General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsVote: What was the worst act of GOP Treason ever?
Here is the short list of Republican acts of treason over modern history:
The Business Plot (1933)
A group of wealthy industrialists attempted to hire a WW1 general to lead a fascist revolution to overthrow the Roosevelt administration. It would initially be a bloodless coup, although given how such things typically evolve in history, it's unlikely it would have stayed bloodless. Fortunately the general was not on board with the idea and reported the plot, although the Roosevelt administration, wishing to avoid potentially creating divisions in the American people at a dangerous time, chose not to prosecute it.
Watergate (1972-1974)
The Nixon administration formed a secret squad within the White House to conduct illegal covert operations to steal information, suppress leaks, and spy on political opponents. Serious discussions were underway to evolve the organization into a secret police force that would assassinate the President's enemies by the time the scandal broke.
October Surprise (1980)
Members of the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign and Republican Party were in contact with representatives of the Iranian revolutionary state that was then holding hundreds of American diplomats hostage in Tehran. They sought to ensure that the hostages would not be released while President Carter could benefit politically from it, so they (the Reaganistas) struck a deal with avowed enemies of the United States to benefit themselves politically.
Iran-Contra (1984-1987)
The Reagan administration had been financing fascist terrorist groups in Central America, but the US Congress took a dim view of this and banned any further support. Reagan ignored the ban and continued funding them illegally. This did not rise to the level of treason (merely impeachable crime), but the method of generating the illegal funding did: Selling weapons to Iran, an avowed enemy of the United States.
The 2000 coup (2000)
A number of interlocking conspiracies led to the final, fraudulent result of the 2000 US presidential election, but the two key factors were the criminal defrauding of the Florida vote through mass-disenfranchisement and other illegal behavior by the Republican Florida Secretary of State. The final act, however, was the lawless and arbitrary ruling of five members of the US Supreme Court, ordering the state of Florida to stop counting votes, and using as justification such bizarre Orwellian reasoning as that thorough examination might yield a different result and thus call Bush's victory into question. It was the most naked example in US history of electoral interference, and overturned the actual result of the election through raw exercise of power.
The US Constitution remained in a state of suspension for the next 6-8 years as a result of the ensuing dictatorship, leaving only state governments and a few standalone federal bureaucracies in effective operation. The next two acts of Treason followed directly from this one.
Torture (2001-2008)
Following 9/11, for years on end thousands of terrorism suspects - including innocent people whose names merely resembled suspects, or who were denounced by paid informants in third-world countries - were held in secret prisons and tortured to confess and give the names of other "terrorists." Anyone they named in order to stop the torture was also likely to be tortured if captured. Several prisoners are documented by the Red Cross to have been tortured to death, but their remains are classified and tape recordings of their torture were burned by the CIA to avoid justice. Crimes for which German and Japanese military officers were hanged after WW2 were finally gleefully admitted by Republican officials once they felt confident of never being brought to justice, though only after years of lying denials.
Iraq War (2003-2011)
Iraq had not attacked the United States, did not have the military capability to attack the United States, had no plans to attack the United States, was not in any way involved with terrorists, and there was no evidence whatsoever to the contrary on any point. Nonetheless, the Bush regime fabricated intelligence to claim so, retaliated against US intelligence officials who contradicted their lies, bullied and threatened Congressional leaders who opposed them, sabotaged UN weapons inspections efforts, ignored a United Nations refusal to authorize action in Iraq, and ordered the aggressive invasion and conquest of Iraq at the expense of 5,000 US lives, 40,000 or so Iraqi civilians through direct US military action, and ultimately a million Iraqi civilians from the ensuing chaos and deprivation.
Aside from the human toll, it also cost the United States taxpayer over a trillion dollars, much of which was stolen through no-bid contractors associated with Dick Cheney who delivered inferior or nonexistent goods or services for the money. The current situation with ISIS is a direct result of the Iraq War, as is nearly 10% of the US national debt. Surplus equipment from the Iraq War was then given to local police departments, contributing to the militarization of police forces in the United States. Thousands were tortured as a direct result of this war. Once again, German and Japanese military officers after WW2 were executed for crimes identical to this.
Vote suppression (2000 onward)
The GOP has gradually perfected the "science" of rigging elections by preventing likely Democratic voters from exercising their rights, usually by targeting racial minorities for selective and extraordinary demands to prove their identities, leading a state of intimidation and deterrence against voting. In many cases Republicans achieve office solely because they illegally stopped a sufficient number of opposing voters from participating, effectively sabotaging American democracy and ruling by force and fraud. The number of Americans prevented from voting by Republicans tends to grow with each passing year.
Vote for which one of these you consider the worst Republican Treason, or add your own in comments.
Update: I forgot about Nixon in 1968 (before he was President) sabotaging Vietnam peace talks to give himself the leg up in the election. Thanks to KingCharlemagne for bringing that up in a comment. Vast numbers of American and Vietnamese lives were lost in the war in the years following, which may otherwise have been saved. If you want to vote for that as the worst GOP Treason, vote "Other".
18 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited | |
The Business Plot | |
1 (6%) |
|
Watergate | |
1 (6%) |
|
October Surprise | |
1 (6%) |
|
Iran-Contra | |
1 (6%) |
|
The 2000 Coup | |
11 (61%) |
|
Torture | |
0 (0%) |
|
Iraq War | |
2 (11%) |
|
Vote Suppression | |
0 (0%) |
|
Other | |
1 (6%) |
|
0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided. | |
Show usernames
Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll |
muntrv
(14,505 posts)will never have to answer for crimes they have committed, thus leading to the acts of treason afterwards.
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)Gerald Ford wasn't a bad guy, and yet that one act of cowardice or venal self-interest doomed us to everything that followed.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Vietnam draft evaders and resisters whose crimes were indisputably far less serious than Tricky Dick's.
President Carter largely rectified the error in 1977 but 3 years had gone by since Nxon's flameout and pardon. It's been awhile, but I sort of remember that even President Carter didn't get it 100% right at the time, leaving draft resisters with their sentences on the books. Been awhile since I studied the period, so I may be suffering from false memory syndrome.
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)The WW2 generation was still politically powerful, and their attitude was that the time to challenge leaders is at the ballot box, but once they're in and they decide for war, you obey - "Hell or high water, together."
The ascending generation was more individualistic, and didn't see it that way. Obviously pardoning the resisters was the moral choice in hindsight, but I can't say with certainty that that would have been my opinion if I'd been an adult in the 1970s.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)as clear as day how people noted the odd disconnect in Ford's pardon of Nixon while letting draft evaders and resisters keep twisting in the wind for opposing a war that an overwhleming majority of Americans had by then concluded was a tragic error. But somehow Ford couldn't summon up the grace or decency to pardon those who took a stand against in illegal and unjust war. Really stains Ford's legacy, imo.
Ford said he was pardoning Nixon to help 'heal the nation.' But draft evaders and resisters? Their wounds apparently didn't count.
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)Instead his legacy is as the muppet who pardoned a traitor and would-be dictator.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Ford managed to shepherd the country through its second-worst constitutional crisis (the worst being secession in 1860-1) and to preserve the primacy of the Constitution. That's nothing to sneeze at, especially given the lasting damage the next Republican President (Reagan) would do to that same constitutional order with Iran-Contra.
I don't admire Ford for reasons I've detailed upthread but I do give him a grudging respect for preserving the constitution.
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)largely due to the same clowns. Reagan's crooks mostly had their roots with Nixon. Even Cheney came up under Nixon. It was a nursery of horrors, and Ford stopped the wheels of justice in their tracks.
Stargleamer
(2,147 posts)Al Gore wouldn't have gone there.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)scuttled the peace negotiations that might have ended the Vietnam War in 1968. As it happens, the terms that finally ended the war were basically those that were proposed in 1968 but that Thieu at the time opposed, since Nixon's boys were promising Thieu he'd get a better deal if he held out for a Nixon presidency. Instead of ending the war in 1968, American went on for another 6 years, losing another 30,000-odd American soliders KIA and about 1-2 million southeast Asians killed or wounded.
George S. Will has recently confirmed once and for all that Nixon and his boys committed treason as the Constitution defines it against the U.S.
catnhatnh
(8,976 posts)...but my brother was drafted and sent to Vietnam in '69 and I had a narrow escape in late '72. This treason hit very close to home.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)contrary notwithstanding. IMO, we owe the Vietnameses and Cambodian people massive reparations and a war crimes trial of Kissinger.
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)Can't (or at least shouldn't) alter the poll now though, since people have voted.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)would have been no 'Watergate,' since the Plumbers were originally established to stop leaks from Nixon's NSC about his policies and plans in southeast Asia. Ellsberg makes this argument in, IIRC, his autobiography Secrets.
bullwinkle428
(20,640 posts)Stuart G
(38,726 posts)A war that went on that could have been stopped. Dick Nixon turns out worse than anybody thought, and that is beyond thought.
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)The rationalizations for going into Vietnam were specious, but they weren't 100% fiction opposed by nearly the entire world and the US intelligence community. Furthermore, we were invited by an allied sovereign state - South Vietnam, so we weren't technically invading and occupying another country. Iraq had more in common with the German invasion of Poland, and I mean that literally - it's not hyperbole. The damage to people and the economy of Vietnam was worse, but the damage to the American soul and Constitution was far worse in Iraq.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)terms of the 1954 Geneva peace treaty, terms of which the South reneged upon, starting . . . in 1954. Granted we had diplomatic relations with, and an ambassador to, South Vietnam. But Vietnam did not become 'sovereign,' imo, until 1974 when the last choppers flew off the roof of the U.S. embassy in what was then called Saigon and is now known as Ho Chi Minh City.
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)damning catalogue of perfidy and treachery you have here assembled.
My sincerest compliments!
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Great way to neutralize your opposition - buy your way into the game, and then rig it so that you always win.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)in your post, Zorra.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)with a track record like that even still exist and, indeed, prosper?
That tells one much of what needs to be known about how terminally fucked-up this country is.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)moondust
(20,370 posts)It used to be the "white power business and agriculture party" but now is more like the "white power plutocracy party" since its wealth concentration policies that serve the Koch monsters are not good for small business or small farmers.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)"Money corrupts. Billions corrupt absolutely."
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)And while it killed tens of thousands of Americans. His negligence cost untold millions of lives by wasting precious early time in the still raging war against HIV/AIDS. 6 years he did nothing but giggle about it all.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)back to rage. And tears. And rage.
All roads now lead to Ferguson.
randys1
(16,286 posts)LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)(Although to me it'd always be "Dumbfuckistan".)
Stallion
(6,583 posts)I was a History Major and history junkie and I really don't know jack about the "Business Plot". Sounds like a fantabulous movie if true. Many of the other options are really incompetence, negligence or other criminal activity rather than treason
Old Nick
(468 posts)HubertHeaver
(2,526 posts)If the perpetrators had been charged with their crimes it would be a far different world.
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)For one thing, they might not have been convicted, and yet still benefit from the publicity surrounding the trial, breathing life and energy into fascist movements.
Or even if they were convicted, it would break a psychological barrier in the culture: Such conspiracies would now be acknowledged as something that happens in America, loosening the psychological pathway to repeats.
A liberal government walks a tightrope in dealing with such phenomena. Roosevelt faced a public in immediate material desperation due to the Depression, and rising hostile governments abroad. Trials would probably have made people feel less secure, so I don't blame him for not proceeding.
The failure to try George W. Bush was, however, an epic mistake.
HubertHeaver
(2,526 posts)I do understand different is not necessarily better.
randys1
(16,286 posts)so Reagan could beat Carter....
Remember, this happened around that time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw
Eight men died that day, if Reagan's treason was PRIOR to this then guilty of murder too.
AWESOME thread
I see you have it on the list, the question is WHEN did they do it?
lpbk2713
(43,187 posts)Katherine Harris, James Baker, the Supremes ... the biggest crime
in history and almost everyone involved walked away smiling.