The decline to moral bankruptcy of the GOP

[ShivaX]

@Banzai

Some have, but there aren’t enough racists and authoritarians to account for the midterm elections. There are plenty of people who are still voting GOP and think they’re on the side of good.

That’s tribalism. They think of it like football, they go with their team.

Look at when a star player does something horrific. Rapes someone or beats his girlfriends. These people don’t give a fuck that it happened. They care that it hurts their team on the field. That’s it. Nothing else matters. It’s the same in politics. Most of them aren’t conservative. They care about one or two “conservative” issues at best and are often pinko commies for the rest of it. But they vote with the team, because that’s all they know.

[Strollen]

@Nesrie

So I have said, for the most part, Trump is worse, but the fact that he can and had the ability to do these things are on the shoulders of past leadership. He did not give himself the ability to do these things. It’s been a systematic if subtle dismantling that brought us to this point. Hes standing on the shoulders of past efforts by the GOP to do what he is doing and I guess I feel not acknowledging that is giving a pass the others don’t deserve and it also glosses over the ability to analyze the how did we get here approach.

If you mean the racism and xenophobia, I’ll agree that’s been a part of the Republican party for a long time, and most Republican politician turned a blind eye, and some actively courted.

But the denigration of intelligence agencies, and law enforcement, the love affair with Putin, the lack of civility, the ignoring of customs and traditions and law, no this a Trump phenom. Judge Roy Moore is about an awful a guy as had been associated with the GOP for many years, right up there with David Duke. Yes he won the parties nomination, but he managed to lose the Senate race in Alabama of all places.

The thing that makes Trump so scary and uniquely bad, is yes some truly awful Republican have risen to national prominence, and then they get rebuffed by the much of GOP establishment, and ultimately get rejected by the voters. The bastard Trump actually won.

[Nesrie]

@Strollen

Judge Roy Moore is about an awful a guy as had been associated with the GOP for many years, right up there with David Duke. Yes he won the parties nomination, but he managed to lose the Senate race in Alabama of all places.

You make it sound like he lost by a landslide… which didn’t really happen. Someone had a graph around here and it was not exactly a shining moment for the majority of white guys who still voted for him, white women too. Someone like that, someone who refuses to even admit defeat in addition to all the actual problems the guy openly exhibited, still “won” with them.

The GOP cultivated this moment, but they thought they’d control the guy they finally gave the mantle too… they barely control him, but they don’t get a pass because what they intended to give away was given to someone they didn’t mean to have it.

[ShivaX]

There is a reason that a lot of ex-Republicans say the party needs to be destroyed completely and utterly.

Because it does.

Some of us just realized it earlier than others.

[rowe33]

More fun in Michigan now - will every state in which the GOP is losing power continue the trend?

Michigan Republicans following Wisconsin's lead in curbing...

[John_Reynolds]

[Enidigm]

I was just sent an article today!

It’s basically the equivalent of moving the goalposts.

BUT you can’t just hand wave this away. I’m going to have read a 1600 page document to be able to respond - while the sender need only wait for the next validating article.

[Timex]

@Tin_Wisdom

Prison reform, probably

Womp womp

Trump’s criminal justice reform nears demise

[Menzo]

No room for bipartisan legislation in McConnell’s Senate.

[Tin_Wisdom]

@Timex

Womp womp

That made me laugh, and now I’m sad about laughing.

[CraigM]

Bipartisanship is for suckers Democrats.

[JonRowe]

@Nesrie

the fact that he can and had the ability to do these things are on the shoulders of past leadership.

And current leadership too. The GOP has had multiple opportunities to step in and halt some of the things the administration has been doing, and they have done nothing. McConnell is just as complicit as Trump in the erosion of norms.

But, as far as lasting damage to democracy, I don’t think Trump has crossed the red line yet. And anything he has done is being supported by sycophants outside the white house as well. Nothing of permanence has happened in this agency. i.e. if Mueller were to drop the huge Russia bomb on Trump, and he were to be impeached, I see things moving back to the Cheney/Bush style of governing.

But, it is hard to judge this administration while it is still happening. For sure Trump has the potential to be worse, but I feel like the sheer incompetence of this administration is going to hold it back from doing anything crazy.

Maybe I am just being optimistic, but people seem to forget how truly bad GWB was.

[rei]

How is this fascism in Michigan and Wisconsin not illegal?

[scottagibson]

@magnet

Have you ever talked, face to face, with a climate change denier?

I’m talking about professional deniers and pundits. They’re generally too smart to believe that shit.

[scottagibson]

@SlainteMhath

This is not normal, and we should all recognize that our country is in imminent and unprecedented danger from these people.

I think we all recognize that.

[magnet]

@scottagibson

I’m talking about professional deniers and pundits. They’re generally too smart to believe that shit.

As multiple people have already pointed out, and I can also personally attest, there are plenty of climate change deniers who are otherwise well educated and intelligent.

And I might add that professional pundits are no smarter than professionals in other fields.

Confirmation bias, the tendency to overrate evidence that supports your “own side”, is a mistake that anyone can make regardless of intelligence. By the way, who are the smart pundits who admitted to you that they were insincere about climate skepticism? Or are you basing your assertion on a gut feeling more than evidence? Because if the latter, maybe it’s time to look in the mirror smart guy…

[Gordon_Cameron]

Tag team, they got each other’s back when something good is in danger of being done.

[JonRowe]

@rei

ow is this fascism in Michigan and Wisconsin not illegal?

It could be, and it sounds like the state supreme courts (also republican leaning) will end up seeing if they stick.

[Banzai]

I’m fifty and started paying attention when Carter was president.

Bush did a few things that were much worse than the other presidents, and they’ve been mentioned in this thread already. If you are ok with waterboarding, however, because everyone is doing it, then I’m not sure we’re going to see eye-to-eye on these issues.

Started an illegitimate war with Iraq, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties, and setting up the chain of events that led to ISIS and the mess we’re still dealing with today. In setting up that war, he lied about who was behind 9/11, because we couldn’t go after the Saudis, and someone had to pay in blood, so it was Iraq. Mission Accomplished indeed.

War profiteering based on his illegitimate war with Iraq. Not for him, but for his cronies. Remember the Haliburton no-bid contracts? I do.

Overseeing the worst economy since the great depression, cutting taxes while increasing spending, while the economy was tanking.

Katrina.

And sure, waterboarding and extraordinary rendition and black sites and holding people without trial or even charges at guantanamo is in there too.

Thank your deity of choice that someone responsible took over after W, cause the hot mess he left could have seriously tanked the country for a decade otherwise. Thanks Obama.

As I said, we likely won’t agree here, but these are the main areas of complete and utter fucking up that I hold W accountable for. There are more, but this already puts him at all time worst in my book.

Trump has almost unlimited potential to do worse. He needs close oversight and plenty of stonewalling by the House, but I anticipate that happening.

Separating kids from their families at the border as a way to scare off people trying to get asylum in the US is evil. Most of the rest of what he’s actually accomplished has been standard GOP - lowered taxes on corporations and the wealthy, fucking up healthcare, the EPA, education, the internet all while saying that the press can’t be trusted and that the dems are unamerican, profiting for himself and his cronies through his office - all GOP standard operating procedures for decades. That’s not saying that he’s a bog standard GOP, because he’s obviously not, but what he’s accomplished has been, aside from the separation of families and his tarrifs, which are decidedly not free market.

[rrmorton]

Maybe we should back up and explore something for a second… is it really a weirdo remark? Saying I’d rather play Destiny 2? We’re a gaming forum… I kinda thought games are always on topic. Puzzling me all day.