Today's Republican Party

[crazyfingers]

Cawthorn....
View attachment 32338

It would be appropriate if all these Republican who claim to love the Constitution so much actually knew anything about it beyond the 2nd amendment.

It's not very long. You can read it in about than an hour or less if you are literate.

 

[ronburgundy]

Cawthorn....
View attachment 32338

It would be appropriate if all these Republican who claim to love the Constitution so much actually knew anything about it beyond the 2nd amendment.

It's not very long. You can read it in about than an hour or less if you are literate.

Or knew anything even about the 2nd Amendment that in noway whatsoever implies a right to keep and bear in every possible manner every possible object that could be used as "arms" , but only a right to keep something that qualifies as "arms".

 

[Swammerdami]

It amazes me how easily evangelicals have been manipulated by the Republican Party.

i'm pretty sure you have that completely backwards.

the republican party was going along just fine until it brought all the evangelicals in, and *then* it went tits up.
the GOP is what it is because of its voters, not the other way around.

I think you're BOTH right.
* The Republicans have capitulated to the white evangelicals on some issues, notably anti-abortion policies, and anti-gay rhetoric.
* But the Christian dupes bargain away their souls. GOP financing and agenda remain dominated by corrupt business elites and their stooges; thus this pandering to the Evangelicals could certainly fit the definition of "manipulation."

 

[prideandfall]

thus this pandering to the Evangelicals could certainly fit the definition of "manipulation."

true, but i think that's also accurate for any and every political apparatus that has ever existed.
the nature of humans means that when positions of power are optional (both in terms of vacancy and selection) those who seek positions of power are those that covet power, and so all politics are inherently pandering since it's the position of power they want and what they do with it is only a matter of what they have to in order to keep it.

in that sense i don't see the GOP as being notably any different from any other governmental organization in the history of the human race.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Cawthorn....
View attachment 32338

It would be appropriate if all these Republican who claim to love the Constitution so much actually knew anything about it beyond the 2nd amendment.

It's not very long. You can read it in about than an hour or less if you are literate.

Lawmakers know thge law?
Setting the bar kinda high, today, are we?
Next you'll be asking immunologists which end of the needle the chip comes out of...

 

[southernhybrid]

It amazes me how easily evangelicals have been manipulated by the Republican Party.

i'm pretty sure you have that completely backwards.

the republican party was going along just fine until it brought all the evangelicals in, and *then* it went tits up.
the GOP is what it is because of its voters, not the other way around.

I don't want to get into a big argument regarding evangelicals and the Republican Party, but having been raised by evangelicals and having been around for over 70 years, I saw how the Republican Party learned to manipulate evangelicals by using issues like abortion to reel them in. The evangelicals saw the Republican Party as the party that understood their feelings in regards to social issues. That allowed the party to greatly expand. If I can't convince you, let's move on.

 

[southernhybrid]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/texas-is-on-the-cutting-edge-of-voter-suppression/2021/03/15/5c274fce-85cd-11eb-8a8b-5cf82c3dffe4_story.html

TEXAS IS already one of the toughest states in which to cast a ballot, and Texas Republicans want to make it even harder. As in many other GOP-dominated states this year, the pretext is restoring faith in the election system, following then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 torrent of lies about fraud. The real goal is to suppress voting in Houston and other areas trending blue. The consequence ought to be voter backlash against a party that displays such contempt for democracy.
Texas GOP lawmakers introduced on Friday a wave of anti-voting measures. One proposal would force counties to close polling places at 7 p.m., making it harder for shift workers to vote. Most Texas voters already may not vote by mail; a Republican plan would require those claiming disability as a reason to cast an absentee ballot to provide onerous levels of written documentation to prove they qualify. Another proposal would bar counties from distributing absentee ballot applications unless voters formally request them.

I lived in San Antonio during the early 70s. San Antonio is probably the most liberal city in Texas, despite the common belief that Austin wins that prize. San Antonio is a majority Mexican American city and despite some MAs recently voting Republican, most in urban areas continue to vote for the Democratic Party. The last time I checked, San Antonio had the most Democratic lawmakers compared to other cities in Texas. Instead of making their policies more attractive to a wider percentage of voters, the R Party continues to try and make voting more difficult, especially in states that have a chance of turning blue or becoming swing states. This would apply to Texas as well as Arizona and Georgia. Metro Atlanta probably has as many transplants as it does natives and a good percentage of the transplants come from states like NJ, NY or California. This is due to job transfers or in many cases, the cost of living, or retirees moving closer to younger family members.

Recently, I actually saw some Republicans using the old term "yankee" to describe the more recent transplants. They were outraged that the South is becoming controlled by "Yankee culture". Sheesh. The last time I had that term used on me was in the 1970s. I thought we had moved past that type of division, but some Republicans are now screaming about Yankee culture taking over the South. I guess their only defense is to make it more difficult for those urban transplants to vote.

I've also read that Texas has a lot of transplants from California, so I can only assume that the Republican Party in Texas finds it's only recourse is to make it more difficult to vote in large urban areas, where the lines are always longer and Democrats are more common than Republicans.

 

[ronburgundy]

It amazes me how easily evangelicals have been manipulated by the Republican Party.

i'm pretty sure you have that completely backwards.

the republican party was going along just fine until it brought all the evangelicals in, and *then* it went tits up.
the GOP is what it is because of its voters, not the other way around.

I don't want to get into a big argument regarding evangelicals and the Republican Party, but having been raised by evangelicals and having been around for over 70 years, I saw how the Republican Party learned to manipulate evangelicals by using issues like abortion to reel them in. The evangelicals saw the Republican Party as the party that understood their feelings in regards to social issues. That allowed the party to greatly expand. If I can't convince you, let's move on.

You're both right. The GOP positioned itself to "reel in" evangelicals, but it was evangelicals within the GOP who were holding the reel.

People wrongly think that politically ambitious conservative Christianity began only recently, but 120 years ago the Wesleyan Methodist Church decreed:
"It shall be the duty of the ministers and members of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection to use their influence in every feasible manner in favor of a more complete recognition of the authority of Almighty God, in the secular and civil relations, both of society and of government, and the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ as King of nations"

Evangelicals weren't duped into becoming part of an irrational, racist, intellectually unhinged GOP, but rather their becoming a dominant force in the GOP is what made the GOP that way. Evangelicalism and white supremacy have been close allies in the south for centuries, epitomized by the KKK which has always been a political arm of Christian evangelicalism.

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South was created in the mid 1800's in a schism with it's northern faction over the issue of slavery. The MEC, South was pro-slavery, and is at the foundation of the southern evangelical movement. Most of it's black adherents in 1860 were slaves forced into membership as evidenced by the fact that by 1866, 80% of them fled that church as soon as emancipation gave them the freedom to do so.

It is that close alliance between white supremacy and evangelicalism in the south that allowed the GOP to so easily pivot during the height of the Civil Rights movement, and simultaneously capture the votes of racists and devout white Protestants across the south. And the politically organized southern evangelicals where active partners in the southern strategy. And it's the inherent anti-intellectualism and anti-modernism that is the foundation of evangelical Protestantism that has taken control of the GOP and produced it's cult of increasingly unhinged divorce from reality.

 

[marc]

The Republican party had attracted extremists and conspiracy nuts before in the John Birch society. Back in the 60's the party made the correct decision in denouncing these people. But then when they couldn't run on segregation anymore they decided to use abortion as a campaign/fundraising issue to pull in the religious. It worked for them for a long time. With the creation of FOX and talk radio shows that will push any position they wanted, they found it very easy to manipulate a lot of people into ignoring any source of information that contradicted their ideology. In other words, they created a conservative cult mentality. I could see this starting to bite them in the ass in the early 2000's, when things in Iraq were going badly, but they couldn't admit to any problem because that would sound too much like the 'defeatist lefties'. To admit a problem was to go against dogma. The cult was starting to no longer be under the control of the party leadership. Sure they could still reverse direction on some things like deficits being a problem once a Democrat was in charge again. Then True Believers would get elected, giving them congress people who actually believed the BS that had been fed to the masses. Trump accelerated all of that, becoming the grandiose figure head the cult wanted. Now the cult is so riled up that republicans in congress are afraid of their creation. Many afraid of not being able to win elections without catering to them, but also some reports said that they would not vote for impeachment because they were afraid for their family's safety.

 

[southernhybrid]

Okay. Sure. Both Republicans and evangelicals needed each other to accomplish their goals. I was primarily thinking of how Reagan was able to get enough evangelicals to move away from Jimmy Carter, who was an actual evangelical during that time period, to Reagan, who wasn't particularly religious at all, but like Trump, pretended to be religious in order to reel in the evangelicals. I guess you could say that evangelicals with better values, stuck with Carter, while the majority moved over to Reagan. I found a pretty good article that explains how this happened, if anyone, who wasn't around in 1980, is interested in learning more about this.

https://www.salon.com/2014/05/18/the_evangelical_presidency_reagans_dangerous_love_affair_with_the_christian_right/

Imo, the demise of the Republican Party started with Reagan. He did accomplish some worthy things, but he also hurt the lower and middle classes more than most previous presidents. As I mentioned earlier, it was during the 80s that public health and mental health programs were drastically cut back. Under Reagan, some of the tax deductions that most middle class people used, were ended, such as the interest on car loans and credit cards. So, while being middle class. professionals during the Reagan era, my husband and I had a tax increase, while many at the top paid lower taxes. That is just one thing that people rarely associate Reagan with. It was Reagan that called programs like Medicare and SS, pure socialism. The evangelicals happily supported Reagan due to his courting them, and due to his criticism of abortion, and gay civil rights etc.

I'm speaking of white evangelicals of course. Black evangelicals mostly stayed with the Democratic Party. I personally know quite a few Black Christians but they are extremely different when it comes to their political views. As religious as most of my Black Christians friends are, they tend to be more tolerant in regards to the beliefs of others, and they don't base their vote on social issues.

Then there is the Jim Crow South, and how Southern Democrats rapidly left that party once LBJ made civil rights an important part of his presidency. Imo, racism in the South has drastically decreased over the nearly 50 years that I've been a resident of numerous Southern states. It's still a huge problem in the North, but until recently, northern racism has been far more subtle compared to what I've seen in the South.

It's almost like the two parties exchanged places, when it came to their priorities. These days, it's the Republican Party that has become blatantly racist.

During the Obama administration, this racism became far more obvious. And, Trump was complicit, as one who started the birther movement. Perhaps that is why so many Republican evangelicals were so quick to embrace such an incompetent, unfit, racist for president. There are still a couple of Trump signs near my neighborhood, placed in front of small, run down homes. What is it that attracts these people if not White supremacy and religious bigotry?

So, is there any future for the Republican Party, or is it doomed for a very long time to come? Will it be replaced by something new? Any thoughts?

 

[marc]

I would also blame Reagan with the increasing wage gap. When there was a high marginal rate businesses had a choice of either paying a sot of taxes on high profits, or putting the money back in the company, employing more people or paying them better for example. One the tax was cut and that profit could go to their pocket, well then cut every expense possible, especially wages.

So, is there any future for the Republican Party, or is it doomed for a very long time to come? Will it be replaced by something new? Any thoughts?

Years ago I predicted two likely courses. With white people heading to be a minority the Republicans could distance themselves from the racists. This would cut a lot of their voting base and they would be struggling for years as they rebuilt, but could eventually come back. The other option was to double down on it, in which case they will slowly rot away as the population changes. They have gone with the second choice, relying on gerrymandering and voter suppression to keep them in power. Considering that even Georgia flipped this time how much longer will that still work?

 

[Jarhyn]

Personally, I was really hoping that the modern republican party would take Trump's suggestion and just go chugging bleach... It would have saved a lot of time and trouble over the next decade.

 

[Elixir]

I would also blame Reagan with the increasing wage gap. When there was a high marginal rate businesses had a choice of either paying a sot of taxes on high profits, or putting the money back in the company, employing more people or paying them better for example. One the tax was cut and that profit could go to their pocket, well then cut every expense possible, especially wages.

So, is there any future for the Republican Party, or is it doomed for a very long time to come? Will it be replaced by something new? Any thoughts?

Years ago I predicted two likely courses. With white people heading to be a minority the Republicans could distance themselves from the racists. This would cut a lot of their voting base and they would be struggling for years as they rebuilt, but could eventually come back. The other option was to double down on it, in which case they will slowly rot away as the population changes. They have gone with the second choice, relying on gerrymandering and voter suppression to keep them in power. Considering that even Georgia flipped this time how much longer will that still work?

The loaded Supreme Court might be what prolongs Republicans' life support. Permitting all their new suppression laws, gerrymandering (already approved), removing voting locations from minority communities etc...
I hope there are enough honest judges left in the system to put a stop to their shameless anti-democratic attempts to install an autocracy.

 

[southernhybrid]

And then there's Mitch, and his outrageous remarks regarding ending the filibuster.

https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/89973

Mitch McConnell on Tuesday came out swinging against the growing calls among Democrats to ditch the filibuster, warning that the move would leave behind a "completely scorched-earth Senate" that would function "more like a hundred-car pile-up." Those are strange words of caution coming from McConnell, whose singular role in obstructing legislation as the majority leader—something he now warns will be the biggest consequence of killing the filibuster—earned him the label of "grim reaper." Still, if the filibuster was killed, McConnell went on, Republicans would feel emboldened to push through some of the party's most toxic items on their legislative wish list, including the defunding of Planned Parenthood; concealed-carry reciprocity across the country; and "sweeping" abortion restrictions.

That sounds awfully spiteful.

My memory isn't as good as it once way, but didn't Mitch push through some SCOTUS justices with a simple majority? Now, he's claiming if the Democrats push bills through without allowing the filibuster, the Republicans will punish the Democrats by pushing through some of the most unpopular things on the Republican wish list. Let's just admit it. Todays' Republican lawmakers are a bunch of assholes. Even the ones who sometimes seem decent, never work across the aisle. Their concept of compromise seems to be do it my way or nothing.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah, McConnell and scorched Earth. That policy began with Gingrinch and culminated with the blocking of Garland and seating of Barrett without a 60 votes.

The Dems have held back for so long and once they start swinging, McConnell cries out No Mas!

 

[marc]

Yeah, McConnell and scorched Earth. That policy began with Gingrinch and culminated with the blocking of Garland and seating of Barrett without a 60 votes.

The Dems have held back for so long and once they start swinging, McConnell cries out No Mas!

Well McConnell is serious. He is going to block every piece of democratic legislation, block every democratic nominee for anything, and try to prevent democrats from getting anything done.... just like he has been doing for the last 12 years.

 

[jab]

Yeah, McConnell and scorched Earth. That policy began with Gingrinch and culminated with the blocking of Garland and seating of Barrett without a 60 votes.

The Dems have held back for so long and once they start swinging, McConnell cries out No Mas!

Well McConnell is serious. He is going to block every piece of democratic legislation, block every democratic nominee for anything, and try to prevent democrats from getting anything done.... just like he has been doing for the last 12 years.

Isn't MM looking to leave the Senate, but trying to handpick his successor?

 

[Ford]

Yeah, McConnell and scorched Earth. That policy began with Gingrinch and culminated with the blocking of Garland and seating of Barrett without a 60 votes.

The Dems have held back for so long and once they start swinging, McConnell cries out No Mas!

Well McConnell is serious. He is going to block every piece of democratic legislation, block every democratic nominee for anything, and try to prevent democrats from getting anything done.... just like he has been doing for the last 12 years.

McConnell is serious because he's smart enough to know he's in serious trouble. He was able to obstruct everything because the way the filibuster works now is that the Democratic bills that don't have 60 votes are dead on arrival. All he needed was one person to say "I filibuster" and it was over. If the filibuster is eliminated (unlikely) or reformed to where opponents actually have to talk the bill to death (more likely) he loses that which he's enjoyed for years: power.

That's just part of it, though. Mitch can see what's coming. Biden is already sitting at an approval rating that Trump never had, and that's bad enough for McConnell, but there's another 3 horsemen of the Democratic apocalypse on the way. The stimulus is the first one. Instead of a tax cut for the billionaires, real money is going into the pockets of working and middle class Americans. It's not just the checks, but the tax credits and money to schools, businesses, etc. that's going to have a significant impact. The next horseman is the accelerated vaccine rollout. I heard a statistic today that 2.4 million people are being vaccinated every day now. Here in my state, 1/4 of the population has already received at least one shot, and people are struggling to get appointments because demand is so strong. It won't be long before most Americans are vaccinated. Which leads us to the next horseman... economic recovery. Goldman Sachs has predicted that GDP growth for 2021 will be 8%. It's optimistic, but if they're right, that will be the highest since 1951. Even Mitch has admitted that there's an economic boom coming.

The thing is, not only is Biden going to get credit for the stimulus, the vaccine rollout, and the looming economic boom as people get back to work/school/sporting events, but that it will come during the run up to the 2022 mid terms. Usually mid term elections are when the incumbent President's party loses ground, and with the margin so thin in the Senate, this would normally be when McConnell could sit back and wait for his Majority Leader's seat to open up again. This happens because more often than not, the hope and promises of a new administration in the White House fail to materialize in the short time between the Presidential election and the mid terms. This time is going to be very, very different.

Mid terms often lead to a flip in Congress because the electorate has a short memory and not a lot of patience. Yet this time around, the mid terms will be coming on the heels of a year when everyone got to return to "normal." Kids are back in school. People aren't working remotely. You can go to the movies, concerts, and the game again. The Democrats are in a position to take credit for all of it. If the filibuster is reformed, concurrently with all the recovery will be a slate of legislation that will be supported by a wide swath of the electorate (just like the stimulus was) and the GOP will be seen as the party of sulking in the corner and trying to obstruct everything. On top of that they'll still be struggling with being the party of Trump...one of the least popular Presidents in recent memory.


Mitch is right to be worried.

 

[ronburgundy]

Okay. Sure. Both Republicans and evangelicals needed each other to accomplish their goals. I was primarily thinking of how Reagan was able to get enough evangelicals to move away from Jimmy Carter, who was an actual evangelical during that time period, to Reagan, who wasn't particularly religious at all, but like Trump, pretended to be religious in order to reel in the evangelicals. I guess you could say that evangelicals with better values, stuck with Carter, while the majority moved over to Reagan. I found a pretty good article that explains how this happened, if anyone, who wasn't around in 1980, is interested in learning more about this.

https://www.salon.com/2014/05/18/the_evangelical_presidency_reagans_dangerous_love_affair_with_the_christian_right/

Carter is an interesting case, b/c superficially his 1976 victory seems like an anomaly to the timeline of the "southern strategy" narrative, but he actually fits in quite perfectly with it. Although he was a southern evangelist, he likely won the south b/c he ran against a liberal northern Republican who was more overtly and consistently pro civil rights than Carter was. 30 years before the Civil Rights Act, Ford was at the center of a north-v-south cultural battle about racism. Ford was the MVP of the UofM football team who hosted Georgia Tech, a good ole' southern Jim Crow loving team that refused to take the field if MI allowed their one black player to play. That player was Ford's roommate and the story is he threatened to quit the team if MI capitulated, and many other students and faculty also supported the black player. The student did not wind up playing, but started Ford's rather consistent and early support for Civil Rights. Starting in his first year as House Representative, 1949, he voted against racist motivated poll taxes and continued for many years casting votes for civil rights, and against segregation and southern state's efforts to keep blacks from the polls. He referred to the 1934 football game incident in his '76 campaign against Carter, which is a story with a strong anti-southern narrative. It might seem at odds with the southern strategy timeline that Ford was the Republican nominee in 1976, but Ford was only the nominee b/c he was the incumbent, and was only the incumbent b/c both the VP and the POTUS were forced to resign. He was never elected to any executive office by the GOP and was not popular among the anti civil rights conservatives who'd began the party takeover in '64 when they nominated Goldwater.

Carter was a Dem in the then increasingly pro civil rights party and himself was pro civil rights, but had a weaker record on it than Ford. In fact Carter minimized the issue of desegregation and sought endorsements from segregationist in his 1971 gubernatorial campaign (after losing to a Dem segregationist in 1966). That likely made him more appealing to racists compared to Ford in 1976. And it's worth noting that 3 of the 5 "deep south" states (those with the most slaves in 1861) voted against Carter in the Democratic primary and in favor of (drumroll) the staunchly racist segregationist George Wallace.

The recession and hostage situation doomed Carter's re-election, but Reagan would likely have won the south anyway, b/c his campaign solidified and put an acceptable veneer on the southern strategy, replacing overtly racist and segregationist rhetoric with coded language about "states rights" (the right to segregate and restrict black voters), and "welfare queens", along with a general war on the poor that was just cover for war on blacks and other minorities over represented among the poor. There are quotes by Reagan's strategist that make it explicit this was deliberate coded language and party of the "southern strategy". Reagan had made good with southern racists back in 1964 when he strongly opposed the Civil Rights Act and campaigned for Goldwater who also did and who openly endorsed KKK members. Goldwater's appeal to white supremacist laid the foundation of the southern strategy Nixon and Reagan would employ, b/c he won all 5 of the "deep south" states for the Republicans for the first time in history. Rehnquist, who had argued against desegregation in 1954, was also a big Goldwater supporter and buddy to Reagan, who would later appoint him Chief Justice where he would be a champion to theocratic evangelicals and racists.

 

[Treedbear]

... On top of that they'll still be struggling with being the party of Trump...one of the least popular Presidents in recent memory.
...

Trump will be plaguing McConnell and turning up like a bad penny forever. Trump has finally seen the light and come out encouraging his supporters to get the vaccine. When the polls show them suddenly flip-flop and start praising the vaccine it'll be Trump calling the shots again.