The GOP: Not What It Used to Be

[fraurosena]

This war against education is prime fascism. Keep people uneducated and stupid and you can easily manipulate them.

[Smash!]

Sorry in advance, I need to rant: Whenever I mention to friends, who are well educated that the GOP has become fascist they immediately call me crazy because times are different than in the 1930s in Europe (great depression) and „you can‘t compare the GOP to the nazis“. To them fascism equals holocaust. No matter the guy who was the reason for WW2 attempted and failed to overthrow the government wasn‘t punished either. 
 

why is everything that‘s going on normalized? Is it because we got so used to the horrific news of the Trump era that our sense of what‘s normal is skewed?

[Xan]

1 hour ago, Smash! said:

why is everything that‘s going on normalized? Is it because we got so used to the horrific news of the Trump era that our sense of what‘s normal is skewed?

I had this thought yesterday.  I was reading an article about Paxton and some voter had come to see "history".  I figured she might be on the side of sanity but, alas, she was not.  She was pissed that the legislature was attempting to "overturn the will of the people".  Yes, she'd voted for Paxton and she said she already knew what he had done.  She thought it was all theater and fake news to make him look bad.

When you have some politician who is obviously a crook and people won't even acknowledge it, what do you do?  That's where we are with Donald now too.  He's done everything but shoot someone and it doesn't matter to his loyal followers.  He's theirs and they're sticking with him.  Morals no longer matter.

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, Xan said:

He's done everything but shoot someone and it doesn't matter to his loyal followers.  He's theirs and they're sticking with him.  Morals no longer matter.

This is because he's gone so long without being held to account. If he'd been held to account at his first or even his second impeachment, then I think people would be more willing to believe he's a bad guy. But because he was acquitted both times, and because the Republicans are parroting every idiotic thing he says, and even going so far as to push the big lie, people simply don't believe he's bad. It's the 'fake news', the 'don't believe your own eyes, just trust in what we say' mentality that has been pushed for 8 years straight that has contributed to followers blindly going along with everything anyone with an R behind their name declares. It's like mass indoctrination. Sad, shocking, and scary stuff.

[Xan]

I agree but I think it's somehow more than that.  Trump had a reputation as being a good businessman long before he got into politics and the truth was that he was abysmal at business.  He's just one of those people who refuses to accept blame and continually lies about his achievements.  He had illegal immigrants working on building Trump Tower.  He was never charged.  He sold properties to Russians for two to three times more than the value of the property and no one batted an eye.  He refused to pay subcontractors and dared them to take him to court.  Donald's always had more lawyers than anyone and he plays the long game.

He made people sign NDAs long before the general public knew what an NDA was.  He cheated on all of his wives.  He was associated with Epstein and Lolita Island.  He's been accused by over 20 women of unwanted sexual contact.  He was just this bad before he even hit the political stage.

I think the rightwingers were looking for a bully.  They got one.  The disenfranchised needed someone to ram down the throats of all those intellectual liberals.  They needed someone who would pinpoint some good scapegoats.  They were the beaten-down Germans of the 30s looking for a Hitler.  I don't use that comparison easily but I think they found one in Trump.

They don't care what he did.  They never will.

ETA:  This has nothing at all to do with modern day Germany and Germans -- whom I find to be lovely people.

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by Xan

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, Xan said:

I think the rightwingers were looking for a bully.  They got one.  The disenfranchised needed someone to ram down the throats of all those intellectual liberals.  They needed someone who would pinpoint some good scapegoats.  They were the beaten-down Germans of the 30s looking for a Hitler.  I don't use that comparison easily but I think they found one in Trump.

They don't care what he did.  They never will.

Oh, I agree with you on this. It is just like 30s Germany all over again. They also needed scapegoats, they needed to focus their discontent and anger at someone. And MAGAts need to focus their discontent and whipped-up anger at someone too. So the comparison is quite legitimate. With a notable exception. In Germany's case, the poor were poor because of the draconian measures laid upon them after the first world war. They forcibly kept Germany at an economic low, and the Nazis offered them a way to get back to being a great people again, instead of being the despised instigators of a world war.  The sad thing is that this is not the case in the modern-day US.  People aren't poor due to enforced low economic circumstances, but because the rich like to get richer and the corrupt US political system allows the rich to buy policies that make them richer while making the poor pay for it. Which, in my view, is even more evil.

[Smash!]

12 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The sad thing is that this is not the case in the modern-day US.  People aren't poor due to enforced low economic circumstances, but because the rich like to get richer and the corrupt US political system allows the rich to buy policies that make them richer while making the poor pay for it. Which, in my view, is even more evil.

I totally agree with your general statement. I think there were/still are rapid changes due to globalization and advances in technology. Politics failed to support the people who are/were affected with the transition in to this new world.

[Xan]

I don't think politicians care about supporting the disenfranchised or those having difficulty transitioning into new types of jobs.  They depend upon a good base of unskilled workers who will work for minimum wage.  The powers that be like to keep the corporate overlords happy.  And that base of unskilled workers shouldn't be too educated or they won't vote they way they're told.  Thus, they're trying to close libraries and defund public schools.  

I don't think it's occurred to them what the logical conclusion of all this might be.  Marie Antoinette ending up losing her head.  There's only so far you can push people before they turn on you.  I think some of the fringe Trumpies are starting to do that now.  It doesn't help that Donny keeps asking for money but hasn't paid the lawyers of his 1/6 army.

[Becky]

12 hours ago, Xan said:

...  

I don't think it's occurred to them what the logical conclusion of all this might be.  Marie Antoinette ending up losing her head.  There's only so far you can push people before they turn on you. ...

Mike Pence very nearly lost his life, so he, of all people, should realize the risks.  Why he still wants to be President is beyond my comprehension.

[47of74]

The Dubuque TH said they noticed surprisingly little complaining since they decided to shut down the comments section a couple weeks ago;

Quote

Thanks for all the feedback on the closing of reader comments on our website. I had dozens of responses — all of them in agreement with the decision. The general sentiment I’m hearing is that people are fatigued by the negativity our world presents from so many angles. Shutting comments down is one less space for negative noise.

I assume the regular commenters would disagree with the decision, but since they like to spout their opinions anonymously, I haven’t received any emails from them, and I don’t anticipate a letter to the editor.

I agree with the comments being shut down and I wish it had been done years ago.  I think it was at the point where it did nothing more than allow kluxers and other idiots to spew their bullshit for the galaxy to see so I'm down with closing it.  And no where does it say the 1A requires a private business to allow kluxers to spew BS on their platforms.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Breaking down the GOP investigation into the Biden family"

Quote

A federal prosecutor may be nearing a decision on whether to charge Hunter Biden with tax offenses and a false statement related to a gun purchase, but House Republicans insist there is more.

They’ve been investigating the president’s son and his finances for a year now, with little to show for it. Not only are their allegations much broader than what the federal prosecutor is considering, they have yet to provide any concrete evidence of wrongdoing.

Federal prosecutors originally cast a broad net, too, before narrowing their work to focus on the taxes and gun.

Here’s a rundown of the GOP allegations into the Biden family.

The allegation: There is a bribery scheme involving President Biden

Congressional Republicans say they know of a whistleblower within the Justice Department who alleges that President Biden received millions of dollars from a foreigner in exchange for a policy decision.

That’s all we know; Republicans are in an escalating battle with the FBI to get hold of the informant tip that they say will shed light.

The evidence: We should approach this claim with extreme skepticism. The document Republicans are requesting is a form the FBI uses to record unverified tips. The FBI stressed that in its response to Republicans: “The FBI regularly receives information from sources with significant potential biases, motivations, and knowledge, including drug traffickers, members of organized crime, or even terrorists. … Recording the information does not validate the information, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information known or developed by the FBI.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) threatened the head of the FBI, Christopher A. Wray, with a contempt of Congress citation if he doesn’t cooperate in the investigation. That would be a partisan, though probably symbolic, slap on the wrist for Wray. A contempt charge can lead to prosecution, but it’s unlikely the Justice Department would pursue that against its own FBI director.

Republicans have spent a year investigating the Bidens and have come up with no evidence of a pay-to-play scheme involving the president. The White House points out that Biden released 25 years of tax returns when he was running for president.

The allegation: President Biden personally financially benefited from his son’s business deals.

“President Joe Biden has participated in his family’s global business ventures with America’s adversaries,” House Republicans wrote in a November report. “He has misused his public positions to further his family’s financial interests.”

The evidence: So far, House Republicans have provided no evidence to back that up. Despite reviewing thousands of bank records, they haven’t provided a link between President Biden and his family’s business deals. And there is no evidence he personally benefited financially.

Also, there is no evidence that Hunter Biden’s business deals with foreign companies were illegal — although what is publicly known about Hunter Biden suggests he was willingly using his famous name to earn money, raising the question of whether he was willingly being used by foreigners to try to curry favor with his father.

Hunter Biden has talked openly about his business deals abroad. In a 2019 New Yorker interview, he made clear his father was aware he had taken a job with a Ukrainian gas company. “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’” he recalled.

That brings us to the GOP’s third allegation.

The allegation: The Biden family engaged in ‘influence peddling’ abroad

When Joe Biden was vice president, he did a lot of overseas diplomacy — pushing anti-corruption messages in Romania and Ukraine, for example. Hunter Biden was also doing business in these countries, sometimes at the same time his father was working in them.

Republicans subpoenaed bank records from Biden associates to demonstrate that members of the Biden family — but not Joe Biden himself — received $10 million from foreign companies over a period of a few years starting in 2015.

They alleged this month that Hunter Biden was getting money from Romania, funneled to him by an associate. Republicans allege a similar situation in China, months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency. (They say they haven’t started investigating the existence of a money trail in Ukraine. Donald Trump, while president, was impeached by House Democrats in 2019 for pushing Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on the Bidens.)

The evidence: So far, Republicans have failed to connect Hunter Biden’s business deals to his father’s work while vice president.

Hunter Biden seems to have shadowed his father by chasing business deals abroad. But if there were something nefarious going on, it wasn’t uncovered by the four-year criminal investigation led by a Trump-appointed prosecutor.

This GOP allegation of influence peddling also raises the question of why Republicans don’t investigate Trump’s family. Unlike Hunter Biden, Trump’s son-in-law and daughter held official positions in the White House. Jared Kushner oversaw U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East while running a company that received billions from Arab nations after he left office.

The allegation: There’s more hidden in Hunter Biden’s laptop

Hunter Biden apparently left a laptop in a Delaware shop before the 2020 election that made its way into Trump allies’ hands.

Biden’s critics have latched onto every ugly detail about the president’s son’s life — he has struggled with addiction and debt — and combined that with snippets of texts and emails and even nude photos from the laptop to suggest it may be hiding illegal activity.

The evidence: These allegations often lack context; for example, sometimes Republicans have made allegations based on just one email plucked from the laptop.

And it’s not clear that everything on the laptop is Hunter Biden’s. It’s been passed around in conservative circles for years now. The contents that The Washington Post could authenticate suggest that Hunter Biden profited from business deals in China and Ukraine because of his name and connections, but, again, that his father did not.

Democrats counter that this entire GOP investigation is a fishing expedition to help Donald Trump win back the White House.

The top House Republican investigating the Bidens did recently tie his work to Trump’s poll numbers: “You look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is seven points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward, Joe Biden’s trending downward,” said Comer. “And I believe that the media is looking around, scratching their head, and they’re realizing that the American people are keeping up with our investigation.”

 

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Breaking down the GOP investigation into the Biden family"

 

As we are well aware that the Republicans often accuse the Democrats of what they themselves are perpetrating or have done, this accusation stands out to me:

President Biden received millions of dollars from a foreigner in exchange for a policy decision.

Because this would imply that Trump (or they themselves) did exactly that.

Not that it would surprise me in the slightest, but still…

[GreyhoundFan]

"As MAGA faces a big defeat, some Democrats worry it will be fleeting"

Quote

MAGA Republicans in the House are raging about the deal lifting the debt limit that President Biden brokered with GOP leaders last week. One key complaint of hard-right Republicans is that the work requirements they wanted to impose on food stamp recipients are less cruel than they’d hoped.

But liberals shouldn’t indulge in too much schadenfreude about this. In a few months, Republicans will have another chance to secure work requirements tied to food stamps, when the farm bill — sprawling legislation that touches every corner of food policy in America — comes up for reauthorization. Which means MAGA’s defeat could prove fleeting.

“I don’t think the conversation is over,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), a member of the House Agriculture Committee, told me. “Food security programs within the farm bill are under threat.”

Most indications are that the Biden-GOP deal will pass, lifting the U.S. borrowing limit for two years while restraining government spending, but by far less than Republicans had hoped.

Democrats agreed to extend work requirements for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — or SNAP — on childless adults up to age 54, an increase from the previous limit of 49. But Democrats also secured new exemptions from work requirements for homeless people, veterans and adults raised in foster care. GOP hopes of expanding work requirements on other populations on public assistance — such as Medicaid recipients — were frustrated.

Those latter outcomes have MAGA Republicans in a fury. Rep. Chip Roy (Tex.), a leader of the far-right Freedom Caucus, tweeted that the work requirements Republicans won are “minor.” Rep. Keith Self (Tex.) fumed to reporters that the exemptions Democrats secured revealed the work requirements to be “sleight of hand,” as Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) nodded along.

In the coming debate this year over the farm bill — which is reauthorized about every five years — these Republicans will have another chance to add work requirements to SNAP. For months, Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee, which is key to passing the farm bill, have salivated for an expansion of work requirements, with some calling for imposing them up to age 65 and applying them to more people with kids. That’s far more draconian than what’s in the debt limit deal.

There is little evidence that work requirements encourage recipients to work or boost their character, as Republicans claim. Yet, as an analysis from the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) concludes, these bureaucratic hurdles could put hundreds of thousands of additional adults at risk of losing food assistance.

But MAGA Republicans who view that number as not nearly large enough will surely expect to make up lost ground in the farm bill debate. As Sharon Parrott, president of the CBPP, told me: “It is critical to reject any such doubling down on these ineffective policies, which increase poverty and hardship and have no impact on employment.”

This could go beyond MAGA. A large bloc of House Republicans is expected to vote for the debt limit deal, but even some of them might be anticipating having another crack at work requirements. These Republicans could see the deal as “one step in the right direction,” Spanberger told me, while resolving to “continue moving the rest of the way."

Republicans who are vehement about expanding work recipients for SNAP recipients are trading on long-running right-wing tropes about welfare dependency in urban areas. Yet large numbers of rural Americans also rely on SNAP.

“The program has a direct impact on rural voters’ bank accounts and on local rural economies,” Matt Hildreth, a Democratic organizer in rural areas, told me. In a perverse twist, MAGA Republicans are in thrall to a vision of the rural-urban divide that, if further put into practice, could harm large numbers of their own rural constituents.

If MAGA Republicans push hard on this front in coming months, it could roil the delicate balance of interests historically needed to pass farm bills. These bills link rural stakeholders reliant on agricultural subsidies to urban constituencies that are dependent on food stamps (but not disproportionately so).

As Liam Donovan, a former Senate aide who lobbies for biofuels clients, told me, if MAGA Republicans can persuade the GOP caucus to drive an even harder bargain this time, “it could mean a united front to push for stricter measures in the farm bill that would complicate the traditional coalition.”

In an effort to block all this from happening, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair of the upper chamber’s agriculture committee, sounded a defiant tone this week about the future of SNAP work requirements. “We are not entertaining any other changes in the farm bill,” Stabenow declared. "That debate is over.”

MAGA Republicans in the House, alas, will not surrender quite so easily.

 

[Dandruff]

On 5/29/2023 at 8:28 AM, Becky said:

Mike Pence very nearly lost his life, so he, of all people, should realize the risks.  Why he still wants to be President is beyond my comprehension.

Perhaps he's there as a puppet; e.g., trying to divide votes for somebody?

[GreyhoundFan]

Good gravy:

 

[Alisamer]

On 5/28/2023 at 6:40 AM, Smash! said:

why is everything that‘s going on normalized? Is it because we got so used to the horrific news of the Trump era that our sense of what‘s normal is skewed?

I really think we tipped over into bizarro world when Trump was made the Republican nominee. Literally every day of his presidency, despite him doing almost no actual work and spending a third of his term on the golf course, there were literally daily lies, controversies, and uproar. 

It numbed everyone, I think. We had been used to reasonably competent people in the white house, even if we disagreed with them. Even Bush2 had sense enough to surround himself with reasonably competent people. But then it was Trump, where the top guy was dumb as a post and less useful, and surrounded himself with syncophants, family, and butt-kissers - most of whom didn't have the slightest clue what their job was supposed to be, much less how to do it well. The white house went from a respectable institution to a drama-filled reality tv circus. 

On 5/31/2023 at 2:49 AM, fraurosena said:

As we are well aware that the Republicans often accuse the Democrats of what they themselves are perpetrating or have done, this accusation stands out to me:

President Biden received millions of dollars from a foreigner in exchange for a policy decision.

Because this would imply that Trump (or they themselves) did exactly that.

Not that it would surprise me in the slightest, but still…

It's interesting how offended many republicans seem to be by the mere thought that Hunter Biden might possibly have used his famous name to benefit himself financially, while the Trump administration was nepotism central with his son in law making billions from foreign governments. It's like they are aiming at one or two gnats while being attacked continuously by a horde of giant condors they are blatantly ignoring.

[GreyhoundFan]

3 hours ago, Alisamer said:

I really think we tipped over into bizarro world when Trump was made the Republican nominee. Literally every day of his presidency, despite him doing almost no actual work and spending a third of his term on the golf course, there were literally daily lies, controversies, and uproar. 

It numbed everyone, I think. We had been used to reasonably competent people in the white house, even if we disagreed with them. Even Bush2 had sense enough to surround himself with reasonably competent people. But then it was Trump, where the top guy was dumb as a post and less useful, and surrounded himself with syncophants, family, and butt-kissers - most of whom didn't have the slightest clue what their job was supposed to be, much less how to do it well. The white house went from a respectable institution to a drama-filled reality tv circus. 

One of my favorite shows of all time is "Daria". I am Daria. They often had snippets of a trashy show, "Sick, Sad World" playing on the TV in the background. I feel like our actual world has become a real-life "Sick, Sad World" ever since TFG rode that damned gold escalator in 2015.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Lindsey Graham and the GOP’s amazing spin: At least Trump isn’t a spy"

Quote

Donald Trump was charged under the Espionage Act. Donald Trump was not charged with espionage.

But almost immediately upon his indictment late last week, key Trump defenders have sought to obviate this distinction in the service of arguing that there’s not much to see here.

While in some cases acknowledging that perhaps Trump did something wrong, they have argued that at least there’s no evidence he gave these documents to America’s enemies. They’ve also effectively suggested that, absent such a breach, it’s time to move on since the documents have been recovered.

The former is a remarkable feat of goalpost-setting and spin. The latter is a dicey assumption, given all that we’ve learned.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board got the ball rolling on this argument Friday, within hours of the indictment being unsealed.

“However cavalier he was with classified files, Mr. Trump did not accept a bribe or betray secrets to Russia,” it wrote Friday night. “The FBI recovered the missing documents when it raided Mar-a-Lago, so presumably there are no more secret attack plans for Mr. Trump to show off.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) later approvingly promoted this quote on Twitter.

Fox News host Mark Levin was also quick to this line of argument: “There’s not one syllable of evidence in here, that any information under the Espionage Act was passed to any spies, to any enemies, to any foreign countries — not one.”

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) picked up the argument Sunday. “Espionage charges are absolutely ridiculous. Whether you like Trump or not, he did not commit espionage,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week.” “He did not disseminate, leak or provide information to a foreign power or to a news organization to damage this country. He is not a spy. He’s overcharged.”

But as Graham — a former Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) lawyer — very likely knows, being charged under the Espionage Act does not mean you are accused of spying or even aiding spies. We flagged this Thursday after news broke that Trump was indicted but before the charges were unsealed Friday.

Basically, the Espionage Act covers all manner of potential mishandling of sensitive information, even if there is no transmitting to America’s enemies. The specific section of the act cited in Counts 1 through 31 of Trump’s indictment (18 U.S.C. § 793(e)) involves willful retention of national defense information after the government requests its return.

Below is that section, with the apparently applicable parts bolded:

Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over [information] … the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it …

The information need not be transmitted to our enemies; it simply needs to be valuable to them in a way Trump would have been aware of and to not be turned over when the government came calling for it (for which there is extensive evidence in Trump’s indictment).

In response to Graham promoting this portion of his ABC News interview Sunday, legal expert Stephen Vladeck noted his own testimony from 2010 about the Espionage Act. In it, Vladeck noted that “the plain text of the Act fails to require a specific intent either to harm the national security of the United States or to benefit a foreign power.”

Trump could also run afoul of the Espionage Act by sharing the information with “any person not entitled to receive it” — i.e. not necessarily spies — which could include the guests he allegedly showed the documents to in two 2021 instances the indictment describes.

Beyond that, there is the related argument: that whatever non-espionage conduct Trump engaged in by holding onto these documents after the government demanded them has effectively been extinguished. Or, as the WSJ editorial board put it and as Lee relayed, “The FBI recovered the missing documents when it raided Mar-a-Lago, so presumably there are no more secret attack plans for Mr. Trump to show off.”

This is quite the presumption.

The indictment makes no mention of the idea that there are still classified documents out there. But the document Trump described in one instance of his allegedly showing them off — the one for which he’s on tape, involving a potential attack on Iran — reportedly hasn’t turned up.

The Justice Department also said in September, even after the Mar-a-Lago search, that more classified records might remain missing. It specifically cited 48 folders bearing classified markings that were nonetheless empty. It’s possible those folders had been separated from the documents they contained when they were still in the White House, but the issue hasn’t been publicly resolved.

There’s also the fact that we found out in December that two more documents with classified markings had turned up in a search of a Trump storage unit conducted by an outside team hired by Trump’s lawyers.

But as important is something else we learned in the indictment: Trump on multiple occasions appears to have suggested to his lawyer, not very subtly, that certain documents not be returned or even that they disappear.

Notes taken by Trump attorney Evan Corcoran after the May 2022 subpoena describe Trump approvingly citing a Hillary Clinton aide who deleted emails from her private server. Trump also allegedly told Corcoran something to the effect of, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” and, “Well, look, isn’t it better if there are no documents?” Corcoran’s notes describe an interaction with Trump when some classified documents were due to be returned in early June 2022, “He made a funny motion as though — well okay why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out. And that was the motion that he made.”

Trump also appears to have taken a great interest in the boxes, with multiple aides talking about him personally going through them.

None of which would seem to instill full confidence that the government has recovered all of what it sought. All of it points in the direction of Trump willfully trying not to return the documents when he was legally required to.

And the fact that Trump’s allies are setting the bar at “at least Trump isn’t a literal spy” would seem to reinforce how much trouble he’s in, legally speaking.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

My word, these people are a bunch of clowns:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

GQPers can’t understand anyone who isn’t into performance rage:

[GreyhoundFan]

In a word: nope. "Will the GOP learn anything from the Trump-Boebert-Greene follies?"

Quote

When you have a simple problem with your car, you fix it. When lots of things go wrong at once, you usually realize it’s time to trade it in. For American conservatives, last week was an occasion to ponder whether their whole approach is looking like a junker.

If they are wise enough to visit a showroom of new ideas, they might consider the simplest option of all: being conservatives again.

They could start by being a lot more serious than Donald Trump was in his calamitous interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier on Monday, in which the former president revealed that the classified documents that led to his indictment might have been mixed up “with all sorts of things — golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes, there were many things.”

“Iran war plans?” Baier cheerfully inquired.

Trump has been let off the hook by his own side so often that it was striking that prominent conservative commentators used the Baier encounter to pose fundamental questions about his presidential candidacy.

Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review, noted in Politico that while Trump’s legal troubles over the documents might only make Republicans rally to him more fervently, the response of the swing voters he’ll need in a general election is likely to be ruinous. Lowry’s pithy summary: “What might really kill Trump in a general makes him stronger with Republican primary voters.”

Karl Rove, architect of George W. Bush’s electoral victories, observed in the Wall Street Journal that Trump’s performance on Fox News “ranged from unpersuasive to incoherent.” Rove pointed to a much-cited CNN poll showing Trump losing support even among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents but still remaining well ahead of the GOP pack. Like Lowry, Rove was far more worried about independents, who supported Trump’s indictment by 2 to 1.

Granted, neither Lowry nor Rove has been a Trump fan. But the issue they raised about the conservative movement is fundamental: If GOP rank-and-filers are so far out of line with middle-of-the road opinion, the party’s future is grim.

This same problem accounted for the miserable time House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had in trying to lead what my inimitable Post colleague Dana Milbank called the “House of Recriminations.” McCarthy wanted to protect the 18 House Republicans who represent districts Joe Biden carried in 2020 from having to vote on impeaching him for, well, nothing really.

But Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) was determined to get a leg up on her ultra-right rival, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who had prepared her own articles of impeachment. The country got a glimpse of the radical right in disarray as Greene called Boebert a “little b----” for her alleged act of plagiarism — and for striking first. (And we’re supposed to think this is about principle?)

Eventually, McCarthy convinced Republicans to refer the impeachment articles to two House committees rather than acting on them directly, but this still forced vulnerable Republicans to cast a vote that started the impeachment process. This is unlikely to go down well with moderate voters who recoil from Boebert-Greene Republicanism.

Given how mesmerized the party’s primary voters are with Trump, Republican politicians are caught in a vicious cycle of their own making. Fearing reprisal from a man who revels in vendettas, the party’s leaders stay largely silent even when they know better. But their reticence makes the party’s core constituency ever more radical by driving moderate Republicans to flee to independent status — or even to the Democrats.

This makes compromise of the sort McCarthy reached with Biden on the debt ceiling toxic within the party. An Economist/YouGov Poll released this month showed why.

The survey found that by a healthy 59 percent to 41 percent margin, Americans preferred a member of Congress who “compromises to get things done” rather than one who “sticks to their principles, no matter what.” But whereas 81 percent of Democrats said they preferred compromisers, 58 percent of Republicans were in the “no matter what” crowd. If you are looking for the core driver of gridlock, this is it.

Conservatives don’t take kindly to progressives telling them what conservatism should be. It’s an old habit: When Joe McCarthy was riding high, moderate and liberal social scientists began distinguishing between “conservatism” and “the radical right.” I get the conservative impatience with liberal advice. But honestly, it’s really not a big ask to urge conservatives to be conservative rather than radical.

In a recent essay on the thinking of the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), political scientist Jeffery Tyler Syck recalled the lovely distinction Moynihan made between liberals as “people who would like to see things improved” and conservatives as “people who would like to see things not worsened.”

A conservatism dedicated primarily to avoiding making things worse would be a big improvement over Trump-Boebert-Greene poison. If conservatives who followed the Moynihan formula, they could govern and compromise. Their critiques of progressives and liberals would be sharper. And they most certainly would not have to rummage around among golf shirts, shoes and pants to find secret documents.

 

[fraurosena]

9 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Given how mesmerized the party’s primary voters are with Trump, Republican politicians are caught in a vicious cycle of their own making. Fearing reprisal from a man who revels in vendettas, the party’s leaders stay largely silent even when they know better. But their reticence makes the party’s core constituency ever more radical by driving moderate Republicans to flee to independent status — or even to the Democrats.

There is a-- admittedly for the US rather radical-- solution to this conundrum: don't let primaries decide who is the presidential candidate. Instead, let the party itself decide who best represents the party values and policies. The voters get their say in the general elections. In this way, Trump would never have won the candidacy. The idiocy of 10 million people running for the candidacy would not happen. The focus would be on party policies and internal party politics, and the candidate would be the result of party decision making instead of being the result of a popularity contest. If an election is lost, the party can conclude that either their policies or their candidate (or both) weren't appealing enough, and adjust accordingly. Additional bonus to choosing a candidate in this manner: it would also be a hell of a lot cheaper for a party too. No rallies, no ads, no door-knocking etc. for this part of the election cycle.

Likewise, choosing Speaker of the House can be altered in order to prevent another McCarthy circus from happening. Simply let both party’s put forth a candidate for the Speakership. The candidate with the (simple) majority of the vote becomes Speaker. That way no one can be held hostage by a minority caucus, and be forced into all sorts of consessions just to fill the personal ambition of attaining that fervently desired position.

[Ozlsn]

19 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The focus would be on party policies and internal party politics, and the candidate would be the result of party decision making instead of being the result of a popularity contest

Having seen some of the, ahem, mental "giants" pre-selected in my state by major parties... just want to say this isn't a fool-proof system (in so, so many ways).

At least if you combine with preferential rather than first past the post voting it does force both parties to try and appeal to the middle rather than becoming more extreme (here that translates into people forming their own often short-lived vanity parties, which split when their two candidates disagree with each other.)

[GreyhoundFan]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

There is a-- admittedly for the US rather radical-- solution to this conundrum: don't let primaries decide who is the presidential candidate. Instead, let the party itself decide who best represents the party values and policies. The voters get their say in the general elections. In this way, Trump would never have won the candidacy. The idiocy of 10 million people running for the candidacy would not happen. The focus would be on party policies and internal party politics, and the candidate would be the result of party decision making instead of being the result of a popularity contest. If an election is lost, the party can conclude that either their policies or their candidate (or both) weren't appealing enough, and adjust accordingly. Additional bonus to choosing a candidate in this manner: it would also be a hell of a lot cheaper for a party too. No rallies, no ads, no door-knocking etc. for this part of the election cycle.

Likewise, choosing Speaker of the House can be altered in order to prevent another McCarthy circus from happening. Simply let both party’s put forth a candidate for the Speakership. The candidate with the (simple) majority of the vote becomes Speaker. That way no one can be held hostage by a minority caucus, and be forced into all sorts of consessions just to fill the personal ambition of attaining that fervently desired position.

The R party in Virginia did this a few elections ago. Instead of having a primary, where all citizens could vote, they did their nominating via a convention, where only the most faithful had a say. They ended up nominating a total whack job (big surprise, I know) who lost in the general. I don’t think having the party decide is necessarily a way to get a better candidate. 

[Audrey2]

I know it wouldn't work in my really red area. They supported the total whack job Republican candidate for governor. Disgustingly, this is Trump country. Fortunately, I'm in a really blue state so the sane part usually wins out although, there are things I don't agree with.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Audrey2