Oh, you want a less offensive autocrat?

I read through the transcript of another Gaslit Nation podcast, hosted by Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa. This episode is titled The Purge, Accelerated, week four in the attempted coup. They talk again about the need to get the two Democratic candidates for the Senate elected in Georgia. Together the two could flip the power in the Senate. Without that flip, will the GOP in the Senate confirm any of Joe Biden’s picks for his cabinet? If they’re not, what happens? Many of the departments have already been gutted so there could be less oversight into possible crimes. Kendzior said:

We haven't had this situation before. We haven't had a transition that is so fractured by a GOP that seeks to be not a government serving the people, but a one party autocrat state, that they would engage in this kind of activity. Their goal is not to govern, but to rule.

Kendzior discussed Neera Tanden, nominted for the Office of Management and Budget. Already, the GOP is describing her as a “sacrifice to the confirmation gods” and the worst nominee. They’re objecting to her tweets, though the nasty guy has tweeted much worse. Yeah, there is no integrity, though it shows they’ll try any excuse to strike down all nominees. Kendzior said:

That's what I'm worried about, is that this will push the U.S. closer and closer to a failed state. We are not out of this situation. We are still in the midst of an ongoing attempted coup and they are still going to try to leave all of these institutions—all of these departments—as bereft of oversight and of actual people in there to try to do something to serve the American public as possible, because that is how they maintain their power. It's through chaos. It's through destruction. It's through the American public feeling desperate, having very little leverage, and the Democratic Party having very little leverage as well.

Chalupa said that Biden had worked with people in the Senate for decades. He’ll manage to get a cabinet he will be happy with. However, getting those two Senate seats will allow Biden to get his cabinet and to make headway on reviving the nation. Kendzior turned to the nasty guy’s attempts to strip civil service protections from federal employees. This is a step towards executive autocracy. I’ve discussed this in previous posts. Though Kendzior adds one more thing: If the nasty guy fires 88% of government employees on January 19th. Biden can hire them back on the 21st only if he wants to be as autocratic as the nasty guy. Otherwise, these are open positions, subject to the traditional hiring process. So while this reclassification of employees started as a way for the nasty guy to replace everyone with loyalists, it will work just fine in leaving all departments without a functioning staff. Even if Biden recovers from all this the exercise is teaching future GOP tyrants (nicely cleaned up) what they need to do to quickly grab power. Chalupa has been calling this cleaned up version “posh Trump.” She noted that many of the House seats that flipped to GOP were won by women and people of color. She said:

So, Republicans are learning and they're positioning themselves stronger, and they're weaponizing the power of gaslighting by hiding behind what the public wants. Oh, you want women, you want minorities? Okay, we'll give you that. Oh, you want a less offensive autocrat, somebody that cleans up nice and can string sentences together? We'll give you that. You can't stand Trump's tweets, you find him tiring? All right, we'll give you somebody that doesn't do that. But it's going to be the same vicious policies, the same war on the poor, the same war on minorities and the same war on our fight for fairness and equality and sustainability and the environment. I just want everybody to understand this to the core and know that democracy is fragile, and we're not out of the woods by any means.

As for that gaslighting, the GOP is brilliant at it. The discussion turned to Iran and the murder of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Israel is being blamed for wanting to wound Iran and inflame the entire region. Remember that Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu is deeply connected to the worst parts of the nasty guy administration, especially the pandemic prince. Kendzior read from her 2019 book Hiding in Plain Sight, saying the prince’s massive debt and tax manipulation schemes should have disqualified him from getting a security clearance. And the long-term Kushner – Netanyahu family relationships should have also disqualified him on the basis of political, financial, and humanitarian conflicts of interest – the Kushner family are investors in illegal West Bank settlements. The pandemic prince is headed to the Middle East again to visit some of the autocrats there. The purpose isn’t peace, but money, personal favors, and, likely, war. The Gulf states set their sights on Iran. Russia, Iran’s partner, which has been made happy with deals from the nasty guy, will look the other way. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has reportedly been given permission to do whatever he wants to stir up the conflict as long as they don’t risk World War III. Kendzior doesn’t doubt the nasty guy said that last part. But she’s sure he means it only to the point he doesn’t want to be blamed for starting WWIII. But once it is raging he would have “no choice” but to strike back, creating chaos all around. Perhaps he could use that to stay in office under an emergency decree. And if Iran tried a cyber attack, the nasty guy rewrote the Nuclear Posture Review to say that a nuclear weapon was an appropriate response to a cyber attack. The nasty guy has wanted to use a nuclear bomb for a long time. Yeah, this is a worse-case scenario we hope doesn’t happen. But how many worse-case scenarios have happened since 2016? Kendzior talked about how much better the world would be without Netanyahu. It looks like there will be elections again, sometime early in 2020. Then Kendzior turned to one of the reasons why the pandemic prince should not have been given security clearance, been allowed to learn the inner workings of our government. That information is extremely valuable and the pandemic prince would gladly sell it for profit or for favors. But it isn’t just him. All the bureaucrats who have lost their positions with this election, including the nasty guy, would want to profit from what they know. Chalupa, however, doesn’t see the prince’s actions all that much different from all the former members of Congress or former administration officials who become lobbyists. But that doesn’t make it right. That revolving door has weakened our democracy. Which was done to the point that a Russian asset was able to enter the White House in 2016. This is part of what draining the swamp was supposed to be about. It is time for candidates who understand how the cesspool works so laws can be passed to close the loopholes, to stop allowing corruption to flourish. Investigating and prosecuting these people isn’t about revenge. It’s about survival of the nation. A memorandum came out of the EU looking at the last twenty years of American politics (a link in the show notes, somewhere on the Patreon webiste). It shows the GOP has been increasingly autocratic. Twenty years ago was when Fox News and its disease of disinformation got started. Far right propaganda created a far right GOP. The nasty guy just finished the job. The report of twenty years is important, but I’m reminded of two other important events that made the far right GOP possible. One was the 1981 Reagan tax cuts. That’s a big contributor for why the income for the top 1% soared and the income for those at the bottom stagnated. The other was the Powell Memorandum in 1971, which gave the GOP a plan for how to concentrate the wealth of the country. One might also include Nixon’s Southern Strategy, which showed how to use racism to gain power. Back to the current situation. America needs a big reset to be able to get a government that will attend to the interests of its own citizens. The current GOP has no interest in that. To do that the grassroots must strengthen. It’s a big job, but not a big job for one person. Go to the Gaslit Nation Action Guide and do what you can. That means staying engaged. All the ways one can fight fascism are the things a citizen of a democracy should be doing anyway. On to Michael Flynn and the broad pardon he received – even a pardon for future crimes. Kendzior lists his crimes, and it is a long list. Flynn is a danger. One aspect I wrote about a few days ago is Flynn has been calling for sedition, an overthrow of a properly elected government. Chalupa points out another – Flynn is “really, really good at leveraging the weapon of conspiracy theories.” He can brainwash people to become violent. Watch for that as the vaccine is rolled out. Kendzior described a couple of Flynn’s crimes and followed a couple threads. One of them was a request for Democrats to look into a case, but it was dropped when a record donation was given to the Democratic Party, the DCCC. Which means the Dems haven’t been, and maybe won’t, root out corruption. Flynn will take on another task. With the nasty guy’s loss, the GOP won’t want him to run in 2024. They’ll want posh Trump. Flynn will be working with the nasty guy against the GOP establishment. With a pardon Flynn now has an air of legitimacy. And Flynn can keep pushing the idea of election corruption. Those lawsuits have been going on for more than a month. They’re developing the culture of getting used to them. Flynn is also obsessed with Iran. Kendzior finds it curious and troubling that Flynn was pardoned just before the Iranian scientist was assassinated. Finally, a pardoned Flynn is someone who can keep committing crimes. Between now and Inauguration Day it will be raining pardons. Chalupa suggests the book Big Dirty Money: The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime by Jennifer Taub. These pardons are another reason why we need to remain engaged.