Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Alex Henderson, AlterNet
February 26, 2021

The GOP is now the Soviet Communist Party circa 1979 — and headed for a similar fate: conservative


Many Never Trump conservatives were hoping that after former President Donald Trump left the White House on January 20 and President Joe Biden entered the White House, the Republican Party would abandon Trumpism and return to a more traditional conservatism. Instead, the GOP has doubled down on its extremism; even Rep. Liz Cheney — arch-conservative daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney — is being slammed as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) by Trumpistas. Never Trumper Tom Nichols examines the state of the Republican Party in an article published by The Atlantic on February 25, arguing that the 2021 GOP is — like the Soviet Communist Party circa 1978/1979 — destined for collapse.

"The Republican Party has become, in form if not in content, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the late 1970s," the conservative Nichols laments. "I can already hear the howls about invidious comparisons. I do not mean that modern American Republicans are communists. Rather, I mean that the Republicans have entered their own kind of end-stage Bolshevism, as members of a party that is now exhausted by its failures, cynical about its own ideology, authoritarian by reflex, controlled as a personality cult by a failing old man, and looking for new adventures to rejuvenate its fortunes."

In the late 1970s, Nichols explains, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union — under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev — was "a spent force" run by "party ideologues" who stubbornly clung to Marxist-Leninist dogma. Brezhnev's cronies, Nichols recalls, considered him a "heroic genius."

"Members of the Communist Party who questioned anything, or expressed any sign of unorthodoxy, could be denounced by name, or more likely, simply fired," Nichols notes. "They would not be executed — this was not Stalinism, after all — but some were left to rot in obscurity in some make-work exile job, eventually retiring as a forgotten 'comrade pensioner.' The deal was clear: pump the party's nonsense and enjoy the good life, or squawk and be sent to manage a library in Kazakhstan. This should all sound familiar."

Just as the Marxist-Leninist ideologues of the late 1970s rallied around Brezhnev, Nichols argues, the Republican Party of 2021 is rallying around Trump.

"Falling in line, just as in the old Communist Party, is rewarded, and independence is punished," Nichols observes. "The anger directed at Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger makes the stilted ideological criticisms of last century's Soviet propagandists seem almost genteel by comparison. At least Soviet families under Brezhnev didn't add three-page handwritten denouncements to official party reprimands."

The Soviet Communist Party didn't collapse in 1978 or 1979, but it did collapse in the early 1990s — even Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost reforms of the 1980s couldn't save the Soviet Union, which no longer exists. Modern-day Russia is now ruled by a right-wing authoritarian, President Vladimir Putin, and embraces crony capitalism and corporate oligarchs rather than communism. And according to Nichols, the Republican Party of the United States is, like the old Soviet Communist Party, terminally ill.

But the more marginal the GOP becomes in the months ahead, Nichols predicts, the more dangerously authoritarian it will become.

"A dying party can still be a dangerous party," Nichols warns. "The Communist leaders in those last years of political sclerosis arrayed a new generation of nuclear missiles against NATO, invaded Afghanistan, tightened the screws on Jews and other dissidents, lied about why they shot down a civilian 747 airliner, and, near the end, came close to starting World War III out of sheer paranoia. The Republican Party is, for now, more of a danger to the United States than to the world. But like the last Soviet-era holdouts in the Kremlin, its cadres are growing more aggressive and paranoid."

In 2021, Nichols laments, the GOP has passed the point of no return and can only sink deeper and deeper into the abyss.

"Another lesson from all this history is that the Republicans have no path to reform," Nichols writes. "Like their Soviet counterparts, their party is too far gone. Gorbachev tried to reform the Soviet Communist Party, and he remains reviled among the Soviet faithful to this day. Similar efforts by the remaining handful of reasonable Republicans are unlikely to fare any better. The Republican Party, to take a phrase from the early Soviet leader Leon Trotsky, should now be deposited where it belongs: in the 'dustbin of history.'"

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

lol !
All of your worst boogieman fears are now true.
You are the commie bastards you’ve been calling everyone else.
lol!

proud republican Loc: RED CALIFORNIA

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Parky60 Loc: People's Republic of Illinois

Some of the things that stupid people say.

DaWg44

Milusia, your elevator did not make the top floor today. Check w/ your sister or brother for repair work. BB has emergency service courtesy of Yoo-hoo.

Weewillynobeerspilly Loc: North central Texas

Wanna go hog hunting?

Weewillynobeerspilly Loc: North central Texas

Hey. ...... cuz Alex Henderson told her so

Who the F is Alex Henderson? Is there A reason his opinion and projection should be respected ?

Reads like a children's fairy tale.

Gatsby

Alex Henderson is nobody, an 18 year old, uneducated, ignorant, little Chicago punk, clearly your type.
Small wonder that you should think alike.

Kevyn

The child like responses to the piece drive it’s point home. The Republican Party is divided between the Conservative party of Reagan and Goldwater and the crackpot cult of personality now owned by Trump. The latter, fueled by bigotry, lubricated with ignorance and guided by conspiracy theory. Those not on their knees in front of the alter are labeled blasphemous heretics (RINO’s) by slavish members of his death cult. Fortunately there is little to do to fix it. If trump is charged and convicted of serious crimes and sent to prison with clear evidence, his cult will insist he as pure as the driven snow and turn like rabid hyenas on any republicans who support justice and the rule of law. Centrists will watch this and be appalled, then shift their votes to democrats as will many traditional republicans; or they will just stay home.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Anyone with the tiniest bit of common sense could understand this.
The major point is once trump is gone, they will be left hanging on the line to dry in the darkness. And they know it.
But they deny it.

Rose42

You’re a nutter.

Socialism is the precursor to communism. Your opinion article
is just that - opinion. The republican party is dead but its not communist

manning5 Loc: Richmond, VA

==================================

From my perspective the party is most certainly not dead! In 2020 we garnered over 74 million votes, which was more than enough to win barring fraud. Yes we have some resettlement to do, but were we to have a national vote tomorrow, another 74 million or higher Republican turnout would occur. There has always been tension between the run-of-the-mill Republicans and the Conservative wing. Today, I believe there are more Conservatives than simple Republicans and RINO's in the US, and Trump is their leader. We shall see in 2022 and 2024, if we can ensure no fraud. Somehow, no fraud may be a long reach, given this nutty leftwing administration, judiciary and legislation.

Gatsby

That childish rant deserved nothing more than an in kind response.

Why do you look to a child for guidance?

Wolf counselor Loc: Heart of Texas

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Lol!
Rose, please tell me who the Republican party is now.
They painted themselves into a corner.
Now, who are they ?