Help The Rich, Help The Rich, Help The Rich — Republican Policy 101

January 21, 20178 years ago Zachary Shahan 0 Comments

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The rich are an unfortunate bunch — nobody wants to give them a helping hand, nobody wants to give them some charity. Except the Republican Party, that is.

Sadly, Americans are a bit prejudiced — we typically think it’s good to give charity to poor people, but not to rich people. Not a very equitable system, eh? Luckily, those disadvantaged rich folk have a powerful bunch of heroes at their back — the most elite members of the Grand Old Party.

Republican Party congresspeople and governors have made it their #1 priority (often their only real priority) to tilt the scales back in favor of the rich 99% of the time, instead of a completely unequitable 90% of the time. Via tremendous tax breaks for multimillionaires and billionaires (like nothing an annoying middle class bum should hope for), via corporate tax breaks that might allow the richest companies in the world to skip out on paying the United States of America a dime, via subsidies for putting more pollution into our lungs and minds, via altruistic support to abuse and underpay workers, these Republican Party leaders do their job protecting the super rich from unfair requirements to contribute to society. They do their job permitting corporations to subtly murder millions of Americans.

Thank goodness for the GOP!

In all seriousness, please do pay attention to what a Republican Congress and Republican president do in the coming weeks and months. Play close attention. Don’t just get swept away in the talking points. Pay attention to who is genuinely set to benefit from uncontrolled emissions, nearly unregulated health care, loosening of labor laws, and a blank check for Wall Street. Pay close attention to the laws Congress prioritizes and how much they benefit the “common Joe” versus the billionaire and multimillionaire class that already lives at the top of the world (but, you know, that has been unfairly demonized for years and deserves a little more cash in their Cayman Islands bank accounts).

Pay close attention.

Does letting corporations pay less, pollute more, play risky with the American economy, and treat the underclass like indentured servants really benefit you? We’ll find out soon enough, as that has been the focus of the Republican Party for decades and it is now able to implement, implement, implement. It’ll surely take some time for the results to trickle down, but don’t worry, it’ll be as obvious over time as Obama’s policies have been.

Why would the GOP really fight climate action and popular cleantech industries like the solar industry, the wind industry, and clean electric transport? These industries provide hundreds of thousands of jobs, healthier and safer lives for Americans, and often cheaper energy. The GOP wouldn’t fight these industries without good reason.

The GOP has a good reason. The GOP is just trying to protect some of the wealthiest industries in the history of the world — oil, gas, and coal, for example — from having to shrink a bit and make way for a better future. In the case of energy, the GOP is just trying to prevent change — a transition to cleaner, safer, better, cheaper renewable energy and electric transport technologies.

It is because of the broad goodwill of the Republican Party’s most elite members that oil tycoons and coal barons are not discriminated against — are protected and subsidized, even! Who else would look out for these guys? (They are basically all guys, and white, 100% naturally.) The insensitive working class does not view or treat them fairly. All they care about is their own health and well-being, and that of their children and grandchildren.

No, it is only the Republicans who will now run Congress and the White House who have sympathy for the David Kochs, Harold Hamms, and Robert Murrays of the world. No one else seems to have the heart to subsidize white billionaire men. No one else seems to have the heart to say, “Yes, you can pollute more. It’s only fair that you be allowed to cause as many cancers and heart attacks as you wish. Free markets for the win! Murder isn’t murder if you commit it via extra smoke in the lungs and extra poison in the water. Murder is not murder when the super rich do it to squeeze more money out of the American economy. That’s simply the pursuit of ‘happiness’ and wealth, which the evil government shouldn’t interfere with!”

Why would the Republican Party’s top politicians routinely deny clear scientific findings? It’s because the right to pollute, the right to abuse, and the right to hoard cash is more important than scientific evidence, the laws of nature, and the future of human society.

The problem was never “crony capitalism” (because, you know, the solar industry and electric vehicle industry really didn’t do much at all for Obama or other Democrats). If “crony capitalism” was a bad thing, the GOP wouldn’t mind fighting fossil fuels. (Note that the fossil fuel pollution industries have contributed almost 100% to Republican candidates). There’s no better way to show how much you hate crony capitalism than to stop subsidizing some of the richest companies in the history of the world. No, if crony capitalism is what concerned the GOP, we’d get a strong sign since we’d have a carbon price in place next week. Fabricated problems with supposed “crony capitalism” was just a tool Republican talking heads used in order to protect the unfairly hated billionaire class in the fossil fuel industry.

Instead of an attack on crony capitalism now that Republicans are in power, we’ll get a loosening of regulations to protect human health — American citizen health and life. These pollution industries will be allowed to pollute more. The air will get dirtier, the water more poisoned, and the bank accounts of oil & gas companies more obese. The Republican Party ruling class will demonstrate that it will chuck concern about crony capitalism out the window in order to provide Koch Industries, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Alliance Coal, and others exactly what they lobby for. Because it’s not about crony capitalism — that was an excuse the GOP used in order to attack the immoral cleantech companies that are trying to steal the oil, gas, and coal industries’ God-given right to rape the air and water.

Count me as a skeptic, but I’m thinking the GOP will not stand up to crony capitalism, will not work for the American people, and will simply shuffle more money into the wallets of the billionaire class. This will of course be at the expense of common citizens who will have to breathe in more pollution, many of whom will end up with cancer and not have affordable health care to treat and survive it.

But that is the price that must be paid to give the corporate ruling elite the freedom they deserve. After all, if billionaire polluters and bankers can’t do whatever they want, what has the United States of America come to?

Republican Party “leadership” hardly makes its priorities a secret. Heck, the Republican Party Platform couldn’t have been more clear if it was titled “Corporate Welfare, Permission To Pollute & Abuse, & Tax Cuts For The Super Rich Since They Don’t Get Enough Love.” But now that we are set for a “Republican Policy 101” course in experiential education, please, pay close attention.

Images by DonkeyHotey (CC BY), DonkeyHotey (CC BY), Obama’s White House, Open Secrets

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Zachary Shahan