Blowing the Biggest Political Story of the Last Fifty Years

[Triana]

The shocking story isn't the rise of Donald Trump but how the GOP slowly morphed into a party of hate and obstruction.

. . .

It is hardly a surprise that the GOP establishment and their enablers in the media are acting as if Trump, the Republican frontrunner, is a break from the party’s supposedly genteel past. Like Captain Renault in Casablanca, who was “shocked, shocked,” to find gambling in Rick’s establishment, the GOP solons profess to be “shocked, shocked” by Trump’s demagogic racism and nativism. Their protestations remind me of an old gambit of comedian Milton Berle. When the audience was applauding him, he would shush them demonstratively with one hand while encouraging them gently with the other.

Neither is it a surprise that the conservative media have been doing the same thing — decrying Trump while giving us Trump Lite. Indeed, even less blatant partisans who ought to know better, like every “thinking man’s” favorite conservative David Brooks, deliver the same hypocrisy.

No, Brooks isn’t too keen on Trump (or Cruz for that matter), but he is very keen on some mythological Republican Party that exudes decency. On the PBS NewsHour last week he said with great earnestness, “For almost a century-and-a-half, the Republican Party has stood for a certain free market version of America – an America that’s about openness, that’s about markets and opportunity, and a definition of what this country is.”

Free markets? That’s what he thinks defines America? Let me rephrase what I said earlier: Trump hasn’t just fulfilled the Republican Party’s purpose; he has exposed it. And he also has exposed the media’s indifference to what the party has become.

Obviously, I am not saying that the transmogrification of the Republican Party happened surreptitiously. It happened in plain sight, and it was extensively chronicled — but not by the MSM. The sainted Reagan blew his party’s cover when to kick off his general election campaign in 1980 he spoke at the Neshoba County Fair, just outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers had been brutally murdered in 1964. He wasn’t there to demonstrate his sympathy to the civil rights movement, but to demonstrate his sympathy to those who opposed it. This was an ugly moment, and it didn’t go entirely unnoticed in the media. In fact, David Brooks would later be moved to defend the speech, which invoked the not-so-subtle buzz words “states’ rights,” and to act as if Reagan had been slandered by those who called him out on it.

THE REST:

http://billmoyers.com/story/blowing-the-biggest-political-story-of-the-last-fifty-years/#.VuMY41j_BeU.twitter

[Hekate]

1. Off to the Greatest page for Bill Moyers

[StandingInLeftField]

2. Bill Moyers, one of the few well-known journalists that hasn't been corrupted.

But he paid a high price for his integrity.

As far as Brooks is concerned, he's retreated to some Albert Bierstadt-insipired vision of Manifest Destiny 19th Century America (which never existed in the first place.) Meh...

[malaise]

3. MUST READ - excellent

Neal Gabler is correct but Bill Moyers has been calling them out for ages

[underpants]

4. Don't tell me what to read

[malaise]

6. Underpants must read it

[underpants]

8. :-)

[DeGreg]

20. Read it now Underpants!

I command you, be careful, don't soil yourself. ; )

[underpants]

24. But I don't WANNA read it!

Stomps off in hissyfit

[longship]

26. I really love you guys!

I mean REALLY love you. You make DU great.

[WinkyDink]

5. "slowly morphed"? SLOWLY?! Yeah, 1860---1960. From AuH20, the degradation was swift.

[elehhhhna]

37. Yep. No morphing just coming out of the closet.

[rhett o rick]

7. The Oligarchy isnt happy with this outcome but are using it to their advantage.

By having a Republicon Party that is so off the track, the Oligarchy can use it as a bludgeon to threaten the Progressive. If you don't support the Oligarch chosen candidate you will be bludgeoned with the Republicons. The problem is that progressives don't react in accord to the Oligarchy's desires and may not fall for the blackmail, just like they didn't in 2000.

A message to Conservative Democrats, if you really don't want a Republicon in the WH, don't support the Oligarchy's candidate. If you do she will go the way of Al Gore.

[highprincipleswork]

9. We are headed to a real showdown. Bernie is the right person to lead the charge.

[mountain grammy]

10. Nothing stronger than a true grassroots movement.

I think we're gonna win!

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

21. Like Bernie said, "A political revolution."

Now is the time for a real progressive populist movement, but the message needs to be clear and not overly complex and it needs to be repeated over and over to drive it home into the minds of the people.

Then Bernie will win.

[LuckyLib]

11. Put Bill Moyers' name up front of your clip or in the OP. He is always a good read, and I

didn't know who it was until looking at the url.

[subterranean]

18. It's Moyers' website, but he didn't write the article.

It was written by Neal Gabler, who's no slouch himself.

[Jim Lane]

25. It's on Moyers's site but the author is Neal Gabler. (n/t)

[valerief]

12. Morphed? It's always been like that. Always against unions, social security, medicare, etc.

If the masses benefited, they were against it. I call that that hate and obstruction. They're just proud of being that way now.

[elljay]

15. Teddy Roosevelt

Was a member of the oligarchy but not at all in favor of those who strangled the working classes. Roosevelt did more to dismantle the big corporations than any Democratic President in recent history.

[Wednesdays]

33. TR was hated by the Republican party leaders

When hearing that President McKinley died and that TR was to become President, Senator Thomas Platt exclaimed, "Oh. God, now that damned cowboy is president of the United States!"

Also, read up on what happened to TR during the 1912 primaries, convention, and election. He became a pariah to the GOP then.

[elljay]

34. Oh, I know what happened

Nevertheless, he was a Republican who wasn't afraid to take on the banksters. A large part of the opposition to Roosevelt was the Southern Democratic party. The two parties had not fully made the policy switch that would be cemented by Nixon's southern strategy. Roosevelt certainly had many flaws, but I wish Obama had followed his example with Wall Street and the big banks.

[debunction.junction]

13. We are seeing the result of years of right wing radio spewing hate and intolerance.

Rush and his ilk should be a charged with inciting to riot.

[AlbertCat]

14. Slowly morphed????

How about exploded on the scene during the 50s and 60s?

[FailureToCommunicate]

16. That Bill Moyers knows a thing or two about the Right.

[Uncle Joe]

17. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Triana.

[elljay]

19. There were several different threads

Last edited Sat Mar 12, 2016, 01:30 AM - Edit history (1)

That came together to form today's Republican mess. There was the mass shifting of Southern racists to the Republican Party in the early 60s. Next you had the evangelical explosion of the 70s, where mainstream Protestant churches declined and Jerry Falwell ruled. The evangelicals then began getting involved in politics, which they hadn't done in large numbers before, hence the Moral Majority. The upper class Republicans, in their arrogant superiority, had a great idea to merge these groups together and manipulate them to support an agenda that only benefited the rich. As that agenda became implemented, it created a larger class of disenfranchised working people who were slipping down the rungs of the ladder. These people were fed into the Republican stream by acquiring huge chunks of our media and feeding them propaganda of hate and fear. The rich assumed that they would be able to control these people but boy did they miscalculate. To me, the issue is not how we got here, but what can be done to improve things. How do you get millions of heavily armed, fearful and uninformed people who hate any sources of factual information to rejoin civilization?

[jaysunb]

30. +1 good post n/t

[elljay]

31. Thanks

but, being the child of two teachers, when I reread it and saw all of the typos (mostly from my iPhone hating the letter "t" and my eyes hating the miniature screen of the iPhone) I felt inadequate. Mom still corrects my grammar and I'm approaching 60!

[rgbecker]

22. Bill Moyers for Sander's VP!

I was pushing for Krugman, but I think Moyers would be the best at s'plaining Sanders to the world.

[Triana]

23. MOYERS. Definitely. n/t

[Major Hogwash]

27. " . . . where three civil rights workers had been brutally murdered in 1964."

Three white civil rights workers, one who was Jewish.

The movie "Mississippi Burning" chronicled that terrible incident that took place in those turbulent times.
Although that movie may not be factually accurate in every single aspect, it sets the stage in order to tell the background of how racist the climate was in the 1960s in the South.
It also tells the facts about how those civil rights workers left the state of New York to drive clear down to Mississippi in order to change the way blacks were treated in this country.
They were murdered as a result of their efforts to make it easier for blacks to get to cast their votes in that state.

There is no doubt that the Republican party has simply removed any doubt about how they feel about race relations in this country.
They have treated President Obama as if it were still the 1850s, and they have done everything they possibly can to thwart his right to govern this country.
They are the "status quo" party, they will never, ever do anything to improve the status of minorities in this country.

They have become a political white hate group.

[Dont call me Shirley]

28. Bill Moyers should be elevated to sainthood.

[Arazi]

29. Bookmarking. It's that good. A must read

kicked and recced

[Wednesdays]

32. To Brooks and most of the GOP elite,

the "perfect candidate" would be Trump without the four-letter words.

[DAMANgoldberg]

35. His last name is a four letter word

Cruz, Ted Cruz (R-TX). They have it now, and want him to beat Drumpf since the "little man" Marco Rubio can't and John Kasich is too boring and rational (as the current R party goes).

The only R I can stomach might as well not be one anymore, Jon Huntsman. He actually worked in Obama's cabinet.

[Enthusiast]

36. Kicked and recommended! eom