To America -
In 2008, the election of Barack Obama signaled a change in the United States. We were moving further to the left. We were deep in a recession that started during a Republican Presidency that could be attributed to Right-leaning Democrats and Republicans in the 90s pushing banking deregulation and tax cuts that were passed during George W. Bush’s Administration. Barack Obama was the idea of hope that our nation could climb out of a hole and be better. But as soon as this black man with a funny name became the front-runner racism almost immediately took effect. From burning effigies, accusations that the soon-to-be President was not even an American, or Christian, for that matter, we were bombarded with propaganda that stemmed from a surge in the use of social media and the proliferation of the recently coined term, “fake news.” If we look back, we could see what started to happen.
The rise of the Tea Party is often attributed to grassroots right-wing movements that were “afraid” of socialism and taxes. But if we look deep down, we can see where Ron Paul’s idea of libertarian-conservatism rose from. Look no further than David and Charles Koch. Ron Paul worked for and became Chairman for an organization called, “Citizens for a Sound Economy” in 1984, this organization was ran by money from – Charles and David Koch. In the 2000s, it was this organization that played a key role in pushing for the Bush tax cuts that would eventually lead our economy into the largest recession since the Great Depression.
Eventually, “Citizens for a Sound Economy” spun off into two parts, FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. These two organizations were fundamental in starting up the “Tea Party” protests that became especially prominent during the Presidency of Barack Obama. Arguing that we were “taxed enough already” and ignoring the fact that states like California, Minnesota, Washington, and Oregon were raising taxes on the wealthy and recovering from the recession much more rapidly than the rest of the Midwest or the South.
Anyways, Barack Obama’s Presidency resided over a massive reversal in the economy. We pulled ourselves out of recession and saw record setting job growth as the GDP began expanding again. The issue, however, was that the recession lingered in the south and the Midwest, where Republicans dominated state legislatures and continued to cut taxes claiming it would help, but never did…
Enter Donald Trump – A man that claims to be a billionaire, but was saved from multiple bankruptcies by foreign banks, most notably in Russia, as he himself and his sons claimed on live television. His business ventures failing so admirably that American banks would no longer lend to his organization. This wealthy, New York aristocrat began throwing out conspiracies on social media and helped spread the racist idea that President Obama was not an American. Either through his own means, or from observation of historical figures and their ability to enamor a crowd by playing to their fears, Donald Trump managed to build a movement wherein he somehow managed to convince enough people in enough places that he, a rich, wealthy plutocrat from New York, actually cared about a laid-off coal worker in West Virginia. Trump played up the idea of “inner-city” crime playing on a history of urban racism that had triggered “white flight” sixty and seventy years ago. His combination of rhetoric and deliberately misleading people and outright lying were so well played that the media leading up to the 2016 election gave him so much free airtime, that their complicity in his election cannot be dismissed.
So lets go back to the Kochs for a second. In the state of Kansas, the Kochs are the kings of politics. It is my assumption and insinuation that Kansas lacks other major companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Tesla, etc. because the Kochs actively dissuade them. If these companies started coming to Wichita or Kansas City an influx of young millennials would decisively alter the scope of politics in the state and would upend the Koch complex of power within the state government which is dominated by Republicans. The reason the Kochs are important to this is because of their hypocrisy and they way they have managed to insinuate themselves into our politics. The Kochs claim, and as far back as Ron Paul’s time at Citizens for a Sound Economy, can claim that they are “libertarians” that just want an even playing field, this despite the fact that they pay for politicians to cut their taxes, therefore subsidizing their businesses, which they unashamedly and hypocritically admit too, by claiming it isn’t hypocritical at all, they’re just “taking advantage of what is there.” Why is this important? It’s a pattern. Paul Ryan used Social Security benefits to put himself through college, now he refers to them as entitlements and wants to cut them to other people, hypocrisy. The “pro-life” movement claims every fetus is a life and that all life is sacred, meanwhile they advocate for the death penalty, support politicians that build up false pretenses for war, wherein our sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, etc. are killed. They also push to cut benefits to the poor that would help couples and single mothers who they force to have children, again hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a big giant chain in the world of Conservative Republicans, and yet somehow they’ve managed to live without seeing it. I have members of my own family who claim they want the government to just stay out of people’s lives, meanwhile they vote for people that want to tell me who I cannot marry, or force their own ideas on women’s bodies, again hypocrisy. The thing about all of this is, and why its important is because Koch money buys the politicians that use these social issues to push the Koch agenda of less taxes for the wealthy and their corporations. They use trigger words and social issues as a means to push their agenda forwards. “You have to vote for this Republican because that Democrat is a “baby killer” despite the fact that we, the Republicans are going to take away your livelihoods by raising your taxes and cutting them on the people making more than you.”
Hypocrisy, social issues, and private money, now we go back to Donald Trump.
I already mentioned how Trump is good at exploiting people’s emotions. Look no further than the Midwest, and the supposed Democratic firewall that collapsed. As the coasts grew and the economic prosperity of these areas grew, the Midwest faltered. Decades of job loss from reduced corporate and high-level taxation and free trade without reinvestment in these areas saw high-income jobs replaced with low income jobs. The economic frustrations of this area of the country was ripe for exploitation, and exploit it Trump did. From demonizing Latin American people for taking the jobs, even though net immigration to the United States from Latin America was at an all time low. Even though if American companies were willing to hire Americans and pay good wages in the first place, there would be no market for undocumented migrant labor in the first place, Trump leveraged economic insecurity into racist anger. What should have been a sure victory for Hillary Clinton fell short for many reasons. The biggest one being, Trump exploited fear and frustration and after decades of Democrats making promises that they couldn’t keep they chose something else, to their own detriment, much like Kansans do every election where they re-elect the same useless Republicans that talk big and then put our state in debt and cut education and infrastructure funding.
January of 2017, Trump is inaugurated President. Immediately his administration is hit with controversy. He is choosing inexperience people with questionable backgrounds to lead departments. Many books and reports claim that his White House is chaos. Soon we have people being fired, and we have the launching of multiple investigations as the Steele Dossier comes out. Stormy Daniels also gives us what we all knew, Trump is a serial adulterer. But somehow Evangelical Christians that wanted Clinton gone for a blow job believe Trump is forgiven for his marital infidelities and his “locker room talk.” Again, hypocrisy. Anyways, as more and more information comes out about Russia, Trump looks more and more desperate. Exploding into twitter rants, trying to distract with fake conspiracy theories about Obama and Clinton, and even going so far as to threaten lawmakers and members of his own Administration. He has also frequently made disturbing, off the cuff remarks such as praising how dictators handle their people. The most recently famous remark being his praising the National Peoples’ Congress move to eliminate term limits in China, remarking that “maybe” we will do that someday. Though it was reportedly, “a joke,” its still a bit harrowing when you look at everything else that surrounds Trump.
Amidst all of this, we still have his faithful followers, dismissing anything they don’t hear or watch on their conservative news source of choice. Funnily enough, I just watched a video showing exactly how biased Fox is and how it is able to turn its followers into hypocrites. Just look at how they handle North Korea. When Obama suggested that meeting with North Korea may not be all that bad, Fox characterized him as basically an insane person that was delegitimizing the US by effectively “negotiating with a terrorist.” Whereas when Trump said he would be willing to meet with North Korea, Fox characterized him as a genius and the only person willing to do that. Utterly ridiculous, but this is the world we now live in.
Now why is all of this important and why are there so many strings that I have brought up? Because its all connected, or can be connected, I should say.
Once Republicans realized they could use social issues to push hypocritical economic ideas, they hit the sweet spot. There is nobody more dedicated to voting than a conservative republican. The true detriment of Democrats is that young people are not reliable voters, even though we make up their base. This is tied to several different reasons, one Democrats, especially in Kansas aren’t genuine. They try to toe a line between Republican and Democrat and they sell out if they think they can win. Take James Thompson, he will not take a firm stand on universal health care, despite the fact that Brent Welder has and he is leading Kevin Yoder in the polls. Paul Davis is the same, he is a chameleon that embraces whatever he needs to win if he needs to move to the right just a bit, so be it. For me, this is inexcusable because it shows that they lack passion and ultimately that is what moves people. People have to be dedicated to an ideal and they have to stand for it. Young people have to be inspired and for that to happen, we need people that have firm ideas and stand by them.
Lets tie this in to the main point. Democrats have ceded control of most state legislatures, so much so that in many cases they don’t even run candidates in districts anymore in Kansas, especially. What happens when Republicans control enough state legislatures? Constitutional Convention. This, I believe, has been their long term goal. If they control enough legislatures, they could effectively rewrite the Constitution to their own idea. Enter the Kochs and all the corporate big money that has been spent on buying politicians. Its painfully clear that many politicians do not care about the average person. Take the Democrats and Republicans that voted to gut Frank-Dodd. The ones that stand against Medicare-For-All or similar universal health care ideas. The same ones that say, “we can’t afford to send all of our kids to college” but allow corporations massive tax breaks? These hypocrites would be able to have unfettered access to rewrite our Constitution, and what better way to do it than to put hypocritical republicans in charge of it, the ones that ignite social issues, while taking away your retirement, your social security, your medicare, our schools, etc. Some people may think this is far-fetched, but ask yourself, why have Republicans so blatantly attacked the better interests of their constituents? Because they don’t really care about you and many Democrats are also to blame for this. Michael Bennett of Colorado voted to gut Frank-Dodd, Cory Booker voted to let Big Pharma continue to price gouge people. So there is guilt to lay on both sides…
Enter Trump again. Recall how he stated that he would have won the popular vote if it weren’t for all of the “illegal votes” which remains completely unsubstantiated. But also remember how Voter ID laws started to take effect after the election of President Obama. Coincidence? Maybe. But I don’t think so. Look at it this way. Conservatives realized their long term goals were faltering when Obama was elected, the left was getting stronger what could they do? Make it harder to vote. Democratic voters tend to be people of color, poorer, less likely to be mobile, so why not make it exceedingly difficult for them to vote so that we can try to slow this down? It worked in Kansas, some 20,000 people that were previously able to vote were put in limbo following Kris Kobach’s notorious voter ID and citizenship laws. There is still controversy surrounding voting in Michigan and Pennsylvania, which were the two states that really led to Trump’s electoral victory, and remember too that Trump consistently believes that his loss in the popular vote is attributed to illegal votes, this is important.
Lets also remember that Trump has been using Russian money since the mid 90s to survive and build his organization back up from financial ruin. Remember that Donald Trump Jr stated, on video at a Real Estate Conference in New York that, “In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” Right here, we can see their reliance on Russian money. So why did it suddenly turn into denial from all channels for them? We know the FBI was investigating them long before the Steele Dossier popped up, so the idea that the Dossier is the reason for the investigation is flat out wrong. The continued insinuation that Obama was “wiretapping” the opposition has also been dismissed. These talking points will not be addressed beyond this. What we do want to address is Trump’s reliance on Russia. Its already been proven that Russia affected our election through propaganda and bot attacks. Its also been recently revealed that they are trying to penetrate our energy grid. Compound this with the attacks on British spies, and we have a Russian state trying to infiltrate Western Democracy. Look no further than Marine La Pen and her racist National Front, or the rise of Nationalist parties in Austria and Poland, and Brexit. Russian money goes where its interests go, a weak Europe is in the interest of Russia, just as a weak United States is. Who better than to lead the United States to further Russian interests than a man who is already indebted to them, both monetarily and, allegedly, morally.
Tying all of this together is difficult and requires some leaps of faith which I don’t necessarily want to make. I don’t want to speculate beyond good reason, not only because I am not a conspiracy theorist, by nature, I tend to believe what I can see for myself. However there is far too much coincidence in all of these events for the possibility of a connection to not exist. So from here, we are going into the land of my own speculation, as a forewarning.
After the Republicans realized they could use social issues to get their way, they started pushing harder. During the Bush Administration, the war in Iraq, tax cuts, etc. All lined the pockets of the wealthy. The recession didn’t affect them, but it affected middle America, hence the election of Barack Obama, which temporarily halted their power grab. They had to figure out a way to change that. Here comes Charles and David Koch with the Tea Party, allegations that the President was unamerican, and the “red wave” of the 2010 midterms. We also managed to have draconian voter ID laws imposed on us as well, as red states continued to have sluggish growth through tax cuts, blue states grew rapidly and the jobs and the wealth went there. Trump exposed this in his election, but for his own purposes. He was a wild card, the Kochs didn’t even like him at first. But then it turned out that his rhetoric had no standing. The Kochs and other corporations have received the tax cuts they wanted from Trump, and the “rabble” are stimulated by social issues, especially racial issues at this point. Also remember there’s the convenient “fake voters” argument as well. But there is still the issue of Trump’s Russia connections. The House Intelligence committee shuttered its investigation with no consent from Democrats. What does Trump, Russia, or both have on Nunes? Why did Mitch McConell reject Obama’s attempt at a bipartisan response to Russian hacking in our elections? Why has Paul Ryan allowed Nunes to get away with the things he’s gotten away with? Why did Gowdy and Cheffertz suddenly say, “we are done!” ? For eight years, the NRA held down that Obama was coming to take everyone’s guns, but he never did. Even though when Ronald Reagan first started advocating for an Assault Weapons Ban, they supported it. Even as recently as the late 90s and early 2000s the NRA is on record of stating that schools should be gun free zones, with no tolerance. Suddenly that changed! Why? Because social issues. Guns are a big issue and the second amendment has been turned into a big issue. Republicans will vote for Republicans if they think their second amendment rights are under threat. Remember that the NRA is also being investigated for their connection Russian money, which may have been funneled out the Congressional Republicans that they’ve donated to, which may also explain why so many Republicans are so determined to end all the investigations, because it turns out they’re dirty too. But also, they embrace how Trump won over the crowds in a way some of them had been doing as well. This was their ticket to win the midterms, solidify a majority in state legislatures and get their Constitutional Convention. The problem is, Democrats are winning where Republicans should be. Enter the “voter fraud” issue. What happens if, the mid-terms come, Democrats do have a “blue wave” and then the Trump Administration attempts to nullify some or all elections because of unsubstantiated voter fraud claims? Wild speculation here, of course, because something like that happening is very far-fetched. But all the arguments and the insinuations made up to this point paint the possibility of something like this occurring. Assuming Trump makes it to then. Even if he doesn’t, we have to make sure all of the politicians involved in this con are held accountable.
-Nolan
