Heroes, of course, require enemies

David Neiwert of Daily Kos discussed the need of the GOP to use Critical Race Theory to fabricate an enemy. He began:

The modern American right is preoccupied with being viewed as heroic, in particular with its self-conception as savior of the republic. Heroes, of course, require enemies. So throughout postwar history, right-wing ideologues have specialized in concocting them, supposedly dire existential threats to the nation spun into whole cloth out of tidbits of half-fact: Communists, Satanic occultists, New World Order overlords, cultural Marxists, antifa, Black radicals, adrenochrome-harvesting pedophilia rings—all have had their turns as right-wing bogeymen. The latest is critical race theory (CRT), which seems to have appeared out of nowhere as the latest great threat to America.

The emphasis on this particular bogeyman appears to come from Christopher Rufo, in contact with dark money organizations and with a history of promoting these kinds of theories. Neiwert discussed several state legislatures who are talking about or have enacted laws to ban CRT (without naming it which, of course, leads to wide interpretation).

Even some of the participants are surprisingly upfront about the dynamic at work here: At the end of the day, it’s a way to whip up the voting base by hijacking their amygdalas, whipping the footsoldiers into line and into a froth—all for the sake of making a buck and a media rep.

At one point Rufo tweeted:

We have successfully frozen their brand—"critical race theory”—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think “critical race theory.” We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.

Translation: they are redefining the term to make it something vile in the public mind. Alex Shephard of The New Republic explained:

The fact that critical race theory is always so hazily defined—and also so completely malevolent—makes it the perfect catch-all malefactor for a culture-war-obsessed right that’s desperate to end conversations around corrupt policing and structural racism. It is everywhere and nowhere at once; a spectral threat forever lurking in the shadows that’s just nonexistent enough to ensure that it can never be defeated.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported there is a new book out titled Close to Zero, by Jonathan Vankin. The title comes from a comment by the nasty guy early in the pandemic: “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” Vankin lays out and documents a few important things. The nasty guy underplayed the severity of the virus. Then he sabotaged the government response. As a result 400,000 Americans, according to some studies, would not have died if the government had acted like other governments had during the crisis. Officially we’ve just passed 600,000 dead. Estimates say the actual death toll is above 900,000. Other questions Vankin delves into: Why was most of the media unwilling to sound the alarm on the crime of the century? Why did Democrats so readily buy into the idea of simple incompetence? Was there a broader purpose behind the nasty guy’s actions? I checked Michigan’s COVID numbers. The peak in cases per day this past week was 184 on Monday (and likely includes weekend counts). The case rate continues to drop. Also on Monday the deaths per day peaked at 16. Hunter of Kos reported that Rep. Thomas Suozzi of New York is proposing a one time wealth tax. Several people, especially Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have been calling for an ongoing wealth tax, but that hasn’t gotten far in the Congressional process. So maybe a one time tax, geared towards paying for infrastructure and recovery costs, has a better chance. The chances may go up with it being called a “patriot tax.” Hunter wrote:

But the branding—now that's spectacular. The Patriot Tax. Whenever you want people to vote against their own self-interests, one of the easiest ways to do it is to claim that only dirty rotten America-haters would refuse to comply. It's the path America regularly uses to clear the way for new wars, for example. Singling out people who have so bled America's now-skeletal middle class as to now own their own islands and intercontinental ballistic missiles as being "unpatriotic" in their greed is not exactly a rhetorical stretch. Of course tax dodgers are unpatriotic. It's self-evident! And every wealthy American alive today has benefited greatly from tax policies specifically crafted to allow them to evade payment.

Kelly Candaele, writing for Capital and Main, a partner of Kos, talked to Morris Pearl and Erica Payne, authors of the book Tax the Rich! How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer. The book got written because of the 2017 tax law that was so beneficial to the rich. A bit from the discussion: Payne said:

The biggest way the rich avoid paying taxes is they get taxed on their capital gains as opposed to their labor. If Morris and I make $100,000 but I make it from working and Morris makes it from investing, I end the year eight or nine thousand dollars poorer than Morris, even though I worked all year long and Morris just pushed a button on his E-Trade account. It’s much more advantageous to make money off of your capital gains than to make money off your labor. So [the U.S.] pretends to embrace the American work ethic but we don’t actually value work.

Payne, discussing incentives for moving plants and facilities outside the US.

It’s in the tax code because Republican donors told them to include it. They are not “America First” Republicans, they are campaign donor first Republicans. The only people the Trump tax plan was positive for were the small number who fund the political campaigns of the people who voted for it.

Pearl added:

The Republican logic was basically, we have to appease rich people or else they will be mean to us. ...

Payne, discussing Democrat governors:

Some of the biggest problems we have with state-based tax codes are in states that are run by Democratic governors. In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis supports lower taxes on rich people. Andrew Cuomo fell over himself to try to prevent progressive taxation from taking hold in New York. Gavin Newsom is not exactly beating the drums for a progressive tax system.

Yeah, that means the rich are buying Democrats too. They also have a well funded campaign about how high taxes on the wealthy are bad for everyone else. Payne listed things he would change in the tax system

First I would equalize ordinary income and capital gains tax rates and inheritance tax income over a million dollars. I would reform the corporate tax code so that companies could not pretend that they do business somewhere other than where they do business. I would implement a minimum global tax like [Secretary of the Treasury] Janet Yellen has been suggesting. I would put in a substantial wealth tax.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported (about ten days ago) that Moscow Mitch blasted Biden’s proposal of a corporate tax hike as “radical.” Eleveld explained the only people who think it is radical are Republican lawmakers. After listing companies, Nike and FedEx, and people, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who don’t pay any tax, Eleveld got into public opinion. There were 59% of poll respondents who said people or corporations who don’t pay their fare share bothers them a lot. A conclusion is simply raising taxes isn’t enough. That won’t make the tax system more equitable. The tax system must be restructured. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her wealth tax has support from Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Brendan Boyle. This tax has support of 63% of likely voters. So get to it. Jay Rosen tweeted an agreement with an article Timothy Snyder wrote on Substack. Rosen added he didn’t see anything on the horizon to stop it. Snyder wrote:

The scenario then goes like this. The Republicans win back the House and Senate in 2022, in part thanks to voter suppression. The Republican candidate in 2024 loses the popular vote by several million and the electoral vote by the margin of a few states. State legislatures, claiming fraud, alter the electoral count vote. The House and Senate accept that altered count. The losing candidate becomes the president. We no longer have "democratically elected government." And people are angry. No one is seeking to hide that this is the plan. It is right there out in the open. The prospective Republican candidates for 2024, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, are all running on a big lie platform. If your platform is that elections do not work, you are saying that you intend to come to power some other way. The big lie is designed not to win an election, but to discredit one. Any candidate who tells it is alienating most Americans, and preparing a minority for a scenario where fraud is claimed. This is just what Trump tried in 2020, and it led to a coup attempt in January 2021. It will be worse in January 2025.

Sam Brodey of the Daily Beast, wrote that while Sen. Joe Manchin is taking a lot of heat for declaring he wants to keep the filibuster and appearing to block several issues dear to progressives, he’s not alone, he’s not an island. Behind Manchin are several senators quite willing for him to be the heat shield. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema may be the vocal one and rather consistent in wanting what Manchin does. But there are several others – the roster changing with the topic – are content to not have reporters trailing after them. Brodey discussed several of these quiet senators.