Republicans are destroying our democratic rules right in front of us.  One by one, they’re grinding down their political opponents.  An official GOP Enemies List.  And we let them.  It seems like it should be easier to stop them — they’re attacking basic American principles — and yet we don’t say much.  My question is why.  Are the corrupt Republicans completely unstoppable, or are the rest of us merely that hapless?  (I’m voting for the latter.)

Republicans stopped pretending they had scruples long ago.  They used to mouth nonsense about conservative principles whenever it was convenient for them.  They at least claimed they wanted balanced budgets, lower debt, smaller government, local autonomy, family values, and all the rest.  Now they’ve stopped even pretending they stand for more than winning the next election. 

But the new GOP focus is much worse.  They’re not just stopping at noisily servicing their corporate patrons.  Forget any oversight.  They’re turning American politics into a putsch, trying to cripple everyone who might stop them.  It’s all Republicans want to do these days.

I’m not repeating the part about conservative voter suppression or hyperpartisan Gerrymandering.  The GOP is good at it, and they’re always getting trying to get better.  Democrats Gerrymandered Maryland, but Republicans deliberately changed our nation.  It’s not equivalent.

Republicans opened the spending floodgates with deliberate malice.  First, they made sure that money decided elections.  Then they allowed the rich and powerful to wash away anything like common sense with a new wave of dark money.  Politicians – Democratic and Republican – have been complaining for decades about how much of their time is consumed by fundraising, but look who pushed for campaign financing reform, and who pushed for open dark money.

For most of modern history, the courts provided a check on the worst impulses of people and politicians.  How annoying for conservatives.  That’s why Republicans have been stacking the courts for decades.  It’s easy enough to do.  Block any moderate or (god forbid) liberal candidate for as long as you can.  Use every rule to your advantage.  When you get in power, ditch the rules and ram as many reliably partisan-wish-list goons as you can manage.  They only measure using reliability; judicial competence runs a distant second.

Compare: Obama nominated Merrick Garland, someone who was almost painfully apolitical and evenhanded.  Republicans have shoveled out an unalloyed string of ideological absolutists.  The list is just depressing.  And for all the attention we give Supreme Court justices, the lower court appointments are more important, and generally ignored.

The most brilliant Republican tactic was when they began attacking the press every time they printed anything embarrassing to conservatives.  It didn’t matter if the news was right or wrong.  “Liberal bias!” they screamed, over and over, at every opportunity.  They didn’t care about the story; they were playing the ref.  And they didn’t just stop with noise.  They attacked as hard as they could, and for far longer than reasonable.  They wanted everyone to know that it would hurt the next time, too.

Everyone got the message: cross the GOP, and they’ll abuse you.  They weren’t lying, either.  It worked like a charm.  Every big media outlet dropped back, killing their conclusions for more ambiguous, he-said/she-said nonsense.  They knew that any position that wasn’t 100 percent pro-Republican would trigger pain.  Consciously or not, they all backed down.  And when that submission didn’t satisfy Republican rage, they backed down again.  And again.

Did you know that the press quotes Republicans more than twice as often as Democrats?  Pretty good results for 28 percent of the voting population.

Even as the press bends over backward trying not to offend conservatives, they make no similar concessions to Democrats.  Why?  They know conservatives might shred them for anything they write or say.  It doesn’t have to be logical or right; they’ll do it anyway.  But liberals?  They’ll just go all “American values” about it.  We disagree, but a free press is essential to democracy, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Almost everything Republicans say about the media is wrong, and almost everything the Democrats say about the major media is correct.  And the calculations are straightforward.  Even if you win, you lose, and nobody likes to bleed.

And with each new victory, conservatives get worse.  I started this post when FBI agent Peter Strzok was ridiculed and fired.  Republicans pretend it was because Strzok had written his (constitutionally protected) opinions (privately) about Trump.  Nobody defended him.  Instead, Republicans forced the FBI to release the texts; then they cherry-picked what they wanted.  Republicans had to ignore every text Strzok wrote about Clinton, Sanders, and almost every other candidate.  Not a problem!   Worse, once the Republican cover story was established, the press ignored the full truth and repeated the Republican lie.  Good dogs!  They’d been well-trained.  Most people have no idea that Strzok disliked Hillary just as much as he hated Rubio or the Green Party candidate.

We gave Republicans power, and now we know how they use it.  Oversight?  Forget that nonsense.  Conservatives are only motivated to destroy their opposition, any possible new opposition, and any neutral voices that might speak up.  Worse, they’re not just besmirching people; they’re aiming for blood.  They start with a sharp-knife hamstring and just go medieval from there.  Show insufficient Republican fervor, and they demonstrate exactly how you’ll be ruined.  Your entire career will be destroyed.  You’ll never work in your chosen field again.  And it’s not just you.  The people near you will be crushed.  Friends and family will be trashed.  Where they can, they use law enforcement to destroy you financially as well.  During all of this, nobody else will reach out to you, much less try to help you.

Who have they tried to crush that way?

• Acting Attorney General Sally Yates lost her clearance because she refused to defend an openly unconstitutional Muslim travel ban. Forget that the courts subsequently blocked the Muslim Ban because (big surprise) it was openly unconstitutional.  She wasn’t loyal, and more importantly, Yates knew way too much about Flynn and other Republican lies.
• U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.  First, Trump told Bharara he could stay on.  But then rumors started that the Southern District of New York (SDNY) might consider investigating corruption in real estate.  Bharara was gone in a New York minute.
• FBI Director James Comey.  So much for his dream job.  Trump pretended it was because Comey’s bombshell about Hillary’s emails threw the 2016 election to Trump.  Yeah, because Trump is just that kind of stand-up guy, right?  Trump couldn’t last more than a couple of days before he publicly admitted the lie on national goddamn TV. Add up Flynn, Russia, and Comey’s failure to fall to his knees in front of Trump, and Comey was more loyal to America than Trump.  He’s gotta go!  Since then, Trump has repeatedly threatened Comey with legal prosecution for… stuff.
• FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe: he touched Russia, he knew the truth, and he was a witness for Comey. Plus, this would be another brushback and a big one.  The Republican message had to be clear: cross us and you die.  Nothing short would do.  So Republicans openly crushed McCabe, taking care to time it to blow up his retirement as well.  They needed his broken body on the pavement as a lesson for everyone else.  Republicans are now threatening McCabe with legal prosecution because of… uh, more stuff.
• FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki. He was another known witness for Comey.  For Republicans, he was another brushback to show that Republicans weren’t just attacking the principal  Trump reassigned Rybicki to a nonsense position, where Republican attack-dogs regularly savaged him.  He resigned under pressure.
• FBI General Counsel James Baker, another FBI leader, and a Comey associate.  Whether or not he agreed with Comey, Baker was a witness.  He was reassigned to a nonsense position, attacked by Congress and the faithful Republican press, and he also quit the agency.  No witnesses.
• FBI Counterintelligence Division Chief Peter Strzok. Trump fired him because of the Russia investigation.  He was around at the start of the Russia investigation, so he was already a dead man walking.  Yet another Comey witness, too.  By the way, these are supposed to be non-political positions.  Republicans happily showed that wasn’t even slightly true.  Oh, and Republicans are threatening Strzok with legal prosecution, too.  More financial ruin.
• FBI Deputy Director Chief Counsel Lisa Page. Not directly involved, except that she was having an affair with Strzok, and she said unkind things about Republicans (and Democrats, Greens, Naderites, et al., not that the media reports that part anymore).  Republicans decided it was essential that they ruin lovers and friends, too.  What next?  Mothers, daughters, nephews, grandfathers?  Your aunties?  Your livestock?
• FBI Executive Director of National Security Carl Ghattas. Another witness, more partisan attacks, and under pressure, he’s leaving the FBI soon.
• FBI Associate Deputy Director David Bowdich. Trump didn’t fire him.  Instead, Bowdich is the guy who terminated Peter Strzok.  I wonder if Bowdich is hoping to prove to the Republican mob that Bowdich won’t rat them out.  Good luck with that.

For his second act, Trump is revoking the security clearances of political critics and potential critics.  It’s hard to describe how important this is to people not in the business.  If you work in government security, keeping your clearance is essential: lose your clearance, and you’re instantly unemployable.  Go home and find yourself a new career.

It’s a catastrophe for most rank and file people, which is why it’s so terrifying.  Your clearances are supposed to be protected from exactly this kind of political corruption so that you can tell people the unvarnished truth.  And that assumption of fairness is why Republicans need everyone to see that they’re wrong: nobody will be safe, and anyone with a clearance should keep their damn mouths shut.  Got it?

So, who’s been on that Enemies List so far:

• Former FBI Director James Comey lost his clearance pretty early.
• Former CIA Chief John Brennan.
• The former head of the NSA and CIA Michael Hayden.
• Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice.
• Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Jr.
• Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates.
• Bruce Orr, a Justice lawyer, because his wife worked for Fusion GPS. Orr is still working at Justice, and this cripples his ability to do that job.  Presumably, it was the GOP intention.  Wonder if they’ll shoot his dog next.

Usually, it’s an agency that decides whether to strip someone’s clearance.  Because yanking a clearance is important, it’s supposed to be for cause: you know, alcoholism, domestic abuse, financial mishandling, something that now makes a person less trustworthy.  The few times it happens the agency documents what each person did wrong, and there’s an appeal process.  There was no such list here and no appeal.  Because of course not.  Instead, the Trump administration claimed ‘partisan attacks’ by the people Trump was attacking with partisan fury.  The administration emphasized that political critics are unlikely to ever get security clearances in the future.

Clear enough yet?

Please stop assuming it’s just a Trump Enemies List.  Republicans in Congress applauded all these actions and repeated their calls for the impeachment of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller, and the purging of more non-political positions at more levels of the civil service.

The Democrats decried all these events powerlessly and without volume.  They offered no protection and no alternatives to the people the Republicans had already ruined, nor to anyone they might choose to destroy in the future.

Any questions? 

Vote in every election.  They don’t want you to, and that makes it essential that you do.  It is the only answer.