Trump Didn't Start the Fire: The Republican Party's Decades of Deliberate Dysfunction
Exclusive excerpt from Brian Tyler Cohen's New York Times bestseller, 'Shameless.'
NOTE FROM MEHDI: We’re excited, here at Zeteo, to offer our subscribers an exclusive extract, below, from my good friend Brian Tyler Cohen’s provocative new book SHAMELESS: Republicans’ Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy. Brian is a YouTube creator, progressive commentator, MSNBC analyst and now also a New York Times bestselling author. His book lays bare the cynical duplicity and decades-long master plan of the modern Republican Party.
The Republican strategy that would ultimately deliver an insurrectionist into power has essentially been a long con, constructed over decades. Mehdi Hasan, the British American journalist, author, and CEO of the media company Zeteo, assisted in tracking it with me. But he cautioned against the word “con,” as the GOP’s plans have all been laid out, largely in plain sight, ever since the Nixon era.
“On the one hand, it is a con because they’re pretending to be the party of populism, the party of family values. That is a con. On the other hand, what they’re planning to do is out there if you’re willing to go find it. They’re not hiding the tax cut plans. They’re not hiding the racist plans. They’re not hiding their intention to tear up democracy, certainly not now, under [Donald] Trump. But even 10, 20, 30 years ago, that was the case.”
Indeed, the Republicans’ top judicial minds wrote down their strategy, primarily in an explicit call to action (complete with detailed instructions) commonly known as the Powell memo.
Lewis F. Powell was a tall, slim, bespectacled attorney with fierce ambition. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island describes him as “a tough and incisive lawyer, willing and able to make sharp, even harsh, decisions … well-settled in the White male social and corporate elite of Richmond, VA.” A prominent, serious citizen, Powell sat on nearly a dozen major corporate boards, enabling him to observe that antiwar protests and the movements for civil rights and women’s rights were disrupting all-white boardrooms and ruffling the feathers of the comfortably elite men who occupied those executive suites.
The DC-based US Chamber of Commerce commissioned Powell to put together a confidential plan for reestablishing corporate authority. His seminal report, “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” opens with an edgy, dramatic declaration: “No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack.” It concludes, “Business and the enterprise system are in deep trouble, and the hour is late.”
The “broad attack” to which Powell was referring – in a tone more apt for warning villagers of bloody warfare against the Vikings – was written in response to threats like public health groups linking tobacco to lung cancer. The audacity!
His memo, which recommended that corporate powers cease all acts of compromise, has since served as a de facto blueprint for the conservative movement. Through the use of fearmongering rhetoric – “frontal assault,” “battles,” repeated use of the word “attack” – it aimed to persuade corporate leaders that they were engaged in a war for their freedom. Corporations had to cease efforts to compromise, it insisted, as “the ultimate issue may be survival.”
The Powell memo was extremely specific, detailing a full-on propaganda effort to be funded by businesses’ advertising budgets. It dictated that corporations should strategically place speakers on college campuses and monitor textbooks for the potential bias of their content. The dangers of “liberal” and “far left” faculty members were cited repeatedly, establishing them as enemies. Much attention was given to the importance of directing corporate presence and resources to radio broadcasts and TV networks.
Powell emphasized the value of applying pressure to ensure optimal power and influence in the political arena, as well as the necessity of punishing those who opposed such efforts. Though initially confidential, the report was leaked and eventually published, giving businessmen a method for maintaining power. All it required was persistence and discipline – qualities traditional Republicans proved themselves capable of sustaining.
Finally, the memo explains the necessity of gaining control of the courts and “exploiting judicial action.” Powell states that “the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic, and political change.” And he would reach the top tier to help prove as much. He submitted his report in August 1971. Two months later, President Richard Nixon nominated Powell to the Supreme Court. The following January, he was sworn in as an associate justice. He remained on the highest court in the land for the next 15 years.
The idea of “positive polarization,” a notion pushed especially hard by Pat Buchanan (a grievance-driven, blustering, inept but effective cultural figure), who served as Nixon’s “opposition researcher,” pissed-off-voter whisperer, and movement conservative speechwriter, came into play at about the same time Powell ascended to the Supreme Court.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson confirmed the enthusiasm felt for this idea of winning over voters by pushing divisiveness:
“Vice President Spiro Agnew took to it like a duck to water. When Agnew talked about positive polarization, it was positive in the sense that it convinced Republicans to stick with Nixon because those other guys were so bad by comparison . . . so Nixon really started that polarization, and then of course [Ronald] Reagan injected it with steroids.”
Though today he’s burnished as a modern ideal of Republican governance, in reality – behind the smile and the charm he had honed as the host of General Electric Theater – Reagan was a leader who succeeded in breaking down more than he built up, and in filling Americans with a sense of distrust in the system. His infamous inaugural statement, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem,” was taken to heart by masses of Americans.
A succession of bad-faith politicians seized on the approach of beating opponents by stressing ideological distinctions. If lies were required to achieve that end? Go for it. Energizing coalitions of angry, small-minded white men? Sure. Violence? Naturally.
Among the most enduring proponents of the strategy was Newt Gingrich, a military brat elected to Congress in 1979 after two failed bids. Once he secured his seat, he and his perma-smug expression set out to poison the chamber with a new level of dysfunction. He applied himself to breaking the Democrats’ control over the House by pitting the parties against each other. He threw wrenches into commonsense legislation, sowed discord, and polluted the political process.
The goal? Make Americans so disgusted with government that they would lose trust in whoever was in power.
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