GOP, on Top of Their Hierarchies, Decides Who Deserves What

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) on Sunday stressed that her colleagues are focused on preserving benefits for recipients who deserve them as House Republicans push entitlement reform.
"We're not talking about taking away benefits from those who deserve those benefits," Blackburn said on the Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures."

Typical in hierarchies, the top believes that those in lower groups do not deserve the benefits that those on top receive, including health care and a good safety net. Those on top have the power to channel to themselves what they want and need, but rationalize away why those in the lower groups should not have the benefits.

Blackburn's comments come as Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has angled to make entitlement reform a GOP priority in 2018, calling Medicare and Medicaid the “big drivers of debt."
 
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/366919-republican-were-not-talking-about-taking-away-benefits-from-those-who-deserve

Assimulation Not Diversity – Way to Keep Hierarchies Strong

According to Republican Representative Steve King of Iowa, “Diversity is not our strength...Assimilation, not diversity, is our American strength.”

In other words, people like me on top of my hierarchy are superior, and everyone else will benefit from being just like us.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/363973-steve-king-diversity-isnt-americas-strength

HIerarchy or the Highway – The Current Republican Party

For decades, the goal of the Republican Party has been to build and maintain hierarchies, including those of the top abusing lower groups and lying, using race as a way to keep whites on top, channeling resources to the top, and excusing the behavior of those who want to do whatever pleases them. 

Conservative columnist David Brooks states in the New York Times concerning current options for Republicans:

"Now it’s clear that middle ground doesn’t exist. That’s because Donald Trump never stops asking. First, he asked the party to swallow the idea of a narcissistic sexual harasser and a routine liar as its party leader. Then he asked the party to accept his comprehensive ignorance and his politics of racial division. Now he asks the party to give up its reputation for fiscal conservatism. At the same time he asks the party to become the party of Roy Moore, the party of bigotry, alleged sexual harassment and child assault."

Brooks claims that Trump is taking the soul of the Republican party, but to a large extent, it  is being given willingly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/opinion/the-gop-is-rotting.html

John Lewis – Stands Against Trump Again

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson is holding its grand opening. But one of the greatest champions of breaking down the race hierarchy is not going to attend, because one of the greatest builders of the race hierarchy is.
John Lewis has said that he will not attend the event this weekend because he would have had to share a stage with Donald Trump.

“I think his presence would make a mockery of everything that people tried to do to redeem the soul of America and to make this country better,” Lewis said Wednesday.

But the Atlanta Democrat said Thursday afternoon that Lewis would reconsider if Trump chooses not to attend the event.

http://politics.blog.myajc.com/2017/12/07/john-lewis-cancels-trip-to-civil-rights-museum/

TIME: "The Silence Breakers" Are Still Breaking Down Hierarchies

To see the TIME video announcing "The Silence Breakers" as the People of the Year. gives us reassurance that underneath the intense hierarchy building efforts of Republicans headed by Trump/Pence, the efforts to break down hierarchies continue to be strong.

"I know the power of patriarchy, I know what men can do when they are angry."

We have experienced how people on top of hierarchies feel is their right totreat people they see as lower. They can harass, expect favors, damage, and bully – all in an effort to show and demonstrate their power.

http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers-choice/

Germans Recognize HIerarchy Building by Trump as Challenge

According to a survey by the Koerber Foundation, and reported in Reuters, Germans see U.S. President Donald Trump as a bigger challenge for German foreign policy than authoritarian leaders in North Korea, Russia or Turkey. Hierarchies are easiest to see in lower groups, and the problems that Trump is creating by building hierarchies nationally and internationally are more obvious abroad than to many of his like-minded supporters in the United States.

Apparently Trump, in his efforts to "Make America Great Again," has forgotten that countries without friends are very isolated in their "greatness." From on isolated top of the hierarchies he is building, he believes he has access to all the resources and power to get what he wants. Time will tell.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-germany-survey/germans-see-trump-as-bigger-problem-than-north-korea-or-russia-idUSKBN1DZ0GY

Republicans: Make Sure Everyone's Resources Flow to the Top

According to an article in The Week, The transfer of money from the vast numbers of Americans in the middle class to the far smaller population that occupies the upper fraction of the top 1 percent is approximately a one-to-one transfer.

The Senate Republicans pulled this off their overarching goal of having the billionaire donor class receive its payout, at any cost.

"For all the bill's complexity, its underlying math is relatively straightforward: "By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes, while the group earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut," The New York Times reported, summing up analyses by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT)."

http://theweek.com/articles/740773/big-reason-senate-gop-passed-incredibly-unpopular-tax-bill