Guest AuthorTake your blinders off: This is why the Koch Brothers and radical-right groups will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the 2014 midterm elections, why Gov. Rick Scott wants to raise $100 million to get re-elected — and how you can defeat them.
If the Tea Party-GOP gains control of the U.S. Senate, Sen. Rand Paul, who’s against all foreign aid (including any to Israel), could become chair of the Foreign Relations Committee; “Bomb, Bomb Iran” Sen. John McCain, who’s itching to send U.S. soldiers into the Middle East, could head the Armed Services Committee. And how does Sen. Ted Cruz becoming chair of the Judiciary Committee grab you? He would make sure we get more Supreme Court justices like Anton Scalia, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
In addition, if Republicans control both houses of Congress, expect a flurry of its priority legislation to emerge: turning Medicare into a voucher program so enrollees are thrown on the open insurance market; privatizing Social Security so participants’ funds are subject to the insecurity of the stock market; repealing Obamacare, including key benefits, like not being able to be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition; reducing or ending corporate taxes; increasing taxes on the middle class; proposing constitutional amendments banning abortion and same-sex marriage. And, of course, with Republicans gaining control of the Senate and keeping its majority in the House, it’s guaranteed they will impeach President Obama and hold a trial in the Senate. They won’t get enough votes to convict him, but they will destroy him politically.
If Republicans maintain or increase their power in state governments nationwide, things will be as bad, or worse, than they’ll be in Washington, D.C. Think Rick Scott’s disastrous years in office multiplied. And, ask yourself, if he raises $100 million to get re-elected, what payback will his contributors expect — and dollar-wise what’s in it for him?
For starters, guaranteed, the governor and Legislature will continue their efforts to deny citizens their right to vote; turn public schools and government services over to for-profit businesses; gut social services; eliminate corporate taxes; reduce workers’ rights and destroy what’s left of unions.
We are two Novembers away from allowing the United States to be turned into the Corporate States of America, the Koch Brothers’ Tinker Toy. If you’re counting on the president’s veto to block the GOP and don’t think the coup “can happen here,” think again — it’s well under way.
In the 2010 midterm election, when the Tea Party swept into power with Koch backing, they won enough seats in Congress to precipitate some of the worst crises in our history: bringing our economy, indeed the world economy, to the brink of disaster for the fun of it; blocking immigration reform; undercutting universal health care. They won governorships and control of enough state governments to enact anti-abortion legislation, pass voter suppression laws, strip workers of rights. If they increase their power in November, it would guarantee more of the same — and worse.
In fact, November is just a dress rehearsal for the 2016 presidential election. If the Koch-GOP radicals win both houses of Congress, they will use Democrats’ thwarting their agenda to fire up their “base” to retake the White House and spend even more money in two years. If enough voters take their blinders off, turnout can trump billionaires’ dollars. Otherwise, prepare to pledge allegiance to the Kochs.
Stephen L. Goldstein is the author of “The Dictionary of American Political Bullshit” and “Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned.” He lives in Fort Lauderdale. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
