The Republican Party’s leadership is more concerned with threats to its power than threats to liberty, according to Angelo Codevilla, author of “The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It.”
“The Republican establishment most certainly does not see any threats to liberty, because it doesn’t care about threats to liberty,” Codevilla said in a phone interview from his California home last week. “Being part of the ruling class, it is more concerned with threats to power.”
The disconnect between the base of voters who expect Republicans to fight for limited government and the behavior of Republican politicians is growing more pronounced, he explained.
“Why is the Republican leadership part of the ruling class? Because it has constituents other than Republican voters,” he said. “And these constituents are the large corporations and the various monied interests that happen to be the same as the people who support the Democratic Party.”
Codevilla also described the lure of power: “There is also another factor — and that is the attraction of power, the attraction of prestige, the attraction of favorable treatment by the media, easy access to the universities and to the prestigious foundations, to the best dinner parties, the A-list in Washington, etc. These things are enormously attractive.”
Codevilla, who immigrated from Italy over 50 years ago, has taught international relations and political theory at numerous prestigious American colleges, served as a senior staffer to the Senate Intelligence Committee, worked on the Reagan transition team and authored thirteen books.
Near the end of the interview, he discussed how America could be restored to greatness, with new political leaders. Leaders and citizens should work “to shed the trappings of royalty” and “reduce the size of government… because corruption can be fought only by reducing the opportunity for it and the government that spends trillions of dollars is an irresistible magnet for corruption.” They should also work on “reducing the distance between the rulers and the ruled.”
See a previous segment of the interview, and check out his latest blog entries here.
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