Once we recognize that Libertarianism is essentially neo-feudalism, and that it is now the dominant conservative philosophy of the Republican Party, it’s not hard to understand Republican priorities.
The basic idea of neo-feudalism, at least as I discuss it here, is that power is properly derived from wealth and the willingness to seize it, and not from votes. Power is held by wealthy employers and investors, who use it to build loyalty among the less fortunate, by means of patronage or bullying, without being hindered by popular elected officials.
While this aligns somewhat with fascism, neo-feudalism has different reasons for many of the same priorities. Yet it’s still a a weaponization of the state’s power for the use of wealthy individuals, the church, and corporations—specifically away from traditionally marginalized or non-wealthy groups. (I’d call it more of a “semi-fascism,” although perhaps it’s just another example of how fascism localizes itself wherever it rises.) Shrinking the size and power of democratic government is therefore essential to this philosophy, because it moves power away from the majority and their votes, and toward individual wealth and existing power.
Those with the most capital tend to have a small check on their activities in a democracy already, because they aren’t elected officials and their power can’t be voted away. They also have a built-in barrier to being elected, despite their ability to spend more on their races, because in a democracy the policies they promote will be unpopular with most citizens.
So instead, they build fear and distrust of any government by and for the people by targeting marginal groups, and then point to the weakened and/or untrusted state to create a power vacuum that they themselves can fill. Trump himself is a good example of how this works in action, and the continuing election of extremely wealthy fraudsters like Rick Scott show just how popular this anti-democratic movement has become.
Here are some the tools being used:
-Citizens United & unlimited campaign contributions to PACs, including from foreign sources, to ensure higher influence of wealth in votes
-Deliberate shift away from democracy and voting by limiting who can vote
-Push for any assistance to be church- or corporate-based, creating reliance on generosity of individuals and not society as a safety net for poor
-Intense opposition to any government assistance, as it lessens employer dominance; this includes govt-funded healthcare, unemployment assistance, social security, etc.
-Pumping money into military budgets at expense of everything else, for this system will require massive enforcement AND because a weak government makes foreign takeover a real concern and the budgets are just increasing annually as the wasteful spending drains taxpayer dollars and stifles American innovation and excellence.
-Privatize everything, even the military, to link corporate control to all of society’s functions - and enables massive profit-taking for the well-connected (look at the immense fortunes built by decades of ineffective “training” in Afghanistan)
With this “neo-feudalist” lens, it becomes fairly straightforward to predict where the GOP will land on any given issue. Despite their lack of a policy platform, we don’t actually need to read it. After all, it would only expose their most unpopular beliefs, and we can ascertain those simply by looking at what keeps power in the hands of the powerful.
From their opposition to social security, to universal healthcare (harder to exploit people when they aren’t desperate), to FEMA (can’t funnel money through their own organizations that way), to women’s rights, to contraception (same issue on exploitation), to military privatization, to private prisons, to taxes (especially to taxes), it’s all predictable if you see what shifts power to the already-powerful.
It’s what conservatism has always done. It’s simply more brazenly authoritarian now, because it’s fighting back against real power from an engaged and evolving nation.
Conservatism is authoritarian, and it always was. When conservatives face change they will always abandon democracy and impose their beliefs through force to retain power. It has happened here before and it is happening here again.
Small government? That has always applied to one thing, and one thing only: reducing the power of the state to regulate the wealthy. And today that means reducing the ability to vote. Rules limiting what you can read, how you worship, what you can do in private as a consenting adult, where you can speak and what you can say, that’s where conservatives adore big government. But letting the will of the common people prevail? That’s where conservatives want to drown democracy in a bathtub.
