Republican Coup
by digby
Back in 2007 I wrote this little screed when it was revealed that the Bush Justice department had fired US Attorneys who were unwilling to rig the vote or otherwise compromise the electoral process.
Since I first started writing on-line, one of my recurring themes is that the modern Republican party has become fundamentally hostile to democracy.(And we already knew they were crooks.) This was first made obvious to me back in 1994, when Republican leader Dick Armey famously stated “your president is just not that important for us.” They went on to impeach that president against the clear will of the people.
But the biggest clue about what they were up to came in 2000 with the Florida recount. I know it seems like ancient history to go back to that but it is extremely important to remember just how outrageous their tactics were: the Gore campaign used legal tactics and the Bush campaign didn’t. There was the “bourgeois riot” and dirty trickster Roger Stone directing the street theatre from a van. (Here’s a list of what the Village Voice termed the five worst Bush recount outrages.) They used every lever of power they could to count illegally cast overseas ballots. They operated a hypocritical and situational media campaign that the press completely failed to properly analyze until it was too late. And after they did, they helpfully told those who objected to “get over it.” And I guess we did.
I’ve been writing about their vote suppression efforts for just as long and the takeover of the state legislatures in 2010 has also been a fertile ground for exploring this subject.
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I urge you to watch the whole thing, but here’s the nub:
For the past year, we have been reporting on Republican governance in Michigan. For the past year, we have called Michigan’s Emergency Manager law THE most radical Republican legislation in the country. And if that radical, radical law had passed under regular rules, if it hadn’t been put into immediate effect, if they couldn’t get a 2/3 super-majority to put it into effect that day when Governor Snyder signed it, then that radical law would only just now be taking effect. […]
What Governor Snyder and Michigan Republicans have done is radical beyond radical. And if it is true that the law should not have even been in effect all of this time, if it is true that Republicans have circumvented democracy and the legislature, too, then what do you call that? That’s radical beyond radical beyond radical. It’s revolutionary even. […]
The 2010 elections ushered in a lot of radicalized legislatures and governors across the country and they have done a lot of radical things…But what has happened in Michigan, I believe, is THE most radical thing that Republicans have done anywhere in the country. They have eliminated democracy. They have eliminated voting rights at the local level in their state. They have tried to eliminate Democrats’ voting rights in the state legislature. Whether you’re on the left or on the right or in the center or if you don’t particularly care about politics, if all you care about is that we have a form of government in this country called democracy, we vote, if you care about the idea that we still use voting here, we still use democracy, if you care about the constitution, frankly Michigan ought to have a flashing red light siren on it right now.
This isn’t a revolution. It’s something else:
A coup d’état; translation: strike (against the) state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, illegal deposition of a government,usually by a small group of the existing state establishment to replace the deposed government with another body; either civil or military. A coup d’état succeeds if the usurpers establish their dominance when the incumbent government fails to prevent or successfully resist their consolidation of power. If the coup neither fully fails nor achieves overall success, the attempted coup d’état is likely to lead to a civil war.
Typically, a coup d’état uses the extant government’s power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak says, “A coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder”, thus, armed force (either military or paramilitary) is not a defining feature of a coup d’état.
Watch the whole segment. It’s astonishing. And I have to wonder why there hasn’t been more of an outcry from Michigan Democrats.
Seems he’s very enamored of the authoritarian powers of his office. Surprised? I didn’t think so.
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