5870

It’d be cool if politics today actually involved two smart people debating things at length.

5871

…and one of them a racist! Totally cool.

5872

This is such a weird tactic. Nancy Pelosi is not going to get voted out. So what’s the point of these fake videos?

5873

Dunno. The stimulus bill is being hashed out, maybe related to that? Or the “look at who Biden surrounds himself with” messaging they’re going to be doing this week? Or just the usual troglodytes really having an issue with women in positions of authority.

5874

David Corn talks to Stuart Stevens.

5875

Now that I think of it, the answer is probably the simplest: it’s about making money off clicks. Some room full of kids in Eastern Europe is probably just churning this stuff out for AdSense dollars.

5876

10 confessions of a former strategist - you won’t believe #7!

(Sorry, the piece may be great but that tweet is the most cliche form of clickbait)

5877

Nothing we haven’t discussed here many times, but I do like hearing this acknowledgement from people that have been lifelong members of the GOP.

5878

The book offers one overarching prescription for the GOP: “Burn it to the ground and start over.”

Now there’s a Never Trumper recommendation I can get behind.

5879

This is totally true, but it’s important to note that Buckley DID in fact evolve quite a lot, from his positions in the 1950’s (which I suspect is why he specifically describes him as a stone cold racist in the 50’s). You can read about them here, if you are so inclined:

It gives a pretty good breakdown of the source of Buckley’s racism (I would suggest that in the 1950’s, pretty much every white person in America was likely pretty damn racist) and how it changed over the years and why.

I think Buckley was an ACTUAL intellectual, who actually cared about ideas and things, something which the GOP itself has clearly abandoned long ago.

5880

I know he evolved, but the seeds of the modern GOP were planted there and it’s remained true of the party, even if his own views moderated.

5881

While I think that’s true, it’s also important to note that even at places like the National Review, which started with racist stuff, did eventually EXPLICITLY reject a lot of that bigotry. But of course, this was an ideological piece, not the GOP party itself.

I think the MJ piece gets it right, in that the modern GOP seemingly had no real ideology or principles at all. Not that none of its members did… Stevens himself would be an example, presumably, of someone who was part of that machine without realizing that it didn’t actually stand for anything he believed. I think a lot of the never trumpers fall into this category, including myself. It’s also part of why we have such deep animosity towards the modern GOP at this point, because it’s not just a piece of shit party, but it’s also a betrayal of what they told us.

In retrospect, I think you can see this starting up with Nixon and the Southern Strategy. Nixon was one of the strongest Republican supporters of civil rights in the early days of the movement… but then essentially abandoned all of that in favor of political expediency. And at this point, with the modern incarnation culminating in Trump, it shows that the same goes for literally any policy. Free trade? Fuck that noise. Fiscal responsibility? That’s for low energy losers. Basic fucking literacy and intellectualism? That’s for the globalist elite!

The GOP stands for literally nothing. It pretended to stand for things, but it was just a show. Its leadership is fundamentally corrupt at this point.

5882

This is the point:

It further cements the Never Dems from abandoning ship and helps retain Power. From The American President:

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.

5883

I think it clearly stands for corporate protectionism and white nationalism. I mean they obviously don’t come right out and say that, but it seems clear to me that’s what the party stands for and is built around. Everything else is window dressing at best for those two things.

For example, one of their biggest agendas they’re pushing with all the crises facing the country? Making sure businesses can’t be held liable for COVID. Not expanding testing, not assistance to the states, not protecting renters or the unemployed: making sure businesses can’t be held liable for anything they do (or don’t do) during the pandemic.

5884

Got mine
Octogenarians in
Power

5885

I wouldn’t have said they stand for white nationalism so much as they leverage it in service of the other goals. Perpetuating serfdom is a part of the goal of racism.

I’ll also state that Abortion is a complicated issue, with a definite racist element, but also a true belief for many.

5886

I honestly don’t think they even stand for those things.

I think they’re using those things as issues in order to drum up support. But I honestly don’t think they have any strong allegiance to racists or corporations.

I mean, sure, I suspect a bunch of them actually are racists… but I also suspect they don’t want to hang around with the neo-confederate trailer-trash they are courting. They don’t want to hang around the Nazis. But they’ll take their votes.

In terms of corporations… they want those sweet corporate dollars, no doubt. But do they actually care about benefiting the corporations? Nah. I mean, if they did, then they would have actually pushed back against Trump’s multitude of policies which have been terrible for corporations. Nationalism is in many ways antithetical to corporatism, because corporations aren’t located in a single country now.

I think the GOP really does stand for nothing at all. They are all about holding political power, for no purpose.

5887

So you’re saying the GOP seeks power entirely for its own sake, that they are not interested in the good of others; that they are interested solely in power, pure power?

5888

Stevens thinks so. To quote the interview (it’s very quotable):

“The Republican Party has been a cartel,” Stevens said excitedly. “And no one asks a cartel, ‘What’s your ideological purpose?’ You don’t ask OPEC, ‘What’s your ideology?’ You don’t ask a drug gang, ‘What’s your program?’ The Republicans exist for the pursuit of power for no purpose.” … “Fair trade, balanced budgets, character, family values, standing up to foreign adversaries like Russia—we’re all against that now. You have to ask, ‘Does someone abandon deeply held beliefs in three or four years?’ No. It means you didn’t ever hold them.”

5889

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