The GOP: Not What It Used to Be

[Cartmann99]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[WiseGirl]

The GOP as it was in no more. May the 45 part go down in flames.

 

[WiseGirl]

Exactly.  It is really scary that they are pushing an alternate narrative to Jan. 6th as a  "Normal tourist visit":

Spoiler

 

 

[Ozlsn]

"Normal tourist visit".

Sure, I usually turn up to tourist sites with my phone, camo gear, bear spray, arms etc and force my way into restricted parts of the building so I can walk out carrying memorabilia. Who needs a gift shop when you can grab and run?

[Becky]

1 hour ago, WiseGirl said:

Exactly.  It is really scary that they are pushing an alternate narrative to Jan. 6th as a  "Normal tourist visit":

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

This is a direct pull from Trump's playbook - a bold lie repeated becomes the "alternative truth." Multiple Republicans are pushing this revisionist bullshit, it is obviously now a talking point. Fox News will pick it up and pretty soon the Capitol rioters will become innocent, respectful, peaceful patriots, unfairly maligned.  That anyone who watched the rioting, much less was actually present and experienced it first-hand can engage in this outright attempt to whitewash an attempted insurrection is beyond my understanding.  

[Smash!]

49 minutes ago, Becky said:

This is a direct pull from Trump's playbook - a bold lie repeated becomes the "alternative truth." Multiple Republicans are pushing this revisionist bullshit, it is obviously now a talking point. Fox News will pick it up and pretty soon the Capitol rioters will become innocent, respectful, peaceful patriots, unfairly maligned.  That anyone who watched the rioting, much less was actually present and experienced it first-hand can engage in this outright attempt to whitewash an attempted insurrection is beyond my understanding.  

Agree. What I find deeply concerning is how certain media still frame this tactic as kind of normal. This isn‘t just out of 45‘s playbook. It was also one of the tactics of Hitler.

[fraurosena]

6 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

"Normal tourist visit".

Sure, I usually turn up to tourist sites with my phone, camo gear, bear spray, arms etc and force my way into restricted parts of the building so I can walk out carrying memorabilia. Who needs a gift shop when you can grab and run?

You completely forgot the attacking and maiming of officers, and searching for politicians so they can attack them too. I mean, isn't that what every normal tourist does?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More stupidity from the GQP:

[Ozlsn]

29 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

More stupidity from the GQP:

So... the Queen has bugger all to do with requiring anything. Head of State yes, makes law no. Also I totally read that as "the Queen will be required to present ID to vote", which depending on the legislation... probably.

[GreyhoundFan]

Sadly, even the ones who seem less trumpian have to do nasty stuff too:

[fraurosena]

7 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Sadly, even the ones who seem less trumpian have to do nasty stuff too:

Seriously, I don’t get it. How is designating land as federally protected wilderness trolling?
 

(I can’t open the original tweet to read the linked article)

[WiseGirl]

Unsure of where to put this and I didn't want to start a 2022 election thread yet.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I thought this was a good read: "Where the GOP got its rage"

Quote

(CNN)The Republican rage that now consumes the party is built on betrayal.

It all began when the intellectual Godfather of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr., defined that movement as standing athwart history yelling stop. What Buckley was trying to stop was the New Deal—the expansion of government under Franklin Roosevelt. He was also referring to the growing secularization of society. His first book, "God and Man at Yale," published in 1951, was a diatribe against what he believed were the anti-Christian and anti-capitalist forces at the nation's best universities.

Buckley yelled stop again during the civil-rights movement, writing in 1957 that "the South must prevail" because the more "advanced" white race had an obligation and right to rule over others. He changed his mind during the mid-1960s, but many conservatives remained staunchly opposed to the landmark civil-rights bills of 1964 and 1965.

In other words, the modern Republican Party has its roots in rebellion—rebellion against the main currents of change in modern American society: the growth of the welfare state, the secularization of life and the increasing diversity of American society.

The trouble is, most Americans don't agree with that protest. They may express discomfort with the welfare state in theory, but in practice they love Social Security, Medicare and the rest. Secularization is a force that is sweeping through almost all advanced industrial societies and one government can do little to stop. And America's growing diversity is inevitable in a country built on immigration and has mostly proved to be a strength, not a weakness.

But Republican politicians are now riding the back of a tiger and they can't get off. Former President Ronald Reagan, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former President Donald Trump — all icons on the right — whip up their followers into a froth of hysteria and promise that they will repeal and reverse most of these terrible trends.

But of course it never happens: When Republicans take power, they don't actually repeal government programs that, in reality, are popular. Which makes the Republican base get more and more angry. And as their sense of betrayal grows, so does their desperation that American civilization is in imminent danger of collapse.

There is a great and honorable space in America for a party of limited and efficient government that values traditionalism and believes that social change should take place slowly and organically. But that is different from what has become a band of ideological warriors with apocalyptic vision that fears the ends of days, sees opponents as devils and traitors and believes that all methods are sanctioned in its battle to save civilization and itself.

In short, the Republican Party needs to have a nervous breakdown, get therapy and come to terms with the modern world.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

So true:

[Cartmann99]

 

[church_of_dog]

On 5/13/2021 at 11:35 PM, fraurosena said:

Seriously, I don’t get it. How is designating land as federally protected wilderness trolling?
 

(I can’t open the original tweet to read the linked article)

Ah, I get it now.

Durbin (from Illinois) has for years been trying to move forward a bill to create Red Rocks Wilderness Area in Utah.

So the childish Congressmen from Utah are trying to do a "turnabout is fair play" by trying to create a wilderness area in Durbin's Illinois.

https://www.kuer.org/politics-government/2021-05-13/romney-curtis-introduce-round-2-of-a-bill-to-troll-illinois-senator-over-effort-to-conserve-8-million-acres-of-utah-land

[Alisamer]

11 hours ago, church_of_dog said:

Ah, I get it now.

Durbin (from Illinois) has for years been trying to move forward a bill to create Red Rocks Wilderness Area in Utah.

So the childish Congressmen from Utah are trying to do a "turnabout is fair play" by trying to create a wilderness area in Durbin's Illinois.

https://www.kuer.org/politics-government/2021-05-13/romney-curtis-introduce-round-2-of-a-bill-to-troll-illinois-senator-over-effort-to-conserve-8-million-acres-of-utah-land

I suspect it's largely "Hey, we want to strip this area of it's resources and make money on it despite being a large state with lots of resources available! We can't if you make it a Wilderness Area! So here, we'll take part of your (1/3 smaller) state's highly profitable natural resources and tie it up in Wilderness Area too. *raspberry noise*"

[church_of_dog]

@Alisamer, yep!

If it's currently private land being put into government ownership, there is also the loss of property taxes to the local county.

But even if, more likely, it's already federal land being designated as Wilderness, then yep, loss of funds from whatever resources would/could have been extracted from the acres.  Timber, grazing fees, mining fees, etc.

And in this case there is the additional factor of them doing it to OTHER states than their own, leading to a "don't tell us how to run our area!" whine.  (with accompanying raspberries, as you note)

[GreyhoundFan]

"The threat of violence now infuses GOP politics. We should all be afraid."

Quote

American politics is being conducted under the threat of violence.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who has a talent for constructive bluntness, describes a political atmosphere within the GOP heavy with fear. “If you look at the vote to impeach,” she said recently, “there were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security — afraid, in some instances, for their lives.” The events of Jan. 6 have only intensified the alarm. When Donald Trump insists he is “still the rightful president,” Cheney wrote in an op-ed for The Post, he “repeats these words now with full knowledge that exactly this type of language provoked violence on Jan. 6.” And there’s good reason, Cheney argued, “to believe that Trump’s language can provoke violence again.”

Sometimes political events force us to step back in awe, or horror, or both. The (former) third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives has accused a former president of her party of employing the threat of violence as a tool of intimidation. And election officials around the country — Republican and Democratic — can attest to the results: Death threats. Racist harassment. Armed protesters at their homes.

From one perspective, this is not new. Trump has made a point of encouraging violence against protesters at his rallies (“knock the crap out of them”), excusing violence by his supporters (people "with tremendous passion and love for their country”) and generally acting like a two-bit mob boss. He publicly supported Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with homicide in the killing of two people in Kenosha, Wis. (Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty.) He embraced Mark and Patricia McCloskey for brandishing guns at peaceful marchers in St. Louis. He deployed federal security forces to break heads in Lafayette Square.

If Trump has a political philosophy, one of its main tenets is toxic masculinity — the use of menace and swagger to cover his mental and moral impotence. And the mini-Trumps have taken their master’s lead. When Trump operative Stephen K. Bannon proposed that Anthony S. Fauci should be beheaded, when Trump ally Joseph diGenova said a federal cybersecurity official should be “taken out at dawn and shot,” when Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani urged Trump supporters to engage in “trial by combat,” all of this was more than paunchy, pathetic, aging White men talking smack they could never back up. It exemplified a type of politics where cruelty is the evidence of commitment, brutality is the measure of loyalty and violence is equated with power.

This approach to politics is disturbing at any time. But now it has fastened itself upon an object, a project. Rather than trying to win future elections by attracting new voters, Trump Republicans wish to reshape the electoral system to produce more favorable results. Instead of using the 2020 presidential loss as a guide for additional outreach, Trump Republicans want to ensure they can claim and enforce a victory in 2024 with essentially the same vote total as 2020 — probably the high-water mark of the Trump coalition.

In some ways, the Trump movement of authoritarian populism is forward-looking. It eternally relitigates the 2020 election as preparation for the next. Compared with the utter chaos of previous efforts, this time there seems to be a strategy at work. First, undermine Republican confidence in the electoral system and stoke the party’s sense of grievance. Second, modify state election laws to try to discourage Democratic (and particularly minority) turnout. Third, replace or intimidate state election officials who show any hints of independence or integrity.

The first goal has been achieved: In a recent poll, more than two-thirds of Republicans denied the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election as president. Results on the second goal (so far) have been mixed. Republican “reforms” have made the system marginally less fair than the status quo, but not quite as bad as some feared.

The third goal is where the threat of violence has mattered most. Officials who held the line against electoral corruption in 2020 have been worn down by threats. Some have retired or been forced out of office. State legislators who didn’t act as reliable partisans have been targeted and intimidated. All who resist Trump’s will know they will be singled out by name. They will be exposed to political jeopardy and physical peril, particularly from activists who view the right to bear arms as the right to make armed threats.

This is not a joke. This is not a myth. This is not a drill. According to a survey last year, a majority of Republicans agreed with the statement: “The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.”

Ultimately, it is not enough for political figures to ritually denounce the use of violence while amplifying the lies that lead to violence. The only way to defuse this bomb is to embrace the truth.

 

[Ozlsn]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is not a joke. This is not a myth. This is not a drill. According to a survey last year, a majority of Republicans agreed with the statement: “The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.”

Unfortunately I agree too - if you take that way of life to include democracy and the right to vote, as well as free and fair elections.

 

[Becky]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/cheney-primary-challenger-says-he-impregnated-14-year-old-when-n1268147

I am going to be sick.  

[WiseGirl]

 

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Ozlsn]

6 hours ago, Becky said:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/cheney-primary-challenger-says-he-impregnated-14-year-old-when-n1268147

I am going to be sick.  

So he was 18. She was 14. What shocks me the most about this is that he was able to marry her when she was 15, with parental consent. I honestly don't understand how that would be legal, if sleeping with her wasn't. If she couldn't give consent to sex I don't think she should be able to give consent to marriage, and nor should anyone on her behalf.