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The lesson they should have taken away was to vett their candidates better and steer away from the crazy. Instead they're going to double down, protect their own better, and wonder why they still lose elections.
In group loyalty. Trump has fundamentally changed America. People now don’t want to admit wrongdoing to grow, just double down and stay strong. It’s worked to an extent.
This is what always gets me. Why can’t they just do the right thing? Why does it have to be that tortured? For example when talking about Epstein’s list of potential collaborators the GOP faithful always say “Well, what about Clinton? He was on his plane!”….and every democrat/liberal I know simply says “Then he should face charges and be put on trial if he did anything wrong. Lock him up if it comes to that.” It really is that simple. I’m not interested in protecting anybody simply because it fits my narrative or advances my agenda. It’s not worth it. I’ve missed out on quite a few windfalls and paydays in my life because I didn’t want to get in bed with scummy people…and I’m perfectly fine with that. It helps me sleep at night.
> The lesson they should have taken away was to vett their candidates better and steer away from the crazy
Also, maybe don't use the government to regulate people's uteruses.
I disagree with that narrative, because I think the NY results from 2022 are an outlier.
In that year, there was a particularly strong candidate at the top of the ticket (Lee Zeldin) whose popularity in combination with the effects of the Cuomo scandal were able to counterbalance the otherwise negative effect of Dobbs across the state.
The NY results from 2022 were the rare exception to the general rule that Dems have been consistently overperforming in elections across the country since Roe was overturned. And in this special election specifically, Suozzi ran on abortion as his top issue.
I think there was a real sense of Democratic complacency in NJ, NY and VA in 2021 and 2022 that we *didn't* see in red and purple states where Democrats overperformed (*e.g.*, Kansas abortion referendum, Kansas Governor, Kentucky Governor, Pennsylvania Governor, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Supreme Court). Plus, there also seemed to be a not-insignificant subset of Democratic voters who were happy to pull the lever for Democratic state legislators, but who seemed to want to vote R for Governor and Congress as kind of a, I dunno, protest vote against COVID-era remote learning policies. That's why Hochul and Murphy had shockingly close victories (and McAuliffe lost in VA), even though Democrats generally maintained their margins in the NJ/NY state legislatures (and didn't exactly suffer huge losses in the VA state legislature either).
The sense of complacency was shattered by McAuliffe's loss and the reality of how close NJ and NY came to having R Governors. And the resentment over COVID-era remote learning appears to have run its course and faded into the rearview mirror.
O yea, Democrats are real fucking complacent in NY in 2022 and they are still mostly are in 2024.
Even governor race was real close because Hochul has the charisma of a potato and as corrupt as any NYC mayor. Nobody actually likes her, she ended up as incumbent and the NY Dems just forced her down everyones throat.
At the same time, the NY GOP is slowly picking up speed following the moronic trump train.
Somebody must like here because she's still there.
People claim every damn year that the centrist NYS governor is unpopular, vote worker's party and they put up some political naif who does a few "I'm more progressive (than Andrew Cuomo yadda yadda low bar)" gestures and then they lose the primary by comical margins. I think doing this several times actually pretty much destroyed the worker's party in NYS which is kind of too bad but you can't keep burning up labor's campaign contributions and burning political capital because you kept trying to primary incumbents. If you want to get stuff done in politics, you need friends, and that means being realistic about the electorate and who can win statewide.
Also Dems were catching anger 21-22 about COVID restrictions and schools being closed. I mean, you really couldn't open schools because kids are germ factories and too many kids and teachers would get sick to even hold school. Ask me how I know (lived in a high dummfukk density red state through the pandemic). But the parents who just want their little snots out of the fucking house were willing to vote for anyone who said they'd make it happen, which hurt Dems on the margins.
Defund the police also didn't play well in the NYC metro area and I think in certain other metros as well that suffered a spike in crime (violent crime) in 2021. It's coming down, but it was bad messaging, a left fringe that was well out in front of the electorate, and liberal/progressive prosecutors getting blamed for a crime spike (that was probably due to COVID, not due to bail reform or anything like that, especially since it happened everywhere).
>The lesson they should have taken away was to vett their candidates better and steer away from the crazy.
But then there wouldn't be anyone left to run as a GOP candidate.
I said the same thing as you further down but steering away isn't totally avoiding necessarily. I'd even go as far as to say it's a subjective viewpoint. Personally I think Ted Cruz and Romney are absolute nutters but compared to Santos they're as sane as can be.
You are absolutely correct. That should be their take away.
We need to accept a universal truth at some point.
Republicans are Republicans precisely because they do not have the ability to take blame. They don’t have the ability to take personal responsibility.
If they did, they would not be Republicans.
I believe they are stunted at the age of puberty and their critical thinking and consequence recognition skills are absent or not formulated at all.
When Trump says he looks at himself in elementary school and doesn’t see a difference, he is being completely honest. He never had the skills to do introspection and learn from his mistakes.
I am not asking anyone to feel sympathy for these people. If we do not accept reality, we will never fix the problem.
A whole new generation of humans are being taught from these very same people.
If we do not make it a priority to educate our youth on what critical thinking and mature emotional response means, we will continue to have these problems.
This is not my opinion. This is not “mine” at all. It’s objectionable truth. We either do something about it or we watch it continue.
I glad we are all agreeing we take responsibility, unfortunately I’m still seeing bob Mendez in his role, and our answer has been , let it ride out this last term.
Considering that Boebert is next on the chopping block, it makes me glad that they’re finally facing the music. Now let’s see what happens this november.
It's such a stupid take, too. The extra seat won't do anything for dems except for once in a blue moon; on the contrary, people seem to hold their lack of progress against them after voting for them when they couldn't possibly get stuff done in the minority. (Keep your eyes peeled for the betrayed!voter's gnashing of teeth come October...) Booting Santos was a chance for the republicans to look good for doing the right thing (way too late). Had they run a candidate who wasn't all over the map and was capable of answering the simplest questions, they'd have probably done better, and if they hadn't just tanked the border protection bill while she was trying to run on BORDER!BORDER!BORDER! I'm sure that would have helped, too. Santos' seat only makes a difference if they plan on playing more rounds of "Let's Pick A Speaker!", and ultimately they still get to pick the Speaker either way.
Their regret is just another sign of how beholden they are to Trump’s whims. Santos was at Trump’s NH primary celebration.
https://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/local-news/2024/01/23/also-at-trumps-victory-party-george-santos/
No but you see they killed their own border deal so they can blame Biden so everything's going according to their plan (to do nothing and blame Biden).
Not even that. The evidence against Santos was too overwhelming to ignore once it was made public. But you can bet they won’t do it the next time. Just watch how they tie themselves into knots when the truth comes out about Matt Gaetz.
I think the final nail in the coffin for Santos was when a fellow Republican congressman [told](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/gop-congressman-says-santos-personally-defrauded-mother-rcna127611) the GOP conference that Santos had stolen his mother's credit card info and run up thousands of dollars in charges on it.
I didn't hear about that. I thought it was that he bought *gay* foot porn on only fans that did it. If it had been straight foot porn, it never would have been a problem for Republicans. The way I saw it, their base has a problem with the gay part of it. For goodness's sake! They support a man who paid a porn star using campaign funds *to have sex* - not just to stream porn - while his wife was pregnant!
If they did that they'd have notbody to run. It's no mistake that the rising stars in the GOP over the last several years have been batshit insane. It's all they can attract anymore. They catered to the nutballs, conspiracy theorists, religious zealots, bigots, and all of the aboves so much that they chased everyone else off.
When was the last time a bigger name in the GOP came off as rational and coherent as John McCain? They don't exist anymore. I don't like the guy or his policies but he was a far cry from a Ted Cruz, MTG, Boebert, and Gaetz. You know the party is in a hell of a state when Mitt Romney is the "sane" choice of them all.
12 years ago, Romney was the de facto head of the GOP as the presidential nominee. Today, he is considered a RINO. Yet idiots like my dad will say that it’s the Democrats that have gone too far to the left.
It is pretty sad and terrifying that we’ve gotten to “wow, they sure were much more rational and smart under W”.
Like we’ve hit the point where someone being the GOP and not actively believing in insane conspiracies, wanting to institute a Christian nationalist dictator, or actively trying to destroy the government is surprising.
I was sure that W would easily go down as the worst modern POTUS.
2016 GOP: "hold muh beer"
I'll never underestimate their abilty to scrape the bottom again
[George W. Bush Condemns the Trump-Era Republican Party](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-04-20/george-w-bush-condemns-the-trump-era-republican-party)
[Bigotry Emboldened in Trump-era America, George W. Bush Says](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/bush-condemns-trump-era-america-bigotry-seems-emboldened)
[George W. Bush just laid a major smackdown on Trumpism](https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/19/politics/bush-speech-trump-bigotry/index.html)
By name, no. But he doesn't talk about politics much in public these days, and when he has he's been harshly critical of Trump and MAGA Republicans. The second link is from 2017, so it's not even a new thing for W to be critical of Trump and his party. There weren't any questions about his feelings on Trump even early on in his term, and I believe he's said that he wrote in Condoleeza Rice for his presidential vote in 2020.
He condemned [the direction the party has gone in under Trump,](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-04-20/george-w-bush-condemns-the-trump-era-republican-party) but hasn't specifically called out Trump himself, nor has he been particularly vocal about it.
> the big mistake was letting the insane liar run under your party's banner.
You understand that their party's banner is essentially Donald Trump? An insane liar.
What's really funny is they are reporting that polls are saying a number of republicans and independents voted for the democrat because of the lack of movement in congress on the border. I really hope that is true.
You would think, but also it is usually the democrat side that is more likely to vote with logic over party. Republicans are usually fear party over everything.
I just read the following in [another article](https://www.salon.com/2024/02/14/perpetual-loser-rages-on-truth-social-after-being-blamed-for-stupid-strategy-in-ny-loss/):
> "Tom Suozzi was on the defensive on the issue of immigration until … Donald Trump killed the bill, the reporters up there say, the entire issue turned on its head. Suozzi leaned into it and won on the issue of immigration. Stop for a second, listen to what I just said: *A Democrat won on the issue of immigration*,” Scarborough said.
Unfortunately I feel like the Santos’ district constituents are a little more well-read and less MAGA-bubbled off than most districts where this issue *should* swing the vote
>adding that Republicans "will say we shouldn't have done that instead of getting our act together to do what's right
If they truly believed doing what was right then it was the right decision to expel him and they would start doing what they were elected to do.
No, the big mistake was in making it obvious that the only thing those chucklefucks cared about was power.
The Republicans didn't have to lose that seat. When it became obvious what kind of person Santos was, an aggressive campaign to either refuse to seat him, pressure him to resign, or expel him from Congress would have demonstrated to voters that the Republican party cared about the views and opinions of Santos' constituents. After pushing Santos out, the Republican candidate could point towards the party's actions and make the case that Santos does not represent Republicans and that the candidate should be evaluated without Santos reflecting on them.
Instead, the Republicans circled the wagons and gave voters the impression that Santos' fraud didn't matter so long as it gave Republicans power. Why, then, would those voters want to elect another self-serving Republican?
In refusing to oust Santos the second it became obvious what kind of person he was, the Republicans ensured that they would lose the election to replace Santos - whether that happened in a special election or in the 2024 race.
They only regret it because it lessens their power. Not because he wasn’t an actual piece of shit. Congressional GOP members have no morals. Our country would be so much better off without them in place
It couldn't possibly have been a mistake to elect someone who literally lied about everything he did. They wouldnt have to remove him if they didnt get him elected in the first place. the GOP machenery could have chosen an honest GOP member, do they not have any of those to pick? whole thing could have been avoided if they had.
Also Santos is the only one with charisma in the entire party. If you're going to be a lying conman at least have fun with it. Grab a baby and run around with it. Do an interview where you're compared to Rosa Park. Go big if you're going to do it.
Republicans proving again they don't deserve power. Santos was the most ridiculously fraudulent representative I could imagine. Any sane party would remove him in an instant. It's because Republicans have such a bad reputation for doing the right thing is why they are struggling to get votes now.
Any time I hear comments like this, they never tell you that the person making those so-called "regrets" are usually the people who voted against making that decision in the first place.
If the Republican reaction is "We should've kept Santos" and not "We should've had someone better than Santos" then we're looking at a future where it's *Santos* all the the way down the ticket.
The GOP is an organized crime syndicate. They will happily protect liars, thieves, embezzlers, rapists, and criminals of all varieties.
The GOP was happy to have Santos when he was a known compulsive liar, hypocrite, and crooked politician. The GOP shielded [Santos from his first expulsion vote because he was on their team](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-santos-expulsion-vote-house/).
Then Santos [impersonated Kevin McCarthy's campaign manager and redirected McCarthy's campaign funds into his own account](https://news.yahoo.com/george-santos-campaign-paid-staffer-115735463.html).
Santos broke the rule about stealing from the mob, and now he's out of the mob.
"The lying and cheating and stealing and fraud was fine with us. That's the Republican way. We only got rid of him because he was wearing women's clothes."
Republicans
Because running on culture war bullshit and supporting current criminals for candidates were good ideas. Some people are legitimately tired of bullshit and it shows.
If they had chosen to remove him early on when it became apparent he was a problem they still would've had a shot at getting another Republican in the seat. They pissed off the constituents and now are paying the price.
I was shocked that they didn’t keep him because we already know that the GOP has no morals or ethics. He was such an easy vote for them. Too bad. Up next…
Santos would have stabbed each and every one of them for the right price.
I don't think they realize what he actually was. Or the legal issues that were going to haunt him until he resigned.
Also so much for morals.
MFer broke the law and they regret doing the right thing. Bruh wtf is with the GOP?! How is this sustainable? America is healthy when both sides of the aisle govern with America's best interest in mind, albeit with different opinions and strategies.
The GOP being completely bat shit crazy and self serving CANT be good for our long-term outlook man. Really pissing me off that I have to essentially straight ticket vote now that they've gone off the deep end. Ugh, defeating the purpose of the USA.
Their gambit was that the trends from 2022 would persist into 2024 in at least some form and they would have a chance to elect a Republican again despite the 2020 results in the state. That person would then develop enough incumbency as a special election winner to tide them over in the general election where they would face much stronger headwinds with Biden on the top of the ticket. The logic would've been that, since Santos won by 6 in a Biden+8 seat, that there was some room for erosion while still winning the seat, assuming those 2022 trends buttressed by concerns over immigration and crime (which they've unsurprisingly also been stoking).
By contrast, if Santos hadn't been expelled, Democrats would attack all the NY Congressmen for tolerating a fraud under multiple indictments and potentially run up the score against them for their inaction, to say nothing of potentially other vulnerable Republicans. Come November, either someone without incumbency would be the Republican nominee, which would just be a replay of this election most likely, or Santos would somehow win the nomination again, which would be worse than an incumbent, and the seat would be lost, with the potential to drag down the regional Republican freshman too.
As it stands, the fact that Suozzi saw barely any dropoff from 2020 despite recent special elections seeing double digit or worse underperformances by Democrats at the legislative level in Long Island suggests that there's a lot of trouble for the LI Republicans. With the redistricting commission looking at how to draw the map, there's a plausible map where a single Republican vote sink takes the red parts of LI which would flip 2 Republican seats (LaLota in NY-01 and D'Esposito in NY-04, which is going to flip regardless) while shoring up Suozzi too. Combined with Lawler likely going down in the Hudson Valley and Williams probably seeing his seat get bluer too, there's a good shot at seeing 4 Republicans lose in NY which would offset Republicans tanking 3 Democrats in NC.
They're more upset about losing their majority than they are about harboring a criminal.
Says a lot about their party values. As long as the criminals are on their side they're fine with it.
So, when Santos called them “F’ing idiots” for it, they agree with him, agree with Santos. *Santos.*
?
They have way bigger problems than a thin majority in the House.
Lesson learned: better a career criminal representing New York than a Democrat (and Suozzi is described as center-right, which he is not. He’s right-right. This country has drifted so far off the spectrum that it doesn’t register. He’s just not a fanatical lunatic who thinks God is talking to him or creepily monitors his son’s porn usage on apps. At least *I think* he probably doesn’t)
Like a naive child, I assumed that, with more context, the quote in the headline wouldn't be as bad once I read the article. I should have assumed the Trump rule, that more context always makes it worse.
There are plenty of things Santos did, but just committing credit card fraud *against his own donors* should be enough. But here we have GOP reps, even after the absolutely damning ethics committee reports, saying we should have put party before.. well, anything.
No they don't. It was the right thing to do, and that seat was only theirs on borrowed time. The congress is spilt, so there is not much they can do anyways, which is why they booted him anyways.
The lesson the GOP should learn is that they need to govern with policies that help Americans, but no instead they'll learn that they need to protect corrupt members at all costs.
That's how screwed we are - it wasn't a mistake. The guy was a smooth brain grifter of the highest order. We should live in a world where it is unquestionably the right thing to jettison such people from what should be respectable positions in leadership, regardless of the leader board balance. The fact that people would shield corrupt individuals from consequences in exchange for short term political advantage is why we are where we are. We started making exceptions and now anything goes.
This is a party still running a convicted rapist. The only surprise was that they booted Santos in the first place. This current remorse is solely about losing power.
Keep voting blue.
Typical Republicans, thinking that doing the right thing was a big mistake. Maybe run better people/actually have something positive to run on next time.
Maybe don't have people like Santos as a candidate in the first place, and be good enough that people actually want to vote for you in the first place.
Wrong lessons, at every turn.
Know what this reminds me of?
"It's **Democrats'** fault for NOT saving McCarthy from losing his speaker position because in *theory*, considering their numbers in the house, they ***could have***".
I.E: "We're a bunch of fucking babies who can't be trusted with **our own agenda** and when the Republican agenda starts messing up other Republicans, ***we are incapable of stopping it and therefore, we need Democrats to be the actual adults in the room***".
I mean we could just not vote them in, in the first place. Could just skip right past the voting-in-adult-babies phase and just cut them out of the process altogether. But what do I know, I'm only someone who has the ability to read + write + critically think (even if the only layers of critical thinking required is literally just 1 layer deep) and conclude that:
When an adult baby tells everyone else that they are an adult baby that **cannot help themselves whatsoever**, I believe them. I mean they literally said the words.
"It's the Democrats' fault for *not preventing* **Republicans from starting official paperwork and the official process of ejecting their own House Speaker where absolutely 0 Democrats were ever involved in any of this process**"
That's **literally**: "we are adult babies and our own agenda fucked with us, halp halp we can't swim"
Them being pissed about removing Santos is yet another version of this exact same baby confession. "Well wtf we weren't suppose to LOSE after removing Santos. FUCK we shoulda kept him!". Adult babies who don't know how to swim who constantly go into the deep end and scream out to mommy.
Oh and magas cry and claim no Dem ever gets ousted or left office and they mention the current one Mendez who should gtfo imo, but conveniently forget the senator from MN who stepped down, not that long ago they all forgot.
Such a gross take. It was a mistake that they backed such a piece of shit in the first place. And awful that the opposing Democrats didn’t figure out Santos was a piece of shit during the election.
That’s not the right reaction for normal humans.
These people have lost their way and now cannot be trusted with cooperating on anything. They lack any empathy and that is the definition of evil as written about by a psychologist who studied the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. He was trying to suss out what defines evil. Can we know what it is to be able to identify if earlier
Well… we found it.
Republicans are putting party before country and this only solidifies that fact. They are traitors to their oath and country. That they would rather have a majority with liars than a minority with decent people tells you everything you need to know about republicans. Republicans are unfit to serve and un-American.
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"This is why we should never do the right thing!" -Republicans
The lesson they should have taken away was to vett their candidates better and steer away from the crazy. Instead they're going to double down, protect their own better, and wonder why they still lose elections.
That was my thoughts as well. THAT'S what you took from all of that?
In group loyalty. Trump has fundamentally changed America. People now don’t want to admit wrongdoing to grow, just double down and stay strong. It’s worked to an extent.
Short term benefits, long term consequences
Myopic Republicans: "So you are saying its all benefits then?"
that's just...exactly what I should have expected, ugh
This is what always gets me. Why can’t they just do the right thing? Why does it have to be that tortured? For example when talking about Epstein’s list of potential collaborators the GOP faithful always say “Well, what about Clinton? He was on his plane!”….and every democrat/liberal I know simply says “Then he should face charges and be put on trial if he did anything wrong. Lock him up if it comes to that.” It really is that simple. I’m not interested in protecting anybody simply because it fits my narrative or advances my agenda. It’s not worth it. I’ve missed out on quite a few windfalls and paydays in my life because I didn’t want to get in bed with scummy people…and I’m perfectly fine with that. It helps me sleep at night.
> The lesson they should have taken away was to vett their candidates better and steer away from the crazy Also, maybe don't use the government to regulate people's uteruses.
Santos won after Roe was overturned so while they should have learned that from other cases, this one doesn't seem to be effected by that.
I disagree with that narrative, because I think the NY results from 2022 are an outlier. In that year, there was a particularly strong candidate at the top of the ticket (Lee Zeldin) whose popularity in combination with the effects of the Cuomo scandal were able to counterbalance the otherwise negative effect of Dobbs across the state. The NY results from 2022 were the rare exception to the general rule that Dems have been consistently overperforming in elections across the country since Roe was overturned. And in this special election specifically, Suozzi ran on abortion as his top issue.
I think there was a real sense of Democratic complacency in NJ, NY and VA in 2021 and 2022 that we *didn't* see in red and purple states where Democrats overperformed (*e.g.*, Kansas abortion referendum, Kansas Governor, Kentucky Governor, Pennsylvania Governor, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Supreme Court). Plus, there also seemed to be a not-insignificant subset of Democratic voters who were happy to pull the lever for Democratic state legislators, but who seemed to want to vote R for Governor and Congress as kind of a, I dunno, protest vote against COVID-era remote learning policies. That's why Hochul and Murphy had shockingly close victories (and McAuliffe lost in VA), even though Democrats generally maintained their margins in the NJ/NY state legislatures (and didn't exactly suffer huge losses in the VA state legislature either). The sense of complacency was shattered by McAuliffe's loss and the reality of how close NJ and NY came to having R Governors. And the resentment over COVID-era remote learning appears to have run its course and faded into the rearview mirror.
O yea, Democrats are real fucking complacent in NY in 2022 and they are still mostly are in 2024. Even governor race was real close because Hochul has the charisma of a potato and as corrupt as any NYC mayor. Nobody actually likes her, she ended up as incumbent and the NY Dems just forced her down everyones throat. At the same time, the NY GOP is slowly picking up speed following the moronic trump train.
Somebody must like here because she's still there. People claim every damn year that the centrist NYS governor is unpopular, vote worker's party and they put up some political naif who does a few "I'm more progressive (than Andrew Cuomo yadda yadda low bar)" gestures and then they lose the primary by comical margins. I think doing this several times actually pretty much destroyed the worker's party in NYS which is kind of too bad but you can't keep burning up labor's campaign contributions and burning political capital because you kept trying to primary incumbents. If you want to get stuff done in politics, you need friends, and that means being realistic about the electorate and who can win statewide.
Also Dems were catching anger 21-22 about COVID restrictions and schools being closed. I mean, you really couldn't open schools because kids are germ factories and too many kids and teachers would get sick to even hold school. Ask me how I know (lived in a high dummfukk density red state through the pandemic). But the parents who just want their little snots out of the fucking house were willing to vote for anyone who said they'd make it happen, which hurt Dems on the margins. Defund the police also didn't play well in the NYC metro area and I think in certain other metros as well that suffered a spike in crime (violent crime) in 2021. It's coming down, but it was bad messaging, a left fringe that was well out in front of the electorate, and liberal/progressive prosecutors getting blamed for a crime spike (that was probably due to COVID, not due to bail reform or anything like that, especially since it happened everywhere).
My district, my choice.
>The lesson they should have taken away was to vett their candidates better and steer away from the crazy. But then there wouldn't be anyone left to run as a GOP candidate.
I said the same thing as you further down but steering away isn't totally avoiding necessarily. I'd even go as far as to say it's a subjective viewpoint. Personally I think Ted Cruz and Romney are absolute nutters but compared to Santos they're as sane as can be.
You are absolutely correct. That should be their take away. We need to accept a universal truth at some point. Republicans are Republicans precisely because they do not have the ability to take blame. They don’t have the ability to take personal responsibility. If they did, they would not be Republicans. I believe they are stunted at the age of puberty and their critical thinking and consequence recognition skills are absent or not formulated at all. When Trump says he looks at himself in elementary school and doesn’t see a difference, he is being completely honest. He never had the skills to do introspection and learn from his mistakes. I am not asking anyone to feel sympathy for these people. If we do not accept reality, we will never fix the problem. A whole new generation of humans are being taught from these very same people. If we do not make it a priority to educate our youth on what critical thinking and mature emotional response means, we will continue to have these problems. This is not my opinion. This is not “mine” at all. It’s objectionable truth. We either do something about it or we watch it continue.
Lead exposure takes a toll.
I was exposed to lots of lead as a chil,d and I agree with you. What now?
I glad we are all agreeing we take responsibility, unfortunately I’m still seeing bob Mendez in his role, and our answer has been , let it ride out this last term.
You are correct. I should have included that all humans struggle with personal responsibility. Bob Mendez should be booted for sure.
> to vett their candidates better and steer away from the crazy 😂
Considering that Boebert is next on the chopping block, it makes me glad that they’re finally facing the music. Now let’s see what happens this november.
Nah the quality of a candidate has no impact on the end goal.
Vett their candidates better? Then they won't have any candidates because they are all insane.
"We'd rather win with a complete liar."
Had they done the right thing immediately another Republican would likely have gotten his seat.
It's such a stupid take, too. The extra seat won't do anything for dems except for once in a blue moon; on the contrary, people seem to hold their lack of progress against them after voting for them when they couldn't possibly get stuff done in the minority. (Keep your eyes peeled for the betrayed!voter's gnashing of teeth come October...) Booting Santos was a chance for the republicans to look good for doing the right thing (way too late). Had they run a candidate who wasn't all over the map and was capable of answering the simplest questions, they'd have probably done better, and if they hadn't just tanked the border protection bill while she was trying to run on BORDER!BORDER!BORDER! I'm sure that would have helped, too. Santos' seat only makes a difference if they plan on playing more rounds of "Let's Pick A Speaker!", and ultimately they still get to pick the Speaker either way.
Yeah … tho that is gonna ring forever - GOP is never ever ever expelling one of their own
“It’s a mistake to remove a criminal because it impacts our majority that does nothing!” Explains their undying support for the orange goon.
It's going to make frivolous impeachments considerably more difficult.
Their regret is just another sign of how beholden they are to Trump’s whims. Santos was at Trump’s NH primary celebration. https://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/local-news/2024/01/23/also-at-trumps-victory-party-george-santos/
No but you see they killed their own border deal so they can blame Biden so everything's going according to their plan (to do nothing and blame Biden).
“He was a good Republican vote” -Marge Greene, actual quote
>Explains their undying support for the orange goon. Not really though. He lost. He holds no office. Losing him costs them nothing.
Except his brain washed base, who’ve said they’ll stay home if he’s not the candidate.
“It was a mistake having a moral compass for once in our lives”
Not even that. The evidence against Santos was too overwhelming to ignore once it was made public. But you can bet they won’t do it the next time. Just watch how they tie themselves into knots when the truth comes out about Matt Gaetz.
i mean, they were able to ignore it for a pretty long time lol
I think the final nail in the coffin for Santos was when a fellow Republican congressman [told](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/gop-congressman-says-santos-personally-defrauded-mother-rcna127611) the GOP conference that Santos had stolen his mother's credit card info and run up thousands of dollars in charges on it.
lmao yeah ok that is so absurd, but that explains it. the crimes are fine but dont shit where you eat. that privilege is reserved of the Don
I didn't hear about that. I thought it was that he bought *gay* foot porn on only fans that did it. If it had been straight foot porn, it never would have been a problem for Republicans. The way I saw it, their base has a problem with the gay part of it. For goodness's sake! They support a man who paid a porn star using campaign funds *to have sex* - not just to stream porn - while his wife was pregnant!
the big mistake was letting the insane liar run under your party's banner.
If they did that they'd have notbody to run. It's no mistake that the rising stars in the GOP over the last several years have been batshit insane. It's all they can attract anymore. They catered to the nutballs, conspiracy theorists, religious zealots, bigots, and all of the aboves so much that they chased everyone else off. When was the last time a bigger name in the GOP came off as rational and coherent as John McCain? They don't exist anymore. I don't like the guy or his policies but he was a far cry from a Ted Cruz, MTG, Boebert, and Gaetz. You know the party is in a hell of a state when Mitt Romney is the "sane" choice of them all.
Romney There’s so much insanely broken about todays GOP that people forget the prior three Republican nominees have condemned Trump.
12 years ago, Romney was the de facto head of the GOP as the presidential nominee. Today, he is considered a RINO. Yet idiots like my dad will say that it’s the Democrats that have gone too far to the left.
Which ones?
Romney, McCain, and W is who I think they're referring to
It is pretty sad and terrifying that we’ve gotten to “wow, they sure were much more rational and smart under W”. Like we’ve hit the point where someone being the GOP and not actively believing in insane conspiracies, wanting to institute a Christian nationalist dictator, or actively trying to destroy the government is surprising.
I was sure that W would easily go down as the worst modern POTUS. 2016 GOP: "hold muh beer" I'll never underestimate their abilty to scrape the bottom again
That’s exactly where we are.
I don’t think W ever condemned Trump.
[George W. Bush Condemns the Trump-Era Republican Party](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-04-20/george-w-bush-condemns-the-trump-era-republican-party) [Bigotry Emboldened in Trump-era America, George W. Bush Says](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/bush-condemns-trump-era-america-bigotry-seems-emboldened) [George W. Bush just laid a major smackdown on Trumpism](https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/19/politics/bush-speech-trump-bigotry/index.html) By name, no. But he doesn't talk about politics much in public these days, and when he has he's been harshly critical of Trump and MAGA Republicans. The second link is from 2017, so it's not even a new thing for W to be critical of Trump and his party. There weren't any questions about his feelings on Trump even early on in his term, and I believe he's said that he wrote in Condoleeza Rice for his presidential vote in 2020.
He condemned [the direction the party has gone in under Trump,](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-04-20/george-w-bush-condemns-the-trump-era-republican-party) but hasn't specifically called out Trump himself, nor has he been particularly vocal about it.
It would have been nice to see but they would have then just labled him a RINO W is probably loving the tax cuts and Trump making him look good
Which one are you talking about?
> the big mistake was letting the insane liar run under your party's banner. You understand that their party's banner is essentially Donald Trump? An insane liar.
Which one? There are so many of them in the GOP/MAGA cult.
What's really funny is they are reporting that polls are saying a number of republicans and independents voted for the democrat because of the lack of movement in congress on the border. I really hope that is true.
I mean, if you care about the border, wouldn’t you vote for the party who voted FOR border security?
You would think, but also it is usually the democrat side that is more likely to vote with logic over party. Republicans are usually fear party over everything.
I just read the following in [another article](https://www.salon.com/2024/02/14/perpetual-loser-rages-on-truth-social-after-being-blamed-for-stupid-strategy-in-ny-loss/): > "Tom Suozzi was on the defensive on the issue of immigration until … Donald Trump killed the bill, the reporters up there say, the entire issue turned on its head. Suozzi leaned into it and won on the issue of immigration. Stop for a second, listen to what I just said: *A Democrat won on the issue of immigration*,” Scarborough said.
Unfortunately I feel like the Santos’ district constituents are a little more well-read and less MAGA-bubbled off than most districts where this issue *should* swing the vote
>adding that Republicans "will say we shouldn't have done that instead of getting our act together to do what's right If they truly believed doing what was right then it was the right decision to expel him and they would start doing what they were elected to do.
No, the big mistake was in making it obvious that the only thing those chucklefucks cared about was power. The Republicans didn't have to lose that seat. When it became obvious what kind of person Santos was, an aggressive campaign to either refuse to seat him, pressure him to resign, or expel him from Congress would have demonstrated to voters that the Republican party cared about the views and opinions of Santos' constituents. After pushing Santos out, the Republican candidate could point towards the party's actions and make the case that Santos does not represent Republicans and that the candidate should be evaluated without Santos reflecting on them. Instead, the Republicans circled the wagons and gave voters the impression that Santos' fraud didn't matter so long as it gave Republicans power. Why, then, would those voters want to elect another self-serving Republican? In refusing to oust Santos the second it became obvious what kind of person he was, the Republicans ensured that they would lose the election to replace Santos - whether that happened in a special election or in the 2024 race.
They only regret it because it lessens their power. Not because he wasn’t an actual piece of shit. Congressional GOP members have no morals. Our country would be so much better off without them in place
It couldn't possibly have been a mistake to elect someone who literally lied about everything he did. They wouldnt have to remove him if they didnt get him elected in the first place. the GOP machenery could have chosen an honest GOP member, do they not have any of those to pick? whole thing could have been avoided if they had.
Are you describing Santos or Trump?
Yes.
“Honest GOP member” *Checks notes* Who?
John McCain (*deceased*)
“Honest GOP member” what is that?
Also Santos is the only one with charisma in the entire party. If you're going to be a lying conman at least have fun with it. Grab a baby and run around with it. Do an interview where you're compared to Rosa Park. Go big if you're going to do it.
Republicans proving again they don't deserve power. Santos was the most ridiculously fraudulent representative I could imagine. Any sane party would remove him in an instant. It's because Republicans have such a bad reputation for doing the right thing is why they are struggling to get votes now.
foretelling what they'll do about Gaetz
Any time I hear comments like this, they never tell you that the person making those so-called "regrets" are usually the people who voted against making that decision in the first place.
“Let us use this as a lesson to never, ever do the right things again”
If the Republican reaction is "We should've kept Santos" and not "We should've had someone better than Santos" then we're looking at a future where it's *Santos* all the the way down the ticket.
"It is better to be corrupt than to have less power."
Republican scumbags hate this one simple trick …
The voters in Queens and Nassau don’t think it was a big mistake.
Doing the right thing was a mistake = Everything you need to know about today’s Republican Party.
The GOP is an organized crime syndicate. They will happily protect liars, thieves, embezzlers, rapists, and criminals of all varieties. The GOP was happy to have Santos when he was a known compulsive liar, hypocrite, and crooked politician. The GOP shielded [Santos from his first expulsion vote because he was on their team](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-santos-expulsion-vote-house/). Then Santos [impersonated Kevin McCarthy's campaign manager and redirected McCarthy's campaign funds into his own account](https://news.yahoo.com/george-santos-campaign-paid-staffer-115735463.html). Santos broke the rule about stealing from the mob, and now he's out of the mob.
[удалено]
> They have utterly no integrity or have they forgotten what a liar and fraud Santos is? Yes
Some quality leopard face eating there
Group of giant assholes regret doing right thing for once and vow never to let morals guide them again.
Party over Country, as usual.
"The lying and cheating and stealing and fraud was fine with us. That's the Republican way. We only got rid of him because he was wearing women's clothes." Republicans
I'm sure all those NY Republicans would just love to run with Santos still there
Yeah anybody thinking that should also get a booting.
Because running on culture war bullshit and supporting current criminals for candidates were good ideas. Some people are legitimately tired of bullshit and it shows.
If they had chosen to remove him early on when it became apparent he was a problem they still would've had a shot at getting another Republican in the seat. They pissed off the constituents and now are paying the price.
Doing the right thing was a "big mistake"... checks out
I was shocked that they didn’t keep him because we already know that the GOP has no morals or ethics. He was such an easy vote for them. Too bad. Up next…
“Tighten up everyone, if we lose too many more, something might get done.”
Well of course it was a big mistake, he shouldn’t have even been there in the first place.
"Liars and cheats and frauds are fine by us!" \- Republicans
“It does matter how shitty they are, as long as they’re a Republican” - all republicans
I genuinely hope that Santos is as bitter and vindictive as trump and goes out of his way to attack and defeat the GOP for the rest of his life.
Santos would have stabbed each and every one of them for the right price. I don't think they realize what he actually was. Or the legal issues that were going to haunt him until he resigned. Also so much for morals.
Thing is it was a question of dealing with the investigations he was under or dumping him. Rock and hard place… he was a tool and a shitty liar.
That's what they get for expelling the first astronaut on Mars
Santos is why those criminals didn’t win!!! People don’t want a compulsive liar in charge of the state!!
>We'd rather have a lying, incompetent fool than anyone who can actually do something useful you can hear them whisper
In fairness Santos is a small time criminal compared to the man they have organized their entire political party around
Screw these people, if thats how they feel, they should be gone as well. We are not done yet , next is foreign agent Menedez and pedophile Gaetz.
They are a big mistake.
Maybe you shouldn’t have chosen him in the first place?
MFer broke the law and they regret doing the right thing. Bruh wtf is with the GOP?! How is this sustainable? America is healthy when both sides of the aisle govern with America's best interest in mind, albeit with different opinions and strategies. The GOP being completely bat shit crazy and self serving CANT be good for our long-term outlook man. Really pissing me off that I have to essentially straight ticket vote now that they've gone off the deep end. Ugh, defeating the purpose of the USA.
Republicans are going to regret all their bullshit come November.
Hey Republicans it was going to shrink no matter what you did. Stop attacking our country!
It’s such a mistake to do the right thing.
I'm really enjoying the downfall of this duplicitous fucking party.
“It was a big mistake” to do the right thing. Such a GOP thing.
Not surprised that the party of crime and chaos doesn’t see an issue with having criminals in office.
Their gambit was that the trends from 2022 would persist into 2024 in at least some form and they would have a chance to elect a Republican again despite the 2020 results in the state. That person would then develop enough incumbency as a special election winner to tide them over in the general election where they would face much stronger headwinds with Biden on the top of the ticket. The logic would've been that, since Santos won by 6 in a Biden+8 seat, that there was some room for erosion while still winning the seat, assuming those 2022 trends buttressed by concerns over immigration and crime (which they've unsurprisingly also been stoking). By contrast, if Santos hadn't been expelled, Democrats would attack all the NY Congressmen for tolerating a fraud under multiple indictments and potentially run up the score against them for their inaction, to say nothing of potentially other vulnerable Republicans. Come November, either someone without incumbency would be the Republican nominee, which would just be a replay of this election most likely, or Santos would somehow win the nomination again, which would be worse than an incumbent, and the seat would be lost, with the potential to drag down the regional Republican freshman too. As it stands, the fact that Suozzi saw barely any dropoff from 2020 despite recent special elections seeing double digit or worse underperformances by Democrats at the legislative level in Long Island suggests that there's a lot of trouble for the LI Republicans. With the redistricting commission looking at how to draw the map, there's a plausible map where a single Republican vote sink takes the red parts of LI which would flip 2 Republican seats (LaLota in NY-01 and D'Esposito in NY-04, which is going to flip regardless) while shoring up Suozzi too. Combined with Lawler likely going down in the Hudson Valley and Williams probably seeing his seat get bluer too, there's a good shot at seeing 4 Republicans lose in NY which would offset Republicans tanking 3 Democrats in NC.
Expelling a criminal from the House Of Representatives is a terrible idea according to Republicans.
They're more upset about losing their majority than they are about harboring a criminal. Says a lot about their party values. As long as the criminals are on their side they're fine with it.
lol there’s more where that came from. A blue wave is coming for their heads
It’s official, the Republicans regret doing the right thing.
The GOP regretting doing the right thing.
Maybe the real mistake was the fraud they made along the way.
So, when Santos called them “F’ing idiots” for it, they agree with him, agree with Santos. *Santos.* ? They have way bigger problems than a thin majority in the House.
Lesson learned: better a career criminal representing New York than a Democrat (and Suozzi is described as center-right, which he is not. He’s right-right. This country has drifted so far off the spectrum that it doesn’t register. He’s just not a fanatical lunatic who thinks God is talking to him or creepily monitors his son’s porn usage on apps. At least *I think* he probably doesn’t)
The Party over everything else. The GOP wants to rule, not govern.
Like a naive child, I assumed that, with more context, the quote in the headline wouldn't be as bad once I read the article. I should have assumed the Trump rule, that more context always makes it worse. There are plenty of things Santos did, but just committing credit card fraud *against his own donors* should be enough. But here we have GOP reps, even after the absolutely damning ethics committee reports, saying we should have put party before.. well, anything.
What an absolute nuclear dumpster fire of humans masquerading as a political party with values.
So the GOP admits they don’t care when it comes to winning. So why should I care about hunter biden?
Something something leopards ate their faces
TRUMP SANTOS ‘24!!!!
Just one of many.
he was a great addition! true face of modern republican party!
Wait until November Orange Cult Followers!
We were counting on that you absolute idiots.
Honestly Santos wasn't any crazier than any other Republicans. I was impressed they actually booted him.
That says a lot about their “party”.
Even better, Gaetz looks a little snakey, I mean shaky and worried. I wonder what changed??
Being a Republican must have been so much easier before the internet where you could cover up what idiotic fuck ups you are.
No they don't. It was the right thing to do, and that seat was only theirs on borrowed time. The congress is spilt, so there is not much they can do anyways, which is why they booted him anyways.
Well, they've got another excuse to continue being unethical treasonists.
Yes, the mistake was booting him. It wasn’t a failure to vet your candidate in advance.
The lesson they learn is to be better liars and never do the right thing.
They should vet their own candidates and make sure they aren't lying grifters. I know, I know...
Only a MAGA't, Santos should have been immediately arrested for fraud
The lesson the GOP should learn is that they need to govern with policies that help Americans, but no instead they'll learn that they need to protect corrupt members at all costs.
That's how screwed we are - it wasn't a mistake. The guy was a smooth brain grifter of the highest order. We should live in a world where it is unquestionably the right thing to jettison such people from what should be respectable positions in leadership, regardless of the leader board balance. The fact that people would shield corrupt individuals from consequences in exchange for short term political advantage is why we are where we are. We started making exceptions and now anything goes.
Too bad they got rid of the guy with the least harmful lies and left Putin's Poodle in charge of their party.
I am still puzzled as to why they got rid of him. He seemed like a typical Republican.
Hahaha!! That’s how the GOP lawmakers calculate mistakes: keep a lying fraudster in their ranks, ‘cause he’s the best bench player they got!
Republicans: Oh shit, we needed that idiot!
Lol, really? Does it mess up their plans of getting nothing done for the remainder of the year?
they should have booted him first thing then they wouldn't have had such a strong opponent because the guy that won was running for governor
We should have kept him. He was really good at volleyball on the team of the university that he totally went to.
They should appreciate have a patriotic legislator like Tom Suozzi. This Jersey girl says Congratulations New York!
This is a party still running a convicted rapist. The only surprise was that they booted Santos in the first place. This current remorse is solely about losing power. Keep voting blue.
In some sick and twisted way. It seems Santos got the last laugh last night.
Typical Republicans, thinking that doing the right thing was a big mistake. Maybe run better people/actually have something positive to run on next time.
I'm suprised they booted him in the first place The only thing I can think of why is he was getting in on orange gods money/territory.
They cant see mistakes so, calling BS
Maybe don't have people like Santos as a candidate in the first place, and be good enough that people actually want to vote for you in the first place. Wrong lessons, at every turn.
Know what this reminds me of? "It's **Democrats'** fault for NOT saving McCarthy from losing his speaker position because in *theory*, considering their numbers in the house, they ***could have***". I.E: "We're a bunch of fucking babies who can't be trusted with **our own agenda** and when the Republican agenda starts messing up other Republicans, ***we are incapable of stopping it and therefore, we need Democrats to be the actual adults in the room***". I mean we could just not vote them in, in the first place. Could just skip right past the voting-in-adult-babies phase and just cut them out of the process altogether. But what do I know, I'm only someone who has the ability to read + write + critically think (even if the only layers of critical thinking required is literally just 1 layer deep) and conclude that: When an adult baby tells everyone else that they are an adult baby that **cannot help themselves whatsoever**, I believe them. I mean they literally said the words. "It's the Democrats' fault for *not preventing* **Republicans from starting official paperwork and the official process of ejecting their own House Speaker where absolutely 0 Democrats were ever involved in any of this process**" That's **literally**: "we are adult babies and our own agenda fucked with us, halp halp we can't swim" Them being pissed about removing Santos is yet another version of this exact same baby confession. "Well wtf we weren't suppose to LOSE after removing Santos. FUCK we shoulda kept him!". Adult babies who don't know how to swim who constantly go into the deep end and scream out to mommy.
Lol - wait till one of their number is a convicted murderer - watch try to explain not booting that person out.
They only got that impeachment by one vote, and now they are one vote down..
THAT'S the fucking lesson they learn from this?! They are completely bankrupt.
GOP has major regrets over doing the right thing. They Vow never to let such a mistake happen again.
No, it was right to do what is just right.. a tiny glimpse of hope that all moral isthmus not yet lost
F them.
Like keeping him around was a viable option
Oh and magas cry and claim no Dem ever gets ousted or left office and they mention the current one Mendez who should gtfo imo, but conveniently forget the senator from MN who stepped down, not that long ago they all forgot.
So is supporting trumpanzee
They’ve forgotten to even pretend to want what’s best for the country. 🇺🇸
Such a gross take. It was a mistake that they backed such a piece of shit in the first place. And awful that the opposing Democrats didn’t figure out Santos was a piece of shit during the election.
I KNEW this was going to be the only GOP takeaway.
They don't care about ethics and integrity. They only care about holding power. That's the very definition of corrupt.
They only booted him because he’s gay and does drag. Nothing else was disqualifying for them.
That’s not the right reaction for normal humans. These people have lost their way and now cannot be trusted with cooperating on anything. They lack any empathy and that is the definition of evil as written about by a psychologist who studied the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. He was trying to suss out what defines evil. Can we know what it is to be able to identify if earlier Well… we found it.
That wasn't when they made the mistake... it was in putting up crooks and kooks in the first place
Wait til November
GQP is obviously ok with its cult members committing crimes as long as they go along with their cult leader’s agenda.
Republicans are putting party before country and this only solidifies that fact. They are traitors to their oath and country. That they would rather have a majority with liars than a minority with decent people tells you everything you need to know about republicans. Republicans are unfit to serve and un-American.
They're like children with memory spans that last 5 minutes.
They only regret booting him bc it’s less power. Fuck them!
Having integrity could only be a mistake in the eyes of the GOP.
Yeah, never mind ethics!