Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

What we're witnessing now is the culmination of the 50+ year Republican Project to hijack government and the judiciary to bring about:

1. Destruction of the administrative state. This is why we're seeing so many cases (and rulings) that limit the power of agencies and the rights of people. This is the deregulation component of neoliberalism. Make no mistake, the only reason for this is to transfer wealth to the already insanely rich; and

2. Cutting taxes and "entitlements". Again, this is just neoliberalism: to transfer wealth to the already insanely rich. But it also creates a debt-laden (and thus compliant) work force. After all, if you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, you're showing up to work and you're certainly not risking that job by unionizing.

Once you realize this, you can see through the politics for what it is. For example, the Republican-led House recently proposed funding the Israel military and now, suddenly caring that we're spending too much, wants to fund it by cutting funding to the IRS [1].

This is ridiculous for two reasons.

First, every $1 spent on the IRS produces >$1 of tax revenue [2].

Second, of the $33 trillion in debt the US government has accumulated in over 2 centuries, nearly a quarter of that came from the 4 years of the Trump presidency [3], mostly from tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy.

Again, all of this is simply wealthy transfer to the ultra-wealthy.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-republicans-unveil...

[2]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/11/09/irs-uses-fun...

[3]: https://wisconsinwatch.org/2023/07/did-the-us-debt-increase-...

This is the kind of "political mind reading", where you confidently attribute hidden evil motives to anyone who disagrees with you about what is a good policy, that has made Reddit unbearable to read and, I suspect, increased political polarization in general. And your entire comment history is just you doing this over and over again. Please don't ruin another website with this.

But they are not wrong though are they. Perhaps the 'evil motives' might be more subconscious or even class conscious than overtly articulated in the minds of the actors, but the goal is the same.

What do you expect us to do? Sit and equivocate while the Republic is reduced to what will be effectively a slave state?

I spend a few years in the US before returning to Europe. The first thing I noticed on my return, that I was viscerally aware of, right in my stomach, was that nobody was afraid.

We are not asking for communism, just a clear eyed judgement on what has been going on since the end of the 70s.

> Perhaps the 'evil motives' might be more subconscious or even class conscious than overtly articulated in the minds of the actors, but the goal is the same.

So you're going to claim that you know people's true motives better than they themselves do, like you're some kind of political Freud? This is really stupid. I don't know why we should pretend that it's impossible for two people to reach two different sets of conclusions in good faith.

I'm not sure if you're intentionally not understanding the point or not but let's assume not.

You're claiming criticism of th eRepublican agenda is attributing evil motives to everyone involved. This is an obvious straw man. But evil intent and evil outcomes aren't really that different.

Take housing policy. Lots of people vote and campaign to restrict building more housing. This has the net effect of making housing more expensive and creating homeless people. These policies quite literally kill people. It's a policy you could describe as "evil".

Now, the people involved do this for a variety of reasons. Some have an interest in increasing their home's value without necessarily considering the consquences. Others want to "maintain the character" of their neighbourhood. Sometimes that's cynical but sometimes it isn't. Others vote out of fear of various things: crime is a big one, racism is another.

So if you criticize housing policy because it kills people you could attempt to say that such criticism is ascribing "evil intent" to everyone involved but that's not the case. If anything, it's narrow self-interest and fear of change.

You need to go deeper. What motivates people to, say, fear crime from increasing residential density? Or why are people afraid of losing the "character" of their towns or cities? Why don't people realize the link between housing cost and homelessness? Why don't they care about that?

It's because a lot of money is spent on making voters care about such things. Some of that money comes from property developers and realtors who benefit from this. Other times, politicians stoke fear to get into office and increase their own power. Some involved clearly understand the consequences and don't care. Others truly believe wrong things. The outcome is the same: people die from lack of shelter.

So when people talk about the "Republican Project", it's based on decades of evidence where they've come out and said it. The current hysteria around abortion, for example, was completely manufactured by people who were fighting desegragation. In the early 1970s, the Southern Baptist Conference published a letter saying they didn't really care about abortion.

yet now it's a polarizing issue. Why? Because forces seeking power for other reasons have made a bunch of people care about it. Is everyone involved aware of this? Probably not. But again, the outcome is the same. People die as a result of abortion bans.

So I don't ascribe intentional evil to your actions, if this is something you happen to believe. More likely you're simply rationalizing emotions and/or are easily manipulated by arguments of religion or emotion.

This entire thing is well-documented. Here's a good starting point: google "Lee Atwater 1981 interview" for example of how abstract concepts are used as a veneer for racism.

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