4/24/20

"Plutocratic populism" is the glop that binds Trump and McConnell


In 1980 Mitch McConnell ditched his feminist first wife vowing to marry a rich woman and now he is one of the wealthiest white men in Congress while Kentucky remains one of the poorest states. He not only loathes Donald Trump, he detests Alabama's Roy Moore, too.

Lee Atwater is one of the architects of the Southern Strategy that brought the Dixie crackers into the Republican Party. Newt Gingrich authored the earth haters' handbook and it's still the official little red book of the Greedy Old Party.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that Republicans are suffering from mass clinical depression comorbid with suicide ideation. Yesterday, Trump told Republicans to shoot up bleach and quaternary ammonia then look at the sun for an hour or so to kill Covid-19. Every single Republican should do that then they should just eat each other. Trump makes Jim Jones look like humanity’s savior.
So the political scientists are Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson. And they've got a new book coming out that's called "Let Them Eat Tweets." And what it talks about is this phenomena that they call plutocratic populism. The idea is that the plutocrats in the country, the big money, have an agenda in the Republican Party - tax cuts for the super-rich and deregulations on polluting industries. And that sort of thing is just not broadly popular. And so to win elections, they've got to form an alliance that broadens the coalition to get voters. [Jane Mayer, excerpt, Fresh Air]

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