In Las Vegas, a man who owned at least 47 guns kills 58 people and wounds at least 500 more. It is just another "outrage of the week." There will be no substantive changes in America's gun control laws to make such a mass shooting less likely in the future.
Donald Trump and the Republican Party continue their assault on the Affordable Care Act. They also do almost everything possible to impede access to healthcare for children, the poor, the elderly, the working class and other groups of Americans in need. Trump and the Republican Party do this as though they possess no fear of consequences on Election Day.
Donald Trump and Republican Party are attempting to rewrite America's tax code to give even more money to the richest Americans while destroying the social safety net and trying to annihilate the commons. This is a Gilded Age jihad and holy war in favor of the plutocrats and against the American people. Trump and movement conservatives are dedicated to this cause at any cost.
On these and almost every other matter of public concern, the Republican Party is advancing an agenda that is unpopular with most Americans. Yet, the Republican Party somehow maintains control of the presidency, Congress and most of the country's state governments.
How is this possible? In their fight against democracy, the Republican Party has at its disposal the money and other resources of a very powerful and very small group of political activists. It is almost a textbook definition of the dangers posed to democracy by the tyranny of the majority.
What does this network look like? Who are the personalities and groups involved in this plan? In what ways has this extreme right-wing ideology influenced the Republican Party and Trump's administration? What are the origins of this political and intellectual tradition? How have Charles and David Koch, and other leaders on the radical right, twisted the country's laws and regulations to their advantage while hurting the American people? What can be done to stop this onslaught?
In an effort to answer these questions, I recently spoke with Nancy MacLean. She is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University and author of the new book "Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America."
"Democracy in Chains" is also one of the five finalists in the 2017 National Book Awards for non-fiction.
In our conversation on this week's episode of my podcast "The Chauncey DeVega Show," MacLean explains the radical right-wing's vision for American society as:
The Koch network and their allies claim they want "liberty" . . . But what really bothered me in writing "Democracy in Chains" is that they’re not being honest. As libertarians they believe that there are only three functions for a legitimate government: To provide for the national defense, to ensure the rule of law and to maintain social order. Other than that, everything is illegitimate because other functions of government depend on taxing people — and particularly better-off people, in a system with progressive taxation. For this type of libertarian thinking, taxing people to provide for programs, services and resources with which they may not agree is illegitimate coercion and therefore must stop.
MacLean is also deeply concerned about how the radical right-wing is much more sophisticated in their strategic thinking than are Democrats, liberals and progressives.
The Koch brothers and their allies are thinking in really strategic ways about how to rig the game so it benefits capital and corporations and it restricts the rights and powers of labor unions, civil rights groups, environmentalists, women and retirees. The radical right-wing movement has to operate in this stealth manner because they fully understand that they are a permanent minority who will never persuade a majority. I don’t think that these Koch-type libertarian thinkers could ever get above 10 percent of the American people to agree to their ideas, if the public actually knew what they were really advocating and working towards.
During this week’s episode of the podcast, you'll also hear my thoughts on the Las Vegas mass shooting and what it reveals about the color line, guns and toxic white masculinity.
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