Robert Reich Diagnoses What Specifically Went Wrong With the Republican Party & How It Became a Threat to Democracy

It has been a while since the last time that I posted a video by Robert Reich. But this video felt like something worth sharing.

In it, he diagnoses what specifically went wrong with the Republican party, and how it got to be the mindless, pseudo-fascist, de facto Trump party that it has become now. According to Reich, the roots of this collapse happened under former President Richard Nixon. Specifically, he cites the pardoning of Nixon by Gerald Ford, once Ford succeeded Nixon in the White House.

Ford stated that he made that decision to give the country a chance to heal. Indeed, it is perhaps an understandable position to take, and one which, if memory serves correctly, President Jimmy Carter actually agreed with. 

However, Reich suggests, it probably allowed Nixon to get off free from what were real crimes committed during his presidency. Nixon argued that, as president, he was basically above the law when he suggested that if a president breaks the law, then it isn't illegal specifically because he is the president. That kind of exemption had a pretty direct line of causality, and it has led to further abuses. Reich does not mention Democratic presidents here, but I believe that presidents since Nixon on both sides of the political aisle have abused their power since, and not been held accountable. Reagan and Bush Sr. got away with the Iran Contra Scandal and the Savings and Loan Scandal. Clinton got away with Whitewater, the "Wag the Dog" war in Eastern Europe when he got into political hot water domestically, and of course probably obstruction of justice. George W. Bush had multiple major corporate scandals, from Enron to Halliburton to Blackwater to policies that contributed to the economy nearly collapsing, and he also led us into an illegal and immoral war in Iraq. Obama suspended habeas corpus and seemed to think that he could spy on allies and kill people in foreign countries with drone strikes with complete impunity. And then there was Trump, who's every move seemed to be specifically designed as a greater grab of power and immunity, so where to begin? From withholding funds to Ukraine until political dirt is dug up on the Bidens, to constant lies and manipulation for which he was basically never held accountable, to what I still feel was an attempted coup that just might have ended democracy in the United States as we know it.

For all intents and purposes, Trump has become the monster that the pardoning of Nixon all of those years ago has created. Trump feels like the corrupt politician on steroids, who's every thought and move is simply an attempt to grab more power. And he does it with a seeming sense of impunity and entitlement that should alarm the entire country, but which instead seems to sway almost half of the population with an alarming and, frankly, saddening desire for dictatorship. 

If you look at the list that I jotted down - a list that is by no means complete - it sure seems like the crimes grow more and more serious as you go along. Frankly, many of those crimes make Watergate look like relative child's play by way of comparison.

So I am not sure that I agree with Reich that this is merely a Republican thing. Also, I do not agree that the Republicans will be replaced with another, pro-democracy party. Things never seem to go quite that quickly and conveniently, do they?

Anyway, this was an informative video which I feel tells an important story about the roots of the de facto death of the Republican party. Mostly, I agree with him, that abuses committed by the Nixon administration back then, and which they mostly got away with due to Ford's pardon, had the exact opposite impact as they were intended. Instead of reigning in abuses of power, they seemed to give a green light for corrupt politicians to slowly but surely kill American democracy, which now feels like it is on it's deathbed, frankly. Indeed, this was a predictable outcome, but I guess that I can say that with the benefit of hindsight. 

Tak a look at the video below, and see if you agree. 

The Republican Party Is Over | Robert Reich