There’s the saying among African-American friends: “It doesn’t matter if we figure out how to succeed.  White men will always change the rules so they’re still in charge.”

It’s hard not to think of the comment as we watch the extreme right wing do its best to fundamentally alter the political process to hang onto power in the light of dramatic demographic shifts in the U.S.

That’s why The Tennessee Legislature – and the U.S. Congress – aren’t just trying to cut funding to Planned Parenthood.  They are out to do nothing less than weight the rules in their own favor.  It is a cynical strategy, because it is based on the assumption that they cannot win the hearts and minds of American voters without changing the rules in the middle of the game.

It’s tempting to say that this is just politics.  But it isn’t.

The story is not about a national discussion about what kind of country we want to be and how our values are best infused into government.  Rather it is about a narrow band of politicians – with many of their core beliefs unsupported by the majority of Americans – setting out to make our country do less for those in need, to eliminate the social contract between government and the governed, to further deepen the economic inequality that belies the American Dream, and to transform government into the vehicle for the rawest form of capitalism.

Changing the Rules

Based on media coverage, it’s hard to grasp the fact that Tea Party Republicans make up 9% of American voters, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press.  (There are more atheists, but they have no voice at all.)  Based upon Congressional debates, it’s hard to imagine that the U.S. is not divided into two warring camps, and that the truth is that the vast majority of Americans agree on social policy and economic issues, according to researchers at University of Pennsylvania and Brigham Young University.

It is inarguable that there is a distinct gap in this country between political parties and the public, and it why we predict in time that the pendulum will swing back to the middle.

The shift began in earnest with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that flooded the political system with corporate money and allows for the inevitable marriage between those with money and those with power.  It has always been difficult for the voiceless and the powerless to be heard in the halls of government.  It is near impossible now.

It is as if these right wing extremists have so little confidence in the American people to sort the political wheat from the chaff and to make the right decision that they feel compelled to change the system to extend their ability to stay in charge long after the nation’s non-white majority is a reality.

It gives new meaning to the phrase, the politics of destruction.

The Campaign

There is the drive to eviscerate unions.

There is the effort to dampen the turnout of minority voters with new requirements like the one for every voter to show a driver’s license.

There is the crusade to redistribute the national wealth to the top 5% of Americans.

There is the effort to allow the wealthy and powerful to have unlimited access to the machinery of politics.

There is the push to use guns and gays as ways to create fear that can be leveraged for political gain.

There is the push to discredit any agency that is even suspected of expressing a different opinion (particularly if speaking for the voiceless), whether it is ACORN or the imagined bias of NPR and NEA.

There is the movement to “starve the beast” – government – but the proposals are to cut public services that are the bridges to the economic mainstream, from higher education to public transit, from workforce training to HeadStart, and more.

Original Sin

There is the effort to inject narrow religious teachings into the classroom and into public life by rewriting the history of the nation and by overpowering separation of church and state.

Then, there is the national campaign to vilify Planned Parenthood, a campaign that has found its way to Memphis as a result of the Republican majority’s vote in the Tennessee Legislature’s to close the women’s advocacy group’s doors by shifting state funding to a Shelby County Health Department unprepared to offer the services and unwilling to accept them.

But then, the Republican pressure began.

Make no mistake about it, these legislators may oppose abortion, but the assault on Planned Parenthood is more about annihilating contrary political voices rather than the normal yin and yang of political debate.  It comes although Planned Parenthood spends no public money to offer abortions to women.  It comes although the funding change takes direct aim on poor women.  It comes although a majority of Americans don’t agree with the target put on women’s reproductive rights and certainly not new laws that would prohibit abortion, even in the event of rape or incest .

It appears that on the issue of Planned Parenthood, Governor Bill Haslam – despite rhetoric suggesting that he’s the grown-up in Tennessee’s Capitol – is reported to be pushing for the Nashville and Shelby County Health Departments to reconsider their decisions to reject state funding for family planning.    Apparently the original sin is not that it does provide abortions, which (at least at this moment) is a completely legal procedure in the U.S., and even if eventually outlawed, it only affects lower income women since the rest of us will have ways to get them.

Velvet Gloved

The current Tennessee Legislature – which devotes an uncanny amount of its time chasing “solutions” in search of problems – want local health departments to provide family planning services, and earlier this year, local Health Department officials said that they could not provide them for lack of staff and services.

But logic and reason are rarely convincing with state government these days, and although the legislation that was passed left a loophole that would put off a final decision on Planned Parenthood funding for a year, pressures from Republican legislative leaders and Haslam political advisers pushed the issue to the front burner once again by asking our local Health Department to reconsider.

Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris injected himself into yet another local issue amid reports that he is trying to find an alternative to Planned Parenthood.  As usual, he’s made no cogent argument for why this change would be good public policy or how Planned Parenthood has failed to deliver quality, effective services to women.

There is the weak attempt to make it appear to be a question of policy, but the talking points ring hollow.  In the end, it’s not about what’s best for women.  It’s about what’s best for the moralistic, rural-minded base to whom the majority cannot pay too much homage.

They Know They’re Right…Far Right

These are the same people celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Bush tax cuts even thought they sent 65% of the income gains to the top 1% richest people in the U.S. and produced the greatest income inequality in the history of Western Civilization.  (Despite the talking points, jobs growth following the Bush tax cuts was weaker than in the 1990s when growth was preceded by a tax increase.)  The tax cuts added almost 50% of the total debt accrued in the decade, and if extended to 2021, they will cost more than $5 trillion, once again about half of the projected deficits.

It’s an example of the fantastical thinking that passes for political leadership these days, particularly in our own legislature.  We have little patience here for the doctrinaire – which is why we don’t watch Fox News or MSNBC – and for the echo chamber that creates the fiction that the Tea Party represents mainstream American thinking and gives them influence disproportionate to their size.

Perhaps, these right-wing extremists, who stand in stark contrast to the traditions of Republican conservatism, know how short-lived their time in power will be.  That’s why they are working so frantically to change government, the political process, and the free enterprise that balanced an obligation to the civic, and not just the corporate, good.