Ghosts of A-holes past

The utter insanity that has come to grip our national politics did not metastisize overnight. While Ted Cruz may be dominating the airwaves these days, he is just the latest colorful traveler on a road that was paved decades ago. In every word of Republican madness, I see the ghosts of Lee Atwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.

For at least some of our nation's history, there was a mutual, unwritten understanding among our politicians that you did not burn through the social fabric to win elections. Outright deception and playing of social and racial groups against one another used to be reprimanded by higher minded leaders, of both parties. Then along came the psychopath Richard Nixon, who's only agenda was to seek and hold as much political power as possible. Policy, if considered at all, always came second to Nixon, who was perfectly happy to let Democrats in congress pass liberal bills, as long they didn't threaten his power as president.

But in order to maintain his hold on the presidency, Nixon ventured into previously uncharted territory for national republicans- the south. Long considered a Democratic stronghold since Reconstruction, Nixon realized he could take advantage of the Democratic move toward Civil Rights by appealing to Southern racism in new, less explicit ways. His paranoid, win-at-all costs style ended up being his undoing, but Nixon ushered in the era of slash and burn cesspool politics that survives to this day.

In this era also came the rise of Lee Atwater, the brilliant, and mad political strategist who uttered the infamous phrase: "By 1968 you can’t say “n****r”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “n***r, n***r”"

St. Ronnie the actor was even more skillful at these divisive tactics than Nixon. He was a master at using charm and whit to disguise his radical, pro-corporate ideology. Despite his weak understanding of policy and impaired cognitive capacity, his appreciation for the art of political communication was enough to convince millions of middle class Americans to begin their experiment with political Stockholm syndrome by re-electing him/his administration twice. 

The legacy of the Southern Strategy and its shameless use of "wedge issues" to stir racial resentment and fear among the middle class remains as strong as ever today, and not just in the south. This "southification" has spread to other areas of economic disempowerment, especially the rust belt states. It's no coincidence that some of the most rabid, radical members of Congress now come from states like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. The engineered collapse of the white American working class had made for ripe-pickings of the modern day Atwaters, like Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Frank Luntz, and the religious right demagogues.

This is why no explanation of reality matters anymore. When so many members of congress, and their constituents  are motivated only by emotion and visceral distaste for the president, no argument using logic or data has any potency. Good luck getting any discussion of sectoral balances or demand leakages through these frontal lobes! Just the mere idea that our sovereign government can spend its own currency in unlimited amounts is enough to cause heads to explode. At this point it is probably too late for these deranged maniacs to ever come back to earth and contribute positively to our society anyway.