which prides itself in being patriotic and intent at maintaining America’s supremacy, has let without any resistance Mr. Trump choose the least qualified individuals to head the most complex and consequential departments in the world!
The second faction of the GOP, the capitalist libertarian wing, is the least conspicuous and yet the most powerful and insidious of all the constituent factions of the party. It is in fact the one that effectively “owns” the party. It is the one whose demands are addressed before any other constituent’s. The Republican party’s very raison d’être is to protect, sustain and advance the interests of this faction. In essence, most of the members of House of Representatives and the Senate are at the beck and call of this faction, not to say under its employ. As a group, it is the most removed from the MAGA base, yet it is willing to join forces with it to achieve its own goals. This faction is not patriotic, nationalistic or Christian, or share any of the concerns around which the other factions congregate. It is only dedicated to Almighty Capital and whatever increases it.
If it had its way, the capitalist libertarian faction of the GOP would have instituted what the late American Harvard political philosopher, Robert Nozick, termed the “night watchman state”. According to him, such a state would only be morally obligated to do three things: a) protecting citizens from violence through the police force b) protecting citizens from theft and fraud c) and enforcing contracts. In his and his followers’ view, the state has no business providing any public service of any kind to anyone. In his “night watchman” state, public health, education, transportation, national defense must not be the concern of the government and would presumably arise anyway from mutual agreement between the people out of their own self-interest. A similar but not identical view was popularized by a far better known, and yet far less rigorous thinker, as Ayn Rand. Many republican politicians appear to credit her for their views than they do Nozick.
The capitalist libertarian faction, to whose ranks President Trump and most of his cabinet members belong, is intent, through its lackeys in Congress, to dismantle all forms of regulations that it thinks would curtail the accumulation of its capital or holds the very wealthy minimally accountable to the people and the state. It wants to reduce the power of the government by drastically reducing the governments’ workforce. Suffice to mention the recent arbitrary firings of the federal workers. It is chronically opposed to helping the most disadvantaged in society as well as internationally; see the recent closing of USAID. It is determined, quite irrationally one needs to add, to reduce its tax burden to a point where it becomes nearly impossible for the government to perform its most essential tasks. Even at the risk of creating anarchy!
Where this faction is most dangerous is, without question, in its active enforcement of anti-environmental policies. In its unrelenting pursuit to increase its profit, the capitalist class of the Republican party has been engaged in the spread of counter-scientific information in all areas where its monetary gain could be hampered even minimally. Thus, it has become the primary source of mis/disinformation on climate change, the deleterious effects of industrial waste on the environment, the long-term health damage caused by processed food, the promotion of unnecessary and potentially dangerous pharmaceutical drugs, etc.… Not content with all of this, it is actively engaged in dismantling all regulatory government agencies instituted to protect the environment, monitor not only the behavior but also the product of the most varied industries, the health of citizens, etc.…. This is indeed the most dangerous of the factions which make up the Republican party.
The third wing of the Republican party, the so-called Christian nationalist faction, is primarily embraced by the self-styled evangelical churches, but with very substantial following in the other protestant denominations, as well as in the Mormon and Catholic churches. This faction, against the explicit declaration of the First Amendment [“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of Religion”] of the US Constitution, continues to proclaim to the four winds not only the need to declare America a Christian nation, but wants the Christian religion to enjoy a preferential treatment, a special status, above all other religions in the US. It justifies its stance by reminding us that America was founded on the values and practices of Christianity that clearly have given rise to its legal system, culture and politics. That, not only the Christian religion must reign supreme in America but maintains that the country has been essentially designed to be so from the beginning.
I am not wholly sure what lies at the heart of Christian nationalist militancy. But it is clearly not the establishment of the “Kingdom of God”, since its primary objective appears to be intent at shoring up the libertarian capitalist system of government. It is not about Christian brotherhood because it is de facto a segregationist movement. It is not for the poor because it actively promotes the end of social welfare, considering it a socialist invention. It denigrates other religions rather than search for any commonality with them. As far as one can deduce the whole Christian nationalist faction is really made up of white Americans nostalgic of the time when, in the words of Malcolm X, “the most segregated hour in America was high noon on Sunday”! They vote for the Republican party, and specifically for Mr. Trump because they have undying desire to maintain white supremacy, their own understanding of Christianity, and the capitalist ethos.
The last wing of the GOP, rather than being a faction in the real sense of the word, it is an agglomeration of single-issue voters that often align with the Republican agenda. They are defined by their lack of cohesive vision for the country. They are indeed opportunistic voters, though they may proclaim themselves to be “independents” desiring to present themselves as being open-minded, flexible and not owing any allegiance to any party. However, what they are moved by is one or two issues near and dear to them, an outcome that will benefit them individually. They are often seen decamp from one party to another, shifting the balance of power from one party to the other without any defensible reason. For them, it is never about what the country should stand for or look like, but what advances their individual interests. For this reason, they often than not, through their sheer number, tend to favor the Republican cause. They are indeed the very reason why Mr. Trump has been able to win twice.
What is most ingenious about the GOP is not only how it has been so successful in holding together these apparently divergent factions for so long, but that it has been able to convince MAGA, which is essentially made up of working class people, and Christian nationalists to be part of a party that is single-mindedly working hard to defend, protect and advance the interests of the capitalist class. It is even mind-boggling that it has convinced them, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, that climate change and environmental degradation is not due to human action. It has convinced MAGA that the poverty of its members is caused by unregulated and chaotic immigration policy, and not the failure of government policies. It has convinced the so-called Christian nationalists that it will restore the primacy of Christianity (i.e. their version of Christianity) if they continue to vote to maintain the capitalist system in perpetuity despite the fact that no Christian, worthy of the name, can justify the inexcusable vast wealth gap between the poor and the rich, not to mention the blatant devastation of the environment and the climate.
If the Republican party will pursue its policies, as it apparently seems determined to do, there will be irreparable damages not only for the US but the entire world. By espousing the most mind-numbingly stupid anti-environmental stance, it is basically promoting the destruction of the planet and of life on it at an irreversible pace. Why? May one ask. For almighty capital? The capitalist libertarian philosophy of life seems to be encapsulated in the famous words of prophet Isaiah “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (22:13). Not, to be sure, that the prophet endorsed such a view, but on the contrary, he condemned it! What is the frenetic rush to destroy the environment for such ephemeral gain that will only destroy permanently the only planet we can inhabit? Our moral obligation, as the young Oxford philosopher William MacAskill put it convincingly, is not only for today’s people, but also for future generations. Today’s people just cannot use and abuse the environment without any consideration for future humanity. By disregarding the future, the capitalist libertarian branch of the Republican party is showing its total moral bankruptcy. Naturally, its moral failures are not restricted to the environment alone. Its determined agenda to essentially keep the lower classes in a permanent state of precariousness, to make them consume the most unhealthy food, to prevent them from using their own tax money for instituting a comprehensive healthcare system, to progressively dismantling the labor union movements through legislation, to opposing all kinds of programs meant to provide a helping hand to its own poor citizens, its blatant disregard for the poor of the world, can only lead one to conclude that this branch of the republican is the worst part of what is considered the most dangerous party in the world.
The other two components of the party, the MAGA and Christian Nationalist factions, also have their own moral failings. The MAGA crowd, though made up of mostly white rural people, and thus rather mostly middle class or poor, is in a paroxysm of hate for people who have done absolutely nothing to even minimally harm it, but whose only fault is being from a different race, and perhaps religion. It is possessed by misplaced anger, misdirected grievances, and the persecution of oppressed people instead of fighting the very people who are the cause of their misery: their capitalist libertarian comrades.
The so-called Christian nationalists are the ones that should be held the most responsible for the continued power of the Republican power and its most damaging agenda not only for America but for the entire world. As I stated in this forum before, there cannot be a Christian nationalism, because Christianity is antithetic to all forms of nationalisms, casteisms, and distinction by race or ethnicity. It is oxymoronic to state that one is a Christian nationalist. One is either Christian or a nationalist. He or she cannot be both. I think this non-sense should end. The sooner the better.
The main danger posed by American Christian nationalists is that they have interpreted the teachings of the Gospels in such a deviant way as to mislead not only their own compatriots, but all the people they are engaged with in missionary work around the world. They have become willingly, in the words of Matthew “many false prophets…and [leading] many astray” [24:11]. The Christian morality demands that we empathize with and help the oppressed, regardless of their skin color, mindful indeed of America’s historic cruelty towards them. Yet, Christian nationalists have so far amplified, justified and exacerbated only the hateful agenda of white supremacists, capitalists and anti- environmentalists. How can one call oneself Christian, in any meaningful sense of the word, if one votes for a government that is determined to strip the poor of the most basic help, like food and shelter, when they most need them; deprive them of basic health care when such service has become prohibitively expensive; propose to eliminate the very institution meant to provide them of adequate education to better themselves; to treat them essentially as parasites unworthy of any consideration? All this, without even mentioning the cruel racist agenda that this movement is pursuing shamefully. If there has ever been indeed at any time some semblance of Christianity in America, it has come to die indeed with Christian nationalism.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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