The Praetorian Guards
THE PRAETORIAN GUARDS
By Deborah Long
Ok, somebody had to do this, so it might as well be me. Here is a visionary dramatization of our Republican led Senate, compliments of Bob Guccione:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJvVEt6F_Xw
Too bad we lack the Praetorian Guards who ended Caligula’s rule: his sadism, his luxury brand, and his seemingly unquenchable appetite for sexual kink. The closest thing we have might be Trump’s cabinet and the 25th Amendment. So, who among Trump’s cabinet would cast the first stone? Wilbur Ross? He’s busy spearheading the GOP tariffs on steel, an industry he’s highly invested in personally. And he’s being investigated for insider trading and most likely money laundering due to his stint as Vice-Chairman of Bank of Cyprus – Paul Manafort’s money laundering bank of choice. According to Forbes, Ross, our current Secretary of Commerce, could rank among the biggest grifters in American history.
Well, how about Rex Tillerson or Betsy DeVos, luminaries who are named in the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers for their off-shore investment acumen? Goodfellas all. But we already know this.
So, for me the biggest question isn’t who among Trump’s cabinet or associates would have the decency to dispatch this porridge-faced miscreant back to Mordor. The biggest question is how deeply Trump’s habit of corruption thrives within the bosom of the Republican Party – America’s party of business.
Many of the GOP’s biggest donors are under investigation for financial crimes. One donor funds criminal organizations like Cambridge Analytica and hate movements in the world of the Alt-Right. Another of its biggest donors, the NRA, pays for the campaigns of Republican Congressional weasels with the proviso that GOP policy continues to support unregulated, pro-gun legislation. Massacres for money, demand drives supply - nothing more complicated than that. Uline, Inc. has donated $29,796,025 to Republicans in the 2018 cycle, and its owner, CEO Richard Uihlein, a Republican donor for decades, was also the chief financier for Roy Moore in his 2017 US Senate bid. Isn’t that special…. Uihlein increased his political giving after Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission.
We need to know who runs the Republican Party, and what sources of money get their perverse policies passed into law. What businesses benefit from removing sanctions on Russia? What businesses benefit from cruel, zero-tolerance measures on immigration? What businesses benefit from Republican blanket deregulation legislation? What businesses lobby for union busting and right to work legislation?
We need to know which businesses are twisting our democracy with the help of the boot-licking stooges that Republicans have elected to Congress. Maybe the November mid-terms will send many of these co-conspirators packing. But once we know the names of the businesses that fund Republican campaigns, we’ll be in a position to boycott each and every one of them with the power of organized opposition. This is no time to call the fight, even if Democrats fail to take both houses of Congress in November. We’ve been effectively silent for more than a decade as Republicans have seized power in state governorships, legislatures, and now in all three branches of the federal government.
We’ve been waiting for Godot far too long. The problem is that Democrats are nothing, if not patient. So, we need to remember Dryden’s, “Beware the fury of the patient man” and send the Republican Party back to Mordor, where it belongs.
