Title: The Destructionists
Rating: 4 Stars
For the noblest reason, the Republican Party was founded in 1854. It was founded by anti-slavery advocates that were against the expansion of slavery into the Western territories (in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act). Even though they didn’t, as a platform, specifically oppose slavery in the Southern states (thinking it would be unconstitutional to do so), it was the election of the Republican Abraham Lincoln that spurred the South to revolt. As a result of the defeat of the Confederacy, under the leadership of Republicans, slavery was outlawed everywhere. Citizenship and the right to vote was granted to all (yes, I know, only to men, equal rights for women was a future battle). Considering the state of the Republican party today, it seems somehow mind blowing to me that an entire national party was established for purely moral reasons.
There are many other shining moments in Republican history. Think Teddy Roosevelt and the progressive movement, breaking up monopolies and creating the Food and Drug Administration to protect our food supply. Think of battle hardened Dwight Eisenhower presiding over the 1950s, a time of incredible growth and change in the US while at the same time managing an uneasy relationship with the Soviet Union to keep us out of World War III. Even think of Richard Nixon, who despite his manifold flaws, visited previously closed China, held strategic arms talks with the Soviet Union, took us off the gold standard, and created the Environmental Protection Agency. I’d even throw in Ronald Reagan, who had a honestly held distrust of liberal economic policies, restored luster to our country after the dismal 1970s, and nearly signed an agreement to dramatically reduce nuclear weapons.
My mother is 85 years old and, as far as I know, has never voted for a Democrat in her life. What I just described is the Republican party that she knows and even now, is the party that she believes in and still somehow sees.
That party no longer exists. Whatever notions of morality or honor or citizenship or good stewardship are completely gone. What we have instead is simply the desire for power. It does not matter if the power is acquired legitimately or not. If voter suppression is required to keep power, then so be it. If blatant, overt, repeated lying is required, then so be it. If to keep power, you have to perpetually keep your constituency angry and scared, then so be it. If you have no other recourse then to actually delegitimize the democratic process, then so be it.
What makes me most angry is that they don’t really even do anything with that power. They have no agenda. They have no overarching goals. In fact, they don’t even have a platform. Notoriously, the Republican National Committee said that the 2020 Republican platform was whatever Donald Trump said it was. It’s just not Trump. Mitch McConnell said, early in Obama’s administration, that his number one priority was making Obama a one term president. The only thing that they do is throw red meat to their angry, scared voters. Demonize immigrants. Demonize Islam (while taking away rights from women in the name of Christianity). Demonize large cities where Democrats live. Demonize brown people that have the audacity to demand equality. Demonize vulnerable people that look or act differently. And, weirdly enough, give rich people and corporations tax breaks.
How did this come to pass? That’s what The Destructionists tackles. Having spent more than twenty years covering Washington DC, Dana Milbank had a front row seat to much of it.
Some people might start by blaming Nixon’s infamous Southern Strategy or, even more, the scandal of Watergate. I don’t buy it. By the time his tapes were released and the truth of his criminal behavior came to light, he had virtually no support in the Senate. It was inevitable that the House was going to impeach and it was estimated that he might not get more than ten Republican votes in the Senate. He resigned to avoid being convicted. Compare that to Trump, who still had the support of nearly all Republicans in the Senate, even after his actions directly caused the first invasion of our Capitol since the war of 1812.
No, Milbank blames, and I happen to agree with him, Newt Gingrich. I say that having been here the whole time and witnessing it. Gingrich wanted power and was willing to do anything to do it. He pushed aside the previous long time Republican leader, Bob Michel. Even though Michel was in the minority, he was able to work with Democrats to get Republican priorities passed. In fact, around half of Ford’s, Nixon’s, and Reagan’s priorities were passed even though the Democrats had the House during that whole time. Once Gingrich took over, he ruthlessly established the pattern of strict partisanship that his successors continued on. Clinton had around twenty-five percent of his priorities passed while Obama was down to around thirteen percent. The total number of bills passed was reduced by at least half.
The partisanship wasn’t just in making law. The partisanship was everything and everywhere. It was warfare simply for the sake of war. Since I’d seen it all over the past thirty years, this book was a kind of a hate read for me. It was a laundry list of contempt and disgust. He put it all in the book and, to my horror, I got to relive it.
Here are some of the ‘highlights’ that Milbank discusses:
Vincent Foster’s tragic suicide led to a whole conspiracy of the Clintons committing multiple acts of murder. The fact that multiple investigations all came to the same conclusion of suicide had no effect.
George W Bush nominated the monumentally unqualified Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Apparently she didn’t know the legal definition of such terms as reasonable suspicion.
Let’s not forget about Jack Abramoff. He set up a pay to play scheme that laundered millions of dollars to Republicans.
The Brooks Brothers riots of 2000 was when well dressed young white men descended upon election offices in Florida and caused such a disturbance that the recount effort was suspended. This, of course, laid the foundation for what happened in 2020, when Pennsylvania Republicans were chanting “Stop The Count” while Arizona Republicans were chanting “Count the Votes”.
When it comes to lying, it’s hard to top the Iraq War. Evidence was fabricated / grossly misinterpreted / grossly extrapolated to link Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 terrorists and that he was actively attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. The Bush administration got the war that they wanted.
The election of Barack Obama was not seen so much as a sign of progress but as a time for ever more irrational conspiracies. Whether he wasn’t born in the US or that he’s somehow secretly a Muslim, there was no end of attempts to ‘other’ Obama.
The election of Donald Trump just kept the lies coming. There was the caravan of immigrants that were going to overwhelm our borders. There were the Middle Eastern terrorists that were allegedly blending into Southern border immigrants. Of course, let’s not forget Pizzagate. Pizzagate is nearly amusing until you realize that at one point some twenty-three percent of Republicans believed that the government was being run by a cadre of satanic pedophiles.
I know that the argument is that both sides do it. Here’s the thing. Both sides don’t do it. There is no mainstream Democratic equivalent to Donald Trump. There is no Democratic equivalent to Pizzagate. Don’t get me wrong. There are corrupt Democrats. Just think of William Jefferson. The FBI found $90,000 worth of bribe money in his freezer. There are Democrats who are ambitious to a fault. At the outer fringes of the party, there are conspiracy theorists. The difference is that all of that is what the Republican Party is today. These aren’t one offs. This is the party now.
To return to where I started this post, the Republican party was originally started as a anti-slavery moral crusade. Now, here we are in 2022 where tens of millions of Republicans think that a national election was stolen from them and that Democrats are satanic pedophiles.
Where do we go from here? I have no clue and honestly, Milbank doesn’t either. He has vague hopes that, as the aging white cohort terrified of losing their place gradually leaves the scene, that the upcoming multi-cultural generations will inevitably lead to political change.
At this time, I don’t share those hopes.
dorkenstein 