For all of the much heated attention focused from the right on the “tyrannies” of social safety nets like welfare, healthcare, and social security, these actually may be the only things keeping the country from turning itself inside out with a full-fledged Chinese inspired communist overthrow.
To today’s conservative, this might sound odd. Some, albeit very few, would claim that without these safety nets the economic downturn would have been much worse. Most would claim that the fact that these safety nets even exist is proof that the U.S. is on a slippery slope into commie-fascism. While others might even make the claim that it’s a slow and murderous descension into savagery and fraud, and is the fulfillment of the end-of-times prophecy where every newborn child is stamped with the satanic “mark” of a Social Security number.
You can choose for yourself which theory is more likely…
With national unemployment remaining at a high rate of 8.2%, and some states well above that number, for some people, the only thing keeping food on their plates and their families’ health covered is social security.
Let’s, for the sake of entertaining a nightmare, imagine a few things that conservatives have called to be enacted in the past four years actually passed or transpired…
No Bailouts
With a majority of Republicans voting against the auto and bank bailouts, that puts a lot of Americans (that probably means you and me) out of work and on the street. Cardboard boxes become the new apartment in America, with soup kitchens feeding a large percentage of the population. Looting and rioting become the order of the day.
Privatize Social Security
Now the same groups who brought us Enron and the 2008 financial crisis get to be the piggy banks for your retirement, your unemployment benefits, and your Medicaid. Yay! Assuming these institutions “act in their own self-interest” and do the one thing you hope to god and the heavens they don’t ever do, which would probably be blowing the money on high-risk investments, prostitutes and blow, Social Security goes bankrupt after the financial sector goes bust, packing dynamite into the fire of the already depressed economy. At this point, America (and possibly the world) is ready to lynch anyone with a tie and a briefcase.
No Obamacare
While the economy and the nation plummet into the dark ages, the tiny glimmer of hope that would have at least covered a lot of people on the fringes of the healthcare industry wouldn’t exist. Young adults who would most likely be carrying a tremendous amount of college debt would be out of work and wouldn’t be covered by their parents insurance. Prices on generic drugs soar and insurance companies would continue to drop people “because they got sick” in record numbers.
At War With Iran
While its unlikely that any “sane” person at this point would think it’s a great idea to go to war with another country, well, Republicans would relish the opportunity to do the exact opposite of what people expect the “sane” to do, which would mean going bat-shit crazy. The rag tag group of deregulating war-hawks armed with end-of-days rhetoric throw the U.S. into another war that is likely to start World War 3, due to Iran’s strong ties to Russia and China.
With the economy completely evaporated and the infrastructures of America crumbling, while engaged in another globally devastating war, public opinion in America and the world sways so hard to the left it would make Stalin weep. The New World Order of big brother communism permeates the globe like the plague.
Hey Republicans, if you really don’t want a commie fascist takeover, it’s really simple.
Don’t give the population any reason to lose faith in capitalism.
The quickest way to do this would be to initiate the very Friedmanesque deregulations and privatization that you have been calling for.
The truth is clear now:
Republicans have lost their pride and faith in the American government and hunger for totalitarianism.
