Whether we like it or not, we’re all influenced by what our neighbors are doing. That truism applies to nations and political parties as much as it does to us in our relationships. This concern is brought into focus when we look at Russia, China, and today’s Republican Party.
Let’s look at Russia first. President Putin began his career as leader of Russia by getting elected over twenty years ago. Now he has become dictator-for-life. Over time he has eroded the short-lived freedoms the Russian people gained after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. As the war with Ukraine has continued, Russians have lost more and more of their freedoms. Political opponents have been assassinated. Putin has become more Stalinistic. Joseph Stalin’s gulags saw camps where hundreds of thousands of Russians were imprisoned, some for having done nothing more than criticize the state of the nation or its leader. Putin is following Stalin’s tactics, sending dissidents into far-off prison camps. Putin has tried to “Make Russia Great Again”, but he has actually weakened the nation and caused millions of talented and skilled young people to flee the country.
China has followed in a similar direction without the Chinese people ever having become a democracy. Under former Chinese leader Deng Xiao Ping, China experienced economic freedom where the Chinese people were able to “get rich” through capitalism. Literally millions of Chinese rose out of poverty into the middle class. As a result, China became the number two economic world power.
The current Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, feels threatened by the need for China to convert from a low-wage-export-centered country into a consumer economy. Xi has stripped his people of much of their economic freedom. The nation’s Gross Domestic Product’s growth rate has slowed under Xi’s more restrictive attempts to control. He has become more and more like Mao Zedong, claiming Mao’s godlike persona in the process. Xi is now dictator for life. He has glorified Chinese Marxism as China’s new/old religion.
Xi has continued to harass his Asian neighbors by claiming the rights to control of more and more territory: Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, parts of Japan, and the South China Sea. Xi’s goal, paradoxically, is to return China to its historical claim to being the “Middle Kingdom”—the mediator between Heaven and earth. In other words, Xi wants to “Make China Great Again”.
The U.S. Republican Party has followed a similar approach for some of the same reasons as Russia and China. Republicans cannot win the popular vote for the presidency in national elections. While they repeat the mantra “Make America Great Again,” they have refused to expand their base. Instead, the Republican Party sees that their only way to maintain power can come by winning through the Electoral College, gerrymandering, and voter suppression. Adapting their party platform to meet the needs and desires of their constituents is out of the question. In fact, the Republican Party doesn’t even have a political platform.
The G.O.P. doesn’t stand for anything besides gaining and retaining power. The Republican controlled House of Representatives has been racked with division, has failed in attempts to impeach the president and the secretary of homeland security, and has passed the smallest number of bills in recent Congressional history. Republicans had a chance to solve the immigrant problem on our southern border. Instead, their presidential candidate nixed the deal to gain a wedge issue in the November elections against President Biden.
The Republican Party has sought ways to take away rights of minorities, to demonize various religions and races, and to dehumanize immigrants and turn them into terrorists and rapists. This approach comes at a time when there is a national labor shortage.
Conservative justices and legislatures seem obsessed in their attempts to return women to second class status through harsh state laws and Supreme Court decisions. States have passed repressive and unenforceable laws on travel for women, and by making fertilized ovum outside the womb into living persons. It seems Republicans are waging war against themselves more than they are fighting against the Democrats.
The Russians, the Chinese, and the Republicans are all on the same path of taking away freedoms from their citizens.
Are the Republicans being influenced by Russia and China? Or is the increase in oppression the result of all three failing to cope with changing conditions? What is clear is that none of those three groups are acting in their own best interests or in the interests of their nations.
How long can this madness continue?
