Coup d'état – The Revolution Has Been Televised for Years

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

[AUTHORS NOTE: Since I first published this article in May of 2019, we had a Presidential election in which the losing President has yet to concede and a violent attempt to disrupt the election process to overthrow our democratic rule and reinstall Donald Trump into power. The long-planned coup is now in high gear and moving quickly, out in the open, to complete the violent coup attempt of January 6, 2020. Our republic is facing its greatest crisis since the Civil War. Now, this piece serves as a prologue to however this turns out. 11/23/2021]

The Party of Lincoln is gone. Forever gone. All that remains of it are a nostalgic band of loyal followers around the country who don’t accept its passing and don't see clearly what has taken its place.

Systematically, over time, and with stealth, the Republican Party officeholders have been replaced by a subversive cohort of politicians hostile to a pluralistic, democratic Republic in which they must share power with others who don’t look, think, or worship like them. Demographic changes over the years have expanded majority opinions to include more ethnic and racial minorities while shrinking the proportion of Eurocentric white voters. Additionally, income inequality has massively increased the power and influence of a tiny number of ultra-wealthy citizens who want a greater say in government. Consider that the top 0.1% own as much wealth as the bottom 90% of Americans yet represents just 238,000 voters compared to 214 million people of voting age in the bottom 90% group. These uber-wealthy citizens occupy a world of business in which they get one vote for each share of ownership, a style of corporate governance that they would happily apply to national governance. (see World Democracy and the Invisible Hand Opposing It)

Under these conditions, the industrialist elites have created a Republican Party that is a tightly wrapped coalition of wealthy special interest groups and a disparate collection of disaffected social interest groups with otherwise unpopular goals. Collectively, they are working towards a more autocratic system of government wherein their unpopular ideas can be imposed on the rest of us. (see The Rise of a Disloyal Opposition)

The bedrock of any democracy is the consent of minority interests to accept majority rule in exchange for personal liberty and protection under the law. It is this consent, to abide by the will of the people, that is breaking down in America.

The goal of these democracy thieves is to take down our Republic and replace it with what could be called a Neo-Republican authoritarian state, or permanent neo-republican control over the government. We have already seen how this works in several Republican-controlled states. An authoritarian, single-party federal government is the only way this coalition of the wealthy elite coupled up with disaffected white nationalists, Christian right fundamentalists, homophobes, and others can impose their will on Americans. Their long-range plans for this takeover have been fomenting for years in places such as the Federalist Society and other ultra-conservative think tanks. The broad outlines of their schemes can be seen in their recent attacks on popular democratic ideas.

When these Neo-Republicans recently controlled Congress and the Democrats controlled the Executive Branch, they grossly abused their Congressional oversite authority to disrupt the regular order of government. They blocked or attempted to block all legislative initiatives, even ones they had proposed themselves. They blocked all judicial nominations, especially, and most dramatically, to the Supreme Court. They filibustered every Democratic initiative so that we no longer had majority rule in Congress. When their own will was challenged by filibusters after they regained the majority in the Senate, they ended the filibuster for judicial nominations so they could have their way in making key appointments. They shut down the federal government on several occasions mostly to alienate the affections of the people towards this republic. They loudly pointed to this as proof our system of democratic government wasn't working.  They harassed the popularly elected President, Barak Obama, with endless investigations and obstreperous oversite, which they ruthlessly oppose when oversight is appropriately directed at the most lawless Chief Executive in modern times. 

State governments controlled by the Neo-Republicans have found ways to suppress the vote and game the election systems to keep themselves in power. They have drawn up unconstitutional Congressional districts that create safely Republican Congressional Districts for years to come. They passed unconstitutional anti-abortion laws and odorous social conservative legislation to prove their intentions to serve the wishes of the evangelical right and nationalist fringe groups whom they court and pander to for support. In some states, they have subverted democratic rule altogether and appointed emergency managers to take control of distressed cities and towns, usurping duly elected local governments. And in every GOP-controlled state, they have given tax dollars and tax breaks to every corporate interest.

After the Executive Branch came under the control of the Republican Party, with an assist from Russia, the Neo-Republicans ended all Congressional over-site while President Donald Trump has been taking a wrecking ball to our Republic and democratic institutions we so admired. He began installing himself as the first Supreme Executive while breaking every norm of the high office he holds.

Now with Democrats in control of the House of Representatives [May 2019], regular oversite is being restored. But Donald Trump, backed up by Congressional Neo-Republicans, is resisting any oversite activity whatsoever. He is challenging the House’s authority to hold him accountable in any way. He has refused to allow any of his Senior Executive Staff to respond to requests or Congressional subpoenas in his impeachment inquiry. He has refused to turn over any documents or cooperate in any way with Congressional oversight. Then on September 19th, in a federal court filing, Donald Trump, in effect, declared that he is above the law and untouchable by anyone.  When you step back to look at the big picture it becomes clear that we are experiencing a slow-motion coup d'état.

This takeover of our democratic government has been going on for some time. Consider how the Republicans have been blocking all Democratic Party candidates for federal judgeships while packing the Judiciary with their ideological judges when Republicans are in control. Consider how brazenly Mitch McConnell stonewalled President Obama’s pick to replace Justice Scalia for over a year in order to fill the vacancy with a Republican ideologue. He brags about how many young, highly partisan federal judges he has installed in the federal courts.

We have three separate co-equal branches of government. To take control you must control all three branches. At this moment in history, only the House of Representatives is beyond their control.

But there is also the question of the fourth estate, the news media. You can’t get away with taking over control of a government without also taking control of the messaging and public perceptions. Here is where the Republican coup actually got started, after Nixon's impeachment. For a whole generation now, the Neo-Republicans have been building a massive network of alt-right media with a high online presence and lots of toxic, anti-government content.

This alt-right network, the Republican "echo chamber" as Hillary Clinton first perceived it, is now working in parallel with Russian cyber-disinformation activities to continually misinform and arouse the alt-right political base that Neo-Republicans have been carefully cultivating over the years.

So, put it all together and what immerges is a new Republican Party grasping to control all of the levers of power in order to have their way. This new governing party doesn't want majority rule when that includes the votes and opinion of people they don't like; People who don't share their distorted Christian values. Our most trusted democratic institutions, such as the FBI, NSA, and the Justice Department, are under siege. They are beginning to crack. The status of the Judicial branch, and especially the Supreme Court to save our democracy is about to be severely tested, and the prospects of salvation from the Court seem murky at best.

Here is how the revolution stands. We have embattled civil servants trying courageously and disparately to hold on to our great democratic institutions and the rule of law. We have one-half of the legislative branch clinging on to our democracy. They are just beginning to understand the fight they are in. They are trying to right the ship of state without the support they were expecting from the Neo-Republicans in Congress. We have the fourth estate locked in a massive counter-informational battle with alt-right media and foreign powers. 

Faced with multiple Constitutional challenges we pin our hopes on a deeply divided judicial system and Supreme Court, hoping that just one conservative Justice will rise above politics to save our Republic. But more importantly, we must rely on ourselves to see more clearly the threats we are under and rise up in mass to preserve majority rule. We must identify and defeat the enemies of democracy, both foreign and domestic.  As Benjamin Franklin once warned us, we have a republic, "... if we can keep it."


Further reading: Rise of a Disloyal Opposition.
https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-rise-of-disloyal-opposition_29.html?m=1

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POSTSCRIPT: The slow-motion coup d'état described above turned quick and hot on January 6, 2021, when Donald Trump sent both his well-organized hate-group supporters and disorganized rally supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol building to disrupt the certification of the votes that elected Joseph Biden President. Democracy is held by a thread but the war has shifted from an outright insurrection to a covert insurgency being fought under the radar at the local district level. B.T.L. 3/7/21

Obsessive Political Delirium Syndrome – Confessions of a Chronic Sufferer

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

What follows is a post from the Humans of New York Facebook page that unfortunately resonated with both my daughter and me. I recognized this account as a satirical description of what I call “Obsessive Political Delirium” syndrome:

“I had three bottles of wine on election night. I got in bed after Pennsylvania and stayed there for a week. I’d only get up to use the bathroom and get more wine. I’d have left the country by now if it wasn’t for my elderly mother. I’ve weaned myself off Xanax, but I haven’t recovered.

I still watch MSNBC all the time. I’ll spend entire days on the couch. I’ll wake up with Morning Joe and go to sleep with Brian Williams. I’ll get on Twitter during the commercials and search for any hint that somebody’s going to be indicted. I know way too much. I know the name of every congressman. I know their district. I know what percentage of the vote they got.

Before 2016, I hadn’t purchased a book in twenty years. Now I buy all the political ones. The scarier the better. I even got the Omarosa book. Nobody else wanted to read it so I thought I’d take one for the team. I went to DC for four different protests.

And a few weeks ago I drove down to Mexico to see for myself what was happening on the border. I’m obsessed. It’s not healthy. Recently I was able to cut myself off from politics for about a week. But then here comes Brett Kavanaugh and I’m back on the couch for three days.”

The malady described above first gripped me when Richard Nixon won the Presidential election in 1964. His politics and creepiness consumed my attention right up until his impeachment. My political worrying was debilitating and depressing. It also triggered a secondary obsession over the prior assassinations of two Kennedys and a King. I have never been able to shake the feeling that those assassinations are the start of a long thread that has run through U.S. history ever since.

No sooner had I gotten my life back under control when WHAM! Ronald Reagan was elected. He surrounded himself with some of the same creeps and spooks that buzzed around Nixon. That bout of fibral political delirium peaked with the Iran-Contra scandal and dissipated slowly due to the very dissatisfying lack of another well-deserved impeachment.

Then I went into a deep political slumber for a while, and it was glorious. But one evening a CBS news special to explain this new White-Water scandal failed to reveal anything at all of substance. I remember thinking, "OH GOD! Not again!" Here was another rogue’s gallery of radical neo-cons and dirty tricksters flexing their new conservative media machines. They were out for a revenge impeachment of Bill Clinton, and they got it. Clinton wasn't convicted in the Senate, of course, because well... lying about a blow job to protect your reputation isn't exactly a high crime. Still, the dark forces behind the conservative façade got their pound of flesh.

After that I thought I would catch a break, but then Bush v. Gore happened.  I went nuts all over again about the stolen election and the discovery that electronic voting machines were craftily designed to be hacked. All the voting machine companies were owned by partisan Republicans at the time. That bout of the infliction culminated in my having to hire a First Amendment Lawyer to protect me from a threatened SLAPP suit by the company that ran our local elections, and a threatened criminal investigation of me by my county Prosecutor for bringing our local electronic voting machine vulnerabilities to the attention of our county government. I fended off the SLAPP suit (incurring legal fees) but it had its intended effect on me. I shut up about local politics.

I set out to cure myself of obsessive political delirium and was just starting to make good progress when Donald Trump started winning primaries. And OMG… here we are in the thick of the worst political disaster in our country’s history, with a President who is a “Clear and Present Danger” to the security of the United States.

I feel so bad for my children who have come down with this horrible affliction. I have suffered from recurring bouts of it my whole adult life. And the trauma now is greater than at any time in the past. Is this the final festering of an old injury that began with Kennedy’s assassination, or is it the end of America as we know it? I take some solace in the results of the 2016 Congressional election that has installed so many women and such great diversity into the House of Representatives. I also take comfort in the rising activism of a younger generation, including Parkland survivors, that sees things the same way I do. For my children’s sake, I hope that my hope for the future will be realized this time.

The Hypocrisy Risk for Social Conservatives

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Whenever hypocrisy strikes a Republican politician, the immediate argument on the right is that Democratic politicians are not morally superior to Republicans. This is may be true, but it is also misleading. The most recent GOP hypocrisy scandal is an example.

Representative Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania became the latest GOP social conservative to manifest hypocrisy. Murphy is married, has an adult child, is a staunch right-to-life proponent and a member of the Congressional House Pro-Life Caucus. This January he voted for the latest Pro-Life bill that passed in Congress. He proudly highlighted his support for the bill in a press release that reads in part:

"Passage of H.R. 7 in the wake of the President’s executive action yesterday gives me great hope that moving forward, we will once again be a nation committed to honoring life from the moment of conception onward and ensuring American taxpayer dollars are never spent to end a life before it even begins.” [Murphy, January 24, 2017]

The scandal is that he had just suggested to a woman who became pregnant as a result of their extra-marital affair that she should have an abortion. The woman, Shannon Edwards, was offended by the hypocrisy of Murphy's public and private attitudes on abortion and told him so in a text message:

"And you have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week when we thought that was one of the options." [Edwards, January 2017]

Ms. Edward's texts went public and Tim Murphy has since announced he will not run for re-election next year.  The very polarized social media debates are well underway.

[ UPDATE: Tim Murphy announced he will be resigning at the end of October ]

From this brief account the hypocrisy is clear and the consequences are sad for those involved, especially his wife and child. Frustration on the right is also understandable as this keeps happening on the GOP side. It may seem like the media are selectively reporting on GOP moral gaffs, hence comes the counter-argument that Democratic politicians are just as likely to engage in immoral behaviors, but circumstances make this misleading.

On the Republican side, family values focuses on moral issues, such as those in this case. On the Democratic side family values focuses more on policy issues, such as universal health care, fair wages, school lunch programs, etc. It is less likely politicians will fall victim to hypocrisy if the family values they promote are policy related rather than morality based.

As long as Republicans exploit social conservative issues and insist on legislating morality, the GOP will continue to provide glaring examples that we all fall short of living perfect lives. Conceding that Democrats are just as likely to engage in immorality may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that they are still less likely to sound like hypocrites when they do.