Split Conservatives Feel Attacked (was Special Counsel 2)

[Elixir]

Split from this thread

Actual treason and espionage was committed intentionally.

Toni, I am gobsmacked that you are so keenly aware of the GOP leader’s mental and ethical deficiencies, yet are so willing to give a pass to those who nonetheless want him back in charge of the US government. I think their willful ignorance and strident subscription to lies, defines them as purveyors of evil.
I should probably be contrite, and chastising myself for being so uncharitable to my fellow Americans.

 

[Toni]

Actual treason and espionage was committed intentionally.

Toni, I am gobsmacked that you are so keenly aware of the GOP leader’s mental and ethical deficiencies, yet are so willing to give a pass to those who nonetheless want him back in charge of the US government. I think their willful ignorance and strident subscription to lies, defines them as purveyors of evil.
I should probably be contrite, and chastising myself for being so uncharitable to my fellow Americans.

Please do not think that I feel the same way about GOP leadership/lawmakers as I do about people I know who grew up in a Republican household and are Republican for a lot of reasons. The people I know absolutely did not believe all of the terrible things I was sure I knew about Trump before he ran for POTUS. I don’t actually know what they think and believe about Trump now that indictments have been handed down and publicized. I don’t know if they have read any of it or if they are aware beyond FOX coverage.

If it has changed their opinions of Trump, I do not think it has warmed them towards the Democrats. Certainly they see both Clinton’s as corrupt. Frankly, I could never bring myself to vote for Bill because I did not trust him and because I believed the allegations of assault. I thoroughly disliked the man—but I did not decide I was anti-democrat or pro-GOP.

I don’t know if they fully believe or comprehend the differences deference in severity of the allegations. Like so many people these days, we don’t talk politics.

I am almost certain that those who do believe the charges and don’t think it’s just a political
witch hunt and no different than Hillary’s server or Bill/Monica won’t vote for Trump. I think they will either vote Haley or DeSantis —or sit the next election out.

Do I understand it? Not fully.

Do I ‘give it a pass?’ No. But I also do not stop understanding that many feel abandoned or ignored by what they see as a corrupt Democratic party.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I doubt it. They'll do what they did in 2016... which helped the goal of packing the courts with far-right judges. It was ultimately what the "intellectual" or formerly intellectual right-wing commentators were saying after Trump got the nomination that they didn't support initially. It was all about the judges. A few might back off, but not nearly enough. After all, many MORE people voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016.

 

[Toni]

I’m gifting this article from NYT that explains, in part, why some Republicans are still loyal to Trump:

Donald Trump Has a Polling Problem

Most Republicans still support Trump. But the polls still suggest the federal indictment is hurting him.

www.nytimes.com

For my part, I think that for some, Trump seemed to speak to some people’s fears, prejudices and aspirations. Here was a rich and famous man who seemed to prove that you didn’t have to be extraordinarily smart or well educated to become POTUS. Never mind reality: in many ways it’s the same appeal as Bush Jr. with his fake folksy accent—or Reagan, with his fake folksy ways.

Does this perception of Trump agree with reality? Nope. But consider the very deliberate campaign of disinformation that has permeated media over the last decade or longer. For myself, I very rarely watch any network news. Mostly when I feel the need, it’s local news or PBS. Otherwise, I read NYT and WaPo and major newspapers from the largest urban area in my state. But most people are t like that, apparently.

 

[Elixir]

I don’t actually know what they think and believe about Trump now that indictments have been handed down and publicized. I don’t know if they have read any of it or if they are aware beyond FOX coverage.

Q: I am certain that every one of them is aware of the divisiveness in our society. If they have taken no initiative to inform themselves of the facts surrounding the hottest current issue of division, whose fault is that? Is it just so very very hard for them to open a clean browser window and search for news instead of melting into the couch for another FOX “programming” session? That level of sloth is despicable - evil imho.

If it has changed their opinions of Trump, I do not think it has warmed them towards the Democrats.

I would not expect them to warm to the libs, if the foundations of their conservatism are honest and strong. But voting to hand over the country to an avaricious criminal mob of brutal autocrats should be beyond the pale for such a person.

 

[Toni]

What a lot of conservatives feel is attacked. They heavily feel the contempt that oozes from liberal talking points and tv shows that are so so cool and totally not within the ability of rubes to understand. They feel that their religious faith is under attack, that their way of life: farming, factory work, skilled or unskilled labor is looked down upon. That they are regarded as stupid and uninformed by those who went to college—something, btw, my siblings and I were only able to do because my father’s employer offered merit based scholarships that constituted nearly a full ride. So, we were luckier than most.

And it IS to some degree, in some circles. Often those with some kind of media presence.

Think of it a different way: think of it as how contemptible good liberals found/find it when conservatives look(Ed) down on uneducated black and brown people. It’s still contemptible. Even if those we like to look down upon are now rural/small town and guess what? urban dwellers who are conservative.

Do you think most Hispanic voters are social liberals? Most immigrants/first generations from almost anywhere? They are not. Democrats embrace them—but they still oppose abortion, are uncomfortable with the whole LGBTQIA+ thing. They survive by very hard work and are at best, ambivalent about those who are ‘illegal’ and who ‘jumped the line’ instead of coming in ‘the right way.’ Pretty much like the people I grew up with.

I think I was 14 the first time my father abd I had a serious argument and it was about politics. I’ve had many many years of loving and respecting people with whom I have extreme disagreements with.

You never ever win someone over by holding them in contempt.

It is more urgent today than ever before that we look for common ground. There is a lot there. We just need to pay more attention to it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't know, is that Trump that has the polling problem or the GOP? And does even the GOP have it?

The GOP is almost certainly taking the Senate back in 2024. It seems more likely the Democrats will take the House back, continuing a Congressional split. Trump has an issue, but let's be flat out honest, so does the GOP. Trump pisses of Republicans, but the GOP pissed off women that didn't usually vote. Dobbs changed the dynamic, and while Trump can get people to vote for him that don't often vote, the GOP has almost nothing to offset the female who didn't typically vote vote. Without Trump, I think the GOP is in ever worse shape. The GOP loses a small chunk of those misogynistic racist fuck faces that vote almost exclusively Trump.

But the other side of the issue is the GOP have stuffed enough activist judges in the Federal Courts that they just go to one of them, and they get some outrageous ruling. And with SCOTUS a far-right juggernaut thanks in part of McConnell for maybe 20 years, there is a lot of jurisprudence that can be maintained even if the Democrats get the trifecta back.

Long story short, the GOP already won, even if they lose. Sad state of affairs, that. Which is why while General election matter, and we need to at least win there, the main battle is the state legislatures and attempted to wrest away the heavy handed state level gerrymandering which has solidified unnaturally conservative super majorities in purple states.

 

[CosmicJellyfish]

What a lot of conservatives feel is attacked. They heavily feel the contempt that oozes from liberal talking points and tv shows that are so so cool and totally not within the ability of rubes to understand. They feel that their religious faith is under attack, that their way of life: farming, factory work, skilled or unskilled labor is looked down upon. That they are regarded as stupid and uninformed by those who went to college

I don't buy these JD Vance style sob stories. Rural conservatives shit on godless coastal liberal gay degenerate city slickers just as much if not more than the other way around, and somehow the godless coastal liberals manage not to become fascists.

Blaming the left/center for the right's turn toward fascism has got a strong "see what you made me do" quality to it.

 

[Elixir]

What a lot of conservatives feel is attacked.

A”lot” of them feel that way because they are TOLD to feel that way. Zero sympathy.

They heavily feel the contempt that oozes from liberal talking points and tv shows that are so so cool and totally not within the ability of rubes to understand.

What shows are those?

They feel that their religious faith is under attack,

Because a faux messiah told them so, pretending to believe in their faith while laughing behind their backs.

that their way of life: farming, factory work, skilled or unskilled labor is looked down upon.

They are being told that shit, and lap it up. If they looked at the facts they would see that they are being fed a line by their “conservative” poseurs (mainly to keep them farming, working in factories and otherwise laboring for subsistence wages, while Democrats are actually working to make them better off). It’s not rocket surgery.

That they are regarded as stupid and uninformed by those who went to college

because that’s what their Orange Jesus keeps telling them.

Do you think most Hispanic voters are social liberals? Most immigrants/first generations from almost anywhere? They are not. Democrats embrace them—but they still oppose abortion,

due to religious indoctrination. Makes them ripe suckers.

You never ever win someone over by holding them in contempt.

I consider them unwitting victims. Winning them over is a very asymmetrical battle when one side offers fabrications and empty promises of futures and fortunes while the other remains mired in a relatively ugly reality.

At this juncture I advocate writing them off, politically. Trample them if possible, and hold them down at least until Agent Orange is neutralized. Longer if a comparably corrupt successor is chosen to lead the Republican Party. (Such a person probably doesn’t exist.)

 

[TomC]

A”lot” of them feel that way because they are TOLD to feel that way. Zero sympathy.

A lot of people think that they are victims because someone told them that they are.
It's among the worst features of modern American culture, IMHO. The culture of victimhood and entitlement. Happens a lot.

I think the secret to the success of the TeaParty Republicans is selling that culture to white Christians(especially males). Convincing white Christian males that they are most persecuted demographic in the US was a stroke of political genius.

What shows are those?

One example I'm very familiar with is "The Big Bang Theory". Sheldon Cooper is a mainstay of his group of science nerds. His mother, Mary, is a staunch Christian. She is also portrayed as the butt of jokes about her unaware racism and such.
Another would be Homer and Marge Simpson's neighbor Flanders. And his dumbass kids.
There's lots of this in the media, has been for years.
Tom

 

[Toni]

I don't know, is that Trump that has the polling problem or the GOP? And does even the GOP have it?

The GOP is almost certainly taking the Senate back in 2024. It seems more likely the Democrats will take the House back, continuing a Congressional split. Trump has an issue, but let's be flat out honest, so does the GOP. Trump pisses of Republicans, but the GOP pissed off women that didn't usually vote. Dobbs changed the dynamic, and while Trump can get people to vote for him that don't often vote, the GOP has almost nothing to offset the female who didn't typically vote vote. Without Trump, I think the GOP is in ever worse shape. The GOP loses a small chunk of those misogynistic racist fuck faces that vote almost exclusively Trump.

But the other side of the issue is the GOP have stuffed enough activist judges in the Federal Courts that they just go to one of them, and they get some outrageous ruling. And with SCOTUS a far-right juggernaut thanks in part of McConnell for maybe 20 years, there is a lot of jurisprudence that can be maintained even if the Democrats get the trifecta back.

Long story short, the GOP already won, even if they lose. Sad state of affairs, that. Which is why while General election matter, and we need to at least win there, the main battle is the state legislatures and attempted to wrest away the heavy handed state level gerrymandering which has solidified unnaturally conservative super majorities in purple states.

Please don’t misunderstand me: party matters precisely because of judicial appointments.

However backward you want to believe members of the GOP, they’ve known this for a good long while —and vote accordingly.

To a large extent, Trump won because people thought he could win. And if he could win, then he and the GOP would put in place conservative judges, whose appointments would last far longer than Trump. And he delivered. To be perfectly honest, I think he made conservative appointments because he knew he needed support of conservative legislators and he danced with them as brought him. And they danced with him.

There are reports ( years too late) that many members of his cabinet and inside circle only agreed to serve because they believed they could…if not control, at least mitigate the worst of his excesses. To say they were naive would be letting them off the hook way too easily. But I can understand the self delusion.

And that’s another reason Trump got votes: Plenty of voters held their noses and voted for the guy who would get them conservative benches , especially the USSC. And it worked.

 

[Elixir]

Marge Simpson's neighbor Flanders

Perfect!
MSNF is my new favorite acronym.

“I could have been so much more, if not for those illegal Black Mexican Muslim Jews”

 

[laughing dog]

I am related to some Trump voters. No one told them they are victims - they felt that way. They feel left behind and either forgotten or dismissed by “ the elites”. They felt neglected while feeling that other groups were being granted advantages. Trump was simply a rather disgusting avatar for them.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I would not expect them to warm to the libs, if the foundations of their conservatism are honest and strong. But voting to hand over the country to an avaricious criminal mob of brutal autocrats should be beyond the pale for such a person.

Am I wrong to have the honest opinion that given a choice between a Putin/Hitler/Stalin candidate and a Clinton/Biden/Obama candidate the vast majority of republicans would choose Putin/Hitler/Stalin?

 

[Toni]

It’s been…fifty years now or more. My father’s cousin was married to a fairly prosperous farmer by the modest standards of our corner of the county. They did have a decent size spread with a pretty house on a hill. I imagine it had been built by someone in his family but..that wasn’t something my family ever talked about. Anyway, they were older than my dad —we weren’t over there much but saw them at all the usual places. Then THEY decided that the new interstate’s best path would go straight through the middle of their property, cutting the pretty house on the hill off from what remained of tillable land. They were well compensated for the land—my dad was a bit envious. But it destroyed something that meant a lot to them. They were too old to relocate, find another farm and start over. Mostly retired after that. It’s hard to describe how that heartbreak —for the greater good, and at a decent price—just rippled through the family. If I am ever traveling through that area and pass the house, now abandoned since they gave all passed away, and surrounded by horrid little ugly structures that are part of the infestation of fulfillment centers, warehouses and support structures that have pocked that corner of the county.

And they got a good price—enough to retire on, well. Except they weren’t really ready to retire and could only pass money not the family land to their son. They weren’t bitter people—the opposite. But losing that land took all the wind out of his sails. I understand how important that interstate is, that piece of interstate. But some things cannot be bought. Family history and the dreams for future generations among them.

 

[Patooka]

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised no senior GOP leaders have pulled Trump to one side and offered to help make all this go away if he just bows out of 2024. It's hard to imagine people like McConnell being comfortable with being beholden to someone like Trump; this can be their out.

 

[Toni]

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised no senior GOP leaders have pulled Trump to one side and offered to help make all this go away if he just bows out of 2024. It's hard to imagine people like McConnell being comfortable with being beholden to someone like Trump; this can be their out.

It’s not surprising to me. Trump is nothing if not reliably unreliable. He could, in theory, agree to bow out of 2024 in return for help making his legal problems go away, but Trump is incapable of being told ( directly) what to do by anyone. I read a piece ( can’t remember where it is link it) in which Steve Bannon talks about how he had to go about manipulating Trump by playing a long game and essentially gaslighting him, convincing him that Trump had spoken to this huge crowd in X at time Y and said Blablablah and the rowdy loved it—every single word being a lie but because it massaged Trump’s ego, he would be convinced.

Whatever Trump promised, he’d certainly betray GOP in a heartbeat.

The party isn’t going to do that. It takes too long and isn’t a guarantee. For years I’ve been reading that almost all of the GOP leadership detests Trump but feel stick with him. Now that they’ve got him on record losing POTUS and losing other key races by his endorsement, he’s only good for the grift which is drying up.

The righteous thing to do would be to publicly abor him, drum him from the party. At which point, Trump founds his own MAGA party and loses elections for GOP and MAGA. Which works for me, but ain’t gonna happen.

The other thing to consider is that McConnell is an old man, and by all reports, a very sick one as well, although that gets far less press than Feinstein. I think he’s hanging on as best he can until he feels he can step away somewhat gracefully. Or dies.

 

[Ford]

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised no senior GOP leaders have pulled Trump to one side and offered to help make all this go away if he just bows out of 2024. It's hard to imagine people like McConnell being comfortable with being beholden to someone like Trump; this can be their out.

At this point, even if he agreed to step aside, his legal problems wouldn't go away, no matter what McConnell or any other GOP leader does.

The relevant statistic has been bandied about a bit lately...federal prosecutors have a conviction rate above 95%. This is due to the fact that a lot of cases never go to trial, but also - and especially in this case - that they don't move forward unless they are nearly 100 percent certain of a conviction.

Jack Smith is no doubt well aware of the gravity of this case, and I'm fairly well certain that he crossed every T and dotted every I then had a team go over everything again and again before he brought the indictment. Any "wiggle room" in the case would be exploited by a good defense attorney, so much like a game of chess, the Special Prosecutor's office had to game out every possibility before bringing charges.

Complicating the matter is the fact that - at least so far - Trump doesn't have good defense attorneys. He's got a judge in his corner, and that's one of many factors that are currently in play, but if she doesn't pull the rug out from under this or delay it until after the election, things ain't looking good for Fragilego Mussolini.

The GOP? They're in a corner they've spent the last 6 years painting themselves into. They're like that person who was dancing all night at the club with that person they saw across the room, shared some drinks, maybe did a little kissing on the dance floor, and then when they woke up the next morning they've got someone in their bed who doesn't look so good in the daylight.

 

[Elixir]

and then when they woke up the next morning they've got someone in their bed who doesn't look so good in the daylight.

Y’mean a little like this?



The neck vagina is particularly attractive.

 

[laughing dog]

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised no senior GOP leaders have pulled Trump to one side and offered to help make all this go away if he just bows out of 2024. It's hard to imagine people like McConnell being comfortable with being beholden to someone like Trump; this can be their out.

McConnell helped save Trump’s ass twice ( the impeachments) and got nothing but more trouble. Trump is complete untrustworthy. McConnell and the GOP is better off surreptitiously helping ease Trump into convictions on the federal charges - it rids them off Trump as a candidate and they can run against the current administration’s vendetta against Trump.