Trump Takes Over Republican Takeover
Republicans Still Compliant
From a Google Image Search - The Guardian
It's hard to believe that Trump's actions are pleasing to Republicans. Far from furthering their agenda, he is taking over their takeover of the US government. His over-the-top horrible bill gives presents to Republicans, but the way he sidelines the Republican majority in Congress robs them of the all-powerful control over our government which they have plotted for decades. They thought they had a grip on Trump. They overshot. The Supremes he appointed at the direction of conservatives gave him immunity in all official acts. If you're the president, which acts are not official acts? They won unlimited campaign money, but they can't get elected if Trump doesn't like them. If they do get elected they find they cannot govern.
He whips Republicans in Congress to do his bidding and lashes them with threats if they don't comply. Vote as Trump says or accept your punishment. (Get primaried by a MAGA, get kicked out of Congress, or suffer shunning by your fellow congressional Republicans.) He has them attempting to use reconciliation in the Senate for a bill that Republicans in the Senate don't find severe enough. Only budget items can pass by reconciliation so some key items cannot be approved using this tool.
Here's a list of items that won't pass the Byrd Rule in the Senate (unless the Republicans find a work-around):
Blocking State Regulation of AI
Crippling Courts
Defunding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Replacing Biden's EPA Tailpipe Emissions Rule
Medicaid Provider Tax
Language Requiring Pentagon Spending Details
Provisions on the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) (to cut jobs or move the Board)
Changes to the Federal Reserve Employees Pay Schedule
Attempts to Strike Clean Energy Tax Credits under IRA
Appropriations for Coast Guard Stations
Funding for transfer of Space Shuttle
Specific SNAP cuts
Elimination of ACA Enhanced Premium Tax Credits (cannot prevent from expiring, but can address base levels)
Changes to Social Security
The Bryd Rule says that provisions in a reconciliation bill must have a direct budgetary effect and cannot be "merely incidental" to policy changes. Determinations are made by Senate Parliamentarian.
So says Google AI
Trump may find a way around the Byrd rule; he always gets what he wants. Senate Republicans don't like the bill because they want deeper cuts to Medicaid.
Trump just ordered a military action (declared war) on Iran without asking for approval from Congress. Since this is not a full-out declaration of war, but only war on Iran's nuclear programs, Congress may give this a pass. But Trump sees Republicans in Congress as simply there to approve his every decree. They are sycophants, courtiers, not even oligarchs.
What do the Republicans stand to gain by backing Trump as he dismantles our democracy? Do they hope to stamp out all liberal thoughts. They seem happy to rid America of all immigrants who arrived here in the last twenty years even if it will affect our food supplies, building starts, home repairs, and many areas that will not be noticed until there are jobs no one wants. They like Trump's fascist approach to immigrant deportations or incarcerations even though they bring gestapo tactics to American streets, homes, industries, churches, schools, sports arenas. They seem complacent that ICE agents wear masks, although they hated when people wore masks to fight the covid virus. They don't express any dismay about using our armed forces against us.
Republicans are not satisfied with the cuts to Medicare in OB3 (one big, beautiful bill) not because they will make life harder in red states and rural towns, but because the cuts are not big enough. They wanted to stop having their tax dollars go to immigrants and deadbeats, so they approve of cuts that hit the poorest Americans. When people have no legal options for making money they will turn to begging or to crime or both. Since Republicans claim that they will lower crime rates they must be planning to institute a police state. Nations learned long ago that putting people in jail because they were poor did nothing to solve the problems that kept some people poor. It was inhumane, but that's not why the practice was discontinued. It was discontinued because it meant squalor, which brought disease and people had to be kept in these prisons until they died. Liberal ideas came about for valid social reasons, not always pressures from so-called bleeding hearts.
If you suppress every book that a conservative soul objects to, if you pillage our national libraries and archives, if you tell teachers what to teach, and scientists how to limit their research, tell people who they can love, will that produce the ideal conservative society? If you put women back barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, if you make women submissive and make males dominant as you imagine it was 3000 years ago, will our society be culturally richer for it, will everything proceed in an orderly manner according to evangelical religious laws? If we once again decide that black and brown and poor people don't need to learn to read and write or attend school, if we deny that workers have rights and accept child labor, will it lower wages enough to bring all our factories back and assure that white men get the best jobs?
If Trump does everything the Republicans want, will they mind that they have no power except what Trump gives them? Although Republicans planned for single party rule, did they really want to abdicate their authority to a dictator?
The Republican who leads the House of Representatives sure looks like a happy warrior for Trump. Mike Johnson may look like a cherub or a boy scout, but he is as cruel and compliant as the lowest MAGA. Any Republicans who balk at some policies are quickly forced back in line by Trump or his oligarchs.
From a Google Image Search - slate.com
Trump will most likely keep Congress around because that is part and parcel of the modern authoritarian state, according to the Orbán model. The ideal Republican government is supposed to resemble a democracy but not function as a democracy. Republicans may get the vision of America that they desire, but they will not have any power. The more liberal ideas are suppressed the stronger they will become.
Trump may have learned skills from his mentor, Roy Cohn, that have put him in the Oval Office, but he is not a young man and cannot expect to bully Americans, both on the right and the left, forever. Who will fill his shoes when he dies? There is no Republican with the negative charisma and the skill set to take his place.
We understand why Trump enjoys ruling over all of us. What we don't understand is what the Republicans hope to gain from this except for a truly terrible version of America. They will have to make our once-free country into a perpetual police state. The Republican Party put Trump in charge. The Republicans will eventually realize that the ends do not justify the means. Will America ever be the same? It already isn't.
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