I think that there came a point in the past few years, where American conservatism hit a fork in the road, and you were forced to choose… You either blindly followed the Republican party, or you started to question whether they were really going in a direction that was consistent with what they used to stand for.
The modern era of hyper-partisanship clearly started around the time of Clinton’s first election. The Republicans had gotten the idea that the Presidency was somehow naturally theirs since Carter’s single term was followed by two Reagan terms + Bush 41 getting elected, and a particular faction (the Southern one) was particularly outraged that the Democrat who beat GHWB was a Southerner himself. Gingrich/DeLay et al. were a different breed of Republicans.
Contract with America, etc., etc.
Nixon-era is when the Republican party sold its soul to racists. They just didn’t really, properly start to collect till the early 90s. By the mid-00s, they’d honed the ill-gotten gains into an unholy engine of partisan perfection.
Yup, and 2016 was when the Midwestern racist contingent joined in the “fun,” probably because the first black President didn’t solve everyone’s problems immediately like a magical Morgan Freeman character in some movie.
Side note: apart from the Contract [on] America there was the infamous “K Street Project.”
Or you feared (for whatever reason) the direction that the democratic party (and therefore the evil left) was going. Change is very difficult for many people, even change for the better.
It was the first time I can remember either party actually seeming to get personal in their hate for a president of the other party.
Probably because they believed that Bush was owed another term. Him losing after only four years pissed them off.
No, Bush was kind of looked down upon by his own after back tracking on his “read my lips no new taxes” declaration.
But after owning the presidency for 20 of the previous 24 years the GOP may have just felt entitled.
I think they thought Lewinsky was their Watergate moment on the Democrats. And then the People didn’t give a shit because the economy was doing well. So they lost their minds.
It only survived due to the conservative propaganda machine and some very creative gerrymandering, plus the GOP/K-Street connection DeLay put in place.
Fair enough, but don’t forget Lee Atwater, Willie Horton, and all that.
Oh no question that the Southern Strategy’s racial resentment dog-whistling had been a thing since the 1968 Presidential campaign of Richard Nixon.
Imagine a time when the president got sex from someone other than his wife and it was a big deal. Although, in retrospect perhaps a president getting blow jobs from an intern was a big deal. Just not impeachable. And now we have a president who pays off porn stars for sex while married.
How things change.
To be fair, the porn star payoff happened before he was President (though his attitude is atrocious, and the evangelicals and their leaders who back him have zero moral or ethical code whatsoever).
That was more my point.
Sad to say I can still follow the evangelicals’ reasoning.
- God works in mysterious ways His miracles to perform.
- All are sinners and none are beyond redemption.
- It is worth looking the other way at some peccadilloes to make material gains (Gorsuch Gorsuch Gorsuch) in the decades-long struggle to halt the holocaust of unborn millions.
I do imagine that is how my two brothers felt and voted. One evangelical and one catholic. At least their votes in California didn’t mean anything.
PS…and no, we don’t talk politics.
Thing is, Trump is delivering for evangelicals in a way he’s never delivered for the Forgotten Economically Anxious White Blue Collar Worker that gets all the press. The Wall is a joke, infrastructure legislation is nowhere to be seen, and coal jobs are a token PR stunt. But those judges are in.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The ends justify the means. Those who support legal abortion rights are beyond redemption.
I think this is much more complex than it needs to be.
“He’s not one of them darkies or uppity women like Hillary” explains it just as well.
Basically, we have reached the point where we vote against just as much as we vote for. I think there are two categories of Trump voters - the “He tells it like it is, no political correctness, hurf durf” types. And the, “But Crooked Hillary!,” types.
I can tell you both my brothers felt Trump was an idiot, but they also feared a leftist supreme court and felt abortion was worth voting republican. The one issue voter is out there on both sides.