Timex
13471
In Mitch’s mind, if the GOP candidate doesn’t win, then it weakens the GOP overall, and that his #1 concern, by FAR. That is his top priority, bar none.
And this is, ultimately, the problem of the GOP in a nutshell.
Not only is it entirely reprehensible from any sort of moral or ethical perspective (and, amazingly to me, he seems entirely unaware of this in that interview… like, he doesn’t even realize that this is wrong), but it’s actually bad from a purely tactical perspective.
That is, even if you agreed with the partisan position of GOP power being the top priority, supporting bad candidate is a bad strategy long term. It ultimately puts you into untenable positions, like they are in now. Maybe they can pull off a recovery in the short term, but the path they’re on is very much a dead end, unless they abandon the notion of democracy at all… which seems to be the plan.
Oh the GOP is in favor of holding elections like they do in Russia. They just want the results rigged so they always win.
I doubt there is any period in history where the GOP leadership declined to support the GOP nominee, no matter who or what he was.
Agreed. That’s not a particular GOP sin. That’s how political parties work.
Generally, yes, though you can point to something like LBJ declining to run in order to avert that sort of disaster. I’m hard pressed to think of a similar GOP example.
Agreed. The interviewer is asking the wrong question here. McConnell is right in that he, as part of the GOP leadership already in office, has a responsibility to honor the will of the Republican Primary voters around the country and support the Republican nominee for President. The question the interviewer should be asking (and maybe he does at a point not shown in the video) is “Do you feel you have a responsibility to the people of America, to Democracy itself, to speak out against abuses of power irregardless of which political party the abuser is from or what office they may hold?”
That’s a trap question, as if Mitch answers “Well no, because -reasons-” then he looks like the lying conniving sack of shit he actually is, and if he tries to answer “Yes, of course…” then the response is “Then why didn’t you?”, to which there is no acceptable answer.
KevinC
13477
Party over country. It’s pretty frightening. I mean, we all knew that was the case, but it’s still something to see him so openly admit to it, like he can’t even see what’s wrong about it.
KevinC
13478
I think you’re mostly right, but in my mind there’s a pretty big difference between a nominee that you think is a bad President vs. a nominee that is hostile to the core principles of the country’s system of governance and may be a foreign asset to boot.
If the Democrats ever nominated a Trump-like figure you can bet I’ll be bolting the party and trying to make sure he or she doesn’t win. I certainly won’t be giving them my vote or support and I hope that some Democrat elected officials would follow suit. I at least hope they wouldn’t try to cover for crimes the nominee was involved in, or protect the nominee from consequences of illegal actions. Hopefully I never have to find out how wrong I might be. :)
EDIT: I know there’s Clinton, but for all his sins that was a fundamentally different situation than Trump. At least in my mind.
Remember Al Franken? He’d be President today if the Dems were the GOP.
Fuck McConnell and everything he stands for.
Banzai
13480
And even with al frankens faults, hed be a better choice than any current gop member.
Presidents Franken and Zelinsky, Thursdays at 8PM this fall on CNN.
KevinC
13482
Yeah. Maybe I’m naive, but it seems like the Dems have a better track record when it comes to accountability compared to today’s GOP.
Granted, Franken wasn’t the nominee for President, but he also wasn’t attempting a coup or potentially a foreign asset of some kind.
[quote=“KevinC, post:13478, topic:139526”]
I think that’s right, but I’d point out that the GOP has nominated bad, anti-democratic people before (Goldwater comes to mind), and they have renominated illegal warriors (Nixon, Bush), Presidents who oversaw torture (Abu Ghraib was public in April 2004), and those people have received full-throated support from the party. It’s hard to think of any such comparison among Democrats.
So it doesn’t really surprise me to see the GOP ready to line up behind Trump again. I’m sure someone like McConnell would rather not, but he absolutely will.
ShivaX
13484
At the end of the day any record is a lot better than none.
The GOP ran people out of the party for disagreeing with Trump while keeping sex offenders and white nationalists.
It would be like the Dems running out AOC but keeping Weiner on his committees.
Djscman
13485
It’s certainly something he considered.
KevinC
13486
We elected a pussygrabber, why not a boobgroper!
I don’t think this is correct. He does not have to support the nominee.
He does if he wants to stay part of the party. He can add support actively or just be quiet about his misgivings but he can’t be a detractor.
Some Republicans - notably George Romney - did refuse to support Goldwater in 1964. But the 1964 Republicans against Goldwater got a bunch of flack from the rank-and-file in the1968 Republican re-alignment and found themselves on the outside looking in. After that, the mantra in the GOP became party unity above all.
Matt_W
13490
Franken never groped anyone. He posed for a salacious photo based on a sketch he and Leeann Tweeden had performed several times together for a USO tour. And he squeezed Tina Dupuy’s waist during a photo op.
