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Rise of the Republican Socialists
Newt Gingrich made a name for himself as the right-wing ideologue who led the 1994 "Republican Revolution."
Republican presidential candidate former House speaker Newt Gingrich gestures during a Republican presidential debate Monday, Sept. 12, 2011, in Tampa, Fla. (Mike Carlson / AP Photo)
What a difference the wholesale collapse of international capitalism makes.
Forget 9/11 -- everything changed on 9/14/08, when Lehman Brothers hit the skids. Millions lost their jobs. Millions more lost their jobs. And the government refused to help them.
The government's masters, the bankers, wouldn't let them. They wanted all that taxpayer money for themselves.
The system was finally exposed as the corrupt, inefficient, cruel pseudodemocracy that we on the Left had always known it was. More than three years have passed yet neither the political class nor its corporate bosses have found the wherewithal to sate the anger of America's roiling masses with the traditional bundle of social programs. To the contrary, the powers that be are calling for austerity, for gutting what's left of the safety net.
They're stealing the rope with which we will hang them.
Political disintegration is disruptive and painful. But it sure is entertaining.
The rise of the Republican primary season's Anti-Capitalist Brigades is the center ring of this circus of death. At the head of the anti-Romney cadres is one of Newt's well-heeled supporters, who is dropping a cool $3 million on an ad blitz that denounces Mitt Romney for engaging in slash-and-burn capitalism. (Is there another kind?)
"There's a company in The Wall Street Journal today that Bain [Capital, Romney's company] put $30 million into, took $180 million out of and the company went bankrupt," Newt Gingrich said on January 10th. "And you have to ask yourself: Was a six-to-one return really necessary? What if they only take $120 million out? Will the company still be there? Will 1,700 families still have a job?"
Good questions all. But the heartless beasts who populate Wall Street venture capital firms don't worry about the blood and tears they leave in their wake. Like all vampires they feast and flee. Their pet Republicans don't care either. Not usually.
"I think there's a real difference between people who believe in the free market and people who go around, take financial advantage, loot companies, leave behind broken families, broken towns, people on unemployment," the former speaker continued.
Not much difference. Not when you think about it. Still, this is a serious slap-the-forehead moment.
Bear in mind, Gingrich is still a man of the Right. A few weeks ago his proposal for forced child labor of impoverished waifs marked the Dickensianest moment of the 2011 Christmas shopping season.
Newt isn't the only Republican presidential candidate attacking capitalism's sacred right to loot and pillage. Texas governor Rick Perry, whose brain freezes and loutish yucks over his role as the nation's top executioner of lower-class misérables(and at least one innocent man) make his predecessor George W. Bush look like Adlai Stevenson, calls buyout specialists like Romney "vultures" who "swoop in…eat the carcass, and…leave the skeleton" of companies they target. Romney, he said, is a "buyout tycoon who executed takeovers, bankrupted businesses, and sent jobs overseas while killing American jobs."
"Governor Romney enjoys firing people--I enjoy creating jobs," added Jon Huntsman.
These are Republicans? What's up?
"For all the talk about this being a center-right nation, there's a realization that Americans are uncomfortable with excessive greed and the kind of ruthless, screw-the-workers style of capitalism Romney used to get rich," Steve Benen writes in Washington Monthly.
Greg Sargent of The Washington Post chimes in: "The leading GOP candidates are on record arguing that Romney's practice of [capitalism]--which he regularly cites as proof of his ability to create jobs, as a generally constructive force and even as synonymous with the American way--is not really capitalism at all, but a destructive, profit-driven perversion of it. Thanks to them, this is no longer a left-wing argument."
(Actually, destruction and profit-taking are the essential cores of capitalism. But why quibble? Everyone agrees that capitalism sucks. Yay!)
Times are changin'. According to polls, communism is more popular than Congress. So why isn't the party of the left jumping on the Wall Street-bashing bandwagon?
Throughout the 2008 campaign and his presidency Barack Obama has taken pains to reassure the 1 percent that if he's not exactly one of them he'll look out for their bank accounts.
Certainly he has enacted policies that have increased the gap between rich and poor while sucking the life out of the dry husk of the middle class.
Meanwhile, revolution looms.
Why don't the Democrats see it? Don't they understand that capitalism is discredited? Newt Gingrich does. So do most Republicans.
It comes down to a simple explanation: Everything has changed, but not the Democrats. They've always been slower than the GOP to recognize the shifting winds of American politics, slower to respond, inept when they try.
We used to be a center-right country. Now we're left-right. Soon we'll be left-left. Both the Dems and the Reps will be left behind. In the meantime, watch the dying Republicans make the most of an agenda that ought to belong to the dying Democrats: bashing the rich and greedy.
If nothing else, it'll be entertaining.
24 Comments so far
Show AllCapitalism is dead! Long live capitalism!?
As usual, great article. "Why don't the Democrats see it?" Which Democrats? Bluedogs? New Democrats? The DLC? They see it, they just do not care. Now's their time time get in on all that Wall Street/Corporate cash that the Republicans have enjoyed for so long. They aren't going to bite the hand that they want feeding them. When the Obamas, Nelsons, Wasserman-Schultzes, Kaines, Kerrys, Liebermans, Bayhs, Edwards, Richardsons, Manchins, Napolitanos, Vilsacks, Feinsteins, Landrieus, Corzines, etc. start losing, quitting, retiring, and, in the case or Corzine, just plain fucking off, then maybe the true Democrats (House Progressive Caucus) will get some balls and act like Democrats. And why is the only member of the Senate Progressive Caucus an Independent? Maybe I am totally lost but it seems to me if someone is not working, it will give them an awful lot of time #occupying the voting booth. Literally...
"then maybe the true Democrats..."
Um... er... when you reel off FIFTEEN major names in the party without breaking a sweat that you find to be unacceptable, that's a sign that maybe those people ARE the "true Democrats" and that the progressives (whatever that means these days) are the useless appendage minority.
Thank you, "major names in the party", that's part of my point. I draw a distinction between what I would call True Democrats and New Democrats. Obama the campaigner: Progressive, Obama the President: New Democrat. Why is it that when one reaches the higher positions in the Democratic Party, they start getting very conservative(like the DLC)? Also, New Democrat Coalition: 59 members in the House and Senate, the Congressional Progressive Caucus: 83 members and still useless.
"but not the Democrats. They've always been slower than the GOP to recognize the shifting winds of American politics, slower to respond, inept when they try."
Ted makes it seem as if Democrats are dumber than Republicans, but does not consider that the best way for the fascists to gain control of any party is to finance and run their own candidates in other parties. Conservative Democrat politicians are Republicans in disguise.
"We used to be a center-right country. Now we're left-right. Soon we'll be left-left. Both the Dems and the Reps will be left behind."
We won't have a left-left USA until after Obama or his successor pulls a major Bashir Assad on the American people and leaves thousands dead in the streets. Other than that, fat Americans will continue to live their idyllic lives of Big Macs, video games, and TV.
For all the happy talk about change on the horizon, I see ever greater repression around the world. It will get much worse with the ever expanding world population, with billions starving and a few million leading the high life.
Based on your knowledgeable predictions, maybe we should all commit suicide.
Your contempt for the American people is not helpful if the idea is to mobilize as many as possible of them to bring about social change. Too many people on the Left, frustrated by their inability to win active support among their fellow citizens, seem ready to write them off as idiots.
If the idea is to make oneself feel superior to other people, maybe this kind of sour comment is helpful. If the idea is to reach out to your fellow citizens, this is exactly the wrong way to go about it.
Actually, the fact that the Republican and Democrat Parties are the parties for the wealthy elites has not changed. The only "socialism" they give is for the 1%. I take this article to be mere political satire.
I think Ted believes and preaches that a genuine classical revolution (French or Russian) is coming here. He thus expects others to also see this well enough to try to take advantage of those winds, even if hypocritically. I suspect it won't happen like that classical pattern, but he seems consistent within his framework. He's sarcastic but not satirical I think ...
RVingRetiree
I think we actually are headed in that direction. The 2nd amendment was exactly for the situation we see ourselves in now. The 1% know it too. That is why we now have NDAA. I am willing to bet that some time in about 1 year from now congress will pass a law saying that all guns must be registered. I predict that within 1 year after that the army will show up at your door demanding those guns. If you resist or if they find more guns than you declared you will be taken immediately into indefinite detention. Remember habeas corpus no longer exists. Your right to a trial no longer exists. I predict that within 1 year after that political enemies, those who act in a "belligerent and aggressive manner" against the gov't. will start disappearing. Nowhere is belligerent and aggressive defined. One could say that OWS protests are aggressive and belligerent. I am not going to be surprised if some time within the next 5 years armed conflict, revolution if you will, happens in the U.S.
Actually, both parties are pro-gun despite being anti-civil liberties. They know that they can keep enough USAns foolishly believing that 2nd amendment will save them when the reality is that freedom and civil liberties are being chipped away to the point that having a firearm is irrelevant.
That is an interesting conjecture about the author and his intention from this article.
I read his website at http://www.rall.com/rallblog/ also, so I was basing that on more than just this article ...
This Orwellian rhetoric is just further evidence that the Republican party is well adrift with a broken rudder. Romney is all but a shoe-in for the nomination, and once that is done they'll rally 'round the candidate just like they always do - all the while contradicting everything they've said about him thus far.
Bread and circus.
there is a tendency to be surprised when that well-trained pooch suddenly turns on the (invisible?) hand that feeds it, as if it's doing something antithetical to its nature. republicans changing their tune on capitalism? i rather think not. this is, after all, a political campaign season. should dems be triangulating left from their longstanding position as eager apologists for some of the worst excesses of capitalism? you'ld think it would be a reflex by now to scoot just beyond the point that was carved out by the "opposition". but then you have a ron paul version of "the right" so far to the left of the left that the dog hasn't just bit the hand, it has practically devoured its clueless master.
Republican Socialism = Crony Capitalism.
"the wholesale collapse of international capitalism"
Really? Didn't happen Ted. This is the kind of statement that gets my goat. Claiming something so obviously untrue, so blatantly false helps no one
This is akin to making the statement "we are a center left " country. Again, obviously and blatantly false.
Ted, you act as if you never saw primary politics before. Have you so soon forgotten what two democrats were saying just a little over 3 years ago?
If this is, as stated above, intended as "Satire" it is a poor attempt indeed. If meant to be clever, it misses the mark. Surely someone wrote something more worthy than this fluff today?
Yup, this article blew chunks. What actors call "phoning it in."
Reminds me of phrase we continuously heard some 12 years ago: Compassionate Conservative. Both oxymorons.
"So why isn't the party of the left jumping on the Wall Street-bashing bandwagon?"
Because the Demok party isn't the party of the left. The Green party is the party of the left. The Demok party is one of the two necessary factions of Das Kapitalist party. In order to keep itself in power in a country with somewhat of a legacy of authentic democracy, Das Kapitalist party has to put on a show that caters to the two key factions of Das Kapitalists: The faction of men, and the faction of women. Throughout human history, men played the role of irresponsibility, perpetrating war, or else loitering around the saloon, drinking, gambling, arguing, fighting, and whatever else they could do to buttress their fragile egos. In contrast, women toiled in the fields, carried the water, did the meaningful work, by and large. The Repuk and Demok parties represent these two factions of Das Kapitalst party, tasked with deceiving people of their respective genders, and whos interests define the far right pole of the political spectrum. We have a new, clear definition of the political spectrum now, elite interests on the right and the people's interests on the left. The people are learning today that the people's interests are functional and elite interests are dysfunctional. Small wonder that people thrive most, by far, in places where this basic law of nature is recognized.
Dems and repubs left behind? How about behind bars. This article is a disingenuous attempt at journalism.
The political parties are both dead meat. They have become top-down criminal syndicates of value only to the NWO folks. The Occupy Movement is growing their direct democracy so fast and it is so good, that the parties are...dead meat.
About time cause there is a huge amount to do to keep the ship from capsizing.
We know 9/11 was a false flag event. We know the neocons wanted to seize control of the fossil fuel resources of the world, ( and a little gold, plus imposing their financial serfdom on the world), and now the great awakening is showing the NWO tyrants for what psychopaths they truly are. The political parties are criminal rings. Join an Occupy Movement and discover real democracy for the people. It is powerful, it is empowering, it is good.
Highlighting the hypocirsy of the Democrats BSing their palaver and putting their spin on this mess while the Republicans talk sense even if they don't mean it is great. Irony, and bitter sarcasm definitely called for and right on the mark as welll regarding all this!