The Republican Party

[DKW 86 7,426]

23 hours ago, Leftfield said:

Always glad to see an unhinged post from you, especially when you're "taking a break."

Let's see, you called me myopic, a partisan hack, blind, a fool, intellectually defective (right after misspelling hypocrite), and f*****g dumb as they come. Meanwhile you decline to address the point I made except to imply I'm wrong because I don't agree with you that Democrats (right now) are as bad as Republicans. A brilliant, reasoned post that echoes 80% of what you put on this board. A pity you don't see the irony of your quoting what your father said to you.

And when the people whipped into a frenzy about Russian collusion attack the Capitol, feel free to chime back in.

Enjoy your beautiful Sunday! 

Brother, those whipped into a frenzy about Russians, etc have been vomiting BS by the dump-truck-loads for over 4 years. Not my President, 2016 Election was stolen...only we had an FBI investigation and found....all but nothing. And still the crazies do their best Trumpster Impersonations still screaming into the nite about Black Helicopter Theories about RUSSIANS!!!! COLLUSION!!!!! IMPEACHMENT!!!! TRAITOR!!!! Bigfoot!!! UFOS!!!, blah blah ****** blah. Been screaming about this nonsense for 4 plus years and even when most have realized they were had, they still keep right on screaming...

Was Trump a BAD PRESIDENT? I think he was the worst. Was he all bad? No, he at least didnt start another war over nothing, to enrich his Wall Street Buddies. He failed the COVID Test but did put together a vaccine plan that worked. 

I fully stand by "myopic, a partisan hack, blind, a fool, intellectually defective"...I find it screamingly hilarious when you once again mindlessly parrot the party talking points for the 10,000th time.

You talk about people that mindlessly listen to Trump repeating something for a few weeks and falling for his BS but cant seem to find it in you to see that the Democrats and Media have done the same damn thing four plus years to you and so many others... You didnt storm the Capital...but we have essentially had DC Shut down with gridlock for 48 months over you falling almost word for word for the same thing as what you accuse Trumpsters of falling for. 

[Grumps 3,704]

50 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

The fact you believe Trump is "mistaken" instead of knowing full well he's pushing a lie has diminished all of your arguments. Trump is privy to the information on all this, and he had plenty of people in his camp telling him there was zero credible evidence of mass fraud. The only way he truly believes he won is if his narcissism runs so deep he has managed to completely delude himself. I admit that's a possibility, but it would also mean he is unfit for office.

I asked earlier if you believe it is an impeachable offense to attempt to block the certifying of an election based on a lie, but you never answered. Care to do so now? 

I literally said Trump was "mistaken." In my vocabulary that means he was wrong. Can you explain how it means anything else?

Yes, I believe it would be an impeachable offense for Trump to attempt to block the certification of an election (even for the truth). I don't see how that applies here, but the answer is YES.

mis·tak·en

/məˈstākən/

adjective

• 1.wrong in one's opinion or judgment:

[DKW 86 7,426]

The Mueller Investigation, and Two Impeachments later...All but nothing. Complete, total waste of time. 

Millions of dollars and 49 months or so wasted in this nation's history. 

Remember I said this, Just like The Nuclear Option, the Filibuster takedown, the Dems will regret Impeaching a past president. Paybacks are hell and doing stupid on a cosmic scale will always bite you in the ass.

All they had to do was move on. Could not do that. They had to drag the nation thru yet another Impeachment that had not a snowball's chance in hell of going thru. The Republicans are paying for Impeaching Clinton back in 1998. Karma is a bitch and has a perpetually long memory. The Dems will find out soon enough.

Remember i said that...

[Grumps 3,704]

19 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Hell, Grumps, even Moscow Mitch gets it:

"The Senate minority leader condemned Trump’s actions as a “disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty” and said he held Trump “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” McConnell continued:

The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instruction of their president. And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth. The issue is not only the president’s intemperate language on January 6 … It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe, the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was somehow being stolen by some secret coup by our now-president."

So you are still focused on Russia???

[DKW 86 7,426]

3 minutes ago, Grumps said:

So you are still focused on Russia???

I hope homey is getting some really great rent for all that space DJT takes up in his head....

[Leftfield 2,607]

22 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

Brother, those whipped into a frenzy about Russians, etc have been vomiting BS by the dump-truck-loads for over 4 years. Not my President, 2016 Election was stolen...only we had an FBI investigation and found....all but nothing. And still the crazies do their best Trumpster Impersonations still screaming into the nite about Black Helicopter Theories about RUSSIANS!!!! COLLUSION!!!!! IMPEACHMENT!!!! TRAITOR!!!! Bigfoot!!! UFOS!!!, blah blah ****** blah. Been screaming about this nonsense for 4 plus years and even when most have realized they were had, they still keep right on screaming...

Was Trump a BAD PRESIDENT? I think he was the worst. Was he all bad? No, he at least didnt start another war over nothing to enrich his Wall Street Buddies. He failed the COVID Test but did put together a vaccine plan that worked. 

I fully stand by myopic, a partisan hack, blind, a fool, intellectually defective...I find it screamingly hilarious when you once again mindlessly parrot the party talking points for the 10,000th time.

You talk about people that mindlessly listen to Trump repeating something for a few weeks and falling for his BS but cant seem to find it in you to see that the Democrats and Media have done the same damn thing four plus years to you and so many others... You didnt storm the Capital...but we have essentially had DC Shut down with gridlock for 48 months over you falling almost word for word for the same thing as what you accuse Trumpsters of falling for. 

And you either don't listen or are just a straight moron, because I am not a Democrat and have fallen for nothing. Just because I thought Trump was an absurdly dangerous wannabe-dictator and thought it was imperative to vote him out, you shove me into the camp of someone fooled by the Democrats. I wasn't even on the political forums four years ago, yet you project an argument on me because it suits yours. For what it's worth, there were certainly plenty of things the Democrats did during that time that I did not agree with, but the fact you believe Trump was squeaky clean from it is laughable.

It's also hilarious that you think gridlock in DC has only been going on for 48 months, as if obstructionism hasn't been the goal for decades now. Oh, but you already know that, being so much smarter than the rest of us about both parties being equally horrible and it being ridiculous to support anyone, right?

If my words sound like talking points, that's because they're obvious to anyone who isn't either wholly in the tank for Trump or so filled with anger at the Democrats that they can't listen objectively to anything they have to say. If others grasped the obvious, the "talking points" wouldn't be necessary.

Not surprised at all you've come at me this way. It's really why I never bothered addressing any of your posts. For someone who believes himself to be more enlightened than the rest of the room, you seem very comfortable resorting to lazy personal attacks.

 

[AU9377 4,960]

10 hours ago, Grumps said:

Did Biden lift a finger to stop them? Or McConnell or Pelosi or Schumer? Was it Trump's job to stop them? I would have thought it was the job of the Capitol Police or some other LEA. If you are correct that it was Trump's job to stop the people from breaking into the capitol then sure, punish him. But you know that was not his job.

They weren't Biden supporters organized on his behalf and instructed by him to march to the Capitol.  Trump had no express duty to stop them, but most men with any character would have done everything in their power to stop what was taking place from happening.  Instead, Trump told the House minority leader, McCarthy,  that his supporters must just care more about the election than McCarthy did when McCarthy asked for his assistance.  McCarthy responded by saying "who the F*** do you think you are talking to?"

[jj3jordan 2,053]

1 hour ago, AU9377 said:

They weren't Biden supporters organized on his behalf and instructed by him to march to the Capitol.  Trump had no express duty to stop them, but most men with any character would have done everything in their power to stop what was taking place from happening.  Instead, Trump told the House minority leader, McCarthy,  that his supporters must just care more about the election than McCarthy did when McCarthy asked for his assistance.  McCarthy responded by saying "who the F*** do you think you are talking to?"

Sounds like McCarthy thinks pretty highly of himself.

[DKW 86 7,426]

16 hours ago, Leftfield said:

 but the fact you believe Trump was squeaky clean from it is laughable.

OMG, how dumb are you? I have hated Trump for 30+ years.

Not surprised at all you've come at me this way. It's really why I never bothered addressing any of your posts. For someone who believes himself to be more enlightened than the rest of the room, you seem very comfortable resorting to lazy personal attacks.

Your post was just sssooo clueless. I mean, man, do you ever listen to yourself mindlessly parroting things you obviously do not understand?

[Leftfield 2,607]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

Your post was just sssooo clueless. I mean, man, do you ever listen to yourself mindlessly parroting things you obviously do not understand?

Because I didn't rake the Democrats over the coals about the Russian collusion probe at the same time I was pointing out why Trump should be convicted?

[DKW 86 7,426]

5 hours ago, Leftfield said:

Because I didn't rake the Democrats over the coals about the Russian collusion probe at the same time I was pointing out why Trump should be convicted?

You do realize that they did not find anything right? You were "pointing out" things that did not happen. 
Mueller Investigation, Two Impeachments, $100M, and all we have is half a party with permanent TDS.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article136600213.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8299753/Declassified-transcripts-Obama-officials-not-provide-evidence-Russia-Trump-collusion.html

James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, Susan Rice ALL DENY ANY EVIDENCE OF TRUMP COLLUSION.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/obama-spy-chief-and-other-top-officials-had-no-direct-evidence-of-trump-russia-collusion-transcripts

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-intelligence-committee-transcripts-provide-new-insight-fuel-old-divisions/

THE QUESTION OF COLLUSION

Coats also told congressional investigators that then-FBI Director James Comey told him there was "smoke but no fire" on the question of whether evidence of a conspiracy – which often was referred to as 'collusion,' a looser, non-legal term – existed.

"There is smoke but no fire on the issue of collusion … He didn't use the word 'collusion,'" Coats said. "He said: 'Right now, I am only targeting — we are only looking at one person who had some role in the campaign. He said that person is Carter Page, but he said there is — there is no evidence to indicate at this point that the President had collusion with the Russians," he said. 

Coats himself denied having any knowledge of "evidence of collusion, coordination or conspiracy" between Russia and Donald Trump or members of his campaign – a blanket question commonly asked of witnesses by Republicans on the committee.

"I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting, conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election," former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified. "That's not to say there weren't concerns about the evidence we were seeing, anecdotal evidence."

"I saw indications of potential coordination," said Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to President Obama, "but I did not see, you know, the specific evidence of the actions of the Trump campaign."

THE STEELE DOSSIER

A number of witnesses were asked about the contents of the so-called Steele dossier, a document of raw, unverified intelligence compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who had previously worked with the FBI. It contained a number of salacious details about the president, and caused shock waves after it was leaked to the media in 2017.

After reading one of the most controversial allegations in the dossier, Representative Trey Gowdy asked Keith Schiller, who worked for years as Mr. Trump's bodyguard and had accompanied him on a trip to Russia, where the alleged actions were to have taken place, if he had "anything to corroborate that salacious allegation in the dossier."

 

"No sir, I don't," Mr. Schiller responded.

He later testified that, while traveling in Russia, "someone" suggested sending women to Mr. Trump's hotel room.

"I believe he was joking, because I immediately told him, 'Absolutely not. We don't do that. But I don't know who it was." Schiller said when he later told Mr. Trump about the suggestion, "He laughed."

"We both laughed," Schiller testified. "I told him it was immediately something that we would never do, and I just told him I shut it down immediately." 

Coats also described one conversation he had with the president about the dossier's salacious contents.

"I don't know why he said this to me. Maybe because it is my background, my faith background, or whatever, I don't know," Coats said. "He said: 'I want to — I swear to you on the soul of my son, I had nothing to do with that prostitution. And for them to take me aside and raise that issue and then have it leaked, he said, how would you like it if — how do you go home and talk to your wife when it is plastered all over the place that you were using prostitutes in Russia, and you are having your family hear that and having your son hear that?'"

"H was just really, really impacted," Coats said.

In an exchange that is lightly redacted, Mr. Clapper was asked whether the intelligence community attempted to validate any of the sources, subsources or contents of the dossier, which was included in an annex to the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment of Russia's 2016 interference."Yeah," Clapper said of including the document as an annex, "And the reason we handled it that way was precisely because we could not corroborate [REDACTED]."

[Leftfield 2,607]

28 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

You do realize that they did not find anything right? You were "pointing out" things that did not happen. 

What the hell are you even talking about? Not once did I mention anything about the Russia investigation until you made that post that looked like it was ghost written by Jack Torrance.

The subject was Trump's responsibility for the Capitol riot. How in the world do you out-of-nowhere say I was spreading falsehoods about Russian collusion?

 

[DKW 86 7,426]

8 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

What the hell are you even talking about? Not once did I mention anything about the Russia investigation until you made that post that looked like it was ghost written by Jack Torrance.

The subject was Trump's responsibility for the Capitol riot. How in the world do you out-of-nowhere say I was spreading falsehoods about Russian collusion?

(SIGH) I asked a question: You say Trump had his minions fired up over a few weeks of crap language. What do you think happened to those listening to 4+ years of Russians!, Collusion!, Impeachment!, Etc? 

If, in your mind, a few weeks can fire up some to storm the Capital, what has 4+ years of never ending tirades done to the other side? Does anyone here really expect this country to Unite? Especially after a second Impeachment trial that all 330M knew was DIW from day one?  

[Leftfield 2,607]

56 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

(SIGH) I asked a question: You say Trump had his minions fired up over a few weeks of crap language. What do you think happened to those listening to 4+ years of Russians!, Collusion!, Impeachment!, Etc? 

If, in your mind, a few weeks can fire up some to storm the Capital, what has 4+ years of never ending tirades done to the other side? Does anyone here really expect this country to Unite? Especially after a second Impeachment trial that all 330M knew was DIW from day one?  

So you completely avoid addressing the point of my post, try to shift the focus, then put words in my mouth.

The whole time calling me intellectually defective.

All hail the genius.

[DKW 86 7,426]

1 hour ago, Leftfield said:

So you completely avoid addressing the point of my post, try to shift the focus, then put words in my mouth.

Totally untrue. Your question wasnt right and I corrected it.

The whole time calling me intellectually defective.

And....

All hail the genius.

Thank you....

Thanks for playing...

[Leftfield 2,607]

47 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

Totally untrue. Your question wasnt right and I corrected it.

Congratulations. You've become so arrogant that you're now telling people their questions are wrong. Outstanding.

I think we're done here.

 

[Grumps 3,704]

22 hours ago, AU9377 said:

They weren't Biden supporters organized on his behalf and instructed by him to march to the Capitol.  Trump had no express duty to stop them, but most men with any character would have done everything in their power to stop what was taking place from happening.  Instead, Trump told the House minority leader, McCarthy,  that his supporters must just care more about the election than McCarthy did when McCarthy asked for his assistance.  McCarthy responded by saying "who the F*** do you think you are talking to?"

The bolded part of your post was my point. I agree that Trump should have done more, but not doing it was certainly not an impeachable offense.

[homersapien 11,385]

On 2/14/2021 at 4:44 PM, Grumps said:

I literally said Trump was "mistaken." In my vocabulary that means he was wrong. Can you explain how it means anything else?

Yes, I believe it would be an impeachable offense for Trump to attempt to block the certification of an election (even for the truth). I don't see how that applies here, but the answer is YES.

mis·tak·en

/məˈstākən/

adjective

• 1.wrong in one's opinion or judgment:

Figures you wouldn't know the difference between a "mistake" and a "lie".

[homersapien 11,385]

18 hours ago, Leftfield said:

What the hell are you even talking about? Not once did I mention anything about the Russia investigation until you made that post that looked like it was ghost written by Jack Torrance.

The subject was Trump's responsibility for the Capitol riot. How in the world do you out-of-nowhere say I was spreading falsehoods about Russian collusion?

 

Putting words - and thoughts - into other's mouths is his M.O.   Trust me. 

He cannot debate without a straw man.

[homersapien 11,385]

10 hours ago, Grumps said:

The bolded part of your post was my point. I agree that Trump should have done more, but not doing it was certainly not an impeachable offense.

So the POTUS simply watching a violent seditious insurrection when he has the power to stop it is not grounds for impeachment??

Damn man, you deserve to live under a despotic regime.

[homersapien 11,385]

Opinion: Republicans have tied themselves to an anvil

Opinion by

Jennifer Rubin

Columnist

Feb. 16, 2021

 

The decision should have been easy: Do you want to stick by an overwhelmingly unpopular former president who potentially has both civil and criminal liabilities, or do you want a fresh start for a party in need of new ideas? Republicans, remarkably, chose the former.

Quinnipiac’s most recent poll highlights the Republicans’ dilemma. By a 75 percent to 21 percent margin, Republicans “would like to see [former president Donald Trump] play a prominent role in the Republican Party.” However, overall, “Americans say 60-34 percent that they do not want Trump to play a prominent role in the Republican Party.” Even worse: “A majority of Americans, 55-43 percent, say Trump should not be allowed to hold elected office in the future. Republicans say 87-11 percent that Trump should be allowed to hold elected office in the future.”

Further, a majority of Americans (54 percent) think Trump was responsible for the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. An even higher percentage (55 percent) think the assault would not have happened without him. An astounding 68 percent think the former commander in chief did not do enough to stop the siege.

Republicans are bound to a figure who is toxic and utterly unacceptable to a significant majority of the country. Republicans in 2022 will be tied to him or will rush to embrace him, rendering candidates repugnant outside of deep-red areas. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) might like to distance himself from the disgraced former president, but after saving Trump from conviction, it will be difficult to disentangle the party from the man who instigated a violent coup, no matter what McConnell said on the Senate floor after voting to acquit him.

The groups that ran from the GOP in 2020 — women, young people, non-Whites and the college educated — are the same voters who are most adamant about getting Trump out of public life. Only 26 percent of women, 37 percent of young voters, 18 percent of college-educated Whites and 28 percent of non-Whites want him to be a major figure in the GOP.

The party’s leader is a red flag for these groups, which will be incentivized in 2022 to defeat his enablers. All those Republican House swing districts who ran to embrace the insurrectionist in chief will face the wrath of anti-Trump voters without him on the top of the ticket to drive turnout. Democrats chasing Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and even Ohio will ask a simple question: Do you want someone who supported the instigator of a deadly insurrection, or someone who thought that such conduct should be punished?

Beyond that, the White House and congressional Democrats have an easy argument to make whenever Republicans holler about bipartisanship or “extreme” nominees: Republicans have no moral authority when it comes to extremism, nor is there any evidence that they put the country’s interests above their own. The people who could not manage to convict someone as obviously guilty (according to McConnell) as the former president live in a make-believe world in which they are at war with reality.

Acquittal was a stunningly self-destructive move for a party that cannot now move beyond a villainous figure. Republicans might want to root for investigations into the former president, since they obviously lack the nerve to get him out of their party on their own.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/16/republicans-tied-themselves-an-anvil/

[Grumps 3,704]

11 hours ago, homersapien said:

So the POTUS simply watching a violent seditious insurrection when he has the power to stop it is not grounds for impeachment??

Damn man, you deserve to live under a despotic regime.

How did he have the power to stop it? Do you mean that he should have gone on TV and asked them to stop? Please explain.

[Grumps 3,704]

Maybe Trump was one of the LEO in riot gear just standing around.

https://www.tmz.com/videos/2021-01-19-011921-capitol-riot-4912393/

[homersapien 11,385]

14 hours ago, Grumps said:

How did he have the power to stop it? Do you mean that he should have gone on TV and asked them to stop? Please explain.

Obviously. 

They were rioting because Trump had constantly told them the election was stolen.  He started this whole thing, he was the only person who could have conceivably stopped it. 

That's still true.

But just as obviously, Trump didn't want to stop it.  He wanted it to succeed, as crazy as that is.  He was pleased with it.

[homersapien 11,385]

Opinion: Restoring sanity to the GOP will take years. Here’s how to start.

Opinion by

Brian Klaas

Global Opinions contributor

Feb. 17, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. EST

 

On May 24, 2017, a Republican candidate for Congress assaulted a journalist. He grabbed the reporter’s neck with both hands, slammed him to the ground and began punching him. What did the journalist do to provoke the attack? He had asked the candidate a question about his position on health-care reform. The candidate — who initially lied about the attack — was arrested. He ultimately pleaded guilty to assault.

What happened next illustrates the core problem with the modern, Trumpified Republican Party. The candidate who performed the assault was elected in the 2017 special election, reelected in 2018, and is now Montana’s governor. His name is Greg Gianforte.

Gianforte’s ascent tells you everything you need to know about today’s Republican Party. Disqualifying, extremist behavior isn’t just tolerated in the modern GOP — it’s encouraged. If America is going to have a functioning center-right party — and it sorely needs one for democracy to survive — then Republicans need to find a way to stop rewarding violent thugs, crackpot conspiracists, and those who troll Democrats on social media rather than solving problems.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and recently elected Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) offer an instructive comparison. Before winning a seat in Congress, Boebert had been arrested and summoned at least four times. Another time, she failed to show up for a court appointment, telling the judge she had forgotten which day of the week it was. “I am now aware today is Friday,” she explained.

Nonetheless, Boebert knocked off Scott R. Tipton, a five-term Republican incumbent in the primary. Tipton was unapologetically pro-Trump, but not extreme enough for Boebert.

Since getting elected, Boebert has established herself as a GOP firebrand. She soared to national prominence with a viral campaign ad in which she pledged to “carry my Glock” to Congress. Just hours before a violent mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6., Boebert wrote on Twitter that “Today is 1776.” When the mob left, Boebert then voted to overturn the results of November’s presidential election. Despite being one of the most junior figures in the House, she has been rewarded with high-profile interviews on Fox News. More than a half-million people follow her on Twitter. She is a national Republican star because of her extremism.

Romney is Boebert’s polar opposite in the party. He’s just as conservative as ever, but has made sober, sane policymaking his priority. He has condemned the party’s incitement of political violence rather than stoking it himself. Instead of making viral Twitter videos, Romney has signaled a willingness to work with Democrats in Congress to solve pressing problems. What has been his reward? He’s not just a pariah in the Republican ranks; he also nearly got killed by a mob stirred up by ex-President Donald Trump.

The problem here is twofold. First, America’s primary system tends to reward candidates who promise to be more of a partisan zealot than the incumbent they’re challenging. Second, in the Trump era, elected Republicans rocket to national political stardom by behaving in increasingly extreme ways, while compromisers are ostracized and shunned. Both dynamics are toxic for American democracy.

Let’s start with the primary system. Gerrymandering and demographic sorting (in which politically like-minded Americans live near each other) mean that most congressional elections aren’t competitive. The average margin of victory in the 2020 House elections was 28.8 percent, meaning the most common race was roughly a 65/35 landslide.

As a result, for most members of Congress, the only place to lose reelection is in a primary battle. And because primaries feature low turnout, they are disproportionately influenced by die-hard voters who are more extreme than the average member of their party.

We can put an end to that. To encourage bridge-builders rather than firebrands, you just need to make sure that those who compromise and show political courage can still win.

Take Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). She voted to convict Trump while representing a solidly red state. But she’s still likely to be reelected in 2022 because Alaska’s primary system is a nonpartisan open primary that puts the top four vote-getters from any party on the general election ballot. In the general election, Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, a system that typically rewards candidates who appeal to a broader section of the electorate. Murkowski was free to vote her conscience because Alaska’s electoral rules no longer let extremist voters have a louder voice than everyone else.

Primary reform is, therefore, a crucial first step, but it is only the first one. The longer-term problem is that the Republican Party has become radicalized. Boebert and Gianforte are more representative of the style of politics favored by the pro-Trump Republican base than either Romney or Murkowski. De-radicalizing the GOP is a longer-term project. Primary reform will help, but it won’t fix it altogether.

America needs a sane, reality-based Republican Party that denounces political violence rather than rewarding it. In other countries, pledging to carry a gun into the legislature or violently attacking a journalist would be a one-way ticket out of politics. In modern Republican politics, it’s a ticket to the governor’s mansion or national political stardom. We’ll have to find a way to fix that if we ever want to return to a politics of reason.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/17/restoring-sanity-gop-will-take-years-heres-how-start/