Today I find in the news an extraordinary story about Trump’s summit with Putin, in which he behaves like the head of a Russian client state.
Everyone is appalled of course, and Republican leaders in Congress hazard a bit of mild criticism. They will take no action to stop him or limit his power—impeachment is out of the question.
Of course, if this were Obama or Clinton, they would be preparing impeachment charges now. Now, is this mere partisanship, or is there a more substantial reason for Republican passivity in the face of behavior that is not quite treason but is definitely in the neighborhood?
Of course, most Republican officials are concerned about national security to some extent. A few of them, like John McCain, care a lot. But the overriding priority of the Republican Party is the concentration of as much wealth as possible into as few hands as possible. And Trump is very much in favor of that, and if the Republicans retain control of Congress in the mid-terms, they may be able to squeeze another big tax cut out of the budget, and they need Trump around to sign it. This tax cut would of course be funded by cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, as well as every-increasing debt.
And Putin himself is in favor of concentrating wealth in the hands of his billionaire class as well, so, although he’s obviously a threat to the US and its allies, he’s also an ideological brother to the entire Republican Party.
It’s a very uncomfortable situation for Republican Congressmen. Trusting Putin clearly doesn’t feel natural to most of them, but he is on their side in the battle that matters most: the fight to destroy democracy and establish a Billionaire State.
These Congressmen grew up in the same country as the rest of us, heard the same stories about Washington and Jefferson and Ben Franklin in school, and learned to revere the same flag and Constitution. Betraying that tradition to establish an oligarchy of narcissists must provoke second thoughts, especially when it’s coupled with becoming a Russian satellite state.
But—I predict—betray it they will. Trump is clearly not qualified to be president, and he may be dangerously unstable, but they will support him because he will sign any tax cut bill that’s put before him, and because he has put together a political coalition that can—just barely—maintain a hold on power, for now.
This is not cowardice or a failure of will—this behavior is the logical outcome of a political movement that has as its highest priority the ever-increasing concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands. Yes, maybe protecting the country from foreign enemies is somewhere in their top ten priorities….but far below the concentration of wealth.
And Vladimir Putin shares their highest priority, because he may be—as I mentioned in “Kasparov Gives Us a Hint”—the richest person in the world.
The Socialist Investor 