Editor’s note: This commentary is by Al Salzman, of Fairfield, who is a retired public school art teacher and an active painter.
[I]n watching the Senate Judiciary hearings on the confirmation of arch-conservative Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, I realized that I was witness to a Republican coup d’etat — literally a blow against constitutional law and due legislative process. Following on the heels of Republican gangsterism that hijacked the Judge Merrick Garland nomination, by refusing to hold hearings before the end of Obama’s term, and replacing him with a henchman-of-the right Neil Gorsuch, the Republicans have opened the door to even greater power for the already powerful oligarchs whose aim is to turn this country into a modern form of feudalism — a country for the few fat cats — of the few fat cats and by the few fat cats while the rest of us struggle for our livelihood.
Their shameless agenda is already picking up steam: Strangle organized labor. Eliminate collective bargaining. Allow unrestricted gerrymandering to stack the Congress with corporate clones. Undermine civil rights legislation and voting rights laws. Allow unrestricted money to buy legislators. Cut Social Security and other programs that help low wage workers and the poor. Cutting billions from SNAP nutritional aid program and LIHEAP heating subsidies. Keeping wages unlivable to increase corporate profits (see Phil Scott of Vermont). And not the least, overturn Roe v. Wade — a woman’s right to chose.
The unprecedented disparity in wealth has opened up a Pandora’s box of political megalomania, not only in looney Trumpville but around the world — the neo-Nazi AFD in Germany, nationalist crazies in the UK, Viktor Orban’s fascist Fidesz Party in Hungary, Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigrant National Rally Party in France, Greece’s Golden Dawn, Andrzej Duda’s Law and Justice Party in Poland, Salvini’s Right Wing Party in Italy and Geert Wilder’s Party For Freedom in Holland.
Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, followed in the footsteps of these autocratic bullies by gaveling down Democratic senators protesting his arbitrary procedures in the Kavanaugh hearings. The dirty pool played by the Republicans to deprive the American people of their voice, and those Democrats who have done nothing in response but gnaw on their knuckles have earned Congress a 9 percent favorability rating from their constituents. We seem to be a country governed by the unconscionable and the spineless.
