What's The Matter With Republicans

Gerald Ford, by today's standards, was a moderate Republican. However, he carried within him the seeds of all that is wrong with the Republicans and the Neoliberals more generally. He hated pleasure and, consequently, failed to understand that there is more to life. How do we know? His

habitual lunch: “a ball of cottage cheese, over which he pours a small pitcherful of A.1. Sauce, a sliced onion or a quartered tomato, and a small helping of butter-pecan ice cream.” Eating was, Ford said, “a waste of time.”

Anyone who thinks like that ought not be allowed to vote let alone run a country.

Consider this epic assault on humanized economyfrom the NYT. It's no doubt true that if Germany undertook to "liberalize" its national economy it would become more "efficient," where efficient stands for increased poverty among the workers with a larger percentage of wealth going to a sliver of Germans. We know this to be true because it is the Neoliberal response to the success of the post-War prosperity caused by the mild social democracy then rampant.

It makes much more sense to insist that Germany give over its commitment to imposing Neoliberal austerity on the rest of the world in the hopes that more social democracy will again lead to a prosperous and happy society.