Agreed. It was like they were sitting around saying “What term should we use that will give the opponents of our proposal the best possible rhetorical mileage? Let’s use that!”
For some time now I’ve wondered about what it meant to be a Republican. For at least 20 yrs, I’ve found it hard to see any consistent goals other than amassing more and more wealth among the already wealthy. I’ve long wondered what tangible benefits working class Republican voters thought they were receiving.
Just about the only explanation I see is an appeal to some sort of outrage - either against the “other” - “terrorists”, or people challenging traditional values. And there seems to be a generous desire to simply do what pisses off the liberal/educated “elites.”
In reality, they do not stand for fiscal responsibility. I guess they do support some stances such as anti-abortion, or anti-gay - if discrimination is your thing. And they seem to presume that profit-oriented businesses will do what is best for people and the environment.
Unfortunately, anti-Democrat feelings are so strong that they will gladly vote for a maniac like Trump or Greene, over the most middle-of-the-road Democrat. Although, in today’s political climate, it is tough for a Democrat to act/vote in any moderate manner.
Hell, as much as I despise Manchin, I wish there were more folk like him on both sides. That would lead folk to debate, compromise, and effectively govern.
For many of us working class people, it is about preserving our way of life because we are reasonably comfortable with what we have now and don’t want to lose it. We do not want to lose what we have.
People wanting to use politics to line their pockets are not at all limited to Republicans. There are plenty of Democrats who do this, too. And many will be happy to work with whoever wants to give them the money. I think that they are more opportunist than they are Republicans or Democrats and will say whatever they think they need to say.
The people you are talking about with anti-Democrat feelings are hardly Conservatives. Instead of preserving what we have, they want to tear everything down and rebuild it to benefit themselves.
The damage that Trump and his cult have done to the Republican Party is highly alarming.
You misspelled “probably irreversible”.
The party has been so damaged, any Republican who still hopes for a return to the “Grand Old Party” needs to wake up, and realize that’s damn near impossible now. If they really want to destroy Trumpism, and can’t bring themselves to vote Democrat, they need to get together with others of their kind, and come up with a new party.
And yes, that is going to take years. It will be a decade or more before you can even have a faint hope of electing a President. That’s just the price that must be paid for letting the Republican party get this bad.
Do you think that illegal immigrants voting, dead people voting, and people voting multiple times never happen?
Yes, it’s happened but not to the point where an election changed, and certainly not to the point where thugs are needed to disrupt the ceremonial count of electoral college votes nor that draconian measures need be taken that just “so happen” put one voting block at a disadvantage to another.
It may be biased reporting but all of the vote fraud I’ve seen – mainly people voting their dead relatives’ ballots because “they would have wanted it that way” have been registered Republican. Certainly no cargo planes loaded with bamboo-laced ballots from China have been detected.
There’s no evidence that any of this happens at any rate likely to effect any election results.
In addition to people voting on behalf of dead relatives, there are also cases of non-citizens voting because “they didn’t know” they were ineligible, and people voting in two locations in the same election, such as at home, and in another state while at university, or at their home address and again near their workplace.
In the vast majority of cases that is correct. However, there are local elections that are decided by a handful of votes. Votes from the non-eligible, including dead voters, can affect the results.
Cite where he says it never happened?
I didn’t say he did. I asked what he thought, for clarification.
Exactly. It would be very difficult to pull something like that off in multiple states in a national election. The number of people involved in such a conspiracy would be phenomenal and impossible to keep quiet.
One thing to remember, too, is that the Democrats held a solid lead in the polls for the year running up to the election. I’m thinking that the margins were generally about +8% for the Democrats through much of that time.
If Trump had been leading by that much in the polls, then losing the election by the same margins that he lost would have been questonable. But the fact is that Trump was never even close. And he knew that he was going to lose – that’s clearly why he started whining about the Democrats stealing the election months before the election itself.
I live in the most Conservative precinct in one of the most Conservative counties in one a very Conservative area. I think Trumps votes were more because he was the Republican candidate than because people wanted to vote for Trump. There are a few people in the county who whine about the Democrats stealing the election, but I’ve never heard that whine in my precinct even once. And in 2020, someone in the precinct even voted for Biden which was very surprising. I thought I knew who that was who voted for Biden and the voter confirmed a month or two ago that he did, in fact, vote for Biden.
Not only is Trump not a Conservative, his entire administration was a war on Conservatism and he ramped it up even more after being whipped by Biden in the election. It should not be surprising that actual Conservatives are not very fond of Trump.
Is it even possible for a Populist to be a Conservative? For a Conservative to become a Populist, he would pretty much have to throw all his Conservative principles out the window.
If an election is so close that a miniscule number of fraudulent votes make a difference, the loser will usually demand a recount.
And in a lot of locales, if the differential is close enough* the recount is automatic and done at no charge to any candidate.
*In Arizona:
1. One-tenth of one per cent of the number of votes cast for both such candidates or upon such measures or proposals.
2. Two hundred votes in the case of an office to be filled by state electors and for which the total number of votes cast is more than twenty-five thousand.
3. Fifty votes in the case of an office to be filled by state electors and for which the total number of votes cast is twenty-five thousand or less.
4. Two hundred votes in the case of an initiated or referred measure or proposal to amend the constitution.
5. Fifty votes in the case of a member of the legislature.
6. Ten votes in the case of an office to be filled by the electors of a city or town or a county or subdivision of a city, town or county.
Indeed. So could votes from aliens and the lizard people.
It happened in real life, in a local county election where I live, in 2020.
The evidence was provided to the local prosecutor, but nothing much was done. Nobody wanted to further stir the pot, so to speak, with the drama going on, vis a vis the 2020 election. Prosecutorial discretion, you know.
Was it a great travesty? Of course not. But that shit ain’t right.
Cite?
What needed clarification?
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Some conservatives who deviated from Trump a long time ago have consistently raised concerns. But many Republicans do not listen to guys like David Frum or seek an intellectual response.
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Trump failed in his efforts to manipulate this election in part due to a few principled conservative ratifiers and officials. Many “Stop the Steal” candidates have reportedly run for these positions and been elected. I think the US would benefit from an independent system for things like district boundaries and results. This has little chance of happening in the current environment.
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People do look at how the powerful act. Do they set an example? Do they obey the rule of law? Do words match deeds? It is not always easy to unlearn lessons.
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Indeed, what institutions and touchstones do both parties still unequivocally accept as authoritative?
But some more good news (not so much)…