The Republican Party

[homersapien 11,371]

What is it?   What is it's future?

I've expressed my opinion throughout various threads.  Here's a place to consolidate the discussion. First, some cogent analyses of where it is:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/brooks-and-capehart-on-bidens-first-full-week-and-the-state-of-the-republican-party

(Video excerpt)

• Judy Woodruff:

  Well, meanwhile, let's talk for just a few minutes, David, about the Republicans and what's happened to your party.

  President Trump's been out of office, what, nine or 10 days. You have already seen the House minority leader fly down to Palm Beach, apparently to make nice, the president — former President Trump invited to speak at the Republican National Committee coming up.

  You have got all this — just a lot of anger and frustration, and worse than that, flying around between Democrats and Republicans over security, over Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

  What's going on inside the Republican Party?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, first, if it was my party, I'd be running it a hell of a lot better than they're doing right now.

  (LAUGHTER)

• David Brooks:

  So, what's happening is, there were a couple days after the Trump — January 6, then when Trump left, where I thought the party was really going to shake off a bit of Trump, obviously not all, but at least have two wings, at least have a wing that says, Trump was one thing, but we still have our conservative beliefs, and we're going to try to work with that other wing, and we will fight with the other wing.

  But, as far as I can tell, the normal wing has collapsed. We have a party right now where you have Mary Taylor Greene. It's easier to be a Republican and be Mary (sic) Taylor Greene than it is to be Liz Cheney.

  And so a normal Republican is — now has her job threatened, and the other one is now taking over the publicity wing of the party. You see the loss. You see Matt Gaetz, the very Trumpy guy, going to Wyoming to run against Liz Cheney, where Rob Portman, who's a normal human being, a very smart human being, and, frankly, a very good human being, a senator from Ohio, decides to retire, because he can't get anything done.

  Then you see — I'm forgetting his name — Madison Cawthorn, a young freshman from — a Republican, who says — he writes an e-mail to his staff saying: I'm putting all my staff into communications, not into legislation.

  And a lot of these Trumpy Republicans, they run for office so they can get on FOX News, not to pass things.

  And so what we're seeing is a party that is, as one person said, on fire, and going, in my mind, in the complete opposite direction, which makes life pretty easy for Joe Biden.

[homersapien 11,371]

The ‘civil war’ for the soul of the GOP is over before it began. Trump won — again.

 

By Dana Milbank

January 29, 2021

 

The supposed civil war within the Republican Party is over. The neo-Confederates have won.

Just three weeks ago, congressional GOP leaders set out to reclaim their party from President Donald Trump and his violent supporters. Trump had frequently emboldened white supremacists and domestic terrorists, but never more visibly than when he recruited and incited those who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 — and then did nothing for hours as they rampaged, hunting for lawmakers, in hopes of overturning the election.

From that deadly spree emerged a glimmer of hope that Republicans would, finally, distance themselves from Trump. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) said Trump “bears responsibility” for the “attack on Congress by mob rioters” and for failing to “immediately denounce the mob when he saw what was unfolding.” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said that the violent attackers were “fed lies” and were “provoked by the president.” He let it be known that he might vote to convict Trump after an impeachment trial.

Yet just three weeks after feebly trying to quit Trump, they have relapsed. It’s as though Abraham Lincoln had offered the Union’s unconditional surrender after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter.

Thanks to the cowardice of McCarthy and the perfidy of McConnell, the GOP now comprises two relatively harmonious factions: those who actively sabotage democracy, and those who tacitly condone the sabotage. Trump is gone; Trumpism reigns.

McCarthy recanted his original attempt to hold Trump to account. He never introduced the censure resolution he had said would be “prudent.” Now he says that, while Trump bore “some responsibility,” so did “everybody across this country.” On Thursday, McCarthy made the pilgrimage to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound to kiss the ring of the defeated president. They posed, maskless, for a photo, and McCarthy boasted that Trump is “committed to helping elect Republicans.”

Worse, McCarthy decided to embrace Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a QAnon adherent and anti-Semite who, CNN uncovered this week, had “liked” social media comments recommending “a bullet to the head” of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and proposing that FBI agents should be executed for helping the fictional “deep state.”

McCarthy’s spokesman said the GOP leader would “have a conversation with the congresswoman.” Apparently he did — and McCarthy decided to reward Greene by giving her the seat she desired on the House Education Committee. That’s a plum assignment for a woman who claimed the Parkland and Sandy Hook school shootings were hoaxes and the grieving parents actors.

Pelosi justifiably called McCarthy’s rewarding of Greene “absolutely appalling” and said she’d seek more security for lawmakers — especially because “the enemy is within the House of Representatives.”

“Enemy” is the right word. Somebody who wants to see you assassinated isn’t merely your opponent.

In the Senate, McConnell has done just as much damage over three weeks, but with trademark deceit in place of McCarthyite cowardice. After his initial criticism of Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, McConnell blocked the impeachment trial from starting in the Senate before Trump left office. And on Tuesday, he voted (with 44 other Republicans) in favor of dismissing the trial as unconstitutional because — wait for it — Trump is already out of office.

Maybe McConnell was sincere in his initial criticism of Trump, then decided it was in his best interest not to purge Trump and his violent followers from the party. Whatever his motive, the result is the same. The five brave Republican senators who voted to proceed with the trial — Ben Sasse (Neb.), Mitt Romney (Utah), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) — and the 10 Republicans in the House, including Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Liz Cheney (Wyo.), are now pariahs.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a Trump-worshiping street brawler, went to Wyoming this week to campaign against Cheney on the steps of the state Capitol. Kinzinger acknowledges his vote “could very well be terminal to my career.”

Other Republicans are falling to their knees to beg Trump’s forgiveness. Trump’s former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, originally said Trump’s “actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history." Now she says: “Give the man a break.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said after the failed coup that Trump can “count me out. Enough is enough.” Now, he’s back to coaching Trump and reassuring him that “there’s no appetite on our side for this trial.”

If anything, it’s even worse at lower levels in the party. The Texas Republican Party has been promoting its new slogan in recent days, “We are the Storm” — an echo of the QAnon term for when Trump’s enemies will face mass executions.

Arizona’s Republican Party, which asked whether Trump supporters were ready to die to overturn Trump’s defeat, just censured the state’s sitting Republican governor, Doug Ducey, for certifying President Biden’s win in the state.

Oregon’s Republican Party proposed that the attack on the Capitol was a “false flag” operation. Hawaii’s Republican Party praised QAnon believers and promoted a Holocaust denier.

This is not mere madness — it is madness with consequences. A republic cannot prosper when one side uses the threat of political violence as a means to power. A stable country cannot long survive with the threat of assassination constantly hanging over its leaders.

Members of Congress wrote to House leaders Thursday pleading for more personal security for themselves and their families. “Members now regularly face threats,” they wrote. “The increased level of threats has overwhelmed the Capitol Police Threat Assessment Section.”

More revealing than what was said was who said it: Of the 32 lawmakers who signed the letter, 31 were Democrats. The lone Republican signatory, Fred Upton (Mich.), was one of the brave few who voted to impeach Trump. Trump and his supporters are determined to make those who crossed the former president pay — with their jobs, if not with their lives.

The Department of Homeland Security warned on Wednesday that “ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.” The Capitol attack, DHS said, may embolden them “to target elected officials and government facilities.”

This isn’t abstract. In a legal filing this week, the FBI disclosed that one such violent extremist, a Trump supporter, was found with five pipe bombs, 49 firearms, 15,000 rounds of ammunition, and bomb-making material. Authorities believe he was targeting California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Twitter, Facebook and “Democratic targets” to make sure Trump stayed in office.

Is it any wonder the threat of violence has become a constant presence in our political life? We see death threats against state elections officials, state and local health officials, and, of course, journalists. People plotted to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease doctor, has been under Secret Service protection since March because of threats to him, his wife and his children. He described to the New York Times this week opening a letter filled with powder, requiring a hazmat crew to spray him down.

This week, a man claiming “Biden did not win” was arrested for threatening Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and his family. The Justice Department, meanwhile, revealed new charges against one of those who attacked the Capitol over his threat to “assassinate” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and for saying that the Capitol Police officer who fatally shot one of the invaders “deserves to die.”

Earlier this month, the FBI arrested a Georgia man over his plans for “putting a bullet in” Pelosi’s head. A New Hampshire man was arrested for threatening to kill six members of Congress, saying, “Donald Trump is your president. If you don’t get behind him, we’re going to hang you until you die.” And an Illinois man was arrested for his vow to “kill any motherf-----g Democrat” that attempts to enter the White House. And federal authorities have brought cases against 164 people from 39 states and D.C. involved in the Capitol attack, according to George Washington University’s tally.

Republicans think they’ll save their political hides by capitulating to Trump. But, inevitably, that also means capitulating to his violent supporters. And democracy can’t function at the point of a gun.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/29/civil-war-soul-of-gop-over-trump-won/?arc404=true

[jj3jordan 2,052]

Brooks and Woodruf know nothing about the Republican party, and neither do you. If you want to find out, ask your sister.  She sounds sane.

[savorytiger 182]

1 hour ago, jj3jordan said:

Brooks and Woodruf know nothing about the Republican party, and neither do you. If you want to find out, ask your sister.  She sounds sane.

Nice post. Well thought out and adds much to the discussion.

[SaltyTiger 7,795]

On 1/29/2021 at 9:27 PM, homersapien said:

Republicans think they’ll save their political hides by capitulating to Trump. But, inevitably, that also means capitulating to his violent supporters. And democracy can’t function at the point of a gun.

Obviously Trump remains popular with a lot of donors and voters. 

[homersapien 11,371]

Signs of life?

 

GOP Rep. Kinzinger to start new PAC to challenge party’s embrace of Trump

Paul Kane and 

Amy B Wang

Jan. 31, 2021

 

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump earlier this month, has launched a new leadership political action committee that is designed to become a financial engine to challenge the former president’s wing of the GOP caucus and stand up against a leadership team still aligned with him.

Kinzinger, a onetime star of the 2010 Tea Party class, said the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol served as a final breaking point for the direction of the Republican Party, providing a stark divide between those who want to continue a path toward autocracy and those who want to return to traditional conservative values.

In an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Kinzinger formally unveiled his Country 1st PAC and a 6-minute campaign-style video launching what he hopes will become a movement

“The reality is this: This is a time to choose … And my goal in launching Country1st.com is just to say, look, let’s take a look at the last four years, how far we have come in a bad way, how backward looking we are, how much we peddle darkness and division,” Kinzinger said on the program. “And that’s not the party I ever signed up for. And I think most Republicans didn’t sign up for that.”

Kinzinger previewed the launch in a Saturday interview with a small group of reporters on a Zoom call, alternating between taking shots at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), whose QAnon conspiracy theories have drawn great attention in recent days, and being dismissive toward what he views as the weak leadership of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

“Republicans must say enough is enough. It’s time to unplug the outrage machine, reject the politics of personality, and cast aside the conspiracy theories and the rage,” Kinzinger says in the launch video.

Kinzinger said in the days after the assault on the Capitol he felt some optimism as McCarthy said Trump “bears responsibility” for encouraging the rioting mob to attack Congress and target then-Vice President Mike Pence. McCarthy quickly backed away from that remark and on Thursday he praised the ex-president after a meeting at his Palm Beach resort.

“That’s a heck of a move in about three weeks. It’s hard to square that circle,” Kinzinger told reporters Saturday. He suggested that McCarthy is not even the most powerful member of the GOP caucus anymore, but that it was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) “for sure” now.

Jordan was an outcast just a few years ago who banded together with about 30 other far-right conservatives and, after forging a strong alliance with Trump, has soared to vast power over McCarthy’s leadership team while making alliances with figures like Taylor Greene while trying to expel Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from the leadership team because she voted to impeach Trump.

“They’re political terrorists,” Kinzinger said of Jordan and his allies.

He called Wednesday’s formal meeting of the House Republican Conference — when Republicans will debate Cheney’s status and discuss whether to punish Taylor Greene for her controversial actions — “the opening salvo in the fight for the party.”

Kinzinger, 42, said he does not want to play any leading role in the GOP and has no ambition to run for higher office, but said too many Republicans were remaining quiet and just hoping Trumpism will fade away without fully confronting it.

He said that his push is not really around ideology so much as it was focused on driving the conspiracy theorists and racists out of the GOP.

“We don’t embrace conspiracy theories to win anymore,” he said. “Would we lose the Proud Boys? Maybe, I’m fine with that.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/31/gop-rep-kinzinger-start-new-pac-challenge-partys-trump-supporters/

[homersapien 11,371]

31 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

Obviously Trump remains popular with a lot of donors and voters. 

You have a keen eye for the obvious brother Salty.

[SaltyTiger 7,795]

34 minutes ago, homersapien said:

You have a keen eye for the obvious brother Salty.

So you agree that they are acting on behalf of the people that put them in office? 

[homersapien 11,371]

3 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

So you agree that they are acting on behalf of the people that put them in office? 

Sure.  But don't overlook the fact the party first cultivated those people by catering to the lies and conspiracy theories that motivate them.  They did this by embracing Trump as well as by their own hand.

Frankly, I don't see much virtue in even responding to such a constituency, but especially if you played an active role in creating and fomenting it.

And let's not forget these people - who now represent a majority of the Republican Party - are a minority of the country.

The Republican Party has a history of this:

Forcing out the fringe

Can Republicans exile their most toxic supporters? They’ve done it before.

 

By Matthew Dallek

January 29, 2021

 

The GOP faces a battle for its soul. On the side of Trumpism are self-styled militias at state capitols, QAnon chat rooms about the fictitious “deep state,” Jan. 6 rioters, white supremacists and their allies — as well as the officials who defend this set: the 197 of 207 House Republicans who voted against impeachment, the Arizona GOP apparatchiks who censured their own governor for acknowledging Joe Biden’s election victory in their state, the Oregon Republicans who approved a resolution calling the Capitol attack a “false flag” operation organized by Donald Trump’s enemies to harm his reputation.

On the other side are the Republicans still living with us in the real world.

Can the deranged fringe be contained and our politics restored to something like normal? If social media platforms keep Trump out, Senate Republicans convict the former president, GOP leaders rally voters to defeat Trumpian candidates in the 2022 primaries, and Trump acolytes in places like Arizona and Georgia lose statewide races, the party could diminish his legacy and weaken his followers, relegating them to the periphery.

It seems unlikely, but it’s happened once before. In the postwar decades, a slash-and-burn conspiratorial style took hold of the right wing, posing a challenge to several pillars of American democracy, including free and fair elections, the acceptance of facts in political debates and the peaceful transfer of power. Just as QAnon followers see a deep-state conspiracy to destroy Trump, some John Birch Society members viewed liberals as communist agents and dupes. The armed Minutemen of the 1960s echo in the gun-toting pro-Trump extremists in Charlottesville and Lansing, Mich. Talk radio kingpins such as Rush Limbaugh share a heritage with right-wing media stars Dan Smoot and Clarence Manion. And the Proud Boys share a sensibility with the white supremacists who formed Citizens’ Councils in reaction to the Supreme Court’s Brown decision desegregating schools.

[History could forgive Trump’s defenders. But we know it will reward his deserters.]

By stigmatizing, punishing and outvoting the forces that wanted to burn it all down in the 1950s and 1960s, Americans ostracized them; the United States put a lid on the toxic stew of bigotry, conspiratorial thinking and White Christian identity politics, and defended democratic values like truth, equality and racial justice. It was a whole-of-society strategy, more effective than anything unfolding today. Clearly, it didn’t keep those forces at bay forever. But in the right circumstances, it could work again.

n the ’50s and ’60s, the federal government, the national media, the U.S. military and civic groups took a stand that made it harder for violent, conspiratorial, white-supremacist elements to become the dominant force in either party. This elaborate and diffuse containment effort helped make those elements toxic in the eyes of a majority of Americans, defining extremists as threats to democracy and racial progress, rendering them less electable. This work could serve as a basis for a new counter-reaction to Trumpism.

At the federal and state levels, liberal elected officials used their bully pulpits to denounce and repudiate the far right as politically unacceptable. Addressing a Democratic fundraiser at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles in November 1961, President John Kennedy sought to drive a wedge through his political opponents in the GOP when he excoriated the “counsels of fear and suspicion,” “the discordant voices of extremism” that sought little more than “an appealing slogan or a convenient scapegoat.” Speaking for a lot of Americans, Kennedy expressed faith in “the basic good sense and stability of the great American consensus [that] has always prevailed” — a refrain that Biden’s campaign echoed in its call for unity, decency and reason.

[Trumpism expanded the GOP tent. Don’t expect Republicans to abandon it now.]

JFK’s take was more mythology than historical reality; political conflict has been far more common than consensus. Nonetheless, many Republicans joined Democrats in excluding the radical right from the mainstream. GOP Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel castigated the John Birch Society, which held that the greatest threat to America stemmed from a domestic communist conspiracy, as a group of “fright peddlers” (and reveled in the encomiums he received from constituents afterward). Just as House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (Wyo.) voted this month to impeach Trump on charges of inciting the attempted Capitol insurrection, a minority of Republicans in Congress once pushed their colleagues to keep extremists from dominating the party. The existence of a pro-civil-rights, pro-government wing of the GOP led by Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits and others divided the party but helped temper some of the racist and anti-Semitic impulses in Richard Nixon’s and Ronald Reagan’s movements. Those dissenters made it more costly and embarrassing for GOP leaders to link arms openly with their most unhinged supporters and to give public expression to their basest impulses.

An estimated 20 percent of those arrested for their part in the Capitol riot are former or active-duty military members. The military in the 1960s was aggressive about policing far-right extremists whom it considered subversive. In 1961, for instance, the Defense Department reassigned and admonished Gen. Edwin Walker for seeking to teach his soldiers that Harry Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt, among others, were communist agents. Walker resigned from the service, and when a reporter asked him a tough question after a congressional hearing where he was testifying, Walker gave him a black eye. At the same hearing, a Capitol Police officer kicked out American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell (who had praised Walker as a “great American”). Walker then went back to Texas and came in last in a six-person Democratic gubernatorial primary. When his former aide, Maj. Arch E. Roberts, was caught giving a conspiracy-crazed speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Army suspended him, too.

The FBI and local law enforcement, in a handful of instances, played a constructive role. The participation of Birch Society members in Barry Goldwater’s ultraconservative White House campaign deepened fears that a homegrown fascist movement would sow violence, pitting citizen against citizen. In a small town in Illinois, police broke up a Minutemen group armed with 81-mm mortars and machine guns that was planning to wage war on imagined communists inside the United States. The FBI recorded thousands of pages in its investigation of Birch activities as part of its Subversive Trends of Current Interest Program, and J. Edgar Hoover, despite his hatred for the left, refused to endorse the far-right theory that Eisenhower was a communist.

[Republican senators want Trump gone. If they say so, they’ll be gone, too.]

In the same way private firms felt compelled to cut ties with members of Congress who spread Trump’s election lies, people associated with the postwar far right faced economic pressure. Human rights, labor and political watchdogs such as the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, Group Research Inc., Americans for Democratic Action and the AFL-CIO published reports about extremists and fed dirt to local reporters and editors to discredit hate groups, while the civil rights movement used boycotts to change Jim Crow laws and check the power of white supremacy. Belonging to an extremist group could imperil someone’s income. After a 1962 ADL report named Massachusetts-based Philip Jenkins, who worked in the leather industry, as an incorporator of the John Birch Society, he told the group that Jews in his industry were alarmed by his associations. He wanted his name expunged from the report. In 1963 a Bircher from Delaware reported that a New Jersey Lockheed factory required employees to sign a form stating they did not belong to the society. A Saturn missile plant in New Orleans that year reportedly fired Birch members because they belonged to the organization.

In the ’50s and ’60s, there was a less-fractured media culture in which elites could more easily freeze out the fringe. Newspapers, magazines, television and radio programs could counteract the growing number of rightist outlets. Wall-to-wall coverage of Birchers and their allies — one Columbus, Ohio, student newspaper branded them “a threat to our national morale”; an editorial cartoon represented Birchers standing on a vulture’s wing alongside the KKK while the vulture pecked at the Statue of Liberty — engendered some sympathy among conservatives who thought the victims were martyrs, but it also warned GOP leaders and activists to put some distance between themselves and the most racist, conspiratorial, anti-Semitic and nativist members of their coalition. It’s unclear whether boycotting Fox News advertisers or other pressure campaigns could have the same effect today.

nfortunately, efforts to corral the radical right petered out in recent decades; with the benefit of hindsight, we can conclude that they were not enough. The far right has deep roots in American politics that are not easy to extirpate.

The Reagan counterrevolution, reacting partly to efforts to contain the Goldwater movement, gave energy and cover to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan and other fringe figures in the political coalition. Birch ideas (conspiracism, science denialism, deep-state suspicions) burrowed into the GOP. An anti-government dogma has attracted mainstream adherents since the 1980s. The alternative universe of right-wing media led to Fox News and its offshoots, giving oxygen to political coverage that privileged outcomes over facts. And social media has amplified the loudest views while removing some of the shame of harboring them. Inequality, the decline of manufacturing and competition from China turbocharged the ideas Trump exploited: anti-globalism, anti-free-trade, anti-immigration, all seen as keeping White people down.

Republican leaders have at times found it convenient to punish expressions of extremism. The George W. Bush White House, for instance, forced Sen. Trent Lott to step down as Senate minority leader for his remarks praising Strom Thurmond’s segregationist 1948 presidential run. But Bush also campaigned at racist Bob Jones University in South Carolina, and his supporters smeared John McCain for having supposedly fathered a child of color (he had adopted a Bangladeshi girl).

[Today’s GOP would have censure my grandfather, Barry Goldwater, too.]

The postwar decades show how Trumpism emerged and how democratic society might turn it into a minority within the Republican Party. Only by imposing political consequences on Trump’s wackiest followers can Americans hope to loosen their grip on the GOP, a strategy that some Never Trump organizations (Republican Voters Against Trump, the Lincoln Project and the Republican Accountability Project) have grasped, even if they have found limited success so far.

It is never too late to intensify that effort. Anything that works to define anti-government extremists as toxic threats to our country is helpful. This work held off the far right for a time. And any period, short or long, that this fringe spends in the wilderness is a boon to American democracy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/01/29/gop-john-birch-society-trump/?arc404=true

[SaltyTiger 7,795]

8 hours ago, homersapien said:

Sure.  But don't overlook the fact the party first cultivated those people by catering to the lies and conspiracy theories that motivate them. 

Not sure what you are saying 

[autigeremt 6,608]

If only we could see the total implosion of both parties....NOW THAT WOULD BE AUSOME! 

[TexasTiger 12,851]

12 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

Obviously Trump remains popular with a lot of donors and voters. 

Mostly voters now.

[TexasTiger 12,851]

2 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

Not sure what you are saying 

He’s saying “theparty first cultivated those people by catering to the lies and conspiracy theories that motivate them.“

[homersapien 11,371]

12 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

Not sure what you are saying 

Your implication was that the Republican Party is simply responding to their constituency as if that in itself is a virtuous act.

But they aren't just responding, they created and continue to cultivate that constituency, which is dedicated to undermining our democracy as evidenced by their belief in a "stolen" election.

[homersapien 11,371]

11 hours ago, autigeremt said:

If only we could see the total implosion of both parties....NOW THAT WOULD BE AUSOME! 

Nihilism is sooo chic.  

[autigeremt 6,608]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

Nihilism is sooo chic.  

Expected 100% from you. Partisan Champion

[homersapien 11,371]

19 minutes ago, autigeremt said:

Expected 100% from you. Partisan Champion

Hell yeah I'm partisan when the alternative is the Republican Party.  (Go back and start this thread from the beginning.)

[SaltyTiger 7,795]

11 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

He’s saying “theparty first cultivated those people by catering to the lies and conspiracy theories that motivate them.“

Thanks Tex. Understand it when it comes from you

[autigeremt 6,608]

31 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Hell yeah I'm partisan when the alternative is the Republican Party.  (Go back and start this thread from the beginning.)

I prefer open minded Americans. Partisans are toxic. 

[SaltyTiger 7,795]

50 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Your implication was that the Republican Party is simply responding to their constituency as if that in itself is a virtuous act.

But they aren't just responding, they created and continue to cultivate that constituency, which is dedicated to undermining our democracy as evidenced by their belief in a "stolen" election.

Not implying a “ virtuous act”. The opposite actually. I have had a tough time understanding how so many, per the polls, bought into the stolen election charges. 

[homersapien 11,371]

11 minutes ago, autigeremt said:

I prefer open minded Americans. Partisans are toxic. 

You mean like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene?  You "open minded" about her?

 

GOP Congresswoman Blamed Wildfires on Secret Jewish Space Laser

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-greene-qanon-wildfires-space-laser-rothschild-execute.html

 

[CoffeeTiger 5,108]

1 hour ago, autigeremt said:

I prefer open minded Americans. Partisans are toxic. 

If you don't like hyper partisanship then you don't like American politics. 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

3 hours ago, homersapien said:

Hell yeah I'm partisan when the alternative is the Republican Party.  (Go back and start this thread from the beginning.)

Lol, your party is not much of an upgrade. Still pretty much in the cesspool of American politics. 

[jj3jordan 2,052]

7 hours ago, homersapien said:

Your implication was that the Republican Party is simply responding to their constituency as if that in itself is a virtuous act.

But they aren't just responding, they created and continue to cultivate that constituency, which is dedicated to undermining our democracy as evidenced by their belief in a "stolen" election.

So it's not undermining our democracy to steal an election, but it is to point out that it was stolen.

[autigeremt 6,608]

10 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

If you don't like hyper partisanship then you don't like American politics. 

No I do not. I prefer freedom, liberty and justice for all.