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It appears the Republican Party- the Grand Old Party, the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, the incubator of the original Progressive movement - is tacitly accepting that it is moving towards an inevitable disaster, a crash-and-burn finale resulting from its failure at governance. Riven by ideological differences, led by an incompetent President, exposed as craven hirelings of our presumptive oligarchs, and facing an inexorable demographic change, Congressional Republicans, despite having majorities in both Houses, act as if they know their tenure in power will soon end. Their shameless hypocrisy, coupled with the ineptitude and corruption of the narcissist in the White House, is driving them to desperate measures in a last-ditch effort to remake government as the libertarian tool of the wealthy. As they shuffle towards the exit, they busy themselves reducing our governing institutions of the Republic to feckless totems.

Their latest attempt is a package of tax cuts benefiting the wealthy and corporations. The loss of tax revenue is projected to add 1.5 trillion dollars to the Federal deficit over the next ten years. Their preferred euphemism for this give-away is tax reform: in a display of cheekiness, the Senate entitled its version of the bill  the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”. (The wags of the podcast “Pod Save America* call it “The Donor Relief Act of 2017”, pointing out the true beneficiaries of the bill will be the wealthy funders of GOP campaigns.)

If the Republicans were simply content to assuage the donor class by lowering its tax burden, they would reprise their traditional playbook of straight-forward tax cuts. Cutting taxes is their mantra, as is their tired rationale of economic growth via trickle-down. In the past, as with the Bush tax cuts of 2001, the decrease in the levy was to sunset after ten years so as not to run afoul of the Senate’s “Byrd  Rule” that prohibits a negative effect on the deficit. The GOP work-around has been to pay for the cuts by eliminating tax expenditures- credits and deductions. The Senate’s bill, for example, eliminated the credit taxpayers get for paying state taxes. It jettisoned the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that people purchase health insurance, thus obviating the need for the government to subsidize those who could not afford to pay the premiums. The House version removed the exemption for the waived fees and tuition of graduate students who teach and do research, so these grants will now be treated as taxable income. It also eliminates the deductions for the interest on student loans. Neither version did away with the carried interest loophole that allows hedge-fund and private equity managers to treat income for their services to be taxed at the same 15% rate as capital gains.

The final version has now emerged from the all-Republican House-Senate conference committee. There was some mitigation-by-tweaking, but there are also more give-aways than in either house’s original version. As Vox’s Dylan Matthews points out,

“By 2027, more than half of all Americans — 53 percent — would pay more in taxes under the tax bill agreed to by House and Senate Republicans, a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds. That year, 82.8 percent of the bill’s benefit would go to the top 1 percent, up from 62.1 under the Senate bill.”

(You can check out the entire Matthews article here.)

The party of fiscal responsibility does not intend to stop with the tax bill. Sensing the fragility of their political position, they are going all in on reducing government and choking off the large Federal entitlement programs. As they prepare to blow up the annual budget deficits and immiserate the government with debt, they have begun talking about cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

You get the sense that the Republicans’ capture of the Federal government will be a Pyrrhic victory. Congress, with approval ratings hovering in the teens, is far more unpopular than the Tweeter-in-Chief, an amazing circumstance given Trump’s historically low approval ratings. They failed to repeal Obama’s hallmark legislation, the ACA. In an ironic twist, so-called “Obama-care” is more popular than ever. The tax bill has low approval numbers in polls even before it is forcibly rammed into law (or before anyone can discern what all it contains). The outcome of the recent off-year elections does not augur well for the GOP in next year’s mid-terms. Democrat Doug Jones’ victory over Alabama’s own Humbolt Humbolt, Roy Moore, in the special election to fill the state’s Senate seat, was the final shocker, coming as it did in a deep Red state. Democratic chances of capturing one or both Houses in 2018 have been improving.

Republicans can read these tea leaves as well as the Democrats and the pundits. It is probable they believe this is their last opportunity to plunge a dagger into the heart of the social welfare state that began with the New Deal. The innate mindset of the the rich is that the burden of paying for such a society is borne by them. Their creed is not one of “share the wealth”, but “starve the beast”. To preserve and consolidate their position in society, they have made government their captive. The Kochs, the Addelsons, the Mercers- these people have taken control of a political system whose lifeblood is money. Their strategy? To so burden the government with debt that it cannot sustain the cost of a social safety net. Between the bloated defense budget and servicing the national debt, the great social welfare programs will begin to wither. Ultimately, the idea of privatizing these endeavors will take hold, and more of of our tax dollars will flow into the hands of a few.

There is a contravening argument, popular among Progressives: the mass of the citizenry has the power of the vote. If a majority voted a particular way, it is possible the course of events could be altered. The putative oligarchs have a two-pronged response: To destroy public confidence in government and its institutions; and to sow divisiveness among the population.  Going back to the Reagan years, Conservative dogma has consistently derided the effectiveness of government (“Government isn’t the solution; it’s the problem”). Whenever possible, the Right has attempted to render Federal agencies feckless or inefficient. The goal is to destroy people’s faith in government. The Katrina debacle during W. Bush’s term is a notable example.

(There is another irony in the tax bill they will be voting on: Rather than simplify the tax code and creating an expedited filing process, the GOP bill adds countless loopholes and carve-outs. The burden of dealing with the multitude of changes in the tax code falls to the Internal Revenue Service, an agency which has been a favorite target of the Republicans for decades and whose budget and workforce has been consistently reduced. Patricia Cohen describes the IRS quandary in the New York Times.)

Upon his election, Barack Obama faced the greatest economic disaster the country had experienced since the Great Depression. His administration continued the Bush policy of bailing out the banks to prevent a global financial meltdown. While millions were losing their homes and their jobs, the banks at the heart of the crisis were propped up. Public resentment was directed at the government. The donor class took advantage of this animus by co-opting the anti-government Tea Party movement. The Republicans took control of the House in 2010, and immediately began thwarting the Obama administration’s attempts at stimulus. By 2011, they had focused their attacks on the Federal budget deficit, hobbling economic recovery.

The GOP won the messaging battle.

It is in this circumstance that a perverse serendipity occurred: Donald Trump, spewing anti-immigrant, white-nationalist slogans, and barely disguising racist and misogynistic attitudes, was elected President. Augmenting his divisive rhetoric with attacks on the institutions of our democracy- the judiciary, the intelligence community, the media, the FBI- he is the perfect tool for those compelled to propagate a loss of faith in government, a wrecking ball swinging at the edifice of our Republic. He may do it for reasons of personal pique, but he is serving the purpose of shredding the social contract.

Will this strategy work? An army in retreat often destroys much of what it leaves behind so it cannot be used by its advancing enemy. History tells us that such a tactic has often been successful. But if the onslaught is determined, the scorched earth approach serves only to postpone the inevitable.