(Continued)
Chapter IV
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND THE AMERICAN DREAM
COUCH: The attack by the president on the FBI and the intelligence agencies is to me understandable. He definitely has something to hide. But the concerted attack against these agencies by the Republicans in Congress is disturbing. The FBI has been a storied and venerable institution respected and trusted by the nation. It was one thing for the Republicans to attack the Democrats and his critics to protect the president. But it did not make any sense for them to publicly belittle, humiliate and debase the FBI and its leaders.
ME: Unless the FBI’s investigation touched the nerves of the Republican Party.
COUCH: Yes, the nerves of the extremist faction of the Republican Party, not the party itself. This faction is fighting to protect itself and hopefully its malicious scheme.
The Republican Party was the party of Lincoln fighting the civil war to abolish slavery. The same party decided to accept up to 1.6 million Vietnamese refugees over the objection of the Democrats led by Joe Biden when South Viet Nam fell. With a history like that, I have a hard time to believe that the party is involved in the pervert policy of racism. But it seems to have been too compliant to its radical faction’s demands. There are good Republicans in Congress, but they have seemingly been intimidated and stayed silence.
ME: They should remember the Raymond Burke’s adage: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothings.
COUCH: That is why it is very difficult to understand them, because the stakes are huge: the destruction of democracy and with it the American Dream. The only way to understand the Republican Party’s establishment in its current state is that it was caught off guard by the surprising strength of the Tea Party movement or whatever you call it, white supremacy, ultra right etc., which turned out to be very well funded and well organized. These people are extremely aggressive and downright bullying and they have come from inside the Republican Party.
Even if any so-called Establishment Republican who is not a coward, came out and publicly opposed the Meadows, the Gordons, they would almost certainly meet the fate of John Boehner, and then such courage would not do any good.
ME: So, the solution is the Democrats and hopefully, their winning in November?
COUCH: I thought about it. Who would be willing to protect the American Dream, the dream of all men being created equal with unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happinesss , if not the Democrats?
Wherever I look, I only see Republicans come out in force to protect not just the president, but anything connected to the president. Their effort is so open and blatant, you would give up any hope that they would do the right thing such as saving democracy, saving the country from foreign interference. Congressional Republicans viciously attack and humiliate the DOJ and the FBI while they are investigating the Russian efforts of undermining our national security. Think about it: the intelligence agencies have proofs that Russia has spied on us and done serious damage to our political system. And what the Republicans in Congress do? – They attack the very people and institutions who are trusted with the task of protecting our nation and people against the kind of villains such as the Russians.
ME: You don’t seem to be sanguine about the Democrats ability to handle the problem.
COUCH: Here is the thing: racism and discrimination is not democratic or republican. It is the white race’s flavor even though it seems that Republicans are doing more than ever before in modern times to destroy the American Dream. Imagine that Hillary won the election. The Tea Party in Congress and the ultra-right would have come out in force to sabotage any democratic legislation designed to effect political or social changes. Just observe what they did in Congress while Barack Obama was president. They investigated Hillary Clinton – seven times – trying to hold her responsible for the Benghazi attack, a city nobody heard of before the attack, in a lawless country, and they wanted the secretary of state to go to jail for that attack.
The control of Congress by the Democrats would not make these guys go away or less vicious. So, I am not sure the Democrats would be effective. The deep division in the country would get deeper and the Democrats would have a hard time to govern unless they would compromise and practice horse trading. The American Dream would probably not die a sudden death but a prolonged and sure ultimate death.
Besides, it is not their moral obligation; they did not create or nurture this kind of extremism. The Republicans and their policies over the years did.
ME: Who else will get the job done?
COUCH: The Republicans.
ME What?
COUCH: The extremist force as we now know is about 30 to 33% of the population strong. That is an incredibly huge and scary number of people holding racist thoughts. They existed before Trump and will exist after Trump. The president has made many statements to brag about their support, to give the impression that no matter how outrageous what the president did or said, this huge segment of the population would still support him. But that is to put the cart before the horse: the president just does and says whatever the extremists desire, that is why they support him. Let him say something like I don’t want to build the wall, or the wall is an offensive idea, and we will find out if the extremists are still behind him.
ME: So, Trump is not the problem, the extremists are?
COUCH: Exactly.
ME: How do you propose the Republicans to handle this issue?
COUCH: It will be a formidable task to win over the extremists, because racism is imbedded in the nature of men, and the extremists are not just farmers in Iowa or workers on the docks. They are also intellectuals and billionaires.
But I believe that the Republican Establishment still has good and effective members, who believe in the ideas of Lincoln, Reagan – Ideas that will make our nation a stronger and better place for people of all races to thrive and contribute to the happiness of all. We have seen a few good examples such as John McCain, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, etc.
ME: Do you think that they would win the struggle just by speaking out, showing their good hearts and being a good example of what a decent human being should behave?
COUCH: My hope is a little more than that. Do you know that the elephant has a zombie gene that would trigger a self-destruct process, causing a cancerous cell to destroy itself. The extremist faction in the Republican Party is a cancer cell in the body of the party.
The Republican establishment is not only in the best position to snub out this dangerous segment within its own party. It has the duty to do so because it is responsible for policies and legislation that created this group and have enabled it to be growing and empowered. I still trust that the Republicans, despite their short term devilish political maneuverings, will overcome this disgraceful episode in their history and will again show their courage and foresight.
ME: Where do you suppose that the Republicans will find their zombie gene?
COUCH: I don’t know. I am not a politician. I am just a conspiracy theorist. If they could find ways to investigate Hillary Clinton seven times by seven different committees, they should be able to find their zombie gene.
