OK, but the election is next year.
No, I don’t, but that’s neither here nor there. If I had to guess, I’d guess its roughly the same one out of five or so that’s its been for a long time now. My point here is that the Republicans have made a tactical mechanism into a strategic plan, which often works. Until it doesn’t.
When they had a solid base of moderate Republicans, the Tea Party fanatics were a bonus, they made the numbers look better, but weren’t crucial. Say, twenty, thirty years ago. But the Grin Reaper has been at work. As it happened, the Trog Right became relevant, then important, and then crucial. That’s when the Pubbies started resorting to trickery. Remember when they were out there making sure that gay marriage proposals were on the ballot in many states? RoveCo didn’t give a rat’s about gay marriage, they were only working to get out the Troglodytes. Before, they were happy to have their votes, but now they needed them.
That’s when they made their big mistake, here. They used the election results and demographics to sculpt districts to a very fine point, the point whereby they win by just enough. And that “just enough” depends on everybody who voted Republican to do it again. So then the Trogs are not simply important, they are suddenly life or death. Uh oh.
(Personally, I think the grim picture is a large part of why they put so much effort into trimming away Dem voters with “voter fraud” scare tactics, but that’s a side issue. Sorta kinda…)
Worse, perhaps, they have given the Trogs a wildly exaggerated impression of their own importance. They were always inclined to believe themselves an oppressed majority, now the attention paid to them underscores their fantasy. While at the same time alienating the moderate Republican base that used to be their strength.
By comparison, I’m on the conservative wing of the extreme left. I like Bernie and I don’t like green eggs and Hillary. But I will vote, and if its Hillary, then its Hillary. How many Tea Party Trogs will vote for Jeb! or Romney? A Republican candidate with one hundred percent of the Trog vote will lose in a spectacular fashion, total Hindenberg. Oh, the hilarity!
They made their bed, and now must lie upon while they get a jolly good rogering!
Said before, say again: a democracy requires a conservative party, if only to keep us other guys honest. Besides, some people just are conservative, change makes them nervous, its unpredictable, it messes with your spreadsheets. (Hmm. “Made their bed” and “spreadsheets”…no, that won’t work. Pity…)
So, if the Republican Party sobers up and flies right, excellent! I hope they do, for the good of the country. Besides, it gives us someone to blame. If the bill for English as a second language for gay whales falters, we can still say “Hey, we were all for it, but the Republicans wouldn’t go for it!”. We need them.
So, what do we, or the DC Dems, do to contain it in the meanwhile?
And then, sure as fate, today’s young lefties turn into the embittered old conservatives their parents were. Natural replacement to the normal water level.
There’s an old English saying, If you want to know how your girl will turn out, look at her mother.
I’m another non-supporter, non-hater. There are issues, like taxes, that I think he gets more right than the other GOP candidates. His personality is abrupt and sometimes rude, yes, but the man is like rubber in that everything seems to just bounce right off of him.
Stay out of their way. And bless their hearts, of course. Sure as hell can’t change their minds.
Old wives’ tale. People develop their core political values in their mid-twenties. It only looks as though people get more conservative as they age because succeeding generations are generally more liberal than the previous ones.
Uh, no thanks. Not while they’re causing actual damage.
And actually, when there’s any change at all, people tend to become more liberal as they age.
And Jeb is glue . . .
Naive wish-fulfillment. Were the generations of Reagan and Bush II more liberal than that of Roosevelt II ? Was the generation of the Gilded Age more liberal that that of the War Between The States ? Was 1950s Russia more liberal than in the 1920s ?
And really, young people today are far more right-wing and establishment than their equivalents in the '60s and '70s. And when not, as in Occupy, far less effective.
And I am of neither generation, so no sore-grapes. Young today are more supportive of eliminating welfare and getting well-paid careers than achieving a social revolution, thanks to years of propaganda from the right. Certainly they are more anti-racist and more anti-sexist, but this affects neither their, nor the 1%'s, pocketbooks.
Trump’s followers aren’t going to vote Democrat in a million years. Putting forward Trump’s most appalling statements and the actions of his worst followers, OTOH, will win left-leaning undecideds and motivate more on the left to get off their butts and register to vote.
Hmm. I am not solely responsible for countering his popularity. But I can’t help the way I feel, and if you are going to sit there and honestly try to tell me a significant portion of Trump supporters are not racist, I am simply not going to believe you.
That being said, in this thread, I wasn’t trying to fight his assertions. I was simply stating how the current situation makes me feel - unwelcome and unwanted in the country I adopted. I’m not the only one. But you can tell us we are wrong, that’s fair too.
I think Trump is totally whacko, personally. I think while not all of his followers are racist, racists have latched onto him.
Because in the liberal mind, there is no difference between racism and patriotism.
:rolleyes:
Read it again, he is saying that not all (in reality a minority) patriots are racists, but most racists use that refuge as the scoundrels that they are.
Why not? A huge portion of Trump’s supporters are non-college, white working-class voters who have been pushed into the Republican camp (or into apathy) by Culture War issues and the perception that the Democratic Party are indifferent if not actively hostile to their interests and values. To use a popular phrase, Trump is helping a good portion of these voters realize they are being “cucked” by the Republican Establishment who have used their raw votes to maintain Presidential and Congressional majorities while pursuing neoliberal economic policies destructive of their socioeconomic interests. Much as George Wallace served as stopping point for Southern white-working class voters on their way out of the Democratic Party, Trump can serve a similar function for the Republicans if Democrats adopt an inverse Southern Strategy-one that appeals to the socioeconomic interests of these voters by boldly defending the interests of the American workingman while judiciously deemphasizing issues such as gun control.
Not a Trump supporter at all, but I have a (non-imaginary) self-described moderate friend who is. The fact that him and other intelligent, non-racist, “high information” voters could seriously consider voting* for a real life cartoon character like Donald Trump baffles me so much, that it has inspired me to post for the first time in eight years in search of answers.
- and by vote, I don’t mean as an ironic or protest vote, or as a strategic primary vote to increase the Democratic Party’s chances of retaining the presidency, I mean a serious, he’s the best person qualified for the job and will actually accomplish something type of vote.
Classy though it may be, the bible is only on the coffee table to impress the sycophants. The real reading happens when he’s getting ready to go to sleep, which is why he keeps (kept?) a book of Hitler speeches near his bed.
All racists are patriots, but not all patriots are racist…?
Funny since it is a synthesis of liberalism and patriotism/nationalism that tends to the most ideologically consistent and successful variant of both ideologies.
Actually the most ideologically consistent racists are not patriots or nationalists since they elevate the supremacy of race over that of country.