Reich: Trump isn’t alone—the entire GOP has spent decades trying to destroy trust in the American Sy
Robert Reich: Trump isn’t alone — the entire GOP has spent decades trying to destroy trust in the American system
Robert Reich, AlterNet
23 Oct 2016 at 07:36 ET
Donald Trump’s warning that he might not accept the results of the presidential election exemplifies his approach to everything: Do whatever it takes to win, even if that means undermining the integrity of the entire system.
Trump isn’t alone. The same approach underlies Senator John McCain’s recent warning that Senate Republicans will unite against any Supreme Court nominee Hillary Clinton might put up, if she becomes president.
The Republican Party as a whole has embraced this philosophy for more than two decades. After Newt Gingrich took over as Speaker of the House in 1995, compromise was replaced by brinksmanship, and normal legislative maneuvering was supplanted by threats to close down the government – which occurred at the end of that year.
Like Trump, Gingrich did whatever it took to win, regardless of the consequences. In 1996, during the debates over welfare reform, he racially stereotyped African-Americans. In 2010 he fueled the birther movement by saying President Obama exhibited “Kenyan, anticolonial behavior.” Two years later, in his unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination, he called President Obama the “food stamp president.“
As political observers Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann of Brookings have noted, “the forces Mr. Gingrich unleashed destroyed whatever comity existed across party lines.” Gingrich’s Republican Party became “ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
more...
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/robert-reich-trump-isnt-alone-the-entire-gop-has-spent-decades-trying-to-destroy-trust-in-the-american-system/
= new reply since forum marked as read
My vote for HRC was cast on 9/30. 
And I'm not the one getting my knickers in a wad at criticism of a critic, unlike some...
You end up governed by YOUR INFERIORS. That explains where we are today. This government didn't happen over night through magic. We HELPED get it where it is today by sitting on our asses, letting idiots select our representatives FOR US. It will take serious effort/voting to affect change.
"There are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States."
-- Vice President Henry Wallace, 1944
"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information."
-- VP Henry Wallace
....and any trust in it.
