The Republicans really screwed themselves by putting all of their eggs in the MAGA basket, and it’ll probably take at least a couple of election cycles for them to recover, if they ever do.
They recovered amazingly and frighteningly quick from the 2008 financial meltdown and Cheney’s persistent evil. Ditto from Watergate. Don’t underestimated the Democratic Party’s ability to shoot itself in the foot.
At least in that case, it took them a while to get another guy in the White House, and only by completely embracing an extremist ideology that might prove to be a Pyrrhic Victory. I think they’re still paying for that in a way. The 2008 Republicans had to cave to the Tea Party which gave way to MAGA. It’s a slow-motion meltdown.
A Slow Motion Melt Down that has achieved their deepest desire. Loading the Supreme Court in a way that we won’t recover from for decades.
That party is having demographics issues but they’re pulling out all stops.
And Dammit, we’re hijacking this thread. I’ll spin us off.
With the loaded court, and control of far too many states, they are altering our Democracy in the favor of Right wing Republicans.
Gerrymandering is out of control with pretty advance computer modeling to assist.
The Court is a huge problem.
Good idea, LOL.
I don’t think that’s a winning strategy. I think that’s a desperation move that isn’t going to work in the long term. If a team wins a game by cheating, that doesn’t mean they can keep cheating indefinitely because they found a winning formula.
They can do a lot of damage in the meantime and already are on the abortion issue and others.
Further, these are the type of steps that lead from Democracy to Fascism or at least Totalitarianism. It scares the hell out of me.
It scares me too. It’s one thing to try to beat your opponents, but they are directly attacking our system of democracy itself.
I suspect this is like being a political suicide bomber, but it’s scant comfort that the bomber is dead when you’re dealing with the devastation left behind.
Excellent summary of what worries me.
Cheat long enough and it’s not cheating anymore. It’s a different game.
The political entity you once knew as the Republican Party no longer exists. It’s Trump’s party and everyone in it is MAGA. Even if you are not a big fan of the big guy - if you are voting R, you are a MAGA now.
I agree the take-over of the party really took hold with the Tea Party, if not earlier. But now the infection is complete and there is no room for anything other than MAGA in the party. The only exorcism possible now is regular and consistent defeats at the ballot box - but as long as they win a few here and there, MAGA will persist.
This is not true, were the voting strength (closely) proportional to their voting number.
But not enough Americans vote and your voting districts are gerrymandered up the wazooo. And that is American democracy.
And you don’t even need constitutional change to fix that.
Hey I’ve got a great conspiracy theory: MAGA hats are the mark of the beast. Of course the beast is Trump. Of course, they’d say fake news.
I know a guy who is a devout Christian and left the Republican party because he thought Trump might be the Antichrist, and at least acted like it. He convinced his wife to leave, too. He even convinced himself that the Democratic position on abortion might not be as horrible as he’d thought. (And i guess i won’t go into that any further, because it has major hijack potential.)
Grift, and gross incompetence in a pandemic, and rank inequity, and rebuttal of obligations, and constitutional chicanery and black bloody mutiny be dammed, the reason to leave the GOP is on religious grounds?
Back to the OP … Which Republicans screwed themselves?
I see them in danger of taking over the country permanently and all but outlawing opposition parties. After that there will be a fight inside the R party about which policies they enact in their new reactionary permanent dictatorship.
But it could be a mix of letting the oligarchs run steal the economy while the racists and religious wackos run the civil society into the ground and meantime the defense establishment bleeds the taxpayers white.
Reactionary Wacko Traitor Nirvana is certainly achievable. No matter which of those Neapolitan flavors is your personal favorite.
I think that’s their goal, but it ain’t happening, and they’re going to destroy themselves trying.
He did it before Trump’s first election. He supported Hillary because Trump had the mark of the beast on him.
I am astounded at the level of support they have now. Never underestimate America’s love of bigotry.
They are enjoying a tremendous amount of cultural, legal, and political power. I doubt any Republican feels screwed right now.