Editorial

‘GOP’ Turns to Stalinism

Republicans are fond of accusing Democrats of trying to promote communism in the United States, but in fact, Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress have passed two major bills that have stimulated the economy, brought nearly six million Americans back to work and spurred the capitalist stock markets to rise more than 30% after Biden’s election, through October, while the supposed Grand Old Party has adopted tactics of Russian dictators in their effort to regain power regardless of the facts.

One of the tools Republicans have used to great effect in the Trump era is disinformation, which Josef Stalin developed as a means to undermine rivals. In 1923, after he became General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party, Stalin created a “special disinformation office.” The KGB continued it through the Soviet regime. The dark arts have been refined under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump used disinformation and, apparently, Putin’s assistance, in his 2016 campaign, as he appealed to blue-collar, working-class voters with a populist campaign that promised a new health care system with universal coverage for everyone at a mere fraction of the cost of the existing system. As Cody Cain noted at Salon.com Aug. 15, Trump “promised he would stop US corporations from shipping jobs overseas, and would bring jobs back to America. He promised he would never cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. He promised to get tough on Big Pharma and cut the high cost of drug prices. He promised a massive investment in America’s infrastructure, like roads and bridges. He promised to tax the rich, including himself, and to provide a massive tax cut for the middle class.

“But once Trump was elected, of course, he abandoned all these promises of policies that would benefit the working class, instead implementing right-wing policies that benefited large corporations and the rich at the top, including granting a massive tax cut to himself and the rich, slashing regulations for big business, seeking to repeal the Affordable Care Act and seeking to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”

Trump told more than 30,000 lies in his four years as president, but he parlayed the biggest one after Biden beat him in 2020: He claimed Democrats had stolen the election. Trump’s campaign sued to contest vote counts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, but courts threw out all the lawsuits as unfounded, despite Republicans and Trump supporters harassing and threatening election officials who refused to change the results.

When Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, did what she could to combat lies told about Arizona’s voting system, Republicans in the Legislature refused to allow her to use state money to combat those lies. After she continued to defend the vote count with private funding, the Republican Legislature passed House Bill 2569, which banned election officials from using private or public funds to combat disinformation about elections.

During the discussion in the House Committee on Government and Elections, Chairman John Kavanagh, doing his best Uncle Joe Stalin imitation, actually said, “One person’s disinformation is another person’s truth,” E.J. Montini noted in the Arizona Republic Feb. 21, 2021.

Republicans have gone so far as to pass laws that authorize legislatures they control, to ignore or reject votes they don’t like, in anticipation of the 2022 and 2024 elections.

To protect the right to vote and have that vote count, the Senate needs to pass Freedom To Vote Act, which would protect the integrity of elections, but the bill is blocked by a filibuster supported by all 50 Senate Republicans, who want to preserve the right to rig.

Among other things, the Freedom to Vote Act would criminalize intimidating, threatening or coercing any election official or election worker. It would make it a federal crime to publish or distribute false information about elections. It would increase federal penalties for voter intimidation or otherwise interfering with the right to vote. And it would keep partisan “poll watchers” at least eight feet from voters in all circumstances, including while voting. It also would end partisan gerrymandering and require same-day voter registration, to neutralize the impact of partisan officials purging voters before election day.

It would require at least 14 consecutive days for early voting, require easy access to polling places, and a wait of no more than 30 minutes to vote.

It would guarantee all voters, nationwide, the right to vote by mail with no excuses required, and forbid states from forcing mail-in voters to have their ballots witnessed, notarized or jump through other onerous hoops. It would allow people waiting in line to vote to receive food or water from others.

Republicans apparently have adopted Stalin’s reputed maxim that goes something like, “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”

This quote has been around for years, but PolitiFact decided in March 2019 to debunk it. After failing to find any “credible” original sources, PolitiFact concluded the quote was apocryphal, even though Boris Bazhanov, Stalin’s former personal secretary, wrote in his memoirs that Stalin said, “I regard it as completely unimportant who in the party will vote and how, but it is extremely important who will count the votes and how.” But PolitiFact noted that Bazhanov fled the Soviet Union in 1928 and then published his “rather unreliable muckraking memoir in 1930.”

At this point, it hardly matters if Stalin said it. The important thing is that Republicans think it worked for Stalin, and in at least 15 states, Republicans think it can work for them.

Joe Manchin’s announcement on Dec. 19 that he couldn’t support the Build Back Better Act was a blow to people who were counting on the social and climate control programs. Working families will lose the child tax credit of up to $300 a month per child, which expires at the end of 2021, and the bill also provided child care and pre-kindergarten programs that would allow parents to return to work. But working-class voters and progressives who decide not to vote in the midterm election next November, because they’re disappointed Biden couldn’t keep Manchin in line in a 50-50 Senate, will only cut off their noses to spite their faces.

They should focus on keeping a House majority and picking up enough Democrats in the Senate so they won’t have to depend on Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to put Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote in play on legislation to help working people.

Terms of 20 Republicans expire in 2020, with the main Democratic pickup opportunities in Florida (Marco Rubio), Missouri (open), North Carolina (open), Ohio (open), Pennsylvania (open), and Wisconsin (Ron Johnson). Meanwhile Democrats are protecting 14 seats, including Mark Kelly in Arizona, Raphael Warnock in Georgia, Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada and Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire.

If you’re mad about Manchin and/or Sinema, take it out on Republicans, not Biden, Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi. And remember, democracy isn’t over until we say it’s over. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2022

Populist.com