America’s “chattering classes”–to use Molly Ivins’ apt phrase for the pundits who pontificate on our social and governmental aches and pains–come in two broad categories: inside and outside. Commentary by members of both groups ranges from puerile to perceptive, but I think there is a special value in the observations and regrets of former Republicans who belong to the “old too soon, wise too late” category.
Stuart Stevens is one of the “Never Trump” Republicans who have reacted to the current assault on constitutional democracy by reassessing their own complicity with the darker elements of the party’s history. Stevens published a recent essay in Lincoln Square that confronted today’s realities with insights derived from his years as a GOP strategist, and several of those insights speak to many of us who once believed the party’s rhetoric.
Stevens began by posing a question we’ve all asked: How did this happen? How did we get to a place where a major American political party is controlled by one man–a man who doesn’t have to worry about Republicans in Congress exercising their governing prerogatives?
To call it partisanship is to call Ebola an airborne virus like the flu. It’s both true and woefully inadequate. The level of subservience in the Republican Party is unlike anything we’ve known in American politics. Running for office is often humiliating, inevitably exhausting, rarely enjoyable. You must suffer fools to an enormous degree and do so while feigning interest and appreciation. All of these Republican Senators and Congressmen endured the dehumanizing gauntlet of election only to come to Washington and do what? Whatever it is Donald Trump requires.
Stevens looks back at the devolution of the GOP over the decades, and finds a system that increasingly “rewarded compliance and punished independence. The path to advancement was to go along, to wait your turn.” And he acknowledges the party’s growing reliance on racism.
Since the 1960s, the Republican Party has operated as a homogenous white party, with non-college-educated white voters the dominant subgroup…. To win an election, you had one simple task: appeal to white voters. Consider this under-appreciated fact: Over the last fifty years, no Republican has been elected to the House of Representatives, Senate, or won a governor’s race who did not win the majority of the white vote.
One of Stevens’ most perceptive observations is aimed at the numerous pundits and political operatives who constantly bemoan what they see as the Democratic Party’s lack of messaging savvy. As he notes, it’s much easier to message to a monolithic base than to the wildly diverse voters who range from disaffected Republicans to Democratic socialists.
It’s often said that Republicans are better at messaging, but it’s a false standard. It’s easy to stage a successful concert for an audience that likes the same kind of music. It’s much more difficult to do the same for a crowd that enjoys very different types of music.
That homogeneity has allowed the GOP to create what Stevens calls “a top-down hierarchy.”
Like a corporate headquarters laying out a marketing strategy for regional offices, a political party that needed to appeal to the same demographic for victory gave candidates no reason not to echo its message. You were graded within the party on your ability to articulate the proscribed message and penalized for being “off message.”
That process, Stevens writes, “curates a particular kind of candidate.” Those who advance are those who are willing to follow and conform. Deviation was punished.
And what about the values the GOP extolled? Free trade. The importance of character. Family values. A muscular foreign policy. Personal responsibility.
As Stevens and many others have concluded, those supposed bedrock values turned out to be nothing more than marketing slogans.
When Donald Trump looked at the Republican Party, he saw through the artifice of values and understood it was a party of followers. The soul of the party was conformity, not values. The “family values” party would embrace a three-time married casino owner who talked in public about dating his daughter if he could give them power. The most “conservative” element of the party that was the fiercest opponent to the Soviet Union and an expansive Russian Federation would become the beating heart of the pro-Putin movement in American politics.
So here we are. The GOP has been bleeding non-racists and non-conformists for at least two decades. It is now–as Stevens notes–a homogeneous White cult. The problem is, in a system that privileges two major parties, the intellectual and moral collapse of one of those parties is a big problem.
Stevens forgot to mention who the Republicans were following for the significant part of those two decades – the Koch brothers. The R politicians wanted to serve and get some of that Koch Network money. The Kochs had a strategy, leveraging their control over universities and think tanks. It was all about the “free market” and libertarianism. They completely endorsed Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics’ theory of trickle-down economics. I would say that Trump hijacked the party from the Kochs.
I appreciate this comment, Republicans “rewarded compliance and punished independence. The path to advancement was to go along, to wait your turn.”
That mandate also applies to the Democratic Party. You’ll find that all the way from Washington to your local office. I remember all the young Democrats getting involved to change their local party, only to find a very rigid framework. Nancy Pelosi told AOC to wait her turn when she overlooked AOC for committee appointments.
In case you missed Trump’s presentation to Knesset, he basically admitted how the Adelsons have controlled his Middle East policies. Israel is also now in control of major media outlets, including TikTok, which they wanted to destroy. I would say Israel now has significant control over both political parties, but mostly the Republicans. However, the Progressive Caucus of the D’s even caved and aligned with AIPAC when several of their members went against Israel and lost in primary challenges.
Both parties are organized through top-down structures because we operate as an oligarchy with donors at the top. Most of our Washington politicians go along to become millionaires in record time. Independent thinkers are discouraged and worked against by all the party foot soldiers.
Also, this coming No Kings Day protest is not sponsored by the Democratic Party, even though the Republicans are screaming on Fox News about “the people who hate America.” Mike Johnson accused the NK participants of being “terrorists,” and so has Trump. And, who complains about a group of people protesting against fascism? Only fascists would take them as a threat…
“moral collapse” Those two words say it all. From the seemingly benign fixation on appearances to the all out worship of wealth; from the crazy hoarder to the greedy bully; from the mizer to the hypocritical control freak and the liar feeding off the weak, we have a society reflecting our soul, and that picture ain’t so pretty. Whatever we believed “freedom” would help us build, along the way America forgot that that one important ingredient…. self-control.
And let’s not forget the creators and operators of Project 2025. Along with the infamous Powell memo to the C of C in the 70s, P-2025 is a guide to overthrowing the Constitution and replacing representative democracy with fascist dictatorships. To Todd’s point: It’s the same way Koch Industries and others run their businesses. Businesses are NOT democracies.
Oh, and the operators of P-2025 are Voght and Thiel … along with the witless J.D. Vance on the inside. The foxes are reveling inside the governmental hen house.
Well done voters … no matter which side you’re on.
In 1972 with my marriage headed for divorce, 5 children, a high school dropout with a GED, I began applying for jobs with my limited qualifications. The only response was from the City of Indianapolis so I latched onto it; was sent to my Precinct Committeeman Mr. Otto for my interview in his home. I was an Independent voter raised in a staunch Republican family but naive regarding political realities so when asked to swear to Work For and Support the Republican Party (who was in control of City Government) I did so believing it meant I would do my best to do the job I was assigned to. I was also required to sign a document stating the same requirements. That was during Mayor Richard Lugar’s administration; I soon learned I was more qualified than most employees at that time of racism, sexism, nepotism, political patronage, antisemitism, etc., etc., etc. I also learned that I was required to DONATE 2% of my $64 weekly paycheck to the Republican party, in cash by the end of every payday. I was also told when and where to work for one of the Reelect Nixon campaign rallies. I also learned from my mother, a former Vice Precinct Committeewoman, who worked for Indiana IRS Department in the 1960s that her 2% DONATION was deducted from her paycheck before she received it.
Along came Mayor Bill Hudnut, still the best of previous Mayors and the one who followed his 16 years in office. We were told the 2% was no longer required, they would accept it if we chose to donate; that lasted for 2 years (those 2 years became important later). Then came the Public Employee Retirement Fund (PERF), 2% of our paychecks deducted to keep our jobs; a better deal than just forking over our 2% with no return on our investment. When I was forced to retire due to disability in 1994 I was told that 2 years of all City employee records had been LOST. Move ahead to 2017 with Trump and former Indiana Governor Pence in the presidency, we received letters telling us that the PERF funds were being moved to State Street Bank Retiree Services in New York City January 1, 2018 and we were required to reregister for PERF if we wanted to continue receiving our retirement. This put our retirement money into Trump’s greedy hands with the aid of Mike Pence and it has remained in the hands of Trump’s Indiana Republicans ever since. The Indiana Legislature has tried to end our 13th Check which replaces COLA ever since 2018; this year that 2 years under Mayor Hudnut when we did NOT have to donate 2% came into play, personally my years from 1972 – 1994 was lowered by one year which lowered the amount of my 13th Check which has only been approved by the Republican Indiana Legislature for this year. This fight has raged and will continue to rage with hope dwindling with each year.
In essence, Trump has been in control of Indiana’s Public Employee Retirement Fund since 2018; retirees includes public employees, teachers, judges, police officers, firefighters, Excise, Gamiing & Conservation Officers, prosecutors and Legislators. The Indiana Republican Legislature has been short-changing primarily elderly and disabled Republicans and now have more power than ever over this state and our retirement funds. I do not apologize for the length of these comments; we are now losing civil and human rights with no end in sight unless we vote out the Republicans…IF, and only IF, we still have voting rights come election time.
So how many does Stuart Stevens and his ilk represent in America? It doesn’t surprise me that they would see the destructive folly of this administration and its leader and do what, take a stand? At least he is speaking out, but what does surprise me is how many stay silent, even while having the same feelings about just how detrimental the current administration is to democracy. I think part of the GOP flock have always been suspect in this regard, but now the disease is pandemic. As Paul Krugman points out, in terms of our competition with China – although I’m thinking in the larger picture as well – by 2028 it’ll be over, and we will have lost that race and what we once knew as the great experiment.
Oligarchs are few, but they march to the same drummer, which is that they deserve more control. That undoubtedly worked for them in business, so why not in society?
Part of the wealthy network includes members who own media, such as the Murdochs, Zuckerberg, and the Ellisons. Through their propaganda machine and donations to political candidates, they have taken control of the government, which was once an asset of, by, and for the people.
An oligarchy is not too different from an aristocracy, or even a theocracy. They are all the opposite of democracy.
The protections against tyranny that we thought our Constitution was a bulwark against have failed us, and the question that is up to us is whether it is temporary or more or less permanent (which we have a rapidly closing window to reassert our control over).
An argument frequently heard from those already supporting this oligarchy is that this government was freely elected by the people, which is a similar point to the capitalist meme that if you don’t like who you work for, work for someone else. That point is undoubtedly available to some of us, but just as certainly not all of us. The capitalist model is rigged to favor corporations over the worker/consumer/family/taxpayer.
Next Saturday is another national day of demonstration for those who see the danger facing us.
Show up and peacefully add your displeasure to our numbers.
I recall a time when Boehner and McConnell had all the GOPIGGIES training to be “yes!” men. They were not allowed even to lunch with any Dems. This was their training in subservience! That has come to full fruiting, now. So, becoming a congressperson, now, appears to be, discussed above, seeking a job while giving up on any of the freedoms one is supposedly protecting. Special!
The solution is hard. Large numbers of protesters at the No Kings rally and more giant frogs confronting ICE agents is a start.
When I was much younger, in Detroit, we would joke of the Polish Palsy, the imagined affliction that would affect any of certain ethnic voters trying to pull a lever a candidate that didn’t have a (D) after their name.
In Indiana, we know of a similar issue where a turnip with an (R) will win.
We need to figure out how to cure the few remaining non-MAGA Republicans from this affliction. Then after probably two to four rounds of solid defeats for the GOP, either the old-school Republicans can plan a coup and take back the party, or they can start a new party, maybe Constitutional Conservatives or something. Then, by the time my great nieces and nephews are adults, the country may have restored our place in the world, perhaps better that it was before (always good to learn from the past and correct known mistakes).
At the first No Kings protest, the right wing people we encountered were fairly affable. They didn’t like that we had gathered in opposition to Orange Jesus, but I think they sort of appreciated the fact that our focus was on kings. I don’t expect to get that reception this time, since the signal has been given that we’re America hating terrorists. Organizers have been planning for crowd control and there will be people who have been recruited to make sure the protest remains peaceful.
I hope to God the plan works. I also hope that we do that everywhere. See you there in Sunny Southwest Florida!
Stuart Stevens needed to have read a single book in 2013 to see the future. But, it was written by a woman- and republican strategists certainly can’t abide that. We should all have read this book before the damn golden escalator event in 2015.
Claire Connor, author
Wrapped in the Flag was named as “The Best in 2013 in Nonfiction” by Kirkus Reviews. Kirkus reviews over 7,000 books every year and my book was one of only 17 in the memoir category named to the best list.
Claire was twelve years old when her parents dove into the world of paranoid politics, a world dominated by the John Birch Society, an anti-Communist, anti-federal government movement. “Taking back the country” was the Birch mantra.
Claire’s parents were the first two Birch members in the entire city of Chicago. Her father, Stillwell J. Conner, became a National Council member and remained in top leadership for thirty-two years. Her mother was a partner in all things Birch.
At first, eager to gain the approval of her mercurial parents, Claire embraced everything they embraced. As she matured, however, she began to disagree. At first, it was just a whisper here and a tiny “no” there, but every little rebellion made her stronger.
The final break from her parents caused tremendous upheaval, leaving a rift that never healed.
“Extremism broke my family,” Claire says. “I don’t want it to break my country.”
Wrapped in the Flag is the culmination of five years’ work, but Claire feels that her preparation began long before she wrote a word. In 1967, she earned a degree in English (with honors) from the University of Dallas. Twenty years later, she completed her Master’s degree in Teaching English.
In 1987, she spent the summer in Shenyang, China teaching English to Chinese professionals. “I’d never even had a passport before and suddenly I was one of a handful of Americans in a city of over three million people. I discovered that almost everything I thought I knew about China was wrong. My students discovered that they were equally as wrong about America. Together, we built bridges of understanding.”
In 1988, Claire was named Student Teacher of the Year by the Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English. She taught English to seventh and eighth graders at the Marshfield Junior High School in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Claire served as a member of the “Restructuring Education Task Force” for the School District of Marshfield in 1993.
For over ten years, Claire was the leader of the Marshfield chapter of Wisconsin Citizens Concerned for Life, now Wisconsin Right to Life. She spoke extensively to students in area high schools, to church and parent groups. Her reconsideration of the no-exceptions approach to reproductive issues marked a major milestone in her personal and political evolution. “Women face excruciating choices,” Claire says. “In taking such a black-and-white approach to the issues, I’m afraid I was not helpful.”
Claire is the mother of four grown children and the grandmother of three darling girls. “I dedicate every word I write to my family and to all Americans who want to understand what’s happening in our politics,” Claire says.
Claire lives in Florida with her husband, Bob, and their little dog, Conner.
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I read this book the year it came out. There has been nothing that has surprised me that the republikkkan party has done. Native Mississippian here, the fact that so many seemed surprised on January 6, 2021 was absolutely gobsmacking to me. We’ve had a couple of lynchings already this year in my native Mississippi. And since Stuart Stevens is also a native Mississippian— HE DAMN WELL KNEW the coming realities we now face and turned his back to it. He may write as many “I’m so sorry books he wants” every damn one of them are lies.
All anyone ever needed in MS was to know that even in my hometown of Tupelo, during my first grade year, my friend slept on the floor because the kkk burned a cross two doors down and that was the safest place for her children. If you think my friend ever forgot or actually believed she has the same rights as I do? Even living in the Chicago area with her PhD professor husband she still doesn’t believe she’s safe. Never has known anyplace safe. Traveling back to visit parents- not safe, her brother still living in Tupelo? He is not as safe as the white realtor/brokers in town who call themselves colleagues.
So, this lesbian got the hell out at 17 and never looked back. I live in a very rural area of New Mexico now and just like every house I’ve lived in as an adult, every room has a gun very close at hand. Since I’m here at least 4 nights a week alone because of my spouse’s work out of state- I’ve learned to be a happy hermit and chat on the phone with the few friends I have. And enjoy the wood shop.
My BA & MA in Criminal Justice have ensured that I trust no one in or out of uniform- it has served me well. My spouse is a psychiatrist who has been stalked by multiple former patients, or the widow of a former patient. The law enforcement’s advice every time? If he gets in the house- make damn sure he can’t talk to anyone ever again. Hell, she once treated the wife of a sheriff in a neighboring county. That sheriff sent a deputy multiple times across the county line to simply pull her over for intimidation purposes. That was in the late ‘90s. It hasn’t gotten better- we aren’t electing better people. And once the sheriff of the county we lived in actually got to talk to her? It stopped. But she wouldn’t talk to the chief deputy, only the man elected to his office, and fortunately I had a couple of friends from the university where I got my degree who could make that discussion happen. I’m not sure she could have ever gotten to speak with the sheriff himself had my friends not made inquiries to him-he did need the university’s police academy to train his new officers. Not that it has made a real difference.
And that is where the rest of this country better get to- quickly, if they break in- they don’t walk out or go to the ER, just the morgue. For entirely too long the white community has given white boys a break that black boys and grown men don’t ever get. But it will stop when enough of them start dying after they’ve broken into homes to rape and pillage for what they’ve been TAUGHT is due them.
I lost my brother to his drunk driving at the age of 18, Mom couldn’t overcome that and only lived 4 more years.
If mothers knew the dangers their sons are learning from their “friends”, maybe it won’t take so many. But the drunk driving Moms haven’t stopped that shit in over 40 years.
Pessimistic outlook, I know. And I hope daily that enough people wake up enough to start educating their children in their homes where their personal boundaries are and how to engage and protect those boundaries in non violent ways.
Walking away cannot always be the right call. Drawing the lines has to happen sooner or later with the bullies and all the untreated personality disorders we watch every day on the tv news, modeling behaviors I never saw as a child.
I really really tried to watch faux news in the beginning, I mean Shepard Smith graduated with his journalism degree 50 miles down the road from where I was reared. His show was followed by Hannity and Colmes. It’s a wonder Allan Colmes could stand to finish out that contract with the daily abuse he personally and every guest took from Hannity. I had to stop. My parents feared video games would turn us kids into zombies or some such nonsense. I never saw that tv station turning my father into a cult member. I’m also glad Mom died before that shit started broadcasting, she served her country in the 50’s in the Air Force. I just have to hope that those who meant it when they took that oath, mean it today. I know a few who don’t, and I hope those are the exceptions.
Rant off. Sorry Sheila, I got on a roll.