Oh please. The Republican platform down to city/county level governance is 100% the preservation of capital at the expense of literally everything else at all times. This is readily apparent to anyone with the slightest of critical thinking skills.
Or you could take a utilitarian approach to it and discover, quite easily with a layman’s understanding and ability to research and collate information, that Republican policies have resulted in failure even back when they were championed by men (yes, men) of good faith and sober demeanor. The consolidation of the movement by traitors at the top, cowards in the middle, and (thanks for this) idiots at the bottom in the last 50 years has done it no favors. The entire movement, from national politicians to local churches to that dipshit at the barstool, has moved on to anti-empiricism in all things now in order to obey the party’s last and most essential command.
I got no time for any of it. I wish, deeply, deeply that we could have Learned Statesfolk of Sober Contemplation hashing out matters of policy in the hallowed halls of government. Instead, my city was lit on fire because the fucking cops literally love murdering people and the aftermath is that the state-level GOP is blocking disbursement of federal COVID funds because they can’t get the Democrats to agree on how much we all hate brown people and the poors.
No. Fuck them. They get nothing. And fuck you too if you can’t bear to hear it.
I don’t really know what this means, except maybe time has passed? People do get old and retire, and it’s easy to cast newer elected officials as tea partiers or Trumpers simply by association with the times in which they were elected. But McConnell was elected to the Senate in 1984, so totally not elected as a tea partier or a Trumper. Grassley in 1980. Crapo in 1998. Blunt was elected to the House in 1996. Thune also in 1996. That’s half the leadership of the party in the Senate, all elected to national office or the Senate before the advent of the tea party or Trump.
I think it’s a mistake to say this GOP is not the GOP. It is most surely the party of e.g. Gingrich, most surely the party of Reagan, of Nixon and of Goldwater.
Very much this. And it’s the party of authoritarianism, the party of oppression, the party of vote suppression, the party of corruption and impunity for the corrupt, as it has been for my entire life.
The thing to remember here is that the main differences in character between Trump and e.g. Reagan are 1) Trump is vulgar, 2) Trump is more stupid, and 3) Trump shouts the quiet parts out loud.
It means that all the old ‘GOP’ members have transitioned to Trumpers. It’s just the Trump party now, as it has been for three years.
Trump has meant for the republican party that you either get in line or get out.
I don’t think we should confuse philosophy with policies. The policies themselves are only tangentially related to philosophy. Conservative Republicans opposed the Soviet Union because it threatened elite, moneyed interests, but supported e.g. the the Pinochet regime because it protected elite, moneyed interests. They characterized this position as pro-liberty, but it was never about liberty; it was about using power to protect elites while holding them above the law.
Similarly, conservative Republicans supported Western Europe because it was a bastion of free markets against the evil socialist empire. Now that the socialist evil empire has become, instead, a state captured by moneyed, elite interests, it is Western Europe which is the example of socialist policies the masses can point to, so it is only natural that the GOP is transitioning toward Russia and away from the west.
Every GOP policy has its roots in only one philosophy: that elite moneyed interests must be protected by the law and immune to it. The GOP has been an alliance between those elites and disaffected whites since the 60s, and their policies along the way have had only two real purposes: to enrich the former and pander to the latter. They were never free traders; they were always for whatever trade policy enriches them and / or energizes their base. So when free trade did that, they were free traders. Now that protectionism sells better, they will be protectionists. It isn’t a coincidence that protectionism — of which immigration is a component — appeals to their base, the people they need to energize to maintain power.
Thrag
5365
The dismantling of the old school corporatist GOP. A play in three acts.
“Hey, what if we invited and pandered to all the racists and religious nuts! That will give us a majority and surely we’ll be able to control them”.
“See! It’s working! This was a brilliant strategy.”
- Inmates take over the asylum resulting in Trump and an exodus of sane republicans -
“Oh no!”
Thrag
5366
I’m late in posting this, but the Zelinsky hearing about DOJ corruption is going on now.
Thrag
5368
Was just about to post that. Rupar as always quick with the highlights and lowlights of these things.
“If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.”
What an amazingly childish display.
RichVR
5373
But… but… Biden is too easy on China!
Sharpe
5375
The Fox affiliate station does not mention this, but Greenberg is, of course, a Republican.
Great point, Mr. Senator, sir! Thank you!
Fuck this guy. He’s essentially Trump, but not a complete ignoramus.
More than I trust Ron DeSantis…
The GOP can’t even talk about the function of government without describing it as ‘keeping us safe’. The party of Lincoln is a bunch of pants-shitting cowards.
Fine Tom, so in lieu of DC statehood, we’ll just reduce state senators to one for each empty red state out west. Fair enough.
