Eclectic commentary from a progressive voice in the red state

Friday, January 7, 2022

The Coup Continues

 MacLean was interviewed on Democracy Now! about four years ago. Here is that interview with Amy Goodman.




As we pass through the anniversary of the January 6 Trump-fomented insurrection, we continue to see warnings that the coup continues. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., posts to Facebook daily that the Republicans in the United States House talk about stealing the 2022 mid-term elections. This is a real threat given that more than 30 states have passed voter suppression laws already.

Democracy in Chains proves that economist James McGill Buchanan’s “public choice theory” was born of the anti-integration racism of the 1950s and notion that no one should take money from those who have it to offer public services to those who need it. To do so, the political system and the United States Constitution must, at all costs, protect property rights. Thus, Buchanan developed a weapon for the capitalist/billionaire class to destroy the United States’ middle class. Words like “freedom,” “liberty” and “libertarian” were redefined and weaponized. They now apply to the capitalists and wealthy who would eliminate all public services except for law enforcement and the military. And, how convenient that would be when the population finally realizes too late that peaceful solutions would no longer work.

While Professor MacLean’s book got a fair bit of publicity in 2017, as my previous posts pointed out, the public knows little about these plans, in large part distracted by the hot-button socials issues like gay rights and abortion. The Buchananites really don’t care about these things, but they are useful wedge issues while the right-wing forces march on to their goals. After years of infiltrating the state legislatures and the judiciary, we are now closer to the denouement. With Texans like Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick and others leading the charge, a Convention of the States is poised to convene to radically change the Constitution. Once that’s done, so are we as a true democracy. Look to the Pinochet regime in Chile for where the United States will be.


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