Fox News thread of fine journalism

If that’s what helps you sleep better at night, knock yourself out, man, but “destroying the institutions that make up our nation’s government” has been a cornerstone of GOP policy at least since the “drown it in a bathtub” days. They’re just getting better at it, is all.

Nah. I’m with @Timex on this one. I’ve disagreed with GOP platform points for years, sometimes vehemently, but the party lost its mind after Obama was elected.

Come on, man. I have had a pretty strong dislike for the Republican party for quite some time now, but what has been going on since 2016 is on a completely different level.

Like I said, they’re getting better at it, but GOP policy has been virulent and immediately and maliciously harmful to the world and nation for decades, fueled by racism, class warfare, sexism, and the most disgusting perversion of Christianity imaginable. Obama’s presidency honed the edge of their madness, but it’s all still a reflection of the path they’ve been walking since Nixon.

I think the most recent Deep State Radio did a great job laying it out.

It’s not a Constitutional Crisis exactly, it’s Constitutional Rot. Which in some ways is worse because it happens slowly and you acclimate to it at ever step until you’ve passed what would have been a crisis.

I have to agree. Look at these people:

  • Nixon. Crazy criminal.

(I will skip the pathetic nonentity Ford)

  • Reagan. Senile criminal. Don’t tell me he didn’t know Iran-Contra was illegal. Also started the program of demonizing the Democrats with fear, uncertainty, doubt, and silly labels. His joviality and folksy appeal concealed enormous malice. The best you can say for his second term is he wasn’t all there for it.

  • Bush I. Slightly less evil than those around him. Glitch in the trend. Still basically an agent of right-wing plutocrats, forwarding policies that only benefited the rich.

  • Bush II. Sad, foolish pawn of criminal corporate interests. Started major wars on the basis of obvious lies, supported profoundly corrupt companies. Seriously damaged the free press. Responsible for tens of thousands of deaths around the world. Entrenched a corrupt system still further.

  • Trump. Absolute monster. The inevitable result of all the populist fear-mongering trends of the past 50 years. Out of control of some parts of the old GOP establishment, but the best boy pawn of other elements.

Beat me to it. And again, fuck Reagan.

Yeah the GOP has been going down hill since long before 2016. Even ff you remove their war against minorities, women, and the LGBTQA members of society and just focus on all the other bullshit, it’s still bad.

When reagan dismantled the fairness doctrine and then vetoed the bill congress passed to reinstate it, the writing was on the walls. Since then, it’s been tribalism and nobody has to even hear any other side of an issue if they don’t take the time to look into it. Which they generally don’t.

I think the party, at least a good portion of it, lost it during the Clinton years. The GOP reacted irrationally to Clinton.

Yes, Hastert Rule anyone? It makes cooperative action, in the good of the country over ideological positions, impossible when the GOP controls things.

Still, there is no denying that what we’re dealing with today is a whole different circle of hell than what we’ve dealt with from Reagan through Obama.

Yes, the Conservative Media Machine has been building in strength and ferocity since the days of the radio call-in shows of the 80’s. It took a big leap forward in the 90’s as a reaction to Clinton. We had nearly a decade of sustained success and growth in the country under a Democrat, so they had to step up the rhetoric to counter. Same deal in 2008 after Obama won…another giant leap up the crazy ladder because “OMFG A BLACK PREZ THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!!”. The inevitable end result…2016.

The Conservative Media Machine is like Skynet, only instead of Artificial Intelligence this AI is Artificial Ignorance, and the machine now controls the masters. It has become so large, so unwieldy and so full of noise from every fringe element across radio, TV, print media and the internet that no one voice or voices can rise above the others, no one can define what is real and what is not real, what is fact versus what is fiction. No one can change the course of the machine, or slow it down. It will simply continue to hurtle forward, smashing everything in it’s path, until it either wins and becomes the sole remaining voice as Official State Media, or we destroy it, along with those who built, supported and benefitted from it.

Ralph Peters isn’t the first of such people to awaken to the realization that they’ve lost control, and try to jump off the machine before it consumes them, and he won’t be the last. The problem is, for every Col. Peters there are two more morally bankrupt people more than willing to jump onboard the machine and take his place.

Here’s the thing, reaping what you sow does not suddenly make what you sow a “different circle of hell.” It’s the same hell that was being prepared for the entire time, and the oh my gosh, this just suddenly showed up in 2016 is a ridiculous stance for anyone in the GOP or who supports the GOP to take. It just continues to show they take no responsibility for what they’ve done… learned nothing.

Very true, though one could argue that when they began sowing, they thought they were cultivating a beanstalk to help them climb to the loftiest heights, and were surprised when instead they got kudzu that began choking out everything else.

In other words, sure, we’ve know for years that the path the GOP was on was a dark one, and even some people within the GOP were uncomfortable with where their party was heading, but I think very few people prior to summer of 2016 would have predicted “President Trump” and all the associated insanity that has occurred since. I mean, we’re probably only days away from Stormy Daniels releasing pictures of our nation’s President’s junk…and that’s actually one of the least horrifying things happening right now!

I understand what you’re saying, but I feel like that is a difficult pill to swallow after Palin. If we are being especially generous we might be able to say Palin was a surprise, but she revealed to most the world what the base was turning into. They just relied on voters outside the GOP to balance it while at the same time doing everything in their power to demonize and hinder them… just look at the voter map and registration issues. That is not an accident or sudden.

I’d think more kindly of the GOP if we didn’t need threads like these throughout the George W Bush years. The headlines outlining their willful blindness to aid making money at the environment’s expense, and their fear of rigorous scientific standards, wouldn’t seem too out of place today. The only difference is that nowadays the really egregious proposals are coming from cabinet members instead of senators and congressmen.

(Brian Rucker, R.I.P.)

Ralph Peters got off the dragon he was riding when he realized it was being controlled by Trump. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t part of the problem before Trump came along. It’s good to see him recognize the evil idiocy that is Trump, but I hope he recognizes that guys like him helped put Trump in place.

Trump is not a glitch in the Matrix, Trump is the logical endpoint and conclusion of the last 2 decades of Republican strategy.

It just seems shocking to people because of the complete lack of subtlety, candor, and naked expression at play now.

That said, I don’t want to push too hard on the rhetoric and demonization because we should be welcoming those who previously supported Republicans but now want to oppose and criticize the current party and administration. Especially members of this forum.

At this juncture it’s good to focus on the present and not dwell too long on the past; especially where people aligned their values. We need to welcome all critics since we have a lot of challenges to face.

I agree. Though one possible side effect of this is that democrats could end up welcoming people like George W Bush and neo-cons into the big tent of the democratic party. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that, even though it is nice that they are on the side of sanity. A better scenario is if they stayed in the Republican party and fought from within to right the ship. But it was interesting to see that Pennsylvania race recently where a Pro-Life former Republican ran as a Democrat. The end result could be the Democratic party moving further to the right.

Lamb is not pro-life. That is a GOP talking point used to help explain the loss.

He’s personally opposed to abortion, but he does not favor overturning Roe v Wade or otherwise limiting womens’ choices in the matter. Lamb is a Catholic who believes in the separation of church and state. It’s the same position as the last Democratic nominee for Vice President, Tim Kaine.

That said, I think you’re right that the Democratic Party is moving to the right on this one issue, at least insofar as it won’t be a litmus test for congressional candidates. The DNC seems committed to finding candidates that fit their districts, and to recognizing that most of those districts are not in San Francisco.