Noam Chomsky, the noted radical and MIT
professor emeritus, said the Republican Party has become so
extreme in its rhetoric and policies that it poses a “serious
danger to human survival.”
“Today, the Republican Party has drifted off the rails,”
Chomsky, a frequent critic of both parties, said in an interview
Monday with The Huffington Post. “It’s become what the respected
conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein
call ‘a radical insurgency’ that has pretty much abandoned
parliamentary politics.”
Chomsky cited a 2013 article by Mann and Ornstein published in
Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, analyzing the polarization of the parties. The authors
write that the GOP has become “ideologically extreme, scornful
of facts and compromise, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its
political opposition.”
Chomsky said the GOP and its presidential candidates are
“literally a serious danger to decent human survival” and cited
Republicans' rejection of measures to deal with climate change,
which he called a “looming environmental catastrophe.” All of
the top Republican presidential candidates are either outright
deniers, doubt its seriousness or insist no action should be
taken -- “dooming our grandchildren,” Chomsky said.
"I am not a believer," Donald Trump, the Republican presidential
front-runner, said recently. "Unless somebody can prove
something to me, I believe there’s weather."
Trump isn’t alone. Although 97 percent of climate scientists
insist climate change is real and caused by human actions, more
than half of Republicans in Congress deny mankind has anything
to do with global warming.
"What they are saying is, let's destroy the world. Is that worth
voting against? Yeah," Chomsky said in a recent interview with
Mehdi Hasan on Al Jazeera English's "UpFront."
The policies that the GOP presidential candidates and its
representatives in Congress support, Chomsky argued, are in
“abject service to private wealth and power,” despite
“rhetorical posturing” of some, including House Speaker Paul
Ryan (R-Wis.). GOP proposals would effectively raise taxes on
lower-income Americans and reduce them for the wealthy.
Chomsky advised 2016 voters to cast their ballots strategically.
He said the U.S. is essentially “one-party” system -- a business
party with factions called Republicans and Democrats. But, he
said, there are small differences between the factions that can
make a “huge difference in systems of enormous power” -- like
that afforded to the president.
“I’ve always counseled strategic voting, Chomsky said. "Meaning,
in a swing state, or swing congressional district, or swing
school board, if there is a significant enough difference to
matter, vote for the better candidate -- or sometimes the least
bad.”
Chomsky said if he lived in a swing state, he’d vote for
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
By no means should this be viewed as an endorsement of Clinton.
Chomsky has been a vocal Clinton critic, saying her presidency
would resemble that of President Barack Obama, who Chomsky has
condemned for using drone strikes to kill individuals the
president deems worthy of execution.
In an ideal world, Chomsky might vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.), who Chomsky has called an "honest and committed New
Dealer" who has “the best policies,” despite some criticisms.
Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, Chomsky told
Al Jazeera he'd cast his general election vote "against the
Republican candidate” because there may be dire consequences to
a GOP victory.
“The likely candidates are, in my opinion, extremely dangerous,
at least if they mean anything like what they are saying,”
Chomsky said. “I think it makes good sense to keep them far away
from levers of power.” |