Blog For Iowa

Former Republican Congressman David Jolly of Florida calling for Trumpublicans to be defeated next year on the Nicole Wallace Show on MSNBC Monday: (10 minutes) 

The link between the Republican Party and racism and violence is not by any means new, it has simply intensified. In the video, former congress member Jolly lists incidents and the total lack of Republican response. With the NRA being one of the major funders of Republican candidates and one of their most reliable voting blocks, you certainly can’t expect Republicans to do anything that will upset the NRA.

As a matter of fact, the current president was warned by NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre not to push gun control legislation.  

How did the Republican Party get itself so entangled with the racism and the gun violence? As with many of the current issues dealing with the Republican Party we can go back to Richard Nixon and his infamous “Southern Strategy” where he promised a hands off policy to Southern race issues in return for endorsements by southern politicians. That was in 1968. As you know, Nixon won and things have spiraled downhill since.

Last Monday, Paul Krugman in the New York Times opined that the connection between the Republican Party and racism is tied in with tax cuts:   

The central story of U.S. politics since the 1970s is the takeover of the Republican Party by economic radicals, determined to slash taxes for the wealthy while undermining the social safety net.

With the arguable exception of George H.W. Bush, every Republican president since 1980 has pushed through tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the 1 percent while trying to defund and/or privatize key social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

This agenda is, however, unpopular. Most voters believe that the rich should pay more, not less, in taxes, and want spending on social programs to rise, not fall.

So how do Republicans win elections? By appealing to racial animus. This is such an obvious fact of American political life that you have to be willfully blind not to see it. (bolding mine – ed.)

<<snip>>

In effect, then, the Republican Party decided that a few massacres were an acceptable price to pay in return for tax cuts. I wish that were hyperbole, but the continuing refusal of G.O.P. figures to criticize Trump even after El Paso shows that it’s the literal truth.

There is much more to Krugman’s article than what I have posted. Please go to the NYT and read the whole article.

Kevin Drum reported much the same thing a year ago in an article in Mother Jones magazine:  

So this is where we are. The Republican Party can’t win using ordinary methods. On the process side, they can win only by inflating the white vote via gerrymandering, cracked-and-packed districts, and ruthless black voter suppression. On the policy side, they can win only with heavy dollops of strident and outright bigotry against Mexicans, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, and anyone else who comes along. Even Canadians will do in a pinch.

Today, the Republican Party exists for one and only one purpose: to pass tax cuts for the rich and regulatory rollbacks for corporations. They accomplish this using one and only method: unapologetically racist and bigoted appeals to win the votes of the heartland riff-raff they otherwise treat as mere money machines for their endless mail-order cons.

Like it or not, this is the modern Republican Party. It no longer serves any legitimate purpose. It needs to be crushed and the earth salted behind it, while a new conservative party rises to take its place. This new party should be conservative; brash; ruthless when it needs to be; as simpleminded as any major party usually is; and absolutely dedicated to making Democrats look like idiots. There should be no holds barred except for one: no appeals to racism. None. Not loud ones, not subtle ones. Whatever else it is, it should be a conservative party genuinely open to any person of any color.

Now to bring it all home to Iowa and our elections coming next year. The senseless slaughter of our own citizens is a top issue for many. We did not have children only to see them sacrificed on someone’s altar of politics. At the state level and at the national level gun control will be a major issue for possibly a majority. As you can see by the picture painted above, there are most likely no – I repeat NO – Republicans that will even consider gun control legislation.

We can look at two of Iowa’s most prominent politicians that will be up for reelection next year, The first would be current 4th district congress member Steve King. King’s racism is so stinky even his own party is ready to toss him.

Joni Ernst as far as I know said nothing concern guns or racism in the past week. If she did it apparently amounted to nothing. It is really hard to forget that Ernst’s election in her first race was aided with a huge assist from the NRA to the tune $3.1 million in advertising. As noted by the Iowa Starting Line in February of 2018:  

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst is a national darling of the NRA’s effort to eliminate any and all meaningful gun safety laws that might keep children like those at Parkland, Florida from getting blown to pieces on a regular school day. Ernst received over $3.1 million in financial support from the NRA, the seventh-most of any senator, according to an analysis of campaign spending last October. Money from the gun rights organization poured into Iowa to help her get past the finish line in her race for Senate against Bruce Braley in 2014.

The NRA got what they paid for with Ernst, who then voted last February to stop a new rule that would have kept the mentally ill from obtaining guns through the background check system. Ernst voted in favor of House Joint Resolution 40, which sought to overturn a recent decision for the National Instant Criminal History Background Check System that would have kept people who considerable mental health issues from obtaining weapons. Both the House and Senate passed the resolution, and President Donald Trump signed it in February 2017.