The Corruption of the Republican Party - By George Packer
The GOP is best understood as an insurgency that carried the seeds of its own corruption from the start.
5:00 AM ET
George Packer
Staff writer for The Atlantic
Updated at 10:58 a.m. ET on December 14, 2018.
Why has the Republican Party become so thoroughly corrupt? The reason is historicalit goes back many decadesand, in a way, philosophical. The party is best understood as an insurgency that carried the seeds of its own corruption from the start.
I dont mean the kind of corruption that regularly sends lowlifes like Rod Blagojevich, the Democratic former governor of Illinois, to prison. Those abuses are nonpartisan and always with us. So is vote theft of the kind weve just seen in North Carolinaafter all, the alleged fraudster employed by the Republican candidate for Congress hired himself out to Democrats in 2010.
And I dont just mean that the Republican Party is led by the boss of a kleptocratic family business who presides over a scandal-ridden administration, that many of his closest advisers are facing prison time, that Donald Trump himself might have to stay in office just to avoid prosecution, that he could be exposed by the special counsel and the incoming House majority as the most corrupt president in American history. Richard Nixons administration was also riddled with criminalitybut in 1973, the Republican Party of Hugh Scott, the Senate minority leader, and John Rhodes, the House minority leader, was still a normal organization. It played by the rules.
The corruption I mean has less to do with individual perfidy than institutional depravity. It isnt an occasional failure to uphold norms, but a consistent repudiation of them. It isnt about dirty money so much as the pursuit and abuse of powerpower as an end in itself, justifying almost any means. Political corruption usually trails financial scandals in its wakethe foam is scummy with self-dealingbut its far more dangerous than graft. There are legal remedies for Duncan Hunter, the representative from California, who will stand trial next year for using campaign funds to pay for family luxuries.* But theres no obvious remedy for what the state legislatures of Wisconsin and Michigan, following the example of North Carolina in 2016, are now doing.
Republican majorities are rushing to pass laws that strip away the legitimate powers of newly elected Democratic governors while defeated or outgoing Republican incumbents are still around to sign the bills. Even if the courts overturn some of these power grabs, as they have in North Carolina, Republicans will remain securely entrenched in the legislative majority through their own hyper-gerrymanderingin Wisconsin last month, 54 percent of the total votes cast for major-party candidates gave Democrats just 36 of 99 assembly seatsso they will go on passing laws to thwart election results. Nothing can stop these abuses short of an electoral landslide. In Wisconsin, a purple state, that means close to 60 percent of the total vote.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/how-did-republican-party-get-so-corrupt/578095/
ladjf
(17,320 posts)dhill926
(16,355 posts)AJT
(5,240 posts)Here in Wisconsin it will be nearly impossible to get the enough votes for democrats in rural areas, which now, thanks to gerrymandering, have more power then urban areas. The only real solution would be going back to the supreme court and getting a ruling that would require redistricting.
SWBTATTReg
(22,166 posts)of emergency, and take steps to address issues by declaring emergencies in rural countries, holding special elections w/o these counties (since they are in a state of emergency), and get your 60% quorum to override these idiot changes/rules put in place by insurgents, eliminate the gerrymandering, etc....I know rather extreme, but can't be any worse then their actions.
Mme. Defarge
(8,042 posts)As Bertolt Brecht wrote of East Germanys ruling party:
Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
erronis
(15,328 posts)From goldwater to reagan to magat, there's an undercurrent of forces that are trying to dismember democracy.
My hypothesis is that these forces are not just libertarian wads like the koch's or idealists like buckley. I think there is a more directed, less political/ideological force - something that is looking for more power, perhaps ultimate power - no matter the cost.