Washington Post: The GOP has become the Soviet party - Polidicks

The GOP has become the Soviet party The GOP has become the Soviet party https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/JttMaJHIEPAzx1DYpDALL4shvO0=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/WFPKAFA5ZEI6TEKFH52AOC55XE.jpg Once upon a time, Ayn Rand-reading, red-baiting Republicans denounced Soviet Russia as an evil superpower intent on destroying the American way of life. My, how things have changed. The Grand Old Party has quietly become the pro-Russia party — and not only because the party’s standard-bearer seems peculiarly enamored of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Under Republican leadership, the United States is starting to look an awful lot like the failed Soviet system the party once stood unified against. Supposedly middle-class workers — people who have government jobs that are supposed to be stable and secure — are waiting in bread lines. Thanks to government dysfunction and mismanagement, those employed in the private sector may also be going hungry, since 2,500 vendors nationwide are unable to participate in the food stamp program while the government is shuttered and unable to renew licenses for the Electronic Benefit Transfer debit card program. Why? Because of the whims of a would-be autocrat who cares more about erecting an expensive monument to his own campaign rhetoric than about the pain and suffering of the little people he claims to champion. And for now, at least, most of those little people are too frightened of the government’s wrath to fight back overtly. Instead, desperate to keep jobs that might someday offer them a paycheck again, the proletariat protest in more passive ways: by calling in sick in higher numbers. ... Sometimes they appear afraid to stop clapping, echoing stories of forced standing ovations for Joseph Stalin recounted in video footage and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago.” Apparent corruption among these kowtowing aides — including improper use of public funds or private favors for fancy travel and other pampering — remains rampant. Unlike in true socialist states, it seems, our leaders haven’t run out of other people’s money. Meanwhile, federal law enforcement is publicly directed to pursue the would-be autocrat’s political enemies, as well as the family members of those enemies, such as former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s father-in-law. Purges of law enforcement or other members of the “deep state” are also demanded, and sometimes acted upon. Such actions, when taken by thugs abroad, were once denounced by Republicans.

The next President must do their duty to defeat all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Times sure change, huh?

"Republican" has effectively become a separate nationality. Mike Pence even said outright that he doesn't consider himself an American, just a Christian Conservative. To them, the party is the nation and loyalty to the party is the only allegiance that matters.

This is an opinion article.

I think that full quote he ordered it as 1st a Christian, then a Conservative, then a Republican. Still, all of those are before American.

Yes, he was asked to define himself, he said he was first Christian, second Conservative, third Republican. He didn't even consider being an American worth mentioning.

Yes, but its an Op-Ed highlighting alot of truth about the current admin. Even if some hyperbole is thrown in.

The core part of this article I disagree with is that it frames this as a change of pace for the party, and not exactly what all Conversatism has been building towards for decades. Being pro-Russia is sort of very natural for the Ayn Rand-reading style Republicans, as far as I'm concerned. Their entire purpose is to try and create exactly the kind of oligarchal corporate dictatorship that Putin is all about, and the GOP are just foot soldiers for this end. They're all about state protected neoliberalism. A heavily regulated free market economy is kind of an oxymoron, until you realise that the people controlling those regulations are being bought by the companies that make up the economy to innact laws that directly shield them from, as the writer put it, "from the whims of the market or technological change". So there can't be regulation, because the regulator has been absorbed by the market, so the market is regulating itself. And look at where that's got us.

Well, yes, but I don't think anyone thought that the Washington Post was reporting the factual news that the GOP had changed its name to "The Soviet Party."

Surely that is obvious from the title? I don't think anyone clicked this thread expecting to read about the GOP literally changing its name to The Soviet Party.

You have no idea how many people I've met online who actively wish that liberals, despite being just as American as they are, deserve death and how they wouldn't care if commifornia and Left York were to get nuked off the map. This is fucking dangerous. People caring more about their party than the others of their country is how you get dictatorships.

Which is funny because what theyre doing is very un christian-like.

This is the dumbest article. It's like something written by an angsty teanager in an english class persuasive essay. Let's take a look at the actual arguments being made to support the comparison (I'm only going to note those that are given some sort of evidential backup. Many of the points are just thrown out there with nothing at all to back them up): 1) Some tiny number of temporarily furloughed workers waiting to pick up food from a nonprofit charity (based on literally one tweet) are comparable to mass numbers of people waiting in lines for food because of widespread shortages. 2) People on foodstamps having temporary issues because some tiny number of stores (2,500 nationwide) can't renew their licenses is comparable to mass food shortages and starvation due to widespread economic failure. 3) Furloughed workers are calling in sick at higher rates than usual... as a protest? (The article cited says nothing of the sort, though. So I'm not sure where this is coming from. The article explains that it's due to financial hardships of not getting paid, not because of protest.) As far as i can tell, this point is literally just fabricated. 4) Trump has a weak ego and likes getting praised a lot... therefore he's like Stalin? 5) Trump has noted the applause after his speeches on twitter... therefore people are being forced to clap? 6) Some Trump aids have lived lavishly in some cases (2 are cited)... therefore they're like Socialist autocrats? 7) Trump uses the government to go after his political enemies. The only example given is Giuliani defending Trump for going after Cohen's father-in-law.... therefore he's like Stalin who sent his political enemies to gulags and/or murdered them. 8) Trump argued for a bailout of some coal plants and for tariffs... therefore he's like a centrally planned socialist economy. 9) Trump picking which government branches to fund during the shutdown is like "picking winners and losers" in a centrally planned economy. First of all, let me say that I think most of these things are stupid from Trump, but to say that they're in any way comparable to Soviet Russia is laughably idiotic.

this is a stinky post

Please elaborate because this is a shitty post of it's own.

Uhh for number two, you're really downplaying people's foodsource being taken away from them. Children can't go hunter-gatherer in 2019.

clearly we need to bring liberty and justice for all. http://i.imgur.com/VH6gsmm.jpg

I don't think they're the soviet party but some of 'em seem uncomfortably buddy-buddy with a different sort of Russian as of late...

Can we stop pretending that modern day russia has fucking anything to do with socialism or marxist ideas? Ive seen pro-hillary protestors using hammer and sickles on their picket signs, russia is a fucking capitalist paradise right now.

I hate myself for doing this: 1, 2 & 3) The government shutdown is bad and only accelerating an even worse wider situation. I'm totally unsure what your point is here? Any number of government workers being unable to afford food is absolutely unacceptable, these guys work fulltime jobs for the government. They should be paid enough to live. End of discussion. And I'm not sure how regular people instead of government workers is any better. Under Trump's regime inequality has only grown, one single person's wealth could end all of this in an instant. Anybody being unable to sustain themselves in today's world is absolutely disgusting, we have more than enough resources for everyone but we're intent on letting people suffer for... I honestly couldn't tell you why anyone would want this? I'm not saying that this is all Trump's fault, it would be bad under Democrat's too, but I am saying that Trump is intentionally making this worse with his shutdown. 4 & 5) As for Trump liking being praised, boasting about his wins and going after his enemies. To be honest, if you can't see the parallels you're being disingenious. Maybe it's because I'm British, and until recently our politcians have always been prim and proper. But there's a certain way that a President and Senators and Congresspeople etc etc have always held themselves. Trump tweets like a drunk uncle, not a President. And suddenly you realise the effect isn't just the degredation of political standards (god forbid) it functions as propaganda. As the article points out, what we're looking at here is a diet of pro administration content that was created by the administration campaign. Obama, Bush and any British PMs like Cameron and May are all dodgey but none of them intentionally established themselves as the only viable news source on themselves. 6) I'm not going to talk about how it's bad that Trump aids are living lavishly while hard working people are waiting in breadlines. It's part of that larger inequality thing. And obviously, clearly bad and if you disagree then... seriously? 7) Hitler didn't begin by straight up killing Jewish people, he slowly demonised them and bought that window of acceptability closer and closer to murder until it was eventually just accepted. People have noted the same thing happening with Trump. The Trump administration just fucking attacks anyone who jumps ship, and that's clearly been linked to bringing that window closer and closer to imprisoning those Trump dislikes. Again, Trump isn't "literally Stalin/Hitler" but we can note the parallels to help understand what's going on here. 8 & 9) OK, so this point is key. I explained this in my post earlier, and I think the article fails on this a bit. A socialist economy is one where the people own the state and the means of production. We are not in a socialist economy, and Stalinism was not a socialist economy. Currently the means of production are owned by the capitalist elite and the state is owned by the political elite. The political elite are bought and paid for by the capitalists, and so in an abstract and unaccountable sense, the capitalists own the state. The capitalists use this to create an economic regulation that protects them. This is functionally the kind of government intervention that the article refers to. No individual President is responsible for this, but Trump is so fucking open about this it's actually absurd. It is an approximation of Stalinism, in the sense that it's a kind of oligarchal dictatorship, only approaching a century later it's far more entangled with neoliberalism and a lot better disguised. Again, again, Trump isn't literally Stalin. It's just a useful analogue with which to explore the systems build around Trump's brand of politics.

Yeah my interpretation wasn't that Trump is literally Stalin, just that there are some interesting parallels especially given the history of the Republican party. That said, even though I don't really agree with it, props for arguing against what you see as improper comparisons to historical communist regimes sgman. I eagerly anticipate the posts you will make in the defense of Democrats.

When we get an article calling Democrats communists that gets large amounts of support from FP, sure, I'll defend them. Of course that's not the world we live in.

that's some stupendously typical posting of yours: ignoring the detailed counterargument to instead only respond to the easy post

Even though Democrats are arguable quite often barely left of center, meanwhile half of US republicans still support Trump

This statement is fucking moronic like always. From the king of "I'm not a racist trump supporter, but..." Call the democrats communist when they start acting like communists.

It's also a very republican kind of thought that being called a Communist is just as bad as being called a Soviet

But the Soviets were Communist, who're you gonna believe, economic theory that predates the soviets by like 50 years, or the soviets themselves? :downs:

"guys, the nazis were socialist, it's in the name! And North Korea is a Democracy, It's in the name!"

Trump can't be Stalin because Stalin has a Moustache and that one very superficial element makes them completely different and incomparable.