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PUNCHING DOWN AND REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION  
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Heather Cox Richardson
August 17, 2024
Letters From an American: August 16 2024
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_ Republican dominance is cracking as Trump struggles and Vance
offends people, and as that dominance falls away, the many things it
covered are starting to get attention—among them, stories of
Republican corruption. And they’re doozies.   _

Books at Florida-based New College being disposed of in a dumpster,
(photo: USA Today Screenshot)

 

The complaint of Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D.
Vance (R-OH) last weekend on CNN that Democrats are bullying him by
calling him weird has stuck with me. As I wrote at the time,
Republicans have made punching down their stock in trade for decades,
and Vance’s complaint suggests that the Democrats are finally
pushing back. It strikes me that behind this shifting power dynamic is
a huge story about American politics.

Since the 1950s, those determined to get rid of business regulation,
social welfare programs, government infrastructure spending, and
federal protection of civil rights have relied on a rhetorical
structure that centers “real” Americans who allegedly want nothing
from government and warns that un-American forces who want government
handouts are undermining the country by bringing socialism or racial,
gender, or religious equality. 

In 2024, that rhetoric is all the MAGA Republicans have left to
attract voters, as their actual policies are unpopular. Yesterday,
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told reporters at his
Bedminster availability that to win the 2024 election: “All we have
to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or
somebody that's gonna destroy our country." 

But it is not just Trump. A MAGA pundit has called Vice President
Harris “Hitler and Stalin combined but times 200,” and on
Wednesday, Republicans in Minnesota nominated Royce White as their
candidate for the U.S. Senate. “We face an enemy that intends to
bastardize our citizenship through an idea called globalism,” White
has said. “We must begin to understand how the global affects the
local and take a stand for God, Family, and Country.” White has also
said that “women have become too mouthy,” and that “Donald Trump
could get up on stage, pull his pants down, take a sh*t up at the
podium, and I still would never vote for you f*cking Democrats
again.”

The rhetorical strategy setting up Republicans against a dangerous
“other” was behind Trump’s demand that Republicans in Congress
kill a bipartisan border bill so that Trump could continue to demonize
immigrants. You could see that demonization of immigrants today in
Vance’s straight-up lie that Vice President Kamala Harris “wants
to give $25,000 to illegal aliens to buy American homes.” In fact,
Harris today called for Congress to expand plans already in place in
the Biden administration, and none of those plans call for giving
money to undocumented migrants.

Also in that vein today was the announcement of Representative James
Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, that he is
opening an investigation into Minnesota governor Tim Walz’s work in
China. Walz is the Democratic vice presidential nominee. He went to
China in 1989 as part of a teach-abroad program and went on to
coordinate trips for students in China, becoming a vocal advocate for
human rights in that country as leaders cracked down on opposition.
But by suggesting this cultural exchange is nefarious, Comer can seed
the idea that Walz is somehow operating against the interests of the
United States.

This longstanding rhetoric that positions Republicans as true
Americans defending the country against those who would destroy it has
metastasized into the determination of MAGA Republicans to replace
American democracy with a Christian nationalism that cements the power
of white patriarchy. Vance has been in hot water for his derogatory
remarks about “childless cat ladies”; interviews have resurfaced
in the past few days in which he embraced the idea that the role of
“the postmenopausal female” is to take care of grandchildren. 

The New College of Florida is in the news today for illustrating the
logical progression of the idea that Republicans must protect the
nation from those who would destroy it. The New College of Florida was
at the center of Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s program to get
rid of traditional academic freedom. He stripped the New College of
its independence and replaced officials with Christian loyalists who
tried to build a school modeled after those that Viktor Orbán’s
loyalists took over in Hungary. New College officials painted over
student murals celebrating diversity, suppressed student support for
civil rights, and voted to eliminate the diversity, equity, and
inclusion office and the gender studies program. Faculty fled the New
College, and more than a quarter of the students dropped out. To keep
its numbers up, the school dropped its admission standards. 

Yesterday, Steven Walker of the _Sarasota Herald-Tribune_ reported
that the school cleared out the Gender and Diversity Center, throwing
the books it had accumulated into a dumpster. Officials said the books
are no longer serving the needs of the college: “gender studies has
been discontinued as an area of concentration at New College and the
books are not part of any official college collection or
inventory.” 

The image of piles of books in a dumpster in the United States of
America is not easily forgettable. 

But the dominance rhetoric of the MAGA Republicans was never just
about political power. Political power always went hand in hand with
corruption. A new book by Joe Conason called _The Longest Con_ notes
that the modern right-wing movement has its roots in the promise of
grifters after World War II to protect America against the communists
they insisted were infiltrating the country. Their promises to defend
true Americans against an enemy was always about getting cash out of
the deal. 

Conason emphasizes how drumming up fears of an “other” was a
deliberate grift to put money into the pockets of those who told small
donors that their dollars were vital for defending the United States.
The biggest prize for the extremists, though, was the control of
government purse strings that allowed them to turn federal and state
largesse toward their own cronies. Conason notes that under President
Ronald Reagan, Republicans’ cuts to government oversight and
reliance on the private sector to regulate itself, along with their
belief that unfettered capitalism was a form of resistance to
communism, led to a boom in corruption. 

That corruption has continued in the Republican Party, largely
unaddressed as politicians insisted that those calling it out were
simply un-American malcontents engaging in political hits against
good, patriotic Americans. In contrast, as any corruption on the
Democratic side can be expected to be sliced and diced in public, the
Democrats have stayed relatively clean. 

And this is why Vance’s comment about Democrats bullying him jumped
out at me. Republican dominance is cracking as Trump struggles and
Vance offends people, and as that dominance falls away, the many
things it covered are starting to get attention—among them, stories
of Republican corruption. And they’re doozies.  

On Sunday, for example, Garrett Shanley of the _Independent Florida
Alligator_, the student newspaper of the University of Florida,
reported that when former senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) took over the
presidency of the University of Florida, he “channeled millions”
to his Republican allies and to secretive contracts. In 17 months he
more than tripled spending from his office, with most of the money
going to his former aides and political friends, most of whom
continued to live and work outside the state. Sasse was appointed in
November 2022 in an opaque hiring process and stepped down
unexpectedly in July, citing family issues, although Vivienne Serret
of _The Independent Alligator_ reported that DeSantis allies on the
Board of Trustees forced him out.

One of the biggest stories in the country these days is the corruption
scandal in Ohio, in which dark money groups led by the FirstEnergy
utility company worked with former Ohio House speaker Larry
Householder to put into office politicians who, thanks to about $61
million in bribes, backed a $1.3 billion bailout for FirstEnergy paid
for with tax dollars. 

On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost agreed to settle the
scandal. FirstEnergy will pay a $20 million fine, an amount that Marty
Schladen of the _Ohio Capital Journal_ notes is less than one-third
the amount FirstEnergy spent to bribe legislators, and a fraction of
the money ratepayers have had to pay because of the corrupt
legislation the bribes paid for. 

Nothing better illustrates the grift at the center of today’s MAGA
Republicans than Donald Trump’s Big Lie that he actually won the
2020 election and that it was stolen from him by those dangerous
“others,” the Democrats. The Big Lie enabled the Trump team to
continue soliciting donations in order to fight for the White House.
According to Conason, Trump and his fellow election deniers pocketed
$255.4 million between the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021,
attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of the electoral votes
that would make Democratic candidate Joe Biden president. 

On Monday, jurors found former Colorado election clerk Tina Peters
guilty on seven counts in relation to her compromising of her
county’s election system. Peters was determined to get voter
information to My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a key Trump
ally, in order to prove the Big Lie. She is facing more than 22 years
in prison.

* Republican Party
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* political corruption
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* Donald Trump
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* J.D. Vance
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