History Chat - September 17, 2020

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Summary: History of republican party from the midterm elections of 2004, through the Gulf War, into the Obama years.

Timestamp 3:43 : After the fall of the Berlin Wall and after the Division of the USSR, people wanted to get rid of “communism at home” by dismantling the New Deal and Activist government that was leveling the playing field with a social safety net. The people who wanted this tended to see the world in an us vs them mentality given they grew up in a war against comunism era.

Timestamp 5:24: Legislation from years where movement conservatives were in power, starting in 1981, actually hurt up to 99% of Americans

Timestamp 6:24: Bush administration takes their “us vs. them” mentality into foreign policy, which resulted in the second Gulf War.

Timestamp 10:07:With the fall of communism, they believed it was Only a matter of time until the world models itself after America, and they flex their muscles overseas to do so. They pushed for regime change in countries that lacked political and economic freedom , starting with Sadaam Hussein, in an effort to stabilize the Middle East. To do this, they increase defense spending. To support a justification to “stabilize” the Middle East, they linked Saddam Hussein to 9/11 which some believed, although it is false.

Timestamp 14:03:The Bush Doctorate argues that due to Terrosism, America needs to act Premtively and handle the terrorist threats before they start. They also embraced a black and white perspective to foreign policy. This was related to their fear of weapons of mass destruction.

Timestamp 17:32: One of the things Saddam was accomplishing in the Middle East was countering Iran. The two powers cancelled each other out, but the Bush administration was insisting they had Nuclear weapons which presented a threat of Nuclear war. This was presented as credible information when Moderate Colin Powell said there is evidence of them having nuclear weapons, only to later admit he had been “had” by discredited information and hearsay. This resulted in the invasion of Iraq to overthrow the government of Sadaam Hussein .

Timestamp 22:09: American troops invaded in 2003. They were given the impression the Iraqui’s would welcome the troops due to being suppressed by Sadaam. On May 1st, 2003 President landed on an Aircraft Carrier, wearing a flight suit, and taking pictures announcing the end of the major combat. At that point, a lot of the contracts were privatized, specifically to Haliburton. After the mission accomplished speech, the major combat actually happened after the speech, and we are still in Iraq.

Timestamp 29:14: Rush Limbaugh wrote a piece comparing President Bush to a cowboy. He paints him as cowboys were never looking for trouble but face it with when it came. They were always on the side of right and defended good people against bad people. They had high morals, good manners, spoke the truth, and were a beacon of integrity. They were respected and in their victories they always rode off into the sunset.

Timestamp 34:04: Bush Presidency cemented that liberal mindset had an active role in society. He Focused on A Christiantiy = Free Enterprise. With that, they are in full control and are able to go against Democrats and even moderate republicans. By controlling everything you see, down to how you see women (wives or prostitutes, which reinforced the black or white mentality) they believed they built something that would be in control for years and or decades.

Timestamp 35:58: Around 2005-2008 Bush administration is falling apart, due to a combination of the ongoing fighting in Iraq, signing statements, and the Crisis of Hurricane Katrina, and the banking deregulation which facilitated the housing bubble which was caused by movement conservatives.

Timestamp 39:41: To try and rejuvenate the republican party, when John McCain runs for president he goes for his running mate to be Sarah Palin due to her not being a career politician and a woman. This seems to be working but falls apart when she begins to be seen as an anti intellectual. This makes the American public resent politics.

Timestamp 43:41: Barack Obama became president in 2008, and the movement conservatives hate him due to his backing of the social safety net. He met some backlash, but he built himself, was a self made man, educated well, with a well behaved family. Obama’s push of Universal health care, which was met with controversy and cries of socialism, was actually devised by the right. It is framed by conservatives that if you believe in these things, you are automatically a liberal, and therefore anti american, so it is implied they shouldn’t have the right to vote.

Timestamp 52:07: In 2010 operation Red map was created, where Republicans go to red states and propose they take the legislature at a reduced cost by taking states before the census count. This is done by Getting a Republican elected so they can redraw the lines in such a way that the Democrats had no chance at winning. This is Called Gerrymandering. Republicans have admitted that they don’t need a President who is a conduit to change, but rather a President who can use a pen to sign off on the agenda they create.

Timestamp 57:25: Republicans continue to push voter fraud, stating Democrats can only win if they cheat by “leveraging voters”. There are no cases or studies confirming voter fraud in the last 30 years, and this is confirmed by a Republican lawyer.

Timestamp 59:50: In 2013, in the landmark Supreme court decision of Shelby County vs Holder, a Republican packed Supreme court Gutted the voting rights act. With the 65 law, states that have a history of voter suppression cannot change voting laws without clearance from the Department of Justice. State officials within hours pass Voting ID laws and Voter registration requirements.

[From wikipedia] Richardson’s first book, The Greatest Nation of the Earth (1997), stemmed from her dissertation at Harvard University. Inspired by Eric Foner’s work on pre-Civil War Republican ideology, Richardson analyzed Republican economic policies during the war. She contended that their efforts to create an activist Federal Government during the Civil War marked a continuation of Republican free labor ideology. These policies, such as war bonds and greenbacks or the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act, revolutionized the role of the Federal Government in the U.S. economy. At the same time, these actions laid the groundwork for the Republican Party’s shift to Big Business after the Civil War.

In this 2001 book, Richardson "focused on the “Northern abandonment of Reconstruction.” Building on the earlier work of C. Vann Woodward, she argued that a more complete understanding of the period required appreciation of class, not only race. As Reconstruction continued into the 1870s and especially the 1880s, Republicans began to view African Americans in the South more from a class perspective and less from the perspective of race that had driven their earlier humanitarianism. In the midst of the labor struggles of the Gilded Age, Republicans came to compare “the demands of the ex-slaves for land, social services, and civil rights” to the demands of white laborers in the North. This ideological shift was the key to Republican abandonment of Reconstruction, as they chose the protection of their economic and business interests over their desire for racial equality." [From wikipedia]

In this 2007 book, "Richardson presented Reconstruction as a national event that impacted all Americans, not just those in the South. She incorporated the West into the discussion of Reconstruction as no predecessor had. Between 1865 and 1900, Americans re-imagined the role of the federal government, calling upon it to promote the well-being of its citizens. However, racism, sexism, and greed divided Americans, and the same people who increasingly benefited from government intervention—white, middle-class Americans—actively excluded African-Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and organized laborers from the newfound bounties of their reconstructed nation." [from wikipedia]

In this book, published in 2010, Richardson "focused on the U.S. Army’s slaughter of Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890. She argued that party politics and opportunism led to Wounded Knee. After a bruising midterm election, President Benjamin Harrison needed to shore up his support. To do so, he turned to The Dakotas, where he replaced seasoned Indian agents with unqualified political allies, who incorrectly assumed that the Ghost Dance Movement presaged war. The Army responded by sending one third of its force in order to avoid spending cuts from Congress. After the event, Republicans tried to paint the massacre as a heroic battle to stifle the resurgent Democrats." [wikipedia]

In this 2014 book, Richardson "extended her study of the Republican Party into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book studied the entire life of the GOP, from its inception in the 1850s through the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s founders united against the “slave power,” a small group of wealthy white men who controlled all three branches of government. These Republicans articulated a new vision of an America in which all hardworking men could rise. But after the Civil War, Republicans began to emulate what they originally opposed. They tied themselves to powerful bankers and industrialists, sacrificing the well-being of ordinary Americans. A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy. However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to return the GOP to its founding vision of equality of opportunity, first Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal. The Nixon and Reagan administrations have represented yet another fall from the GOP’s founding purpose. It's ironic, Richardson points out, that Republicans treated Barack Obama with an unprecedented level of disrespect, as Obama's rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the nation embodied the vision of the original Republicans." [wikipedia]

In her most recent publication, Richardson argues "that America was founded with contradicting ideals, with the ideas of liberty, equality, and opportunity on one hand, and slavery and hierarchy on the other. United States victory in the American Civil War should have settled that tension forever, but at the same time that the Civil War was fought, Americans also started moving into the West. In the West, Americans found and expanded upon deep racial hierarchies, meaning that hierarchical values survived in American politics and culture despite the crushing defeat of the pro-slavery Confederacy. Those traditions--a rejection of democracy, an embrace of entrenched wealth, the marginalization of women and people of color--have found a home in modern conservative politics, leaving the tremendous promise of America unfulfilled." [wikipedia]