Discussion for article #241197
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Today’s GOP is nothing short of an unmitigated DISASTER ! ! !—
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The president, Reid, Pelosi, and occasionally Boehner and McConnell sat at the grownup table and governed, while tea baggers sat on the floor throwing a hissyfit. It’s been such a pleasure to watch the baggers get their asses kicked on issue after issue, after issue.
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I agree with the writer on pretty much all points. In their zeal, the loss of the WH and Senate and maybe, a long shot for sure, the House in 2016 will turn them into even more raving lunatics in the future.
His statement about the America they think exists really doesn’t even begin to cover the massive state of denial the Pubs are in. Whether its the majority of voters who do want PP, Medicare, SS, Medicaid and a host of other excellent government programs or our aversion to sending combat troops everywhere at the drop of a hat, they will simply ignore those pleas. So many more topics like the anti-woman equality initiatives, religion in schools, science and climate change denial…the list is almost endless of things they want that the majority does not.
I’ve wondered if Obama’s ascension merely hastened the end of the Republican party as we used to know it. If another Dem. had won the last 2 terms, would the decline in the Republican party have been as rapid? As rabid?
I do think so since as a few writers in other venues have stated, the loss of the WH and the Dems. ability in the minority to block the most egregious of the Pubbie’s bills has set their hair on fire. That and the realization the Rinse P*nis’s guide for them in the future was correct: they cannot continue in their current tactics or they will suffer massive future voting bloc losses. Let’s hope they continue their death ride of the Valkyries and when the Fat Lady sings, they’ll be done for a long, long time. We can only hope!
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As usual Ed is spot on. The fight in the GOP is over tactics, not goals. The Republican purged every single moderate long ago.
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I was trying to figure out exactly what about this article bothered me. I think Kilgore doesn’t understand the degree to which the GOP has truly morphed into a White Nationalist Party that is hell bent on destroying the country in order to save it. .
But what must be understood is that virtually all of these conflicts
revolve around arguments over strategy and tactics, not principles,
goals or policies.
I’m not seeing this at all. We’ve got Carnival Cruz who OPENLY called Yertle a liar on the floor of the Senate and who is actively fomenting insurrection in the House. We’ve got a de-facto Klansman running for Speaker of the House. Kilgore thinks that IF a Rethug gets into the WH, all will return to whatever the GOP calls “normal.” Maybe prior to 2009, I would agree with him. But, now? No.
First, I cant really see how a Rethug captures the WH. Second, how do things go back to the way they were? Where does he see the Rethugs coming together to settle on some semblance of governance?
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This article is well written and astute. It articulates so many points about one of our two parties it made me pause. How can a party exist that is so un-American in every way? It’s really sad to think about.
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By the time the frost is on the pumpkins in 2016, the coward will be among the richest people on K Street after a year of cooling his heels at a Florida golf resort condo.
Fixed your sentence…
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Refusing to reinstate Ex-Im Bank, as an example, wasn’t a tactic. It was a goal. A negative one that they achieved.
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I am pretty sure Ed realizes the Republican party has become a white nationalist party. The fight between Cruz and McConnell is a fight between a rude and crude oaf and a cunning MFer. Both want to rape your daughter but one relies on guile and the other on brute force. Neither is worth a bottle of warm spit.
As to what will happen if they win control of government, look at the dystopia that is every state where they have taken control.
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It could happen if the Repubs blow up the rules. Split the electoral college votes in blue & purple states, keep it in tact in red states. Divide California into 6 states, 2 blue states, 2 red, 2 insanely red, it’s on the ballot.
And I agree. I’m just saying that I think he’s diminishing the potential for civil war within the GOP. It IS happening. The baggers have gained much more power than before and wont back down.
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Bullshit Mountain is going to have a steady influx of white nationalists (aka racists). The Republican Party is so white that its blinds one!! Once you don’t let facts get in the way you can build your own Nirvana. Hey! Nirvana is not a white word!!!
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If Dems win a third consecutive Prez race I predict Far Right anger will move from the political sphere to the sphere of violence. All the rants about civil disobedience, 2nd Amendment solutions, sovereign cities and enclaves, jury nullification, the 10th Amendment and other abandonment of accepting the authority of the law will turn to a form of civil warfare. A lot of angry people have many guns and a long list of the names of people and organizations they think are destroying the U.S. 4 more years of not getting their way is going to see those guns put to use. Mark it.
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The only difference between the Rightie Loons (Cruz, Gohmert, King…et al) and the GOP ‘establishment’ (McConnell, Boehner…etc.) is that the loons aren’t hesitant to shout their goals from the rooftops. They want to destroy any and all parts of the social safety nets that help and protect millions of America’s most vulnerable; they want to bestow more and more tax cuts on the already obscenely rich who own them; they do hate anyone who is ‘different’ and their window dressing booklicking token toadies are for show only…and on and on.
The establishment knows that the loons are far more damaging than helpful. It’s so much easier to stab someone in the back if you can trick him into coming close than it is to try and bull rush him. There is the ONLY difference.
The tsunami of hate and hurt that the Tea Potty WooWoos and True Believer Cons can and would like to unleash in the coming months could cause immeasurable damage to the GOP and the leadership knows it and want, as much as possible, to keep it in check. So, hold on…although their strategies differ, their goals are indeed the same, and if the Tea Party and the Right Wingnuttery is fully unleashed, it’s going to be a bumpy ride indeed.
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This last conclusion may come as a shock to those used to hearing about various struggles for the soul of the Republican Party, or the many cries of treason aimed at congressional leaders from the Right and from the grassroots. But what must be understood is that virtually all of these conflicts revolve around arguments over strategy and tactics, not principles, goals or policies.
If I could recommend this 1000 times I would. Ed is being the anti-sentimentalist here and others, like Krugman have been making similar observations:
Yesterday:
But I do want to weigh in for a minute on Donald Trump’s tax plan — which would, surprise, lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit. That’s in contrast to Jeb Bush’s plan, which would lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit, and Marco Rubio’s plan, which would lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit.
At this point there are no Republican candidates deviating at all from the usual pattern. Why, it’s almost as if nobody in the party ever cared about deficits except as an excuse to slash social spending, and is totally committed to redistributing income upward.
And there is, of course, no evidence — zero, nada, zilch — that cutting taxes on the rich will yield large economic benefits.
What we’re seeing here is a party completely incapable of reforming
Today:
This is amazing:
“I think the left wants slow growth because that means people are more dependent upon government,” Bush told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo.
Remember, this is the establishment candidate for the GOP nomination — and he thinks he’s living in Atlas Shrugged.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?_r=0
Thanks Ed.
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Ed Kilgore:
If, of course, Republicans lose a third consecutive presidential election, the current battles over strategy and tactics might reemerge with a vengeance, as conservatives grow frantic over the frightful damage being done to the America of their imagination by the free-spending, tyrannical, Muslim-loving, race-card-playing and baby-killing Democrats who somehow keep getting elected.
Well, yes, of course Democrats keep winning the presidency. That’s what happens when Republicans make it clear that they dislike:
Blacks
Muslims
Mexicans
Hispanics in General
Gays
Women
Chinese
The Disabled
The Poor
The Lower Middle Class
The Pope
Catholics who like or support the Pope
Jews who vote Democratic (~70%-85%)
Liberals
Socialists
Europeans (but not White Americans of European Descent)
People who acknowledge that Anthropic Global Climate Change is not a hoax.
People who believe the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and not 4,004 years old.
Darwinists.
And so on. I’m sure that I’ve by no means exhausted the list of Conservative prejudices.
The GOP can win small districts carved out and gerrymandered to elect their candidates, but once Republicans made it clear that they hate just about everyone who isn’t a conservative white male, or a conservative white female married to a white male, then it also became clear they’re going to have an awfully hard time getting a majority of the national vote for the presidency.
Their hatred, fear, and willful ignorance blinds them to the fact that there isn’t enough of them to get one of their own elected in a national race.
Edited to Add to the List Above: Native Americans / American Indians (I’m not sure which endonym they prefer.)
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Unfortunately, I say let it happen. It may be a necessary evil for the long term good of the country.
Until the writing is on the wall, I don’t that Obama’s success means the end of the modern GOP. Now I think that it revealed the scars that come from relying on a constituency that aren’t really willing to play the same political games. However is the GOP now the Whigs? Nope. Not right now.
Now it didn’t pass, but if at first that you don’t succeed.
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