By Addissu Admas
There is a widespread conviction that America is going through an unprecedented time, that the American government and its President are acting in a manner that is out of kilter with America’s tradition, or that Donald Trump and his cohort in power are an anomaly. The truth is that, though the mode in which the ideology and the policies of the Republican party are implemented is unusual, the ideology and policies themselves remain the same as ever. They in fact constitute the core of what the Republican party is and what it stands for. In effect, this has also been the core American ideology and politics since its foundation.
That America stands for democratic equality, human and civil rights is a thought that has warmed the heart of many generations of white Americans. One needs to be clear on this issue. There has only been an attempt at some form of true democratic arrangement in America since the start of the civil rights movement. Before that, the American project was in reality the creation of a white nation through systematic elimination of the native people and the institution of perpetual enslavement of African people; and when this ended, to maintain a permanent underclass at the service of the propertied class. Let’s not forget that the democratic principle of one person one vote was never part of the founding fathers’ political arrangement for America. The overarching goal was the maintenance of political power in the hands of a propertied class. That is why alongside a vast enslaved African population, there was also a substantial white underclass formed by British indentured workers and criminals. While enslaved Africans were never considered citizens until the ratification of the 14th amendment in 1868, the American white underclass was kept out of political power through various methods. Besides property requirements, as alluded to before, there were poll taxes to qualify for voting, literacy tests, gerrymandering, and threats of physical violence against a white underclass attempting to participate in the electoral system. The notion, therefore, of America being a democracy since its inception as an independent state is more of a myth than a reality. What America, or more appropriately the American ruling class, has always aimed for since the beginning was a kind of oligarchic plutocracy whose members have always been very wealthy individuals, families and vast corporations. The system was not designed to achieve the democratic goals of civil and political equality, but the maintenance and expansion of the power and wealth of the already powerful and wealthy! De facto, it was not much different from the monarchy it claimed to have repudiated. There have been several factions in the early days of the American republic that would have in fact wanted to fashion America into a form of capitalistic aristocracy. The primary instrument for achieving a similar goal in the past one hundred years has been the Republican party.
The Republican party’s core ideology is not “limited government, individual freedoms, and free market capitalism”, as it often claims, and as it would have us believe. The Republican party’s very raison d’être, its very core mission is to do the biddings of billionaires and corporations. All the other things it claims to uphold are simply means to such an end.
Since obviously the Republican party cannot gain enough votes if it clearly and constantly divulges its true mission, it has been instead remarkably successful in convincing the white proletariat, white evangelicals and white rural people that it is their principal advocate and defender. That is why 56% of the white electorate remains Republican, the greater majority of whom are against their very own self-interest!
In reality the Republican party would adopt any idea or method or join force with anything or anyone to sustain its core mission, which is the preservation, and if and when possible, the advancement of the interests of the capitalist class and its holdings.
Why do Republicans want a smaller government? Well, because smaller government means less regulations, less control for the super wealthy class to do whatever benefits it. Since denying climate change helps corporations, Republicans embrace it even to the detriment of their own constituents, not to speak of the rest of the world. Does Christian religion seem to contradict their core tenets? No problem, they will adhere to a form of Christianity that elevates prosperity to being the ultimate evidence of God’s blessing despite Jesus’ crystal-clear pronouncements that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Math. 19:24) or better yet “if you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Math. 19:21). One can’t find better quotes that can easily obliterate the pretensions of prosperity theology! Yet this and similar beliefs are what constitute the Christianity of the Republican party.
Does the Republican party stand for freedom, civil and human rights? How come it continues to do everything in its power to negate the rights of all the underclass of the world for the sole purpose of benefiting America’s billionaire class? In truth, it has even fomented wars and cruelly sacrificed the youth of America’s underclass of all colors in wars designed only to benefit the American super wealthy corporations. Why does it champion the mass incarceration of specially minority youth in prison-fortresses for the most inane crimes? I believe it is because it is aiming at preventing any form of class rebellion, and consequently the change of the status quo. Thus, it believes that it has to constantly persecute and control through policing this potentially revolutionary class. Cruelty of all cruelty, while it claims to be the champion of the military, it is the party that continues to do the least for the countless physically and materially wounded veterans of unnecessary wars. Yet these, in their majority, never fail to vote for the Republican party since it has convinced them that it is the more patriotic party. One must concede that the Republicans know far better their constituents than their Democratic opponents. This in large part is also due of course to the fact that their constituents are far more homogenous, i.e. white.
Donald Trump, rather than the reformer of the Republican party, the distorter of the party’s message, the negator of its values, etc.… is its most transparent and bold embodiment. The so-called traditional Republicans like Romney and Bush are appalled by his disinhibition in saying out loud what must be said quietly, his vulgarity and brashness. The truth is, in terms of ideology and goals, there is no difference between them. The Republican underclass, on the other hand, continues to believe, despite evidence to the contrary, that Trump and the Republicans have its best interests at heart. The core conviction of underclass Republicans remains that no government of the United States of America would dare to ignore the need and prerogative of white Americans. This is an incorrigible and obstinate belief that has benefitted far more the ruling class than them. Lyndon B. Johnson said in fact famously “if you can convince the lowest white man he is better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket… give him somebody to look down on, and he will empty his pocket for you”. Rather than focusing on those who are merely using it for their goals, the white underclass is mind bogglingly focused on those who hurt it the least: “The wretched refuse of your teeming shore” as Isaiah Berlin would put it. That is the poor immigrants who are more than happy to do what no white man wants to do.
Apparently, the Republican party has taken this advice to heart from a president who was a Democrat. And they have run with it since! Rather than considering itself as an underclass on the same footing as any underclass of any color in America, the white underclass that is enlarging the Republican party is convinced that special dispensations are reserved for it. Donald Trump granted them their favorite demands: deportation of undocumented immigrants, reversing the gains made by the LGBTQ people, dismantling DEI programs in the federal government ( a more paradoxical demand has never been made, since the entire cabinet of Trump is, in the opinion of most historians, the most incompetent, and whose main qualifications, with very few exceptions, are to be male, white, and loyal to the boss).
Most importantly, Mr. Trump has been far more busy issuing and implementing executive orders intent at cutting, dismantling, and destroying every beneficial government program not only for the world’s underclass but far more for the very people who voted for him. It goes of course without saying that the black and brown underclass will suffer even more under his new regime.
All 217 Republicans voted to approve $4.5 trillion tax cuts and $2 trillion in spending cuts. The two are not separate things. If my arithmetic is right, the $2 trillion cut is entirely intended to fund the tax cuts, plus $2.5 trillion borrowed money is intended towards the same goal. All this aggressive downsizing and destruction is aimed at benefiting the billionaire class and the vast corporations. Damned be their constituents, the Republicans in Congress have agreed to deprive the American underclass of basic services. As most experts have made it clear, the Republicans cannot extract $2 trillion from government spending without cutting to the bone Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. I wonder how white middle and lower class republicans are going to explain to themselves how the Republican proposal is working for them!
What continues to befuddle me is when is it enough for the likes of Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos? They seem to be a bottomless pit of greed. In the case of Elon Musk, it seems that he is devoid of any human consideration for anyone but his immediate family. Not only does he appear to relish his own destruction of valuable institutions in the name of efficiency, but he appears to be totally unconcerned by his own conflict of interests generated by his own actions! It is very likely that many Republicans may be resenting him. However, their resentment has nothing to do with what he is doing, but for the power that he has been given by Donald Trump. It could also be that they resent him because he is achieving what they have been trying to do for decades, i.e. the destruction of one of the better organized, productive and beneficial bureaucracies in the world. Whether one admits it or not, the destruction of American public service not only will hurt Americans, but hundreds of millions of people around the world.
I believe that the true goal of America’s billionaires and corporations is to restore, re-invigorate and bring out to light for everyone to see what America is at its core: a plutocratic, oligarchic state that happens to have three branches of government, a supreme court, a vast military industrial complex, etc…etc… but not yet worthy to be called a nation! Being a nation, as I understand it, requires concern, care and fellowship between and among all classes of people in a state. There must be genuine care for fellow citizens and not perceive them as means to an end. It requires that all political parties work earnestly for the people as a whole, so that they receive a fair share of the wealth of the country, and that the underclass is never reduced to eating “the crumbs that fall from the masters’ table”. If the overarching goal is to divide the state between the haves and have nots, employers and employees, not to mention between one race and another, it is impossible to create the cohesion that the notion of “nation” possesses inherently. What has dominated America is a class of oligarchs and corporations’ intent at designing a system where only they and no other class of people gets all the benefit, and none of the burden. The rest of the people of whatever race, are mere tools for their insatiable greed, and all the burden is reserved for them.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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Back in the 1960’s and early 70’s, to see articles in the journals of Ethiopian Students Associations about making money in general presented as evil was common. You would see articles written with headlines as ‘Some Notes’ this and ‘Some Notes’ that, ‘On the Question of’ of this and ‘On the Questions’ of that in lines with Marx, Lenin and Mao’s writing styles. The target was market economy and the free enterprise that drives it. USA was unfairly singled out as the one that controlled the Ethiopian economy since the mission led by Skinner in 1903. My contention was some one to tell me a single American company that controlled the Ethiopian economy but to no avail. That accusation went on for years and then came the squabble among those accusers on so-called theory of ‘two-world and three-world’ that send the associations to go belly up beyond repair. Deacons/darasaas of Marx/Lenin/Mao split into two hostile camps and moved to the old country slinging mud at each other. The rest, as they say, is history, the saddest and most destructive part of our history.