This Is Always What The Republicans Were

This IS what it always was.

I dislike being a broken record on these types of issues, but as we head into the primary season of another election cycle, it has to be said over and over in regard to the conservative movement in the United States:

Trump is not the cause of the rot at the heart of American conservatism; he is a symptom.

Sure he’s more crass and more brazen with his behavior, but nothing he has done – not even his crimes and sexual assaults – are out of step for conservatives in the United States. This goes back decades, past Bush and his illegal wars and lying to the American people, past Bush Sr.’s illegal wars and lying to the American people, to Reagans Iran-Contra shenanigans and lying to the American people, to Nixon’s foreign escapades and lying to the American people. It goes all the way back to the Business Plot and an attempted assassination attempt on the then President Franklin Roosevelt that involved George H.W. Bush’s father. Prescott Bush and Wall Street interests.

They have always been this way.

For generations what is known as American conservatism has been an alliance of the wealthy, racist, and privileged against the interests of the public at large.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t just mean republicans when we’re talking about these pernicious forces though the Venn diagram of the above category and republicans is almost a circle after 1945. Certainly, in the last 50 years it absolutely has been. You think this is just me piling ire upon the hapless republicans?

Let us look at some examples from yesteryear to today, even here in Iowa.

Recently a county supervisor in rural Iowa came under fire for using a racial slur when describing something “slapped together” using the term “N-r rig”. He seemed surprised that it was offensive claiming “he always used it” and that is was out of “habit”. That kind of says it all, doesn’t it? His response to being accused of being latently racist was that he……..was latently racist. Just because a term doesn’t seem racist to you doesn’t mean it isn’t derogatory or harmful. How can you represent all of your constituents when you consider their existence slur-worthy?

I’ll give you one guess to his party affiliation and political rhetoric.

Lets rewind the clock a little bit and look at who endorsed the now-decrepit senior Senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley? Oh, who is that at the helm, cheering him on from the side lines, well if it isn’t the KKK? With a good dose of the racist and white supremacist John Birch society thrown in for good measure. Since the inception of Grassley’s term in Washington representing Iowa, he has been a standard bearer for white supremacy, Christian Nationalism, and corporate interests.

From day one.

They have always been this way.

It isn’t as if Grassley is solely responsible for all of these ills, but he was absolutely part of the issue – and directly responsible for a lot of Trumps misdeeds today. Being a republican and punching down is what they are known for, it didn’t just start in 2016. From birtherism to illegal wars to “paling around with terrorists” as Reagan did with the Iran-Contra affair1, the worst aspects of our political reality have always originated and been exacerbated from the right.

These are the same guys who helped hide climate change science to enrich themselves2. The same people who mocked women for their appearances in order to silence their very real sexual assault allegations to get a supreme court justice.3 The same guys who pushed a racist scare monger ad about Willie Horton and threatened nuclear holocaust if a democrat won4. The same guys who believe in small government, so small in fact, it fits inside of a womans uterus, curtailing her civil and human rights. These are the same guys that shamelessly lied about someones military experience in order to score political points5. The same folks who have staged multiple attempts at government overthrow from the Business Plot6 to the systematic demonization of student protests to the Brooks Brothers Riot7 to the January 6^th insurrection of 20218.

Why are we so shocked when a modern day republican legislature in Iowa wants to ban books and allow doctors to opt out of science in the name of ‘conscience’. Why are we so surprised when we find that the conservatives are always aligning with big business and private interests over the welfare of the public?

Being anti science, anti woman, pro- bully, pro optics-over-substance has been the conservative modus operandi since the 50s.

They have always been this way.

These regressive policies aren’t to be laid at the feet of Trump. He didn’t “destroy” conservatism anymore than Columbus “discovered” America. It was already there, he just popularized it amongst a certain section of the populace.

All he did was dust it off a bit and liberals don’t like what they see, mistaking it for a shiny new thing to be dealt with and set aside in order to return to “how it was before”, not realizing that it’s the same demon they’ve been dealing with since the founding of the country.

They have always been this way.