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Throughout the Obama years, one of the more frequent Republicancriticisms of the Democratic presidentwas that he was engaging in class warfare against the richand punishing success.President Obama, Republicans claimed time and again, was fosteringresentment against the wealthy and cynically exploiting class divisions for political gain. Class warfare may make for good politics, but it makes for rotten economics, said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., at one point,while responding to Obamas proposal for a minimum tax of 30 percent on millionaires (i.e., the Buffett tax).

Like the allegationsthat Obama was a foreign-born Muslim or a socialist (and occasionally evena communist), however,this chargenever had much truth to it. The wealthiest Americans continued to do exceedingly well under Obama. Indeed, President Obamawas if anything the antithesis of a class warrior, as he approached governing in a detached and technocratic manner,often setting aside moral questions about class, inequality and social structure to concentrate on more practical questions. (Would a true left-wingclass warrior have protectedWall Street CEOs from the pitchforks?)

Though Obama was far from the moralizing class warrior that Fox News depicted him to be, Republicans perceived him as such because his administrationspolicies were not always favorable towardbillionaires and corporations, and on occasion the presidentwould remark on the fact that economic inequality hadincreased. Ironically, the conservative obsession with Obamas apparent class politics often revealed more about Republicans and their own class politics than it did about Obama. While the 44th presidents administration sought to played a neutral role in terms of class interests (something that earned him plenty of criticism from progressives), modern Republicans have never failed to serve the interests of billionaires and corporate America.

This kind ofrhetoricwas part of a long tradition in which Republican politicians denounce class warfare and those who purportedlyengage in it while actively waging their own class war against the poor and working class.

This class warfarehas become all the more apparent since the GOPtook over the federal government earlier this year. Nothing has revealed the GOPs disdain for poor people and working-class familiesquite like the Republican health carebillscurrentlyin the House and Senate, which would both provide generous tax cuts to the rich while cutting health benefits for the poor, the middle class and the elderly (and also throw more than 20 million people off health insurance, according to the CBO). It is hard to exaggeratethe mass suffering that these bills would cause. As Jeff Spross recently pointed out in The Week,Not in their most fevered imaginations do left-wing tax-hikers envision inflicting this kind of suffering on the 1 percent.

In the Nation,Zoe Carpenter accuratelysummed up Trumpcarelast week: The Senate GOP isnt fixing healthcare. Its waging class war.

With thisclass waron fulldisplayone might expect a growingnumber of Americans to finallyrecognizethe GOP as the party of, by and for the rich. But its not as if this is a new effort. Republicans have been waging this class war for decades, yetjust eight months ago Donald Trump managed to win the election by running as a populist, and his victory was due in large part to the support he received fromRust Belt states, where working-class people have felt the brunt of the GOPs decades-longassault on working people. To some extent, Trump succeeded in the Rust Belt because he was seen by many people as a different kind of Republicanwho would actually help workers (his stance on free trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership obviously played a role in this perception). But Trumps success was also the result of a kind of cultural class warfare thathas been in the GOP playbook for a very long time.

Over the past few decades Republicans have not only waged an economic class war against the working class but a cultural class waragainst the so-called liberal elite which includes college professors, journalists, Democratic politicians, urban professionals, Hollywood entertainers and so on. While Trumps rhetoric may be unusually belligerent, the practice of railing against cultural elites has been employed by conservatives forgenerations, as Thomas Frank explored in his 2004 book, Whats the Matter With Kansas?The true genius of the rights culture war is that it enablesclear economic elites like Trump to portray themselvesas populists,even while they enactpolicies that servebillionaires and multinationalcorporations.

Right-wing populism, Frank observes, both encourages class hostility in the cultural sense and simultaneously denies the economic basis of the grievance. Thus, Republicans can wage their class war on the working class while still claiming to be populists who are fighting for real Americans. Frank elucidates further on the right-wing conception of class:

Class, conservatives insist, is not really about money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity. The erasure of the economic is a necessary precondition for most of the basic backlash ideas.

That last point has become all the more relevant in the era of Trump. If the erasure of the economic (from class) is in fact a necessary precondition for the ideas we see embodied in the Republican Party today, then the obvious solution is to restore the primacy of the economic. Frank goes on to make an interesting analogy, describing the right-wing populist vision as nothing more than an old-fashioned leftist vision of the world with the economics drained out.

Where the muckrakers of old faulted capitalism for botching this institution and that, he writes, the backlash thinkers simply change the script to blame liberalism.

This analogy is somewhat unfair toleftists, who had a much more sophisticated worldview that was largely based on reality since capitalism reallywas at fault for many of the problems identified by the muckrakers. But it does raise an important question: Is a modern version of the old-fashioned leftist vision the best way to defeat the phony populism of the right? Obviously left-wingers like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn believe it is, and the latters unexpected success in last months British election certainly bolsteredthe argument.

Thomas Frank who knows a thing or two about right-wing populism agrees with this sentiment. In his most recent book, Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?,Frank looks at how the Democratic Party abandoned class politics toward the latter part of the 20th century and embraced corporate-friendlycentrism, which gave right-wingers a perfect opportunity to advance their own warped formof class politics. Today we are living in the aftermath of this Democratic shift towardsneoliberalism.

If class warfare is being waged, it is not Democrats who are the aggressors, saidHenry Aaron of the Brookings Institute inan analysis of the House version of Trumpcare published in March. This is doubtless the case, and it is why the Republicans have been so successful in crushing the working class while maintaining theirpopulist veneer.If Democrats want to expose Republicans as the party of the 1 percent and start winning elections again, then perhaps it is time for them to become the aggressorsand start waging a class war of their own.

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Now more than ever, Republicans are engaged in class warfare: Isn't it time for Democrats to fight back? - Salon

Kansas City Star (blog)

David Brooks: What's the matter with Republicans? Kansas City Star (blog) Over the past two months the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress have proposed a budget and two health care plans that would take benefits away from core Republican constituencies, especially working-class voters. And yet over this ... and more »

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David Brooks: What's the matter with Republicans? - Kansas City Star (blog)

Today these places are no longer frontier towns, but many of them still exist on the same knifes edge between traditionalist order and extreme dissolution.

For example, I have a friend who is an avid Trump admirer. He supports himself as a part-time bartender and a part-time home contractor, and by doing various odd jobs on the side. A good chunk of his income is off the books. He has built up a decent savings account, but he has done it on his own, hustling, scrapping his way, without any long-term security. His income can vary sharply from week to week. He doesnt have much trust in the institutions around him. He has worked on government construction projects but sees himself, rightly, as a small-business man.

This isnt too different from the hard, independent life on the frontier. Many people in these places tend to see their communities the way foreign policy realists see the world: as an unvarnished struggle for resources as a tough world, a no-illusions world, a world where conflict is built into the fabric of reality.

The virtues most admired in such places, then and now, are what Shirley Robin Letwin once called the vigorous virtues: upright, self-sufficient, energetic, adventurous, independent minded, loyal to friends and robust against foes.

The sins that can cause the most trouble are not the social sins injustice, incivility, etc. They are the personal sins laziness, self-indulgence, drinking, sleeping around.

Then as now, chaos is always washing up against the door. Very few people actually live up to the code of self-discipline that they preach. A single night of gambling or whatever can produce life-altering bad choices. Moreover, the forces of social disruption are visible on every street: the slackers taking advantage of the disability programs, the people popping out babies, the drug users, the spouse abusers.

Voters in these places could use some help. But these Americans, like most Americans, vote on the basis of their vision of what makes a great nation. These voters, like most voters, believe that the values of the people are the health of the nation.

In their view, government doesnt reinforce the vigorous virtues. On the contrary, it undermines them by fostering initiative-sucking dependency, by letting people get away with their mistakes so they can make more of them and by getting in the way of moral formation.

The only way you build up self-reliant virtues, in this view, is through struggle. Yet faraway government experts want to cushion people from the hardships that are the schools of self-reliance. Compassionate government threatens to turn people into snowflakes.

In her book Strangers in Their Own Land, the sociologist Arlie Hochschild quotes a woman from Louisiana complaining about the childproof lids on medicine and the mandatory seatbelt laws. We let them throw lawn darts, smoked alongside them, the woman says of her children. And they survived. Now its like your kid needs a helmet, knee pads and elbow pads to go down the kiddy slide.

Hochschilds humble and important book is a meditation on why working-class conservatives vote against more government programs for themselves. She emphasizes that they perceive government as a corrupt arm used against the little guy. She argues that these voters may vote against their economic interests, but they vote for their emotional interests, for candidates who share their emotions about problems and groups.

Id say they believe that big government support would provide short-term assistance, but that it would be a long-term poison to the values that are at the core of prosperity. You and I might disagree with that theory. But its a plausible theory. Anybody who wants to design policies to help the working class has to make sure they go along the grain of the vigorous virtues, not against them.

David Leonhardt is off today.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 4, 2017, on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Whats the Matter With Republicans?.

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What's the Matter With Republicans? - New York Times

Whether its leaders and members realize it, the Republican Party is at risk of becoming the Vladimir Putin-aligned party in the United States. It can be convincingly argued that its already similar to Putin-supported parties in Europe, given Donald Trumps presidency, the Republican bases increasingly favorable views of Moscow, and the House GOP leaderships disinterest in investigating and preventing Russian interference.

Increasingly sophisticated Russian influence and cyberoperations threaten Americans ability to choose their own leaders. This isnt hyperbole. In fact, its hard to overstate just how serious this issue is. Yet, President Trump continues to sow doubt about whether Moscow even interfered in the 2016 presidential elections and to suggest the questions insignificance by ignoring it all together.

Our commander in chief seems more interested in protecting Moscow than he does in deterring its future attacks. The Washington Post reported that the administration is actually considering allowing the Russian government to reopen the two spy compounds that President Barack Obama closed in late December in response to Russias election attack. There are also reports that the White House plans to step up lobbying efforts against a new Russia sanctions bill that the Senate passed with overwhelming bipartisan support this month. The measure would add new financial sanctions and require congressional review before Trump could lift these or other retaliatory measures currently levied against Moscow, including the closing of the two compounds.

Worse, Trump appears to have some support in this from Republican leaders in the House. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, have delayed the bill, citing the constitutional requirement that such bills originate in the House.

This is little more than a red herring. Nothing prevents them from inserting the text of the Senate bill into a House measure, passing it and sending it back to the Senate for final approval, which it would likely grant under expedited procedures. Instead, Ryan and McCarthy appear to be more interested in delaying and weakening the bill.

Behind their neglect are changing Republican voter opinions, which are becoming alarmingly more pro-Russian. According to a Morning Consult-Politico poll conducted in May, 49 percent of Republican voters consider Russia to be either an ally or friendly. Only 12 percent consider it an enemy. In 2015, only 12 percent of Republicans held a favorable view of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Gallup. As of February, that figure had jumped to 32 percent.

These dangerous trends impair the nations will to protect itself, and they are entirely the result of Republican leaderships failure to oppose Trump from the beginning. Republican voters had long held a healthy distrust of Putin, but Trumps persistent affinity for Moscow and other Republican leaders silence are changing Republican voters minds, now making it politically costly for GOP leaders to defend the nation from this foreign adversary.

Because they control the executive and legislative branches, it is ultimately up to Republican leaders to prevent future Russian attacks on American democracy, even if such attacks may benefit the party electorally. Deterrence is an indispensable part of this equation. It cannot be accomplished without punishing Moscow for its violations of our sovereignty and threatening harsher responses for future trespasses.

In passing the Russia sanctions bill, Senate Republicans have shown they understand this. GOP leaders in the House must work with their Senate colleagues to pass a strong sanctions package that requires a congressional review of changes to Russia sanctions implementation desired by the president. He simply cannot be trusted to protect the integrity of Americas democracy on his own.

Republican leaders and the party are at a crossroads. They will either choose liberty in an independent America or to serve a distant, foreign master who seeks no more than to enrich and empower himself at the expense of free society everywhere. If Republican leaders choose the latter, the majority of Americans will have no choice but to hold them accountable as opponents to the cause of freedom.

Evan McMullin is a former CIA operations officer who ran as an independent candidate in the 2016 presidential election. He is co-founder of the nonprofit Stand Up Republic.

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Republicans are risking becoming the party of Putin - Bangor Daily News

Why are Republicans on Capitol Hill having so much trouble repealing and replacing Obamacare? There are reasons all over the place: subsidies, tax credits, tax cuts, Medicaid, essential health benefits, and many others. But there is one fundamental obstacle to getting rid of Obamacare, and it is very simple: Once the government starts giving away, it can't take back.

Go back to October 2013, when Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz was leading an effort to defund Obamacare. It was an impossible goal; the GOP was in the minority in the Senate and a Democrat was in the White House. Under those circumstances, defunding President Obama's signature achievement simply wasn't going to happen. Establishment Republicans were angry at Cruz for raising the hopes of the party's base before certain disappointment.

But there was one sense in which Cruz was right and the words he spoke four years ago are resonating today in the GOP's struggle to repeal, or, more accurately, rewrite Obamacare.

Cruz based the defund effort on his contention that once Obamacare was fully in place and subsidies began to flow that was scheduled to begin on Jan. 1, 2014 there would be no stopping it.

"The Obama strategy, I believe, is that on January 1, subsidies kick in," Cruz told a meeting of the Kingwood, Texas tea party in August 2013. "And his strategy is very simple: He knows that in modern times no major entitlement has ever gone into effect and been unwound. Never been done. His strategy is to get as many Americans as possible hooked on the subsidies, addicted to the sugar."

"I think if we're going to stop Obamacare, we have to do it now," Cruz continued. "If we get to January 1, this thing is here forever."

Of course, Republicans did not defund Obamacare there was never any chance they could and the subsidies began. And now, exactly as Cruz (and others) predicted, the entitlement program is proving extremely difficult to repeal. That is because, as Obama and the Democrats who passed it knew, Republicans trying to repeal Obamacare would be taking back something the government had already given to millions of Americans. Once the giving started, Cruz knew, there's no taking back.

And that's where Republicans are now. They've come up with a different way to provide subsidies, but regardless of name, they are trying to reduce those subsidies and make them available to fewer people. They are trying to cut back on the subsidized benefits insurance companies are required to provide to customers. They are trying to reduce the predicted number of people on Medicaid. They are trying to take back, not give. And it is proving very, very hard.

Other Republicans said similar things during the defunding battle back in 2013. Sen. Mike Lee said, "Before this law kicks in in full force on January 1, 2014, we have one last shot." Sen. Marco Rubio said, "This is our last chance and our last best chance to do something about this." Sen. David Vitter said, "Once (Obamacare) gets into law and starts to put down roots, it's going to be difficult to disrupt."

And now it is.

What the 2013 fight showed, and what the current fight is showing again, is that the Republicans' actual last chance to get rid of Obamacare was the 2012 election. That was before the health care law went into effect, before it touched millions of American lives, and when it could still be repealed without great disruption. But when Barack Obama won re-election and could safeguard (and prop up) Obamacare through its early years, the Republican chance to repeal was gone.

Now Republicans are fighting among themselves over a bill that would make substantial changes in Obamacare but leave the structure of the law intact. And several GOP lawmakers enough to scuttle any final agreement are still afraid of cuts in subsidies, in coverage, and in the Medicaid expansion.

Maybe Republicans will succeed. But whatever they do, it won't resemble the root-and-branch repeal they attempted when Obama was president when they knew he would veto any repeal effort that got to his desk. The Republican effort that passes Congress today will be a much-scaled-back measure that could more accurately be called an Obamacare fix.

It all shows that Cruz was right back in 2013. Once Obamacare's subsidies and benefits began to flow, he reminded us, "this thing is here forever."

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.

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When Republicans saw the troubled future of Obamacare repeal - Meridian Star