So in a classic, don't-raise-the-bridge-lower-the-river solution, the GOP legislators -- who outnumber Democrats by three to one -- have decided that the answer is to do away with the judges they don't like and to hell with checks and balances.
In the words of Esquire's inimitable Charlie Pierce, "They recognize no limits to their power, no curbs to their desire. There are few frontiers in democratic government that they will not work to violate, or to twist to their own purposes. And they absolutely will not stop. Ni shagu nazad, as Stalin said to his army. Not one step backwards."
What happened to Kansas? A coup against common sense, sound principles and the "general welfare" hailed in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. And as it all has gone down, Republican elites seem to have developed a case of laryngitis.
We could go on. Let's not forget what Gov. Scott Walker has done to Wisconsin and Michigan Gov. Richard Snyder to Flint. Check out how Illinois Gov.Bruce Rauner is endeavoring to "fix" higher education there. Will Republican elites please tell us where they stand on their man's ax-wielding mania?
And what Republican poobah has dared call out Grover Norquist, whose monomaniacal crusade against government has thrown public education into crisis, turned streets and highways into bottomless potholes, and produced stratospheric deficits? (Bobby Jindal, by the way, was just one of the many who signed Norquist's no-tax pledge, a major reason why his state is barely holding on by its fingernails.)
Finally, this is the party whose elites deceived America into war after cutting taxes on the wealthy so they wouldn't have to pay for it. And so it goes. All of which leads us to the conclusion that what's wrong with the GOP ain't just about Donald Trump, apoplectic, mendacious malcreant though he is.
Over decades, the Republicans have built castles of corruption and citadels of crony capitalism across the country and now the angry villagers are climbing over the ramparts. Not one step backwards? Too late.
*Michael Winship is the Emmy Award-winning senior writer of Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com, and a former senior writing fellow at the policy and advocacy group Demos. Follow him on Twitter at @MichaelWinship.
[This story previously appeared at Bill Moyers Website]
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
