The Big Republican Shell Game of the Last Half-Century

In a post in Hullabaloo, dated 14 Nov 2012, Dante Atkins outlined what he called "the Grand Lie."  It could also be called  the "Big Republican Strategy," though my favorite would be "the Great Republican Shell Game of the Last Half-Century."   Atkins related his summary purely to the national deficit, but I think it sums up with unusual succinctness, clarity, and accuracy the scam that the Republicans have managed to pull off  over and over again, ever since the Civil Rights laws were enacted and the Republicans began concurrently using the "Southern Strategy."

         Atkins saw the oft-repeated cycle as taking place in four stages in which the Repubs (in his words):

        1) Claim that jobs and economic growth depend on tax cuts, especially on the wealthy. Claim that any cuts will pay for themselves. Both of these are lies. . . .

        2) When revenues dwindle and deficits explode as they have under every Republican President since Nixon, blame "welfare" (a lie) and "spending" (another lie.)

        3) Let Democrats be the ones to take responsible measures to bring deficits back under control by sacrificing their own programs. . . .

        4) When good economic times and minor tax boosts bring both the economy back to health and the deficit back in line, tell people that the government has too much money, and that they should "get more of their money back." This is an intentional strategy to drive up the deficit, forcing more cuts later.

          I had been thinking along the same lines about matters in general, and I would've put it in a way that is  slightly different, because of a couple of added filips.

         I would've said that the Democrats bring on the good and charitable times, but then the Repubs use the only big idea that they ever have, tax cuts and more tax cuts, plus barely concealed attacks on those who are not likely to vote for them, to convince enough stupid,  greedy, and hate-ridden voters to put them in power.   Once in power the Repubs then run down the Government's bank account to almost nothing, by diverting as much as they can of the national treasury into the pockets of the monied class and by indulging in unnecessary wars and other adventures, while enacting laws and following policies designed to punish those who don't see things their way.
       That pushes the public into bringing back Democrats to pump the economy back up while setting aright  the many historical wrongs favored by the Repubs.   The Repubs then pull the wool over American eyes yet again, usually by playing their always dependable trump card, racism,  and  that whole process of Republican wrack and ruin and Democratic reconstruction unfolds all over again.   And it has stood the Repubs in good stead since the 1960's, notwithstanding the truism that whatever is good for them is invariably bad for the U.S. as a whole and for the planet.

Today we are in the middle of the latest Democratic rebuilding process, after the messes left behind by the most recent Repub President, GWBush.   Ordinarly the Repubs might've been more content to wait till there was more in the government coffers for them to loot, but then they let the spectacle of that "nigra in the White House" get the best of them.