Have you noticed?

Have you noticed that even after taking control of the government, Republicans are still not building or creating anything? One could almost understand their constant obstruction to anything the Obama Administration wanted to do since they hated him so much and couldn’t get much past the Dems in the Senate and Obama’s veto. But now, with control of the White House and both houses of Congress, their only agenda is to dismantle, repeal, exclude, and withdraw. What’s up here? Is there anything about this country and our society they do like?

Our nation, with the support of both Parties, has spent decades building legal and administrative infrastructures to protect citizens from disease causing pollutants in our air, water, and food; to protect citizen consumers from unscrupulous and rapacious business practices; to protect competition and small businesses from dominance by large monopolies; to promote national leadership in science and innovation; to provide Americans with the best possible health care; and to at least promise equal rights and opportunities for people regardless of gender, race, religion, or national origin. Through taxation and government based programs, the enormous natural resources the country was drawing on and the wealth it generated was shared in ways that promoted a thriving middle class. That structure made possible a national economic growth and upward social and economic mobility that was admired throughout the world and was relatively unique to world history.

So, why are Republicans absurdly denying human causes of global warming and canceling government research and programs that address it, and aiming to cut or eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency (ironically, a Republican creation)? Why would they want to neutralize or eliminate the Consumer Protection Bureau, or allow the biggest businesses to control access to the internet? Why destroy a comprehensive health care system when they know they don’t have a better idea; and why deliberately downgrade science from a respected and reliable source of fact finding to partisan propaganda? Why encourage White Nationalism, declare war on Muslims, and resist individual gender expression? And why keep shrinking the middle class by manipulating tax structures to make the very rich richer at the expense of everyone else?

Is this what they meant by making America great again? If patriotism is love of country, what is this apparent hatred of so much of what our nation has valued and built over all these years?

And finally, why are Republicans who worked to build this infrastructure allowing this to happen?