THE DUOPOLY WATCH | Steven Jonas, MD
Dealing first with all
of the Republican candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination other
than Donald Trump, present and recently departed (from the political scene, not
from this life), can be likened to playing a Great Game of Let’s Pretend.
First, there are no major differences between them in terms of substance.
That is when they manage to get to substance. This, of course, is
rarely.
Jeb Bush’s major
argument for himself seemed to be that he would have a steady hand on the helm
of the ship of state (although he could hardly use his brother’s example in
support of that claim). Ted Cruz seems to rely on “toughness” and
invariance (that is when he and/or his campaign is not indulging in dirty
tricks. But really, they did such a poor job of covering them up — that
has to be taken as a bad sign for Ted’s potential as a Teapublican
President). Dr. Carson seems to think that having no experience in
government (and also seeming to know not too much about it or the process) is a
prime qualification for its leadership. Plus, having been awakened at 2AM
for an emergency involving one patient in a hospital bed or an emergency room
Gurney and having to mobilize (as he has said — really[!]) at least 12 to 15
physicians, nurses, and techs for the care team, is just like, say, being
awakened at 2AM to deal with, say, a missile firing from North Korea (or some
other, slightly stronger, power, like you know which).
Then there is Marco
Rubio, who got into trouble by repeating his standard response to virtually any
question — an attack on Obama — just one or two times too many during the same
Republican shouting match (oops, I mean debate). Most of the other
candidates, present and past, operate[d] more or less in the same vein.
That is except from time-to-time the arch-reactionary “Let’s have a Ministry
for spreading ‘Judeo-Christian’ values” John Kasich, who comes across as sane
only in comparison to the others. Which is why I think that if the Repub.
establishment can figure out a way to stop Trump at a brokered convention, without
alienating too many of his supporters, Kasich will be the party’s
nominee. And if Hillary has clinched the nomination by then, his VP will
be Carly “Clinton Attack Dog” Fiorina. (The other possibility for the
Repubs. Pres. Nomination arising from a deadlocked convention, would be Pretty
Boy Ryan, also an arch-reactionary in “sensible looking” clothing.)
But then there are the
real policies and the Real Republican Platform (which has not changed since the
time of Reagan), about which very little is said, certainly by the Republican
candidates themselves: further tax breaks for the wealthy; vastly expanding
military spending (which already stands at an amount great than that spent by
all of the other countries in the world); which would only further expand the
deficit; while of course they would all vastly reduce the deficit (presumably
by selling off the National Parks closing the National Weather Service [which
happens to keep track of Repub. no-no’s like the advance of the consequences of
global warming] and etc.); cutting back on Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid; criminalizing abortion based on a religious belief about when
life begins; to the extent possible rolling back civil rights gains recently
made for the LGBT community; repealing Obamacare and “replacing” it with
something only vaguely defined; and for certain candidates, like Rubio, running
the government based on the “truth” found in the Bible (there’s that
religious-doctrine-governs-government approach again), and so on and so forth.
Donald Trump is of
course the exception. He doesn’t do policy much either, except in broad
brush-strokes, but his are somewhat different, in the campaign, from those of
others. As is well known, he would: deport 11 million or so Latino
undocumented persons while letting an indeterminate number of them back
into the country “eventually;” build an impenetrable wall along the Mexican
border (in certain places this would require a] building in the middle of the
Rio Grande River, b] claiming a goodly amount of privately owned property {most
likely at least some of it owned by far-right Republicans with guns}, and c]
figuring out how to put it into some pretty impassable mountainous country); banning
Muslims until “we figure out what is going on” (that is with the one recent
Muslim terrorist attack being carried out by an American citizen and his
legally admitted wife); vastly cut taxes; somehow bring back all that U.S.
capital which is doing so well in China and indeed has fueled the rise of
capitalism in China (just how he would accomplish this feat in the face of
existing trade agreements like that of the World Trade Organization, he doesn’t
say). All this while: a) certainly sounding authoritarian all along the
way (which is the secret to his success: racism combined with authoritarianism
will often overcome reservations that many “evangelicals” [read Dominionists]
might have about him); preserving Medicare and Social Security: and so on and so
forth. He is thus all things to all people. You know the drill.
Separated at birth? Il
Duce would have admired his audacity. Of course, the Italian dictator was 100
times the intellectual that Trump is or will ever be.
Of course he is a great
performer. He yells and screams. He takes full advantage of the
free media which his natural acting ability draws to him like flies to
fly-paper, while at the same time he is often lashing out at that same media
when it doesn’t treat him quite right (by asking him tough questions). Of
course there are his former positions on certain policies at the center of
Republicanism, like abortion rights, health care for all, and so forth, but
those contradictions mean nothing to his supporters, as long as he maintains
the central racist/authoritarian character of his campaign. My big
question about Trump is whether his performances are scripted or are
semi-improvised according to some general plan of attack, but with little
detail planned out in advance. Hitler, who appeared to be spontaneous, is
known to have practiced in front of a mirror. Whether Mussolini, who
Trump resembles more than Hitler in his performance style, did too, I do not
know. And we surely don’t know whether Trump rehearses or not.
But then we (finally)
come to the Democrats. Hillary and Bernie. Where are they?
Vigorously debating each other, on policy (although Hillary, the old DLCer,
veers into process when she continually attacks Bernie as a “one-issue”
candidate, which is clearly not true but makes for a good line). Which is
all well and good, except that the Republicans collectively spend at least half
their time attacking Bernie and Hillary and for good measure, Rubio’s favorite
target/talking point, President Obama (as if he were running for a third term)
–– which, Rubio knows — is prohibited by the 25th Amendment.
But this is how the
Duopoly works. There is so much to attack the Repubs. on, from Permanent
War, to the related policy of further expanding the military-industrial
complex, to further destroying voting rights, to attempting to continually
shrink the electorate, to blaming police violence on the victims, to claiming
that the answer to gun violence is more guns (there’s a self-contradictory
whopper waiting to be whapped), to not dealing with global warming, to only
empty rhetoric criminal justice reform, to national policing reform, to wanting
to shrink Social Security, to establishing a series of policies on women’s
rights and sexual orientation that are clearly grounded in a particular set of
religious beliefs, to the absolute importance — with many examples — of the
number one Republican target: government regulation of the environment,
carbon emissions, the financial system, and the workplace.
And so on and so
forth. But so far, for the most part (Flint is one exception, as even
there the attacks are half-hearted) silence. A prime opportunity is being
missed here. But that is how the Democratic half of the Duopoly works, at
least so far.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Senior Editor, Politics, Steven Jonas,
MD, MPH is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook
University (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 30 books.
In addition to being Senior Editor, Politics, for The Greanville Post, he is: a
Contributor for American Politics to The Planetary Movement; a “Trusted
Author” for Op-Ed News.com; a contributor to the
“Writing for Godot”
section of Reader Supported News; and a contributor to From The G-Man. He is the
Editorial Director and a Contributing Author for TPJmagazine.us.
Further, he is an occasional Contributor to TheHarderStuff newsletter, BuzzFlash Commentary,
and Dandelion Salad.
Dr. Jonas’ latest book is The 15%
Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S.,
1981-2022: A Futuristic Novel, Brewster, NY, Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto Press Publishing, 2013,
and available on Amazon.
