OK, so here in the Northeast, today, we’re going to have a snow and ice storm. Not that big a deal, right? But no, it is. Why? And why is it conservatism’s fault? Let me count the ways...
The issue begins with the storm. We are already hearing that people are either not going to work today or are planning to go home early. Schools are planning to close early. Parents are needing to make plans to take care of their kids instead of working.
They are all afraid of the storm. And with good reason. After last year’s Halloween blizzard and week-long blackout, after the 2010 storm that left NYC’s streets unplowed for days, after Sandy and its WEEKS-long blackouts, after the snowstorm that followed Sandy, they are afraid. Afraid of being stuck, stranded in another blackout, another unplowed nightmare, another failure of our society to do its most basic job and keep us safe and secure.
And that’s why this is conservatism’s fault. And the reason is two-fold.
Follow below the great orange storm swizzle of doom to see more...
The first point is simply that, due to the right-wing destruction of our tax system, we are simply out of money as a nation and as individual towns and cities. By making tax reduction the be-all and end-all of human existence, they have left us stranded, high and dry without the ability to perform the most basic functions of human society. Except of course for the wars they keep starting and plan on starting even more of once they get back in power. Today’s right is the only group in the history of the world that thought wars could be fought for free. It goes along with their belief that you can increase tax revenue by cutting taxes, another intellectual failure of the right.
By not only destroying the ability of the US to fairly and adequately fund our society, but also continuing to fund wars and corporate welfare, the right wing has and continues to hurt America.
But there is a second way conservatism has hurt America: Hatred and Mistrust. Through their irrational and overwhelming hatred of their own government, the right has made America fearful of its own ability to achieve anything. The constant litany coming from the right to hate and mistrust has had its toll. That combined with actual failures leaves us a nation in deep trouble.
When I was a kid, I remember bad snowstorms. Back in the 70s we had huge amounts of snow and yet we still went to school, still got to school because the nation worked. Sure we had a blackout now and again, but it only lasted a few hours. The great Northeast blackout of 1965 lasted a mere 12 hours as did the 1977 blackout (note the twelve-year time-frame between large-scale blackouts). It wasn’t a week- or weeks-long ordeal and didn’t happen every few months.
Now, thanks to 40 years of Republican assault and destruction, America is broken. Our nation’s very fabric is broken. We can no longer count on our society to achieve even its most basic functions.
And what effect does that have? Well, thanks to the damage the right has done to America, we all suffer huge losses in income, both as workers and business owners (good job “Job creators” your insistence on not paying your fair share keeps costing you money. No wonder we should look to you to solve all our problems, you do it so well!). Thousands of people will lose income today because people are too afraid to go to work and stay at work. And their fear is not entirely irrational. That fear and its outcome harms America in so many ways, not least our standing in the world. We are seen, now, as the great nation that can’t. We have gone from Apollo, to appalling.
The more we fall apart, the more our failures multiply. As any home owner knows, you cannot put off the repairs. Once the roof starts to leak, the rafters and insulation start to rot, the insulation stops working the interior walls and ceilings get water damaged... and the costs just pile up (has no one on the right ever watched Holmes on Homes?). Just getting back to square one costs more than the sensible repairs ever would have. That basic truth is just as true for nations. Our infrastructure is failing due to 40 years of right-wing failure and neglect. We are looking at trillions of dollars just to get back to where we were in 1980. Add in the enormous cost of ignoring climate change that is going to cost us trillions more and we easily see the enormous cost the intellectual, moral and political failures of Republicanism and conservatism have cost America and will continue to cost us in the future.
America is adrift and afraid due to a concerted effort, over decades to destroy our infrastructure, our trust in ourselves, and our cohesiveness as a nation. This all-out attack on America was perpetrated by a dedicated coalition of terrorists determined to harm America and bring her to her knees (to drown her, in their own words), unable to function, unable to survive. They have nearly succeeded and they openly plot to do America even more harm and cost us even more treasure and success. They are not al Queda or some bunch of “commies,” they are the Republican party and their fellow travelers in the right-wing propaganda-industrial complex.
They are a clear and present danger to America, as today’s small, insignificant storm shows in so many ways. Sure it’s not a big storm and the effects will be minimal. A little lost income, a little less trust in America, a little more un-focused fear and stress. But it’s not the big leak that destroys the roof, it’s the little ones, over and over and over. Over years, decades. And that is the effect that the right wing has had on America over the years. They are tearing us apart. They must be stopped, or America is truly doomed.