From the post-World War II period through to 1991 the United States of American and its allies engaged in a deadly game of brinksmanship utilizing nuclear bombers, middles, and artillery, with the Soviet Union and its allies for the fate of the world. We were assured that this was a war that pitted democracy, with the First World, the USA and its allies, against the tyranny Second World, the USSR and its allies with humanity’s future balanced on the knife’s edge. The USSR’s collapse ended the conflict and revealed a corrupt, monstrous system if lies, propaganda, and murder.

And the American Republican Party can’t let the war go.

In any two-party system each of the two major parties are a coalition of interests ideally with a few unifying themes or goals and for the second half of the 20th century what unified the GOP was a dedicated stance against the USSR and communism. Bereft of that binding force the GOP floundered for compelling arguments for its election and finally settled on culture war issues that satisfied its religious wing, energized it racist elements, and the business elements provided the control rods required to keep the entire pile from going super-critical and melting down. Beginning in 1994 more and more of those control rods were removed until 2016 provided the final crisis, sent the entire stack critical, and released the rampaging nuclear monstrosity that is Donald J. Trump.

And now we have reached a point where a majority of the GOP finds more than 170,000 pandemic deaths ‘acceptable,’ and in order to retain their minoritarian grip on power our votes are being undermined, the Post Office is sabotaged, and very concept of democracy is under assault. So, what was that Cold War victory for? Was it just to preserve low taxes for the wealthy? Was the entire conflict about biblical literalism?  It must have been because it seems the only charge the GOP knows to deploy is to point at their opponents and with mouths agape like the 70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, scream ‘Communist!’ And like that movie it is an idea out of time and out of place with the moment.