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The corporatization of the GOP & potentially of America [1]

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Date: 2024-08-02  

I visited China for 3 months in 1985 as a tourist. Later, on the same trip, I visited Singapore for 2 weeks. At the time, I remarked that Singapore had combined economic prosperity without political freedom & it was certain that China would copy this model. I have since learned that Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore in 1978 & had already started China on this course by the time of my visit.

China has adapted this model with great success. Their economy has developed in ways that would have been hard to imagine in the 1970s. At the same time, the CCP has used technology to maintain a tight grip on political power as a single party political system.

I have done previous investigation on the rise of multinational corporations on this planet:

x x Embedded Content & their ability to influence politics. This chart is dated but it still illustrates how much influence can be exerted by large corporations with no other allegiances than the allegiance to making a profit. I have come to realize that single party states, like China, Russia, Iran, etc. are functionally very similar to these large corporations but with the distinction of valuing a national identity in conjunction with maintaining total organizational control. & their ability to influence politics. This chart is dated but it still illustrates how much influence can be exerted by large corporations with no other allegiances than the allegiance to making a profit. I have come to realize that single party states, like China, Russia, Iran, etc. are functionally very similar to these large corporations but with the distinction of valuing a national identity in conjunction with maintaining total organizational control.

I now listen to some of the themes in American (& to a lesser extent, European) politics. Social media has greatly increased the toxicity in countries with multi party politics. While it can be argued that external forces have exacerbated this toxicity, the fact is that it exists. I've investigated some of the billionaires backing Trump, (consider his VP pick of JD Vance, a scion of Peter Thiel) many of whom are inspired by the likes of Curtis Yarvin & Rick Land. These billionaires openly support ending democracy & replacing it with something like a corporate leadership structure with a CEO & a corporate board. Very much like China, Russia, Hungary, etc.

These people believe, as do the leaders of the CCP & Russia, that you can have economic prosperity without political freedom.

However, the challenge which such systems have failed (& will continue to fail) to meet is the problem of corruption. Singapore has been able to manage it largely because of its small size & willingness to pay government employees sufficiently generous salaries. In countries as large as Russia & China (& America should it follow such a model), it is much harder to police corruption & invariably, there are show trials of corrupt officials which do not actually address the core problem.

We already know that a government run by the likes of Donald Trump will not only fail to address corruption but will make it exponentially worse. The Koan, if you will, is that the alternative outcome will probably be the collapse of the GOP as it has effectively become a cult beholden to their orange messiah. While I am much more sympathetic to the values espoused by the leaders of the Democratic party, I fear that a reorganization of American politics dominated by the Democratic party will ultimately result in a similar problem of corruption, even if not as quickly or to the extreme as a government under Trump would produce. The two party system, for all of its failings, does serve the function of having the ability to better police the party in power.

What we must effectively communicate to our fellow citizens is that the GOP is actively moving to end democracy & that China is not so much the adversary that they claim as the model that they wish to copy

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