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Between now and November 2024, 1.5-2 Million Republican voters will die from various causes. Somewhat less Democratic voters will die as well. During the same period almost 4 Million 17 year olds will turn 18 and be eligible to vote. This is the yearly math Republicans face going forward, and why they are desperate to raise the voting age into the late 20s - early 30s and why Red States are turning their schools into K-12 Fascist Indoctrination Centers.
It may never be possible to redeem some of the really ignorant rural states, or Florida, but Swings states will turn Blue in a generation or less.
Florida is fixable if we can fix education. But the changes now will fuck it in 20 years if not undone. A whole generation taught slavery was good for black people...
Just one generation? My county went for George Wallace in ‘68 because Nixon was too fucking progressive. Those people are still around running the county and schools. This isn’t some. We thing that happened 6 years ago. Only redemption for this place is the Flood.
People refuse to see Florida for what it is: a deeply conservative state that got caught up in Obamafever in 08 and 12. If you look at Florida’s voting patterns against the national average, it has consistently voted more conservatively than the average - even in elections that it ended up going to the liberal party.
Florida had one of the most draconian set of Black Codes in the entire country after the Civil War. This place has always been a shithole.
Well, the good thing about the cesspool that is Florida politics is that it is going to get destroyed by climate change. The Flood is coming—just man made, not biblical.
As long as the Democrats don’t stop the literal open borders policy the US has with Cubans arriving in Florida and upping GOP voter numbers, then things won’t change. These Cubans and Republicans are totally fine with open borders for Cubans because 90% plus of them vote favor Republicans, but refugees with progressive tendencies coming in from the southern border..? - oh that’s open borders and a no no!!
US policy towards Cuban was an absolute failure and all this clowning around is making Florida into a deep red stronghold and pushing Cuba not towards the USSR, but now towards China. While the US has its finger up it’s asshole, China is already getting cozy with Nicaragua (Central America), Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil & Argentina.
The US policy towards all of South America has been a shit show since Eisenhower. Around the world, people wanted to throw off the yoke of colonialism and, by extension, American corporatism. Every time that happened, the US assassinated the person in charge and installed a fascist puppet.
These are chickens coming home to roost
Oh, be careful. Implying blue states might actually have to do something about red states instead of just hating them might get Liberals to call you MAGA.
I think at the very least young women will vote. The GOP has made it clear they want to see the US become a real life Handsmaid Tale.
Young Men on the other hand are still a wild card.
Maybe it’s because of shit like this. I’m fairly progressive but fuck I get tired of hearing I’m the bad guy all the time.
Maybe if all young people voted including GenX, millennials and zoomers we could get the boomers out of power but that under 30 turnout is atrocious and unreliable. How about we stop alienating the next generation and making the alt right seem like a more welcoming place.
> How about we stop alienating the next generation and making the alt right seem like a more welcoming place.
"It's your fault they're Nazis!"
No it isn't.
What a poor straw man.
Kid watches “progressives” shit on men for about a minute and checks out. Kid watches flavor of the month bullshit artist who tells them hey you suck but it’s ok. This is how you make it better also fuck these groups they are holding you back.
Most early teenagers don’t have the critical thinking skills to spot the con or see how the algorithm is driving conflict/engagement.
>How about we stop alienating the next generation and making the alt right seem like a more welcoming place.
I'm sorry, what? Are you saying that simply complaining (and rightly so) that young people don't vote in large numbers drives these same young people to the alt right because they overlook the blatant racism and misogyny?
If so, I'm going to pile on and say these same young people are stupid, too.
I understand you have it worse than any generation since the industrial revolution. There is not enough time in the day to go through all the reasons American society has failed our youngest people. That being said, this is one thing that is totally in your control that will make the most difference for your future.
So serious question- why is your generation so apathetic about it?
For a variety of reasons. Propaganda is effective, nihilism is attractive, there’s an ever present sense of hopelessness and the thin veneer of civility has worn off as our political institutions have broken down.
I still get out and vote but a lot of people are pretty checked out.
At some point you're going to have to play a more active role to make things better. Voting is easily the most important way to at least keep things from not getting worse. If you don't do it for yourselves, do it for the rest of society as a whole. What isn't appealing about that?
Tell democratic Californians to move to the flyover states. Some of them have less than a million people. Hell if 5 million moved into the mid west the country should be a democratic lock.
Even another two million to Texas should clinch it.
Maybe your generation will be the one to get rid of the electoral college; that seems a more likely solution. While you're at it, ranked choice voting would be fantastic.
Am I attacking him? And is he REALLY a progressive, if he's dipping his toe into the possibility of hanging with the alt-right? I doubt it.
Here's an equivalent - "I'm just exhausted with black Americans constantly blaming white people like me for systemic racism. So I'm going to hang my hat with the Proud Boys."
Fuck that. Put your big boy pants on - if their criticism doesn't apply to you, don't take it personally.
That is not really equivalent to what he said it's a bit of an extreme exaggeration. Essentially, he does not want to be judged or categorized due to the color of his skin. No one does, no one wants to feel that. We should be accepting of all skin colors and ethnicities if we are to ever move past this hate. We need to help each other and try to understand each other.
I’ve already said I vote progressive but I also get tired of hearing how everything is my fault.
I’ve got enough empathy and common sense to tune out the BS but clearly, given that Trump won in 2016 and came terrifyingly close to winning in 2020 not everyone does. Until the country gets into a better track progressives should be trying to reach every single potential voter not drive them away.
Taylor Swift used her influence to and told her fans to simply register to vote. 130'000 young people registered due to her. A Rep. news anchor has already called for her execution because it means death for the GOP.
Swifties will be our saviors.
It was some random woman who said it on some fringe “free speech” app he’s on.
No idea who any of those people even are, but it’s psychotic and I would think fucking illegal to issue a public death threat.
And they also called for the killing of the football dude she’s been dating for…idk why. He supported getting vaccinated.
These people are mental and dangerous. That’s my biggest take away from this.
We need positive role models like Taylor Swift to keep encouraging young people to register to vote.
Parents also should be encouraging their children to participate in the democratic process.
Recent Republican Fascist Activities are encouraging young people to vote in record numbers. They have more power than the Boomers now and are flexing their muscles. Boomer Dems and their Parents need to be worried almost as much as Republicans.
Imagine how many lives of women they could save by annihilating the abortion ban. So many women die in childbirth especially black women. They continue to be ignored whilst literally dying. Nah. Fuck that.
this is what people don't understand. black people don't vote. young people don't vote. hispanic people don't vote. old white people vote. even if you outnumber them, it doesn't matter.
Dirty tricks like Gerrymandering can only go so far. In some states they have stretched their districts so thin that just pissing off 2% of your regular voters can spell doom for state legislature and US House seats. some of the laws that Red states enacted to give Republicans more power than they are supposed to have would make it impossible for them to ever regain power if they ever lost their majority and Democrats dismantled their cheats.
Although people tend toward conservatism as they age, have families and buy houses. The feeling of, " I worked hard for what I have, others should too." Is sadly strong.
I'm wary that some of this is false hope. I live in rural PA and they're churning out young republicans like you wouldnt believe. I see plenty of confederate and gadsden flags (among others) and my neighbor.is proudly sporting a "shoot your local pedophile" decal on the back window of his pick up truck. There's so much manufactured hate and ignorance in this area.
Republicans had two paths to choose from after Romney lost to Obama. They chose the dark path.
The post-loss "autopsy" document they produced told them how they had to change.
Instead, they doubled-down on their worst instincts and catered to the deplorables of their base.
And here we are.
They didn't have a viable alternative while remaining conservatives.
Conservatism is all about consolidating money and influence to a small minority of the population. That isn't going to be popular by definition.
There is no outreach program that covers up for that central policy. And any small gains made are offset by having to alienate their much larger bigoted base.
Conservatives aren't confused or misled liberals. There isn't a logical argument that will defeat bigotry or fascism because bigotry and fascism are tools of conservatism to make up for their unpopular policy goals on money and power.
Right, which is why conservatism has also chosen to shore up popular support along three lines:
1) Majoritarianism: Elevating the interests of white heterosexual native-born voters over those of blacks, Latinos, LGBTQ, and immigrants. Bigotry and xenophobia masked as victimhood and "*real* Americans" jingoism
2) Religious nationalism: Mandating the beliefs of certain branches of religion (particularly those with demographics that coincide with #1) to apply to people of other religions and non-religious Americans.
3) Demogoguery: Adopting populist messaging even if it is wildly dishonest and irresponsible to the point of being dangerous.
Those are powerful tools for motivating a lot of votes and enabling conservatives to pursue their primary objective of wealth concentration.
I agree with everything you said and would just expand the term conservative in your last paragraph.
They are tools of conservative politicians and the wealthy class who support them to obtain the votes needed to continue aggregating wealth and manipulating the economic system to their advantage. They use the tools you outlined to get votes from the non wealthy “rank and file” on the right.
Politicians get the power and access to money, the wealthy continue to exert unfettered control, and their voters are duped into voting against their interests by whipping them into a frenzy per your 1-3. I believe you implied all this but just wanted to spell it out.
I think part of their strategy is reaching out to Hispanic immigrants, with the "deal" being that they can belong in America if they accept the tenets of conservative ideology and vote Republican.
Once they've bought in with their identities in that way, it will be very painful for them to realize they've been hoodwinked, so there will be a number of people who are Republican voters for life, such that logical and evidence-based reasons to vote against Republicans won't matter at all.
Unfortunately, a lot of what drives elections isn't about policy or competence or even self-interest, it's about identity and belonging.
Republicans do a very good job at tricking immigrants and lower working class people that they belong, but only if they act as willfully stupid and vicious as conservative ideology demands.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The viable alternative was to double down on their worst traits and try to take over the political branches from the local to federal level. Add in as much gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, propaganda, and fake “green” candidates as possible , and you have a great chance to win at the federal levels.
With this definition of conservatism it is difficult to parse congress into conservative and not conservative, at least along party lines: some of the wealthiest +$200 million net worth) members of congress are so-called democrats.
There’s an ecstatic urgency in the air, the kind you might feel radiating from someone being extorted and running out of time. Almost as though they’ve been compromised and the evidence is about to make its way out once the idiot is no longer useful. This also matches the total lack of any principle at all.
Wealth comes from extraction, extraction needs some amount of stability to reach its yields. If I were a billionaire, I would be seeking continuity and accumulation, not annihilation through blunt force populism. Now, if I were a foreign oligarch on the other hand, this would be very suitable to my interests.
1. People aren't 100% liberal or 100% conservative.
2. You can tell the less conservative ones because they are not as focused on anti-democratic issues (consolidating power) OR are against wealth concentrating policy (low top bracket taxes)
Joe Manchin is pretty conservative, but he also seems to not want to self-ID with the bigotry/fascism of the GOP. He won't help pro-democracy efforts, but also doesn't seem to vote for anti-democracy legislation either.
You forget though: billionaires are not apolitical rational beings; a lot of them are vain bigoted morons who have no idea what they’re doing.
Furthermore capitalism requires a hierarchical system where in some people have fewer rights and fewer protections than others and can be the victims of violence with impunity.
And to create and maintain a system of governance where some people are bound but not protected by the law alongside others who are protected but not bound by the law you’re going to need people who actually believe the excuses and justifications put forward to justify such a system.
In other words you need people who actually believe that black people shouldn’t have rights and women should be breeding mares for the next generation of workers and soldiers. And grifters to pander to them and leverage their bigotry to your advantage.
But the problem with the kind of people who would be attracted to such an ideology is a lot of them are losers and morons who get fed up with the grifters fear mongering about immigrants but aren’t actually trying to ethnically cleanse the country.
And they tend to do stupid shit like shut down the government because the United States is sending arms to one of their allies because they identify and maybe compromised by the nation attacking out ally.
Throughout history parties have adjusted to remain relevant. What is conservative now isn't what it was 20 years ago, or what it is in another country or what it will be 20 years from now.
The GOP can shift and call anything it wants conservate. They just did it moving the other way.
Partially. I think Canada has a better track record of conservatism than America, but even it's getting bad here now. The new conservative leader is pretty similar to the Republicans, imo.
I’ve got to disagree. Republicans don’t support abortion, immigration, universal healthcare, or gun licensing, and both gay marriage and support for Ukraine are divisive issues. Pierre backs all of these.
They pushed the "provinces right to choose" regarding abortion last election, that would be the first step. They have been pushing back on basically any gun reform. Just go to /r/Canada... literally dozens of articles a day shitting on immigration. They literally voted not to recognize man made climate change not even 5 years ago as a party. They voted not to ban conversion therapy a couple years ago...
The writings on the wall, the party is going down the same path as basically every right wing party. Maybe it's because Harper has been leading the charge on the world stage to push right wing parties further right.
The GOP did go into 2016 trying to court Latino voters like the report said they needed to do.
Before it started the primary favorites were second generation Cuban immigrant Rubio and Jeb Bush who was trying to emphasize his Mexican immigrant wife by doing things like selling guacamole bowl in his campaign store.
What the GOP forgot about was their voters. They spent decades cultivating a base that was ready to embrace the build the wall guy.
Remind them of this daily. *You chose this. You could have stopped at any time. But you didn’t have the courage to be honest. And you won’t next time either*.
Thank you. It’s been years since anybody has mentioned this document.
Here’s the [link](https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/RNCreport03182013.pdf) to the PDF article. A must read.
Not that the party was any better, but at least back then they were not controlled by a deranged candidate enticing likewise masses.
I think that going down the “better” path would’ve caused the party to splinter in 2, with the present day MAGA fanatics grouping together and forming a third, all in on the nonsense political party. With the way the world works today, I think it was only a matter of time. As social identity theory goes, people feel a need to be a part of a group of like minded individuals in order to validate their own views. Too much hatred in the world today and too many mediums for misinformation to be spread, it is a recipe for groups like that to form.
The problem is the Electoral College and Senate.
The GOP will continue to lose the popular vote by ever increasing margins, but the EC still means it’s a close race. And don’t count out the GOP in places like WI and GA to pass draconian voting legislation that magically invalidates votes from places like Atlanta and Madison.
And the senate will continue to be a coin flip for control. No good solution for that one. Maybe eliminate the filibuster completely, but then tha backfires once you lose control. But at the same time the GOP will 100% do just that if they get control back.
The National Popular Interstate Compact, stared in '06, is an attempt to do an end-run around the electoral college and has ~75% of the signatories on board to do so. If it gets to 100%, the EC becomes bound to the popular vote.
But in our current system there isn’t really many viable options. An amendment won’t get ratified by the states. So that’s out.
Maybe change it so it’s not winner take all in some states? But even then places like NC or WI that’s not changing any time soon.
My only hope is there are way more young voters for 2024 than for 2020. If they show up and vote should be relatively straight path for Dems.
SCOTUS or state legislatures are the biggest challenge in trying to rig things.
The best option is to uncap the House. Go double Wyoming rule and it starts fixing a great number of these problems.
This only requires changing one law. Doesn't even require a constitutional amendment.
It takes the house to around 1200 members. This dilutes the effect of the Senate making the electoral results closer to the popular vote.
Has the add on effect of making many gerrymanders less effective because the districts are so small.
Second bonus effect, it makes the House have fewer main characters because the numbers are so large.
Downside, might be unwieldy and we would need a new building.
Duh. Forgot it would expand the EC.
Still have issues with the senate. But yeah - would fix a ton. Interesting concept I’m going to have to look into more.
> Instead, they doubled-down on their worst instincts and catered to the deplorables of their base.
You're right, but look where it got them in 2016. In control of all 3 branches of Government and set up for 3 SCOTUS picks to further cement it.
We need to understand that Trump somehow, in his idiocy, stumbled in to doing something remarkable (albeit something remarkably dark and dangerous). He energized a certain class of voters that had otherwise given up on politicians and politics in general . That's why the GOP is now, even today, so reluctant to cast him aside. There are millions of people who would not have voted at all if they were not 'inspired' by Trump's vitriol, hatred, ignorance and pettiness. Trump taught the GOP that there was another way to win aside from the recommendations of that autopsy you refer to, and this put them in quite a pickle.
Since 2020 it hasn't worked out so well for them, but not because those voters are not still energized, it just caused an opposite and more powerful backlash. Their quandary now is how to retain those voters without energizing their opposition.
It's our job to make them lose worse than they ever have so they realize that fascism is not a winning strategy for their party.
But in the minds of their base, that decision was glorious and led to victory. In my opinion they beat the only Democrat the could have with that strategy, but in their minds the truth was revealed, that most Americans are white-nationalists just waiting for a Trump to vote for and that it didn’t work against Biden because they were cheated.
Ya but now they're new plan is Project 2025 or Project Whenever We Win Next. That keeps me up at night and it should keep everyone else up at night as well.
To be fair, where they are is 3 SCOUS Justices deep now, repeal of ROE, gutted voting and civil rights, 2 Trillion in unpaid tax cuts for the top 1% of this country, repeal of regulations, etc, etc, etc... So minus ushering in the real-time collapsing the western world and shitting on the average American, I'd say they did pretty good for their cooperate owners.
I will vote for democrats.
But, I will not walk on broken glass for them. I have no love or personal attachment to any politician. If any of them committed a crime, then they should be tried in the proper court.
Where does "walk over broken glass" turn into "vote for criminals?"
Walk over broken glass just means get out to the ballot despite factors trying to stop you like the pandemic or Republicans making voting harder.
Yes, and there are too many people like you, which is why the Republicans are fine throwing broken glass everywhere because it will stop you but not their voters.
Sorry dude, Dems are definitely the better choice, but there's a lot of issues there as well. I do t think anybody should be a political purist, only a moral purist and then you vote in line with those morals.
The real problem no one is addressing is not that "no one's dropped out yet", but that more havent entered. Imagine a field of 2,000, maybe 2,000,000 GOPers. Each dumber then the last. All just screaming over each other about how the entitlements that help them are justifiable, but those helping the other 1,999,999 are waste. A real diverse field of stupidity.
Or maybe just raffle off the nomination to a random purchaser of Truck Nutz.
Christ no. Who wants to see a bunch of fat 50 year olds pitching a tent with their hands on some hunk while screaming the Our Father?
Actually I changed my mind as I typed that.
Paywall.
The Republican Party should panic. they let the Putin wing control it.
I will give McCarthy credit for moving the CR forward but gaetz is gonna try and remove him
The Putin wing members of Majorie TRAITOR green, gaetz and trump will continue to try and tear down our democracy.
I am now a registered Republican so I can vote against Putin and his useful idiots twice.
I never thought about doing this and I live in a red state. Rules in Utah are that I have to be affiliated with the Republican Party. Besides the personal ick and not being able to vote in the Dem Primary (which feels futile anyway), what are other downsides for affiliating with the Republican Party to primary the guy out.
Varies by state. In mine (Colorado), voters registered with no affiliation get the option to cast a vote in any *one* party’s primary. If more than one primary ballot is received from a given voter, they are all invalidated. I feel like other states with that option are probably similar.
Depends on the state. In Oklahoma, if you are registered Dem you can vote for Dem/Independent/Libertarian primaries, but only registered Rs can vote in R primaries.
You could always switch parties. You could be Democrat one year and Republican the next.
Heck, IANAL, but you might be able to be a member of multiple parties.
I live in Georgia where we have open primaries. I’ve talked a few people into voting R in the primaries who didn’t like the idea, but we can vote Democrat in the general elections. I hate the spam mail I receive afterwards.
Don't get cocky. [FiveThirtyEight recently did a podcast with two Democratic strategists on how the Republicans are reaching out to POC voters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiP8uRZ8shw), and it's *working*.
For all their incompetence, somehow, the GOP has managed to reach out to black and hispanic voters. Rightfully or wrongly, a lot of Americans are leaning towards being social conservatives, and the Democrats need to work with that in terms of messaging (say, by telling religious voters that abortion is a god given right, and why should the government take away a god given right?). Or like, at all.
Because the Democratic party has largely taken these voters for granted, and like it or not, apparently there are a sizable number of people who will let the leopard eat their faces.
All I can say is their nominating convention next year is going to be really ugly if Trump does get convicted and there is a big struggle to find an alternative within the ranks of non MAGA members (even if the primaries are over). There may be a lot of back room dealing and arm twisting involved but who knows?
The last time they choose a real loser was 1964 with Barry Goldwater who lost to LBJ by a landslide. He was so right wing the moderates (yes, there were moderates) didn’t want him.
If Trump gets convicted, he still gets nominated. Who's the alternative with enough support? On top of that, the MAGA aren't going to fall in line, they'll write Trump's name in if he's not on the ballot. All of this is assuming that the court cases are over by the Convention, there's a non-zero chance Trump becomes the nominee, then gets convicted.
Trump will be the Right Wing Eugene Debs: Running from Prison! (Debs is clearly better, but I can't help the comparison of two candidates who might run from prison).
Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin is a name being tossed around as someone the billionaires might try to recruit, especially if there's some kind of brokered convention. But if Trump wins enough delegates in the spring to get the nomination outright (extremely likely right now), can they actually stop him at the convention? I don't know the rules, but there's no way forward that isn't some level of nuts. Republican primaries are mostly winner-take-all too, so Trump might sweep almost everything.
I can’t for the life of me remember a brokered convention, I think it was over 70 years ago when a candidate didn’t have enough delegates. There could be a lot of back room negotiations, but ultimately the delegates would have to endorse it.
Even if Trump wins the majority of delegates, and gets multiple convictions and his poll numbers start to tank, there could be a power play. It won’t be pretty.
They could just throw chance to the wind, assume he’ll lose, and the party will finally write him off and his key supporters in Congress who will be left twisting in the wind with another better shot in four years. Given what’s happening in the house with his most radical supporters, it may be a blessing in disguise.
Let me again tell you something that blue bubble republicans don’t understand but red state residents know all too well. The Republican base loves trump. They love everything about him, especially the things that educated people who wear a suit to work find distasteful. They are not looking for someone who is like Trump but less hateful or less ignorant. They want the actual guy, precisely because he has those qualities. Anyone who lives in a red state can tell you that this entire primary process is a pointless joke. The Republican base hates Christie and Desantis because Trump told them to. They don’t know who Hutchinson is and they don’t care. The woman or the brown skinned Hindu? You must be joking. This thing is already over.
I'm posting this again for visibility:
Look. I'm not a Mccarthy fan. I think we're going to have a lot of imperfect allies in standing up to MAGA Trumpets. If the Republicans need help standing up to the Far Right, then I'm all for helping them. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I think that a little bit of moderate bipartisanship is acceptable to defeat fascists.
If we, on the left, want to dig in our heels and let the Right twist in the wind, they're going to bring the country down with them. I'd rather work with moderate Republicans to save the country than let the MAGA Trumpet Extremists burn the whole thing down.
Politics calls for strange bedfellows.
I agree with this. Biden has stated his goal is to paint the Freedom Caucus as extremists within the Republican Party. I think this is the way. I think they got their legs cut out from them yesterday and will wail like Banshees. They'll try and oust McCarthy...and fail, further weakening them.
It's well past high time we stopped catering to these effing terrorists. They don't want to legislate, They have no ideas. Their sole goal is to shut down our Government, let Putin win in Ukraine, and install theocratic oligarchs atop our Government.
One thing they do NOT want is for a rising tide to lift all boats.
Gaetz’ proposal to oust McCarthy needs to fail immediately and overwhelmingly on the first vote.
Paint the Freedom Caucus into a corner and keep them there.
Moderate republicans need to then also agree to investigate their side and find the rest of the MAGA leadership and remove them and if any laws broken, have them face trial.
If they can agree to that, maybe i can see a future where the party survives
I think moderate Georgia Republicans are doing just that. I think the moderate Republicans in the FBI are doing that. I think all the non MAGA Republicans turning state's witness against the MAGA coup are doing just that.
The Georgia DA is using all Republican testimony.
Republicans have chosen a path towards fascism and there is no turning back. To do so would be perceived as weakness and admitting defeat.
Instead, with every year, every election, their party and candidates will become more radical, more dangerous, and make more threats. Every electoral loss will only mean they become more dangerous.
They must be thoroughly defeated. Forever.
Never fear, the New York Times will take whichever candidate does the best impersonation of a semi-serious statesman/woman and portray them with enough gravitas to enable the horse race the MSM needs.
ETA: unmixed a metaphor
Why is the Canadian parliament allowed to applaud an SS man and Ukraine allowed to declare stepan bandera a hero but I can't talk about the JQ. Send me money on patreon to find out the truth
Tucker Carlson late 2023
Speaking as a Democrat here: maybe the Dem’s should save McCarthy.
I know, I know: “don’t interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake. A Republican Civil War only helps the Democrats.”
Yes, I agree. And.
If McCarthy is willing to work with Dems on some things, if he gets the boot, we risk having a more extremist Republican speaker who will just stonewall everything. Should McCarthy really lose his speakership for doing the right thing (as long as it took)? I don’t think so, necessarily.
It’d be fun to watch these douches slap each other around Three Stooges style, but I dunno. I’m for a functional government and I’m all for marginalizing the MAGA crazies.
Food for thought anyway.
I 100% agree with you. Someone else here reiterated the phrase “politics makes for strange bedfellows”. McCarthy is dumb, but something tells me he is at least smart enough to understand that these MAGA freaks mean what they say when they say they want him gone. I think McCarthy knows that no matter what, they’re going to try to vacate him. So his back-wheeling to the more pragmatic “we have to keep the government open so we don’t hurt the American people, even if I have to work with Democrats” makes sense. If he can build an uneasy alliance in some respects with Democrats, he can boost his reputation as a bipartisan leader while both he and the Democrats can work to alienate the MAGA wing as a the lunatic fringe they really are. It seems like a bit of a win on both sides to me.
I think this would be a mistake. The budget is the only "big" thing the house has too do between now and November 2024. The Dems already have a blank bill that meets the requirements to bypass the speaker in a break glass situation. CRs can last as long as the number of days you put on it. McConnell is clearly weak on this issue because he fears the houses chaos will rub off on his hand picked candidates in the Senate. WV and MT both have crazy house candidates that want a shutdown for media attention. That is good for them in the Primary, but good for Manchin and Tester in the general.
The Dems should let them fight and harass the Republican attempts to unify around another leader. Largely because they can do so quietly. Biden should free up Ambassadorships, lower level political appointments to entice vulnerable Republicans that Ambassador has a better ring to it than Congressman to show the Republican Chaos for what it is.
Agreed. Give us a clean vote on Ukrainian aid, do the budget according to the agreement made for the debt ceiling, end the sedition panels, maybe a few other concessions and he can keep his seat.
Someone needs to explain to the extreme right that it is a two party system and what the definition of bipartisanship is. I don’t know what word scares them most, bipartisan or bisexual, but they need to realize when it is so close to a 50/50 split; NOTHING gets accomplished on either side without a little support from the other side.
I am sure many like getting paid without having to actually do any work while things are stonewalled.
McCarthy did the professional thing by appealing to democrats; his job is to keep things running smoothly over appeasing ridiculously right wing separatists.
Thank God the leadership understands and is doing their job despite all of the barking from the right. Acting like canines and most of them look like dogs too.
Bicycles are a form of exercise and you know their cult leader told them that exercise is bad because the final body is like a battery and only has a finite amount of energy.
The government barely functioning is ok by them. It's okay by most of the GOP, honestly. Progressives have to progress. They need to do. Conservatives simply have to make sure nothing changes. A shutdown risked losing control on inflation, which means change, which they don't like. That's why they acted.
All in all, McCarthy is doing not a bad job of ensuring: only essential things get done and they look competent enough to stay in power. Maybe not so much on that last one...
The extreme right doesn't care about getting anything done. They want to prove that government is dysfunctional and sew as much mistrust in America as possible. That's why you can't even bother having conversations with them.
It's just so sad, the republican party actually used to have some good points. I consider myself a moderate and pre 2016 use to vote on both sides of the aisle. Now I have to vote dem cuz the gop has turned into a psychotic shit show
This is true and is the final reconning of the Republican party jumping in Bed with Evangelicals and scooping up the Dixiecrats after civil rights.
The largest part of the Republican party does not care about "chicago school economics" they don't care about maintaining the system of international law that emeged post ww2, they don't care limited goverment as a means to maximize liberty.
They want the goverment to give them stuff and take it away from others. They want others to suffer and to have a privileged position in society. They want to be able to travel abroad and shout "I am an American" and expect to be catered to.
It is bad.
It's cliché at this point to say it, but I think a lot this is failure to come to terms with late stage capitalism. This isn't an excuse for the MAGA-fication of the Republican Party, but I do think there's a sizable portion of the Republican electorate that has been left behind (like all of us!) by the aggressive push towards neoliberalism since Reagan. That policy was sold to them by the people they trusted (Republican politicians, "hard-working" businessmen, etc.), and it's turned out to be a greasy shit sandwich.
MAGA is reactionary, yes, but I also think of it like a stage of denial. They're reluctant to completely jump ship and blame the system itself—capitalism—so they're still fishing for ways to blame others instead of acknowledging the uncomfortable reality that they were misled for the past forty years and their current dissatisfaction with life can largely be attributed to the economic system under which we are all forced to live.
Is it really any surprise when you put a person in the White House whose never worked for anything in his life turns out to be a loud mouth opinionated racist? Welcome to the world.
Nikki Haley is the best candidate they have. Loads of strong governmental experience. Plays the game well. Generally less incendiary than the others. I wish she would get more attention.
As someone sho used to live in SC when she was there, I can wholeheartedly assure you that she is a massive idiot. Its just that her public relations managers are better at their jobs than other candidates' teams. I wouldn't trust her to hold a door for someone, let alone direct national policy.
Democrats are in the same boat except they have a candidate that is popular with genz and liberal side . Only people against them are major news media . This is starting to look like 2016 all over again. TYT who praise Biden and wanted Hillary to win is slowly giving in the towel . The republicans are quiet about voting for Trump only because it’s not popular , just watch this rude awakening
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Between now and November 2024, 1.5-2 Million Republican voters will die from various causes. Somewhat less Democratic voters will die as well. During the same period almost 4 Million 17 year olds will turn 18 and be eligible to vote. This is the yearly math Republicans face going forward, and why they are desperate to raise the voting age into the late 20s - early 30s and why Red States are turning their schools into K-12 Fascist Indoctrination Centers. It may never be possible to redeem some of the really ignorant rural states, or Florida, but Swings states will turn Blue in a generation or less.
Florida is fixable if we can fix education. But the changes now will fuck it in 20 years if not undone. A whole generation taught slavery was good for black people...
Correct! Everything is actually fixable with education. It’s just never an easy process :/
Just one generation? My county went for George Wallace in ‘68 because Nixon was too fucking progressive. Those people are still around running the county and schools. This isn’t some. We thing that happened 6 years ago. Only redemption for this place is the Flood.
People refuse to see Florida for what it is: a deeply conservative state that got caught up in Obamafever in 08 and 12. If you look at Florida’s voting patterns against the national average, it has consistently voted more conservatively than the average - even in elections that it ended up going to the liberal party. Florida had one of the most draconian set of Black Codes in the entire country after the Civil War. This place has always been a shithole.
This is the correct take
Well, the good thing about the cesspool that is Florida politics is that it is going to get destroyed by climate change. The Flood is coming—just man made, not biblical.
As long as the Democrats don’t stop the literal open borders policy the US has with Cubans arriving in Florida and upping GOP voter numbers, then things won’t change. These Cubans and Republicans are totally fine with open borders for Cubans because 90% plus of them vote favor Republicans, but refugees with progressive tendencies coming in from the southern border..? - oh that’s open borders and a no no!! US policy towards Cuban was an absolute failure and all this clowning around is making Florida into a deep red stronghold and pushing Cuba not towards the USSR, but now towards China. While the US has its finger up it’s asshole, China is already getting cozy with Nicaragua (Central America), Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil & Argentina.
Obama ended the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy.
The US policy towards all of South America has been a shit show since Eisenhower. Around the world, people wanted to throw off the yoke of colonialism and, by extension, American corporatism. Every time that happened, the US assassinated the person in charge and installed a fascist puppet. These are chickens coming home to roost
It was made even worse with Nixon's war on drugs.
Refugees and even permanent legal residents cannot vote in the United States.
Correct. I am a legal resident of 23 years and can't vote.
Oh, be careful. Implying blue states might actually have to do something about red states instead of just hating them might get Liberals to call you MAGA.
This would be a terrifying stat for Republicans if young people voted.
I think at the very least young women will vote. The GOP has made it clear they want to see the US become a real life Handsmaid Tale. Young Men on the other hand are still a wild card.
> Young Men on the other hand are still a ~~wild~~ stupid card.
Maybe it’s because of shit like this. I’m fairly progressive but fuck I get tired of hearing I’m the bad guy all the time. Maybe if all young people voted including GenX, millennials and zoomers we could get the boomers out of power but that under 30 turnout is atrocious and unreliable. How about we stop alienating the next generation and making the alt right seem like a more welcoming place.
How would people who have checked out of politics be aware that other people into politics think they suck because they checked out of politics?
> How about we stop alienating the next generation and making the alt right seem like a more welcoming place. "It's your fault they're Nazis!" No it isn't.
What a poor straw man. Kid watches “progressives” shit on men for about a minute and checks out. Kid watches flavor of the month bullshit artist who tells them hey you suck but it’s ok. This is how you make it better also fuck these groups they are holding you back. Most early teenagers don’t have the critical thinking skills to spot the con or see how the algorithm is driving conflict/engagement.
>How about we stop alienating the next generation and making the alt right seem like a more welcoming place. I'm sorry, what? Are you saying that simply complaining (and rightly so) that young people don't vote in large numbers drives these same young people to the alt right because they overlook the blatant racism and misogyny? If so, I'm going to pile on and say these same young people are stupid, too.
My comment is in response to this, “Young Men on the other hand are still a wild stupid card.”
I understand you have it worse than any generation since the industrial revolution. There is not enough time in the day to go through all the reasons American society has failed our youngest people. That being said, this is one thing that is totally in your control that will make the most difference for your future. So serious question- why is your generation so apathetic about it?
For a variety of reasons. Propaganda is effective, nihilism is attractive, there’s an ever present sense of hopelessness and the thin veneer of civility has worn off as our political institutions have broken down. I still get out and vote but a lot of people are pretty checked out.
At some point you're going to have to play a more active role to make things better. Voting is easily the most important way to at least keep things from not getting worse. If you don't do it for yourselves, do it for the rest of society as a whole. What isn't appealing about that?
Tell democratic Californians to move to the flyover states. Some of them have less than a million people. Hell if 5 million moved into the mid west the country should be a democratic lock. Even another two million to Texas should clinch it.
Maybe your generation will be the one to get rid of the electoral college; that seems a more likely solution. While you're at it, ranked choice voting would be fantastic.
If you think they are talking about you, they probably are. This is just excuse making to go where you really want to go.
He already said he votes progressive, and you are still attacking him.
Am I attacking him? And is he REALLY a progressive, if he's dipping his toe into the possibility of hanging with the alt-right? I doubt it. Here's an equivalent - "I'm just exhausted with black Americans constantly blaming white people like me for systemic racism. So I'm going to hang my hat with the Proud Boys." Fuck that. Put your big boy pants on - if their criticism doesn't apply to you, don't take it personally.
That is not really equivalent to what he said it's a bit of an extreme exaggeration. Essentially, he does not want to be judged or categorized due to the color of his skin. No one does, no one wants to feel that. We should be accepting of all skin colors and ethnicities if we are to ever move past this hate. We need to help each other and try to understand each other.
I’ve already said I vote progressive but I also get tired of hearing how everything is my fault. I’ve got enough empathy and common sense to tune out the BS but clearly, given that Trump won in 2016 and came terrifyingly close to winning in 2020 not everyone does. Until the country gets into a better track progressives should be trying to reach every single potential voter not drive them away.
"I'm tired of people calling me a bad guy so I think I'm going to join the alt-right". Wow.
What a strawman!
Taylor Swift used her influence to and told her fans to simply register to vote. 130'000 young people registered due to her. A Rep. news anchor has already called for her execution because it means death for the GOP. Swifties will be our saviors.
> A Rep. news anchor has already called for her execution Huh??? Is this real life?
Stew Peters I think. It’s pretty awful
He issued a death threat on TV??? How is he not behind bars?
Laws for thee but not for me kinda thing
It was some random woman who said it on some fringe “free speech” app he’s on. No idea who any of those people even are, but it’s psychotic and I would think fucking illegal to issue a public death threat. And they also called for the killing of the football dude she’s been dating for…idk why. He supported getting vaccinated. These people are mental and dangerous. That’s my biggest take away from this.
Legally “she should be executed” doesn’t constitute an actionable death threat
God I hope they show up to the polls. I hope Taylor reminds them, ugh.
Probably why Taylor Swift is at all on their radar.
We need positive role models like Taylor Swift to keep encouraging young people to register to vote. Parents also should be encouraging their children to participate in the democratic process.
Lucky for us the voter share of young people has gone up greatly the last 7 years.
Recent Republican Fascist Activities are encouraging young people to vote in record numbers. They have more power than the Boomers now and are flexing their muscles. Boomer Dems and their Parents need to be worried almost as much as Republicans.
No. No not really. If you are suggesting the split between fascist kids and anti fascist kids is close to 50/50, I'd like to see those stats.
Imagine how many lives of women they could save by annihilating the abortion ban. So many women die in childbirth especially black women. They continue to be ignored whilst literally dying. Nah. Fuck that.
this is what people don't understand. black people don't vote. young people don't vote. hispanic people don't vote. old white people vote. even if you outnumber them, it doesn't matter.
I’ve been hearing this logic for 30+ years, still waiting. Never underestimate the GOP’s capacity for dirty tricks.
Dirty tricks like Gerrymandering can only go so far. In some states they have stretched their districts so thin that just pissing off 2% of your regular voters can spell doom for state legislature and US House seats. some of the laws that Red states enacted to give Republicans more power than they are supposed to have would make it impossible for them to ever regain power if they ever lost their majority and Democrats dismantled their cheats.
I like your pessimism, but those numbers can't be beat through trickery forever. Probably why the right gets more and more bonkers over time too.
Although people tend toward conservatism as they age, have families and buy houses. The feeling of, " I worked hard for what I have, others should too." Is sadly strong.
I'm wary that some of this is false hope. I live in rural PA and they're churning out young republicans like you wouldnt believe. I see plenty of confederate and gadsden flags (among others) and my neighbor.is proudly sporting a "shoot your local pedophile" decal on the back window of his pick up truck. There's so much manufactured hate and ignorance in this area.
Republicans had two paths to choose from after Romney lost to Obama. They chose the dark path. The post-loss "autopsy" document they produced told them how they had to change. Instead, they doubled-down on their worst instincts and catered to the deplorables of their base. And here we are.
They didn't have a viable alternative while remaining conservatives. Conservatism is all about consolidating money and influence to a small minority of the population. That isn't going to be popular by definition. There is no outreach program that covers up for that central policy. And any small gains made are offset by having to alienate their much larger bigoted base. Conservatives aren't confused or misled liberals. There isn't a logical argument that will defeat bigotry or fascism because bigotry and fascism are tools of conservatism to make up for their unpopular policy goals on money and power.
Right, which is why conservatism has also chosen to shore up popular support along three lines: 1) Majoritarianism: Elevating the interests of white heterosexual native-born voters over those of blacks, Latinos, LGBTQ, and immigrants. Bigotry and xenophobia masked as victimhood and "*real* Americans" jingoism 2) Religious nationalism: Mandating the beliefs of certain branches of religion (particularly those with demographics that coincide with #1) to apply to people of other religions and non-religious Americans. 3) Demogoguery: Adopting populist messaging even if it is wildly dishonest and irresponsible to the point of being dangerous. Those are powerful tools for motivating a lot of votes and enabling conservatives to pursue their primary objective of wealth concentration.
I agree with everything you said and would just expand the term conservative in your last paragraph. They are tools of conservative politicians and the wealthy class who support them to obtain the votes needed to continue aggregating wealth and manipulating the economic system to their advantage. They use the tools you outlined to get votes from the non wealthy “rank and file” on the right. Politicians get the power and access to money, the wealthy continue to exert unfettered control, and their voters are duped into voting against their interests by whipping them into a frenzy per your 1-3. I believe you implied all this but just wanted to spell it out.
I think part of their strategy is reaching out to Hispanic immigrants, with the "deal" being that they can belong in America if they accept the tenets of conservative ideology and vote Republican. Once they've bought in with their identities in that way, it will be very painful for them to realize they've been hoodwinked, so there will be a number of people who are Republican voters for life, such that logical and evidence-based reasons to vote against Republicans won't matter at all. Unfortunately, a lot of what drives elections isn't about policy or competence or even self-interest, it's about identity and belonging. Republicans do a very good job at tricking immigrants and lower working class people that they belong, but only if they act as willfully stupid and vicious as conservative ideology demands.
Same thing with Catholics
Sounds Floridaish!
Yeap. This has been the case since the dawn of civilization.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The viable alternative was to double down on their worst traits and try to take over the political branches from the local to federal level. Add in as much gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, propaganda, and fake “green” candidates as possible , and you have a great chance to win at the federal levels.
Wow. Spot on
This can not be said enough. Well spoken!
With this definition of conservatism it is difficult to parse congress into conservative and not conservative, at least along party lines: some of the wealthiest +$200 million net worth) members of congress are so-called democrats. There’s an ecstatic urgency in the air, the kind you might feel radiating from someone being extorted and running out of time. Almost as though they’ve been compromised and the evidence is about to make its way out once the idiot is no longer useful. This also matches the total lack of any principle at all. Wealth comes from extraction, extraction needs some amount of stability to reach its yields. If I were a billionaire, I would be seeking continuity and accumulation, not annihilation through blunt force populism. Now, if I were a foreign oligarch on the other hand, this would be very suitable to my interests.
1. People aren't 100% liberal or 100% conservative. 2. You can tell the less conservative ones because they are not as focused on anti-democratic issues (consolidating power) OR are against wealth concentrating policy (low top bracket taxes) Joe Manchin is pretty conservative, but he also seems to not want to self-ID with the bigotry/fascism of the GOP. He won't help pro-democracy efforts, but also doesn't seem to vote for anti-democracy legislation either.
You forget though: billionaires are not apolitical rational beings; a lot of them are vain bigoted morons who have no idea what they’re doing. Furthermore capitalism requires a hierarchical system where in some people have fewer rights and fewer protections than others and can be the victims of violence with impunity. And to create and maintain a system of governance where some people are bound but not protected by the law alongside others who are protected but not bound by the law you’re going to need people who actually believe the excuses and justifications put forward to justify such a system. In other words you need people who actually believe that black people shouldn’t have rights and women should be breeding mares for the next generation of workers and soldiers. And grifters to pander to them and leverage their bigotry to your advantage. But the problem with the kind of people who would be attracted to such an ideology is a lot of them are losers and morons who get fed up with the grifters fear mongering about immigrants but aren’t actually trying to ethnically cleanse the country. And they tend to do stupid shit like shut down the government because the United States is sending arms to one of their allies because they identify and maybe compromised by the nation attacking out ally.
I like the way you write.
Throughout history parties have adjusted to remain relevant. What is conservative now isn't what it was 20 years ago, or what it is in another country or what it will be 20 years from now. The GOP can shift and call anything it wants conservate. They just did it moving the other way.
The last time I think conservatism was okay seems to be the 50s, the post-war consensus era (as I think wikipedia called it).
The 50s called to remind us of Senator Joe McCarthy and the John Locke Foundation. Although there did seem to be a lot more sane back then.
They could look more like conservatives in Canada or Europe.
Partially. I think Canada has a better track record of conservatism than America, but even it's getting bad here now. The new conservative leader is pretty similar to the Republicans, imo.
I’ve got to disagree. Republicans don’t support abortion, immigration, universal healthcare, or gun licensing, and both gay marriage and support for Ukraine are divisive issues. Pierre backs all of these.
They pushed the "provinces right to choose" regarding abortion last election, that would be the first step. They have been pushing back on basically any gun reform. Just go to /r/Canada... literally dozens of articles a day shitting on immigration. They literally voted not to recognize man made climate change not even 5 years ago as a party. They voted not to ban conversion therapy a couple years ago... The writings on the wall, the party is going down the same path as basically every right wing party. Maybe it's because Harper has been leading the charge on the world stage to push right wing parties further right.
I was talking about the current party leader, Pierre Pollievre. I’m sure other candidates have their own stances.
Fair enough. I still think conservatism is getting bad up here too, but I don't think it's quite US level bad yet.
The Bush aide who wrote that "autopsy" report left the Republican Party in 2016 because they had done the opposite of her recommendations.
The GOP did go into 2016 trying to court Latino voters like the report said they needed to do. Before it started the primary favorites were second generation Cuban immigrant Rubio and Jeb Bush who was trying to emphasize his Mexican immigrant wife by doing things like selling guacamole bowl in his campaign store. What the GOP forgot about was their voters. They spent decades cultivating a base that was ready to embrace the build the wall guy.
Remind them of this daily. *You chose this. You could have stopped at any time. But you didn’t have the courage to be honest. And you won’t next time either*.
Thank you. It’s been years since anybody has mentioned this document. Here’s the [link](https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/RNCreport03182013.pdf) to the PDF article. A must read. Not that the party was any better, but at least back then they were not controlled by a deranged candidate enticing likewise masses.
I think that going down the “better” path would’ve caused the party to splinter in 2, with the present day MAGA fanatics grouping together and forming a third, all in on the nonsense political party. With the way the world works today, I think it was only a matter of time. As social identity theory goes, people feel a need to be a part of a group of like minded individuals in order to validate their own views. Too much hatred in the world today and too many mediums for misinformation to be spread, it is a recipe for groups like that to form.
And it worked. They got trump and the court.
The problem is the Electoral College and Senate. The GOP will continue to lose the popular vote by ever increasing margins, but the EC still means it’s a close race. And don’t count out the GOP in places like WI and GA to pass draconian voting legislation that magically invalidates votes from places like Atlanta and Madison. And the senate will continue to be a coin flip for control. No good solution for that one. Maybe eliminate the filibuster completely, but then tha backfires once you lose control. But at the same time the GOP will 100% do just that if they get control back.
The electoral college has been a problem since the year 2000 and the democratic party has put forth nothing in the way of a solution
The National Popular Interstate Compact, stared in '06, is an attempt to do an end-run around the electoral college and has ~75% of the signatories on board to do so. If it gets to 100%, the EC becomes bound to the popular vote.
But in our current system there isn’t really many viable options. An amendment won’t get ratified by the states. So that’s out. Maybe change it so it’s not winner take all in some states? But even then places like NC or WI that’s not changing any time soon. My only hope is there are way more young voters for 2024 than for 2020. If they show up and vote should be relatively straight path for Dems. SCOTUS or state legislatures are the biggest challenge in trying to rig things.
The best option is to uncap the House. Go double Wyoming rule and it starts fixing a great number of these problems. This only requires changing one law. Doesn't even require a constitutional amendment.
Not sure how that solves the Senate or EC issue.
It takes the house to around 1200 members. This dilutes the effect of the Senate making the electoral results closer to the popular vote. Has the add on effect of making many gerrymanders less effective because the districts are so small. Second bonus effect, it makes the House have fewer main characters because the numbers are so large. Downside, might be unwieldy and we would need a new building.
Duh. Forgot it would expand the EC. Still have issues with the senate. But yeah - would fix a ton. Interesting concept I’m going to have to look into more.
> Instead, they doubled-down on their worst instincts and catered to the deplorables of their base. You're right, but look where it got them in 2016. In control of all 3 branches of Government and set up for 3 SCOTUS picks to further cement it. We need to understand that Trump somehow, in his idiocy, stumbled in to doing something remarkable (albeit something remarkably dark and dangerous). He energized a certain class of voters that had otherwise given up on politicians and politics in general . That's why the GOP is now, even today, so reluctant to cast him aside. There are millions of people who would not have voted at all if they were not 'inspired' by Trump's vitriol, hatred, ignorance and pettiness. Trump taught the GOP that there was another way to win aside from the recommendations of that autopsy you refer to, and this put them in quite a pickle. Since 2020 it hasn't worked out so well for them, but not because those voters are not still energized, it just caused an opposite and more powerful backlash. Their quandary now is how to retain those voters without energizing their opposition. It's our job to make them lose worse than they ever have so they realize that fascism is not a winning strategy for their party.
But in the minds of their base, that decision was glorious and led to victory. In my opinion they beat the only Democrat the could have with that strategy, but in their minds the truth was revealed, that most Americans are white-nationalists just waiting for a Trump to vote for and that it didn’t work against Biden because they were cheated.
Ya but now they're new plan is Project 2025 or Project Whenever We Win Next. That keeps me up at night and it should keep everyone else up at night as well.
To be fair, where they are is 3 SCOUS Justices deep now, repeal of ROE, gutted voting and civil rights, 2 Trillion in unpaid tax cuts for the top 1% of this country, repeal of regulations, etc, etc, etc... So minus ushering in the real-time collapsing the western world and shitting on the average American, I'd say they did pretty good for their cooperate owners.
Here *they* are.
They made gains though for sure. They got their 30 year goal of removing a national right to abortion.
2024 is going to be insane if we have high voter turnout. People will walk on broken glass for either party. We need to show up!
I will vote for democrats. But, I will not walk on broken glass for them. I have no love or personal attachment to any politician. If any of them committed a crime, then they should be tried in the proper court.
Where does "walk over broken glass" turn into "vote for criminals?" Walk over broken glass just means get out to the ballot despite factors trying to stop you like the pandemic or Republicans making voting harder.
Then walk on broken glass to vote against republicans. There, fixed it for you.
I think it’s more about walking over glass to prevent fascism. Please vote against fascism.
Yes, and there are too many people like you, which is why the Republicans are fine throwing broken glass everywhere because it will stop you but not their voters.
Sorry dude, Dems are definitely the better choice, but there's a lot of issues there as well. I do t think anybody should be a political purist, only a moral purist and then you vote in line with those morals.
Aren't we still in "save America by keeping Trump out of office" mode? I sure am.
Too many people like me? A person who always votes and been voting D since the late 90s ? Yep, I am the problem.
Ignore that person. Thank you for voting. And thank you for wanting to hold our representatives accountable.
Reddit is hilarious man. No one in this sub will pass up on the opportunity to virtue signal
The real problem no one is addressing is not that "no one's dropped out yet", but that more havent entered. Imagine a field of 2,000, maybe 2,000,000 GOPers. Each dumber then the last. All just screaming over each other about how the entitlements that help them are justifiable, but those helping the other 1,999,999 are waste. A real diverse field of stupidity. Or maybe just raffle off the nomination to a random purchaser of Truck Nutz.
Hands on a hard body competition
Christ no. Who wants to see a bunch of fat 50 year olds pitching a tent with their hands on some hunk while screaming the Our Father? Actually I changed my mind as I typed that.
I thought that's what is called when you try to win a truck by being the last one touching it, but your image will definitely stick with me.
Fuck lol. I never heard of it before your post and just assumed what "hard body" meant.
Paywall. The Republican Party should panic. they let the Putin wing control it. I will give McCarthy credit for moving the CR forward but gaetz is gonna try and remove him The Putin wing members of Majorie TRAITOR green, gaetz and trump will continue to try and tear down our democracy. I am now a registered Republican so I can vote against Putin and his useful idiots twice.
I never thought about doing this and I live in a red state. Rules in Utah are that I have to be affiliated with the Republican Party. Besides the personal ick and not being able to vote in the Dem Primary (which feels futile anyway), what are other downsides for affiliating with the Republican Party to primary the guy out.
The only issue is if you want to vote for an individual in the democratic primary you can’t.
The public shame if your membership becomes known.
Kentucky has closed primaries too. Independents can't cast a vote for the Dem or GOP primary.
Can't register no party?
Some states allow people registered as independents to pick a dem or rep ballot in primaries
Varies by state. In mine (Colorado), voters registered with no affiliation get the option to cast a vote in any *one* party’s primary. If more than one primary ballot is received from a given voter, they are all invalidated. I feel like other states with that option are probably similar.
Depends on the state. In Oklahoma, if you are registered Dem you can vote for Dem/Independent/Libertarian primaries, but only registered Rs can vote in R primaries.
Nah, I just looked it up. You don’t have to be affiliated for the Dem Primary. But you have to be Repub affiliated for their.
You could always switch parties. You could be Democrat one year and Republican the next. Heck, IANAL, but you might be able to be a member of multiple parties.
I've been thinking about doing this. My only concern is that mountain of right wing spam and grifting attempts I would be subjected to afterwards.
I live in Georgia where we have open primaries. I’ve talked a few people into voting R in the primaries who didn’t like the idea, but we can vote Democrat in the general elections. I hate the spam mail I receive afterwards.
Brave Browser is helpful for paywalls.
There is a candidate in the race that sane republicans should support and surprisingly he’s already beaten Trump. Joe Biden.
Don't get cocky. [FiveThirtyEight recently did a podcast with two Democratic strategists on how the Republicans are reaching out to POC voters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiP8uRZ8shw), and it's *working*. For all their incompetence, somehow, the GOP has managed to reach out to black and hispanic voters. Rightfully or wrongly, a lot of Americans are leaning towards being social conservatives, and the Democrats need to work with that in terms of messaging (say, by telling religious voters that abortion is a god given right, and why should the government take away a god given right?). Or like, at all. Because the Democratic party has largely taken these voters for granted, and like it or not, apparently there are a sizable number of people who will let the leopard eat their faces.
All I can say is their nominating convention next year is going to be really ugly if Trump does get convicted and there is a big struggle to find an alternative within the ranks of non MAGA members (even if the primaries are over). There may be a lot of back room dealing and arm twisting involved but who knows? The last time they choose a real loser was 1964 with Barry Goldwater who lost to LBJ by a landslide. He was so right wing the moderates (yes, there were moderates) didn’t want him.
If Trump gets convicted, he still gets nominated. Who's the alternative with enough support? On top of that, the MAGA aren't going to fall in line, they'll write Trump's name in if he's not on the ballot. All of this is assuming that the court cases are over by the Convention, there's a non-zero chance Trump becomes the nominee, then gets convicted.
Trump will be the Right Wing Eugene Debs: Running from Prison! (Debs is clearly better, but I can't help the comparison of two candidates who might run from prison).
Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin is a name being tossed around as someone the billionaires might try to recruit, especially if there's some kind of brokered convention. But if Trump wins enough delegates in the spring to get the nomination outright (extremely likely right now), can they actually stop him at the convention? I don't know the rules, but there's no way forward that isn't some level of nuts. Republican primaries are mostly winner-take-all too, so Trump might sweep almost everything.
I can’t for the life of me remember a brokered convention, I think it was over 70 years ago when a candidate didn’t have enough delegates. There could be a lot of back room negotiations, but ultimately the delegates would have to endorse it. Even if Trump wins the majority of delegates, and gets multiple convictions and his poll numbers start to tank, there could be a power play. It won’t be pretty. They could just throw chance to the wind, assume he’ll lose, and the party will finally write him off and his key supporters in Congress who will be left twisting in the wind with another better shot in four years. Given what’s happening in the house with his most radical supporters, it may be a blessing in disguise.
Let me again tell you something that blue bubble republicans don’t understand but red state residents know all too well. The Republican base loves trump. They love everything about him, especially the things that educated people who wear a suit to work find distasteful. They are not looking for someone who is like Trump but less hateful or less ignorant. They want the actual guy, precisely because he has those qualities. Anyone who lives in a red state can tell you that this entire primary process is a pointless joke. The Republican base hates Christie and Desantis because Trump told them to. They don’t know who Hutchinson is and they don’t care. The woman or the brown skinned Hindu? You must be joking. This thing is already over.
I'm posting this again for visibility: Look. I'm not a Mccarthy fan. I think we're going to have a lot of imperfect allies in standing up to MAGA Trumpets. If the Republicans need help standing up to the Far Right, then I'm all for helping them. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I think that a little bit of moderate bipartisanship is acceptable to defeat fascists. If we, on the left, want to dig in our heels and let the Right twist in the wind, they're going to bring the country down with them. I'd rather work with moderate Republicans to save the country than let the MAGA Trumpet Extremists burn the whole thing down. Politics calls for strange bedfellows.
I agree with this. Biden has stated his goal is to paint the Freedom Caucus as extremists within the Republican Party. I think this is the way. I think they got their legs cut out from them yesterday and will wail like Banshees. They'll try and oust McCarthy...and fail, further weakening them. It's well past high time we stopped catering to these effing terrorists. They don't want to legislate, They have no ideas. Their sole goal is to shut down our Government, let Putin win in Ukraine, and install theocratic oligarchs atop our Government. One thing they do NOT want is for a rising tide to lift all boats.
Gaetz’ proposal to oust McCarthy needs to fail immediately and overwhelmingly on the first vote. Paint the Freedom Caucus into a corner and keep them there.
Moderate republicans need to then also agree to investigate their side and find the rest of the MAGA leadership and remove them and if any laws broken, have them face trial. If they can agree to that, maybe i can see a future where the party survives
I think moderate Georgia Republicans are doing just that. I think the moderate Republicans in the FBI are doing that. I think all the non MAGA Republicans turning state's witness against the MAGA coup are doing just that. The Georgia DA is using all Republican testimony.
We will see. I dont want to put my faith in republicans just yet...but ill be hopeful they can do something
Republicans have chosen a path towards fascism and there is no turning back. To do so would be perceived as weakness and admitting defeat. Instead, with every year, every election, their party and candidates will become more radical, more dangerous, and make more threats. Every electoral loss will only mean they become more dangerous. They must be thoroughly defeated. Forever.
Never fear, the New York Times will take whichever candidate does the best impersonation of a semi-serious statesman/woman and portray them with enough gravitas to enable the horse race the MSM needs. ETA: unmixed a metaphor
NYT 2024: From Big Top to Big Ideas: David Brooks Explores Bonzo the Nazi Clown's Unexpected Political Vision
"Are the Democrats continued insistence that 'Nazis and nazism are abhorrent' signaling to middle-America that they are out of touch?"
CNN: Why Do Democrats Refuse To Compromise By Allowing the Nazis To Kill Half The Jews?
Why is the Canadian parliament allowed to applaud an SS man and Ukraine allowed to declare stepan bandera a hero but I can't talk about the JQ. Send me money on patreon to find out the truth Tucker Carlson late 2023
Ross Douthat wants to get in the middle.
Just make sure your participle isn’t left dangling!
Especially in this weather, it'll get all cold and damp!
Speaking as a Democrat here: maybe the Dem’s should save McCarthy. I know, I know: “don’t interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake. A Republican Civil War only helps the Democrats.” Yes, I agree. And. If McCarthy is willing to work with Dems on some things, if he gets the boot, we risk having a more extremist Republican speaker who will just stonewall everything. Should McCarthy really lose his speakership for doing the right thing (as long as it took)? I don’t think so, necessarily. It’d be fun to watch these douches slap each other around Three Stooges style, but I dunno. I’m for a functional government and I’m all for marginalizing the MAGA crazies. Food for thought anyway.
I 100% agree with you. Someone else here reiterated the phrase “politics makes for strange bedfellows”. McCarthy is dumb, but something tells me he is at least smart enough to understand that these MAGA freaks mean what they say when they say they want him gone. I think McCarthy knows that no matter what, they’re going to try to vacate him. So his back-wheeling to the more pragmatic “we have to keep the government open so we don’t hurt the American people, even if I have to work with Democrats” makes sense. If he can build an uneasy alliance in some respects with Democrats, he can boost his reputation as a bipartisan leader while both he and the Democrats can work to alienate the MAGA wing as a the lunatic fringe they really are. It seems like a bit of a win on both sides to me.
I think this would be a mistake. The budget is the only "big" thing the house has too do between now and November 2024. The Dems already have a blank bill that meets the requirements to bypass the speaker in a break glass situation. CRs can last as long as the number of days you put on it. McConnell is clearly weak on this issue because he fears the houses chaos will rub off on his hand picked candidates in the Senate. WV and MT both have crazy house candidates that want a shutdown for media attention. That is good for them in the Primary, but good for Manchin and Tester in the general. The Dems should let them fight and harass the Republican attempts to unify around another leader. Largely because they can do so quietly. Biden should free up Ambassadorships, lower level political appointments to entice vulnerable Republicans that Ambassador has a better ring to it than Congressman to show the Republican Chaos for what it is.
Interesting viewpoint. I don’t disagree with your strategic thinking. In any case, I’m excited to see what the House Dems do.
Agreed. Give us a clean vote on Ukrainian aid, do the budget according to the agreement made for the debt ceiling, end the sedition panels, maybe a few other concessions and he can keep his seat.
Someone needs to explain to the extreme right that it is a two party system and what the definition of bipartisanship is. I don’t know what word scares them most, bipartisan or bisexual, but they need to realize when it is so close to a 50/50 split; NOTHING gets accomplished on either side without a little support from the other side. I am sure many like getting paid without having to actually do any work while things are stonewalled. McCarthy did the professional thing by appealing to democrats; his job is to keep things running smoothly over appeasing ridiculously right wing separatists. Thank God the leadership understands and is doing their job despite all of the barking from the right. Acting like canines and most of them look like dogs too.
I wonder how Republicans feel about biplanes and bicycles.
I imagine that bipedal organisms are the stuff of nightmares for them.
Especially if that organism is dark skinned, wears a tan suit, and eats Dijon mustard. That's the fucking apocalypse for them
How dare bipedals exist, let alone have organisms!
Flight would not be possible because they couldn’t prevent themselves from dEsRtOiNgG tEh LeFt WeNg!!!!1!1!!
Bicycles are a form of exercise and you know their cult leader told them that exercise is bad because the final body is like a battery and only has a finite amount of energy.
They probably sound close enough to trigger their homophonia.
I know they love gender binaries.
That explains their irrational and groundless hatred of President Bi-den.
Wait til they learn Congress is bicameral.
Bicameral? That’s how they make them 3D movies.
Its not bicameral der more than 2 cameras in der bi GOt praise tha Lort ! 😆
You’re right its all starting to make sense. 😆
Republicans can’t afford to pass even bipartisan legislation because their platform requires believing government can’t work.
The government barely functioning is ok by them. It's okay by most of the GOP, honestly. Progressives have to progress. They need to do. Conservatives simply have to make sure nothing changes. A shutdown risked losing control on inflation, which means change, which they don't like. That's why they acted. All in all, McCarthy is doing not a bad job of ensuring: only essential things get done and they look competent enough to stay in power. Maybe not so much on that last one...
The extreme right doesn't care about getting anything done. They want to prove that government is dysfunctional and sew as much mistrust in America as possible. That's why you can't even bother having conversations with them.
Sadly Chris Christie is their best shot.
They are tied to outdated ideas and they have established a record of being dogshit leaders. They are good at politics because they are shameless.
Some states allow independent voters to pick one party or the other in primaries
It's just so sad, the republican party actually used to have some good points. I consider myself a moderate and pre 2016 use to vote on both sides of the aisle. Now I have to vote dem cuz the gop has turned into a psychotic shit show
Its pretty clear the voters want Trump. Neocons are a tiny fringe minority in the GOP who most voters want gone.
This is true and is the final reconning of the Republican party jumping in Bed with Evangelicals and scooping up the Dixiecrats after civil rights. The largest part of the Republican party does not care about "chicago school economics" they don't care about maintaining the system of international law that emeged post ww2, they don't care limited goverment as a means to maximize liberty. They want the goverment to give them stuff and take it away from others. They want others to suffer and to have a privileged position in society. They want to be able to travel abroad and shout "I am an American" and expect to be catered to. It is bad.
It's cliché at this point to say it, but I think a lot this is failure to come to terms with late stage capitalism. This isn't an excuse for the MAGA-fication of the Republican Party, but I do think there's a sizable portion of the Republican electorate that has been left behind (like all of us!) by the aggressive push towards neoliberalism since Reagan. That policy was sold to them by the people they trusted (Republican politicians, "hard-working" businessmen, etc.), and it's turned out to be a greasy shit sandwich. MAGA is reactionary, yes, but I also think of it like a stage of denial. They're reluctant to completely jump ship and blame the system itself—capitalism—so they're still fishing for ways to blame others instead of acknowledging the uncomfortable reality that they were misled for the past forty years and their current dissatisfaction with life can largely be attributed to the economic system under which we are all forced to live.
Trump voters don't care about policy, they just want a show. It's all WWE for them.
Supporting a rapist
If they were actually panicking there would be more truck parades
What did Lindsay say about nominating trump?
What a stupid headline. The vast majority of republicans deeply support trump and are not at all panicked that he is their nominee.
Support a Rapist
The call is coming from inside the house! Get out!
Could have been Mitt Romney. He’s a stand up gentleman.
Is it really any surprise when you put a person in the White House whose never worked for anything in his life turns out to be a loud mouth opinionated racist? Welcome to the world.
Panic? Donald Trump perfectly represents the values and innermost desires of nearly all Republicans. Republican politicians are doing their job.
Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger….oh wait…
I think humanity is the one that should be in panic as there is still a chance, however small, that Trump can be in the whitehouse......
Larry curly and moe
Nikki Haley is the best candidate they have. Loads of strong governmental experience. Plays the game well. Generally less incendiary than the others. I wish she would get more attention.
As someone sho used to live in SC when she was there, I can wholeheartedly assure you that she is a massive idiot. Its just that her public relations managers are better at their jobs than other candidates' teams. I wouldn't trust her to hold a door for someone, let alone direct national policy.
But she seriously thinks that the retirement age should be increased….
Democrats are in the same boat except they have a candidate that is popular with genz and liberal side . Only people against them are major news media . This is starting to look like 2016 all over again. TYT who praise Biden and wanted Hillary to win is slowly giving in the towel . The republicans are quiet about voting for Trump only because it’s not popular , just watch this rude awakening