I’m not sure I agree with your analysis. I think what we are seeing today, is the result of a 50-year-long laser-focused, carefully-crafted and heavily-funded effort led by, controlled by and funded by a handful of billionaires.
To explain myself, I begin by asking the name of the U.S. President who was elected four times?
Hint, the 4th time he was elected, he won the electoral college (432 to 99) and the popular vote (26-million to 22-thousand).
Correct: his name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR).
How the heck did FDR get elected four times in a row? Simple; for the first and only time in American history, a President, Congress (both the House and Senate) and the Supreme Court put the American people before the “interests” of the rich and powerful.
FDR was so frigging popular with the American people, his party retained control of the House and Senate – and seated 8 new Supreme Court Justices. Not only did FDR and his party, pull the United States and its allies out of the Great Depression, they fought Hitler, fascism and Japanese Imperialism – ALL at the same time.
FDR’s New Deal included a Public Works Program that put people to work (and ended corporate control over the workforce). Support for labor unions put an end to government sending in “goons” to terrorize striking workers and their families (including killing them). He established a social security system for workers. Thanks to the GI Bill, American soldiers returned home from war to find home loans, college tuition, financial and medical support ready to help them.
In April 1945, FDR died in office. Over half a million people made their way to Washington DC to honor him.
But America’s elites would never forgive – or forget – Franklin Delano Roosevelt whose New Deal had created the first middle class in American history by breaking up monopolies and establishing financial regulations (designed to stop elites from creating another Great Depression).
15 years after FDR’s death, the grassroots movements of newly empowered American citizens infuriated elites who saw civil rights, defiance of the draft, desegregation, integrated schools, the 18-year-old right to vote, and equal rights for women as a new threat to their wealth and power.
In August 1971, a handful of billionaires responded to this new “FDR style threat” by underwriting a “confidential-memo” written by Lewis Powell. Five months later, in January 1972, President Nixon appointed Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court. 18 months later, Nixon resigned in disgrace. Lewis Powell remained on the Supreme Court until 1987.
Make no mistake about it, the Conservative Movement is a billionaire led, funded, and controlled movement of the most selfish, shameless, and wanton group of people in American history. Republican voters were, and still are, the targets and the victims of Ivy League educated linguists, sociologists, psychiatrists, techies, lawyers, accountants, theologians, politicians and mad-men that billionaires can buy.
I am eager for your thoughts.
https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%20Archives/PowellMemorandumTypescript.pdf
https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gned/laphamtentacles04.pdf
