This borders on brilliant! Your painstaking elucidation of the erosion of our democracy is on target. Thank you for putting it all together. The only thing I might add is the rise of the MAGA movement's blatant racism that allowed the trolls that have been there all along to crawl out from under their bridges. I have restacked it. My readers need to read this.
Outstanding essay as always. It's important to understand how we got where we are. Your substack should be required reading for the centrist Dems who react to this country's de-evolution into authoritarianism and oligarchical rule as a minor inconvenience to be dealt with by strongly worded letters. I look forward to the day when you write an essay outlining the chronology of how we built a bold, progressive democracy out of the ruins of our current corrupt system.
Please look up and include Citizens for National Policy, co-founded by Paul Weyrich (who co-founded Heritage and came up with the pro-life strategy) and Tim LaHaye (Evangelical ministry leader and author of the mega-popular “Left Behind” book series) in 1981. If you don’t know who they are, look them up — even if it’s just their Wikipedia page. They are an umbrella org that arranges annual conventions where all the other orgs come to strategize and political heavyweights (like Presidents and Vice Presidents) come to garner favor. Look at the who’s who over the years and follow the money.
The Powell memo was a good place to start your list of the far right's strategic project to 'deconstruct' democracy into a perverted govt of their own liking. According to Thom Hartmann, a progressive talk show host and prolific writer of history and politics, Lewis Powell used a mistaken claim by a corrupt Supreme Court clerk who wrote a headnote informing law students this false claim that Chief Justice Waite's Court proclaimed that "corporations are considered persons"under the 14th amendment. But Hartmann's extensive research uncovered that the 1886 Southern Pacific Railroad decision said no such thing. Chief Justice Waite denied that finding, but the corporate CEO's used that headnote to further their own agendas to swing elections. Waite died in the meantime.
Powell based his written decision in 1978 of First Nat'l Bank v Bellotti on a corrupt law clerk's summary decision that carried no legal weight whatsoever. The rest is history...money is speech and dark money to influence politicians and elections. More recently, it has been reported that a judge in Delaware (that seems to have more corporations than people) ruled that a small town allowed corporations to VOTE in municipal elections was not violating the state's Constitution. He said the property owning companies' votes were not diluting human votes. YIKES!
The timeline presented is helpful for putting MAGA in a broader contemporary context, but I suspect the “all men are created equal…” line — when understood — was ignored, lambasted, and mocked outright by the broader American population — slaves, women, indigenous, property-less — at the time of its writing.
There have been great democratic advances post WWII that MAGA and its ultra-conservative, nationalist, misogynistic, xenophobic, capitalist-imperialist fascist predecessors have been pushing back against and eradicating, but this is a nation based on land theft, slavery, genocide, and war.
The candidates selected by the two parties for national and state offices are not the part of a democratic process.
Thanks for the history lesson, but I'm afraid you are preaching to the choir. The people who need to read this either won't or say, "I don't see a problem here."
This borders on brilliant! Your painstaking elucidation of the erosion of our democracy is on target. Thank you for putting it all together. The only thing I might add is the rise of the MAGA movement's blatant racism that allowed the trolls that have been there all along to crawl out from under their bridges. I have restacked it. My readers need to read this.
True!! That is a big one! I tried to keep it to specific events
We are not angry enough and we have mistakenly believed that the right wants progress for all. They do not.
The right doesn't want progress. They want to go back to "the good old days."
Outstanding essay as always. It's important to understand how we got where we are. Your substack should be required reading for the centrist Dems who react to this country's de-evolution into authoritarianism and oligarchical rule as a minor inconvenience to be dealt with by strongly worded letters. I look forward to the day when you write an essay outlining the chronology of how we built a bold, progressive democracy out of the ruins of our current corrupt system.
Thank you and let's hope!
Please look up and include Citizens for National Policy, co-founded by Paul Weyrich (who co-founded Heritage and came up with the pro-life strategy) and Tim LaHaye (Evangelical ministry leader and author of the mega-popular “Left Behind” book series) in 1981. If you don’t know who they are, look them up — even if it’s just their Wikipedia page. They are an umbrella org that arranges annual conventions where all the other orgs come to strategize and political heavyweights (like Presidents and Vice Presidents) come to garner favor. Look at the who’s who over the years and follow the money.
Will take a look!
The Powell memo was a good place to start your list of the far right's strategic project to 'deconstruct' democracy into a perverted govt of their own liking. According to Thom Hartmann, a progressive talk show host and prolific writer of history and politics, Lewis Powell used a mistaken claim by a corrupt Supreme Court clerk who wrote a headnote informing law students this false claim that Chief Justice Waite's Court proclaimed that "corporations are considered persons"under the 14th amendment. But Hartmann's extensive research uncovered that the 1886 Southern Pacific Railroad decision said no such thing. Chief Justice Waite denied that finding, but the corporate CEO's used that headnote to further their own agendas to swing elections. Waite died in the meantime.
Powell based his written decision in 1978 of First Nat'l Bank v Bellotti on a corrupt law clerk's summary decision that carried no legal weight whatsoever. The rest is history...money is speech and dark money to influence politicians and elections. More recently, it has been reported that a judge in Delaware (that seems to have more corporations than people) ruled that a small town allowed corporations to VOTE in municipal elections was not violating the state's Constitution. He said the property owning companies' votes were not diluting human votes. YIKES!
I had learned that as well. It is insane how Powell's doctrine was accepted without any questions.
The timeline presented is helpful for putting MAGA in a broader contemporary context, but I suspect the “all men are created equal…” line — when understood — was ignored, lambasted, and mocked outright by the broader American population — slaves, women, indigenous, property-less — at the time of its writing.
There have been great democratic advances post WWII that MAGA and its ultra-conservative, nationalist, misogynistic, xenophobic, capitalist-imperialist fascist predecessors have been pushing back against and eradicating, but this is a nation based on land theft, slavery, genocide, and war.
The candidates selected by the two parties for national and state offices are not the part of a democratic process.
Thanks for the history lesson, but I'm afraid you are preaching to the choir. The people who need to read this either won't or say, "I don't see a problem here."
It’s about Values…
You know, the difference between Right and Wrong..
The difference between the Truth and a Lie…
Do we seek to do Good?…
Do we (still) Value: Honesty, Kindness, Responsibility, Charity, Empathy, Respect, etc…
Is it OK to Lie, Cheat, Steal, Discriminate, Disrespect, etc…
I’ve lost respect for the world of Corporate Media…
I’ve lost respect for our country’s leaders…
But I haven’t lost my Values…
And I respect those who may share these Values…
Good People…
To paraphrase the guitarist Jack Johnson…
Where’d all the Good People Go?…
It’s wrong to Lie, Cheat and Steal…
And that’s what’s happening…
To the American People…
And that’s what we are really fighting for…
When we oppose this corrupt regime…