A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy
By David Corn, 2022
An Interview with David Corn
done by
Jimmy Tingle on Sept 22, 2022
Part I
What is this difference Corn is finding between Republicans and Democrats?
What is this difference Corn is finding between Republicans and Democrats?
The book traces political actions after WWII until 2022. He documents how dirty tricks and lies developed in intensity during that time and were far more prevalent among conservatives and thus Republicans than Democrats.
Part II
Go to next slide for video.
Corn seems to be saying that politicians played to a radicalized population, giving them what they wanted. Do you agree with that explanation?
But how did the population become radicalized?
Part III
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Corn ends by arguing that the problem in the Republican Party is creeping authoritarianism. But has developing authoritarianism been going on since the 1950s and is there some something else that paved the way for the creeping authoritarianism?
Might a contributing factor to our present day form of politics include a breakdown of norms such as those concerning honesty, integrity, and honor that demand behavior guided by principals?
Said in another way, do a great many of us now believe that the ends justify the means thus making it difficult to trust other people?
Cassidy Hutchinson
Sept 2023 (includes her book "Enough")
Isn’t Hutchinson’s message the only way that government at all levels can return to sanity?
A democracy (or a republic) is a form of societal organization that gives more power and thus advantage to the people than any other form of organization. However, such an organization can only be sustained in the long term by having a very substantial degree of trust among its members.
It certainly is advantageous to a few members in the short-term to secretly violate that trust for personal gain and even selfless work to supposedly protect that society. But if those violations become sufficiently numerous, the road to returning to widespread trust, this essential condition for the existence of self-rule, becomes so difficult that it is extremely unlikely.
Every person, regardless of their political beliefs must ask themselves if they have gotten so carried away with the ends they seek that they no longer care about the means. If they should ever achieve the insight that this has happened, they must face the consequences and return to a principal-led life or realize that they are their own enemy.