The Secret GOP Plot To Change Our Constitution Slithers Forward, ALEC: Thom Hartmann

[appalachiablue]

- Daily Kos, Dec. 13, 2023. 📜

One of the right’s favorite fever dreams over the years has been to gut the US Constitution of many of its checks and balances and officially turn America into a legal oligarchy with a strongman presidency, nearly bulletproof legal immunity for the morbidly rich, and full personhood for corporations.

As of this month, it’s no longer just a dream.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) completed their winter “National Policy Summit” get-together in Scottsdale, Arizona last week with Speaker Mike Johnson as its keynote speaker. This is the group that’s brought “Stand Your Ground” and voter suppression “model legislation” to Red states across America and, for fifty years now, has been bringing together corporate lobbyists and Republican state-level politicians to make state after state more corporate- and billionaire-friendly.

At this recent meeting they rolled out a new strategy to convene a Constitutional Convention, so they can finally remake America in their own image: they’re going to try to get the six corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court — who all have direct or indirect ties back to ALEC, its related/affiliated organizations, and/or its funders — to go along with it.

Former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold (now a professor of law and president of the American Constitution Society) is not prone to hyperbole; he’s always been a thoughtful and measured speaker and writer. So, it’s worth taking him seriously when he recently said of MAGA Mike Johnson: "It is alarming to have a speaker of the House who supports the extremist Convention of States movement, which is striving to radically rewrite the U.S. Constitution.”... - More, https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/13/2211473/-The-Secret-GOP-Plot-to-Change-our-Constitution-Slithers-Forward

[2naSalit]

1. Shock Doctrine 2.0...

O Shock Doctrine 2024.

With the daily barrage of incredibly unbelievable bullshit hurled at us on a minute by minute schedule, much is being done to undermine the very foundations of our nation. While we struggle to keep up and to survive on a basic level, these MFers are rewriting law and statue to seize authoritarian control such that by the time we figure it out, it could be too late.

Think Chile 1972. Naomi Klein warned us when W was leaving office.

The term is wise, everybody needs to wise up, being woke is only the start of what we need to be doing and where we need to be.

Just sayin.

[Martin Eden]

2. The enemies of democracy are highly organized and deeply funded

The oligarchy and its paid servants are very adept at convincing Americans to vote against their own interests, not by arguing the merits their true intentions but by manipulating voters through culture wars, fearmongering, and Big Lies.

Democrats need to up their game, or all is lost.

[Farmer-Rick]

7. Well put

You got to wonder though why we have these out of control oligarchs?

When the billionaire Pete Peterson died, he gave his wealth to a foundation he started. One of the major goals of this foundation that his son now runs is to get rid of Social Security, a program 90% of voters support.

What is wrong with this society that people who got so much out of it, so want to destroy it?

There is a huge problem that no one addresses. What allows for these oligarchs in almost every country to control the politics and most of the power of a country?

The answer is the top down, dictatorial economic systems. He who has the most capital, gets the most capital. The more capital you got, the more capital you get. The less capital you got the less capital you get. If you are born with capital, you get the most capital. If you are born without capital, you probably will never have enough capital to survive without almost constant labor

Change the economy and you change the whole structure of politics, power and democracy. We need more democracy in our economy.

[Martin Eden]

9. Lust for wealth and power has always plagued human civilization

So too have efforts by the rich and powerful to control the masses through deception, force, and/or pitting them against each other.

Capitalism itself isn't the problem so much as insufficient education and the corrupt system of legalized bribery sustained by the Citizens United ruling.

When wealth equates to speech, money speaks the loudest.

[highplainsdem]

3. Damn it. Damn ALEC. And damn the media for not having given a lot more coverage

to what ALEC was up to.

It's been nearly 13 years since I posted a mega-thread here (with a lot of help from others)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230

with hundreds of info- and link-filled replies to try to give people here more of an idea of how dangerous ALEC was, even then. How extensive its influence was. Media attention could have done a lot to stop or at least slow that toxic monster.

What Hartmann is talking about here should be front-page news.

But ALEC is still operating almost entirely under the media radar.

And it's been helped in the last 13 years by more media consolidation, more local news organizations going out of business (so there's less coverage of why state legislators are doing what they've been doing). And almost certainly helped as well by media unwillingness to upset the corporations and billionaires quietly funding ALEC all these years, pushing for more and more control of state legislatures. Too many media sponsors among those ALEC sponsors.

The Biden admin and everyone in the liberal media (what remains of it) need to shine a spotlight on this.

[appalachiablue]

5. ++ Great points, thanks.

[GiqueCee]

4. The monsters never sleep...

... in their relentless pursuit of a Randian hellscape in which they lounge in luxury and enslave the rest of us. The smug, pearl-clutching Pollyannas that dismiss this possibility are simply not paying attention, just like those that pooh-poohed Hitler's ascension in the 30's.
ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) is a malignant cancer whose continued existence can no longer be tolerated. They, and all their conservative co-conspirators, are guilty of the most insidious treason in their fevered dream to gut the U.S. Constitution.
They must be stopped at all costs.

[Squatchman]

6. This is the reason

For the 2nd amendment.

[Farmer-Rick]

10. How does the 2nd amendment help prevent

A Constitutional Convention?

And if you are changing the Constitution, you no longer have a 2nd amendment, or any amendments for that matter.

[Lonestarblue]

8. ALEC is funded by corporations and is the means by which they govern much of the US.

ALEC writes the legislation for Republican states and corporate lobbyists do the same for legislation proposed in Congress. We’ve had a secret oligarchic form of government for decades, and it hasn’t worked out so well for we the people. ALEC and corporations are behind the refusal to address climate warming, the dismantling of several financial protections by Congress, and the constant battle over protections for the environment and consumer safety that corporations fight. They have already won the tax battles and the support of the extremists on the Supreme Court.

Republicans have focused more on taking state control and poured lots of money into local elections because they’re short the number of states they need to control to call a Constitutional Convention. Thank heavens Democrats took back Michigan and Pennsylvania. I think national Democrats are finally waking up to the threat of ignoring state races and allowing Republicans to win more states.

If Republicans like Johnson got to rewrite the Constitution, they would make the Taliban look like progressives. I heard this week on the news that women in Afghanistan are not allowed to live alone. They are required to have a husband or male family member direct their every action. The Taliban is now locking up women whose husbands die or who leave them. The excuse is that it’s for their own protection. The reality is stone age attitudes—just like in some red states pregnant women who have been arrested for drugs have been locked up until their delivery to prevent them from having an abortion. Some have even been forced to deliver their babies in their jail cells—no help, no medications, nothing. Republican run states are truly barbaric.