The Great Game

When I was a young man I remember reading about the Great Game, which was played out on a global scale between Great Britain and Czarist Russia as Britain strove to maintain its dominance of the seas by preventing Russia from obtaining a permanent warm water port. Those must have been the days. But they are long gone. Now the term means something else entirely. Now the Great Game is the effort by Republican leaders to hide the true effects of their policies on working class white Americans - the group that most strongly supports, and votes, for them.

Over the years they have become experts at hiding the damage their policies inflict on their supporters. But once in a while the truth is mistakenly leaked, as Donald Trump recently did when he revealed that if Republicans succeed in having abortions made illegal, then women who have abortions will be treated as criminals. Now to the rest of us, this revelation came as no surprise. It's pretty obvious that those engaging in a criminal activity will face criminal penalties. If you are surprised that this revelation caused so much uproar, you haven’t been paying attention and aren't familiar with the rules of conservative world.

Because, actually, the Great Game, as it is played in conservative world, is more like a ponzi scheme, which can only operate successfully if both victims and perpetrators mutually agree not to reveal the con that is taking place. Whether it is Republican welfare policies that will only cut assistance to those that don’t deserve it and leave it alone for everyone else, economic policies that will only cut the wages of immigrants and raise them for everyone else, or social policies that will criminalize abortion but only punish providers, Republican leaders promise and their supporters invest.

It’s entertaining, and sad, when the Republican ruling class occasionally reveals the truth of the arrangement, like Trump recently did, or several years back when a journalist asked wealthy Republican women if they wanted the option of having an abortion for themselves or their daughters if it were to be necessary.  While many of them obfuscated, some of them in fits of honesty said that yes, they wanted that option, but that if it became necessary, they would only have one for the “right” reasons.

In the case of abortion, that is the arrangement that must not be spoken of: Republican leaders, both men and women, assume that the option to have an abortion for the “right” reasons will always be available to them, due to their wealth and power, no matter its actual legal status.  While at the same time, it will be forbidden to the poor, who would invariably seek it for the “wrong” reasons. Keep that in mind when you try to make sense of Republican politics and what passes for policy in conservative world and the Great Game that is played between its elected perpetrators and their willing victims.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.