@Skynight
I should elaborate. While the plutocracy is in fact old, it was not continuous. Wealth inequality, perhaps the only accurate measure of how powerful a select few are in controlling our elected representatives, took a major hit after WW2 and the monopolies and trusts were broken up.
And yes, the right is trying to make the country unlivable in every sense of the word, but of course they don't acknowledge that. I think the key to understanding this is just how recent all of this really has been. It began with the revival of the plutocratic class of über-wealthy by 30 years of deregulation and actions that were ostensibly supposed to stimulate business. And hey, presto! What we have instead is corruption, monopolies(again), a tiny number of super-influential wealthy, not to mention a depression caused directly by their actions.
I'm not going to try to psychoanalyze or diagnose the average Republican voter, but if I were to venture a guess their primary motive for their destructive actions(deregulation, disenfranchisement, tax cuts on the wealthy, warmongering, theocracy, elimination of the Safety Net) are based largely on the erroneous belief that it will benefit them personally, albeit at the behest of various groups that they loathe. They have an agenda, and warped and cruel though it may be, they think it's for the best. It certainly doesn't hurt that the extreme fringe media empires of Fox News and Talk Radio constantly terrify them with fabricated stories of liberal tyranny and apocalyptic threats of the immanent extinction of their entire way of life.
And that, Skynight, is exactly what makes the modern right so dangerous to our democracy.
