The Next Two Years

Well, that was unpleasant.

So what does a Republican-dominated Congress and Supreme Court have in store for us?

One thing I think is highly likely: a slowdown in the recovery, or even a deepening of the depression. A period of deflation and an explosion of the national debt both seem possible.

This is likely to be an outcome of three Republican initiatives.

1. Ending the health insurance tax credits in the 26 states that have not established their own health insurance exchanges. This would raise the health insurance prices of the approximately 10 million people enrolled via healthcare.gov beyond the ability of most to pay. This, in turn, will cascade through the insurance industry, likely bankrupting insurance companies and affecting policies outside of the 26 Republican-dominated states.
2. Cutting taxes on the very wealthy.
3. Expanding military spending through borrowing.

At the personal level, further cuts in programs for people in economic distress are likely. The overall impact of this, and a slowing of the recovery, is likely also to affect the morale of the public. Some people will be further radicalized, and support further cuts. It seems likely, however, that much of the public will develop a hopeless hatred of the Republicans, which will be exploitable in a variety of ways, though it may ultimately lead to a successful opposition.

One of the most reliable markers of Republican politicians is their misogyny. Astonishingly for conservatives who claim to value women, children, and families, they are forever making excuses for rapists. This will manifest as more Congressional anti-abortion and even anti-contraception activism. A weakening, though probably not repeal, of the Violence Against Women Act seems possible.

Impeachment of Obama on false charges. Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!

It’s a pretty ugly list, though some of it many not come to pass. Obama’s veto will have some effect. At the same time, this list is not comprehensive; there are more horrors I do not know about. I think the country is going to be miserable by 2016, and I am not at all sure the Republicans will lose power at that time.

Further into Hell: Fascism, Keynesianism, and Red States

The tax-cutting and anti-labor policies of Kansas are destroying jobs. During a time of modest recovery, employment in Kansas continues to fall.

One of the things I now grasp about 1930s fascism is that it had to be militarist, it had to encourage internal looting. It had no other way to create jobs and maintain the wealth of its would-be aristocracy. How will this play out in states like Kansas and Wisconsin? Do the paramilitaries of the far right merge with the state militias? That sounds disturbingly plausible, especially since the state Guards and national reserve forces are already are full of Sunday soldiers. What happens then?

Internal violence, for sure. More attacks on victimized groups—blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, and women of all ethnicities—seem likely. External violence? It is hard for me to imagine a successful revolt; the state forces are too corrupt and disorganized, and the Federal forces are very powerful indeed. So instead, I think, a radical states-rights agenda enabled by a complaisant Congress and the Roberts Court.

I don't see how it can work, without a successful revolt. These states will not be able to hold their citizens and, especially, their women. Poverty and sickness will be a hard sell, when neighboring states will be relatively prosperous and healthy. But it promises hard times for whole (dis-) United States for some years to come.

Torture Report: We Haven't Hit Bottom Yet

Well, that was unpleasant.

The revelations in the torture report are even worse than what we already knew. And that's not all—we have the people who ordered the torture on television saying, like Darren Wilson, that they have no regrets and did nothing wrong. There is no talk of prosecution from anyone with the power to do it, though I suspect that all the perpetrators would do well not to travel outside the USA.

And we haven't hit bottom yet. Until substantive changes are made (I am starting to wonder if John Brennan, former master of drone assassinations, now Director of the CIA, is blackmailing Barack Obama), this will continue.

Croak!

Fascism by State

I think I get it. Some US states are fascist, the way some US states used to be slave states. Fascism, in the sense of that Paxton, Griffin, and Berlet defined it:

Fascism. Modern political ideology that seeks to regenerate the social, economic, and cultural life of a country by basing it on a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity. Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy. Despite the idealistic goals of fascism, attempts to build fascist societies have led to wars and persecutions that caused millions of deaths. As a result, fascism is strongly associated with right-wing fanaticism, racism, totalitarianism, and violence. (Griffin)

This, I think, explains a lot. It seems to the left, back in the 1950s, that fascism would come to America. Sinclair Lewis wrote a whole novel about it back in 1935. But it never took everywhere, and the federation recovered.

So we have a situation where places like Kansas and Wisconsin are dominated by rulers who their majorities hate, while California and New York are sort of getting along. The national government is still up for grabs, though we have two years of a fascist majority in the Congress and who knows how long in the Supreme Court.

So maybe it's time to dust off the old states rights rhetoric, and turn it against its inventors. Looks like the Roberts Court is going to bring it back; it's the way they will trash the ACA and drastically weaken marriage.

So we tough it out, and wait. It would help if some national leader or other would actually speak up. It would help if at least one national news outlet would admit that this is not politics as usual. (Well, maybe Comedy Central is doing that. But they're not news—are they?)

I'm not holding my breath.

“The Rise of Pseudo-Fascism" revisited

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross," as Sinclair Lewis did not say. Or "wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution." Or even, "it will not be labeled 'made in Germany;' it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, 'Americanism.'"

David Neiwert, in his 2004 essay The Rise of Pseudo-Fascism, commented that this was not quite full fascism. yet: it was not openly revolutionary, not yet a dictatorship, did not yet rely on physical violence and gross intimidation, and that American democracy was not yet in the genuine crisis that the real thing requires. In the past election, we have had the openly revolutionary Joni Ernst elected to the Senate, we have the intimidating "open carry" firearms movement and government workers being shot in Utah, and we have multiple economic and constitutional crises. We are not a dictatorship yet, but we are very close, with Ted Cruz and Rand Paul vying for the iron scepter.

On the past election, Neiwert comments, “the mainstream press continues to treat this radicalization as normative politics.” We're almost there, and only the lefties like me seem to notice.

It’s not about racism…

(A short and bitter croak.)

…it’s about ethics in…

I think that’s the final word on what US conservatism has become. All the talk of independence, of responsibility, is in the end a cover for racism, sexism, and classism. Obama is conservative in every way but bigotry, and the reaction to Obama’s Presidency he has shown us is that, in the end, what calls itself conservatism is not about all its fine ideals, which just about everyone believes; in the end it is simply well-dressed authoritarianism. That’s the engine, that’s the drive wheel. Modern US conservatives are supremacists, that’s all: people who can’t live in a world in which all are equal.

Wotta revoltin' development.

(I know, I know, there's people who've been saying that all along. But I had hopes that conservatives might actually believe their high ideals. And in fact, some do. Those conservatives are no longer Republicans and are saying things like "my party left me.")

Taney Court II: the ACA and Marriage

The Roberts Court has taken a gay marriage case and an ACA case. The only reason anyone can see that they have taken the ACA case is to further chip away at the law.

I think the way this will works out is that the Taney Roberts Court renders decisions that allow states to opt out of the ACA and out of any constitutional requirement to acknowledge gay marriages made in other states. This "states rights" view is a plunge into antebellum law, and the conservative justices will probably have to revive pre-Civil War precedents to justify it; they may also revive the legal basis for racial segregation in doing so.

In the long term, I cannot imagine how the USA can survive with an early 19th-cenutry legal system. The antebellum system dissolved into civil war; I do not think the republic will fare any better under the legal regime the Roberts Court is creating.