‘Of the three decisions the US supreme court handed down this week, the gay wedding cake case and travel ban cases were the latest battles in the culture wars that Republicans long have waged. The Janus decision declaring that public sector employees cannot be required to pay fees to the unions that represent them went beyond culture to the very meaning of the American government and how Republicans define it.

Since the 1930s, when then president Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised to break the hold of moneyed men on the government and broker “a new deal for the American people”, a cabal of reactionaries resolved to destroy the new government Democrats created. Roosevelt’s New Deal regulated business, protected social welfare and promoted national infrastructure on the principle that the role of government was not simply to protect the property of the wealthy, but rather was to promote equality of opportunity for all…

Eisenhower’s policies extended some opportunities to people of color, and race gave the Taft Republicans a wedge to begin razing the activist state. Equality of opportunity for African Americans could only be achieved through the use of state power, and that would cost tax dollars. Equal rights, Taft Republicans insisted, simply redistributed wealth from hardworking white taxpayers to undeserving people of color.

Using this formula, the reactionaries split the liberal consensus and, in 1980, put Ronald Reagan into the White House. True to their ideology, Reagan announced in his inaugural address that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”. His administration began destroying the New Deal state and slashing taxes. The process accelerated when the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, purged Eisenhower Republicans – people he called “Rinos” (Republicans in Name Only) – and replaced legislative aides with lobbyists.

And now, Donald Trump is achieving their dream. But this scheme has created a crisis in American democracy… the Republican party has maintained control by gaming the system. Since 2000, Republican policies have suppressed Democratic voting; since 2010, Republican gerrymandering has given the Republicans a heavy systematic advantage in Congress; and the last two Republican presidents have won the White House while losing the popular vote to their opponents.’

[theguardian.com]