In the interest of decorum I won't use a stronger word than "vile" to describe Republicans or the Tea Party or conservatives. The Rude Pundit is more comfortable with that kind of language and more adept than I am at using it.
You have to think of the Sinclair Lewis novel "It Can't Happen Here" in which he depicted a fascist government taking over the United States. We have seen more and more movement toward fascism since Ronald Reagan became president in 1981. It got accelerated after the attacks on September 11. The September 11 attacks gave the Bush administration political cover to enact repressive and dangerous legislation such as the Patriot Act. The administration illegally spied on American citizens. An illegal and unnecessary war was launched against Iraq and the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the financial elites was put on full throttle.
Now we have come to an alleged "crisis" over the debt ceiling. Republicans want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid under the false pretext that these programs are deficit drivers. The biggest deficit drivers, of course, are the tax cuts for the very wealthy and the immoral wars in which we're involved. But wars are profitable for the corporate elites and the wealthy as a class don't really think they should ever pay taxes. Leona Helmsley said "taxes are for little people."
In the next election cycle the Republican party should face a political Armageddon. Republicans should be evicted from office wherever they they are. Conservatism should be attacked unmercifully and driven from the field of legitimate political commentary. Corporations and the very wealthy should be required to pay the taxes they should pay. If they get any tax breaks, they should be tied to legitimate job creation in this country.
The middle class and poor in this country experienced what really was a brief shining moment from the time of the New Deal until the advent of Reagan and fascist politics. The kind of grinding oppression we see now has been far more common in history than movements toward decency in the treatment of working men and women. The biggest thing we have on our side is numbers. There are far more of us than there are of the people comprising the political and financial elites. But numbers won't matter if people don't get energized enough to fight back.
