The GOP used to be excessive in denouncing government control of individual liberties (and rhetorically and selectively still are), and the idea of the GOP supporting a state kleptocracy that exploited its own population in perpetuity as Russia’s does would have been anathema to them.
Which current position of the Dems would you use as your best analogy for this phenomenon? For example, “it would be as if the Dems became the anti-abortion party” or “It’s like the Dem gleefully destroying Social Security.”
Well, 75 years ago it would have been surprising to a lot of people, especially in the South, that the Democrats would now be an avowedly anti-racist party and that the official slogan of the Alabama Democratic Party is no longer “White Supremacy”. That change isn’t recent, but it’s the closest analogy I can think of.
Honestly, this phenomenon of the parties holding diametrically opposed positions on almost every issue is fairly new. In the 60s, you could find people on both sides of the civil rights and abortion issues in both parties.
It isn’t like Republicans have diametrically positions-It is more like they have one position of being diametrically opposed to Democratic positions no matter what those positions are.
Well, no, they do take positions: they’re against abortions, for example, and they’re for requiring incontrovertible evidence of ID for voting purposes, and they favor militarizing police force, and on and on.
What I’m trying to ask here is which current, firmly held position by the Dems would have to change 180 degrees to match the GOP’s changed position on Russian totalitarianism. They seem to admire it in Putin, but they were less than admiring when it was Stalin, or Khruschev or even Mikhail Gorbachev.
Well, let’s not go too far. The Democratic party is certainly no longer a pro-segregationist party, and of African-Americans who vote they are predominately Democrats, but the Democratic National Committee has been pretty cold toward minority candidates, most notably with Stacey Adams under the thesis that a female black candidate would have wide enough appeal to be competitive. The Democratic party is not overtly racist but they have a long way to go before they can be described as “avowedly anti-racist”, as do most Americans.
The example I think of would be if the Democratic Party suddenly came out in favor of voter ID and all kinds of measures meant to make it harder to vote - if it began with the Republicans suddenly using massive voter fraud to win elections.
Another example would be the about-face on police after 1/6. The Democrats who had spent the previous summer savaging the cops and calling for “Defund the Police” suddenly embraced a law and order message because of the 1/6 insurrection.
I would disagree with the assertion that the “Republican position” is one of support for Putin’s Russia. Almost every Republican officeholder has disavowed Russia in the current war, and polls show that strong majorities of Republicans support sanctions. GOP support for Putin was mostly a dalliance, fueled by the personal proclivities and political and financial interests of one man. It fell apart once he was out of office and it became clear what support for the Putin regime really entails.
The closest analog I can think of is Bill Clinton’s embrace of “third way” politics and “the era of big government is over” rhetoric. It served his interests at the time, but has been pretty widely rejected by Democrats in the wake of the 2008 crash and COVID-related upheaval.
I don’t think this is a good example of an “about-face”. They didn’t embrace a general “law and order” policy that approved of the cops doing just about anything they wanted to do.
The point of BLM and “defund the police” was that cops are wasting a whole lot of time and effort policing things that don’t need to be policed, and policing those things very aggressively. A guy selling loose cigarettes isn’t a threat to the community, a guy driving a car in the middle of the day isn’t a threat to the community, but things like that routinely attract aggressive, often deadly, police action all the time.
But Jan 6 was different - a violent mob assaulting the Capitol is exactly the sort of thing that should be the target of immediate, aggressive police action.
The real about-face here in the GOP reaction to Jan 6. Had that mob been anyone other than Trumpers, the GOP would have been calling for their heads immediately. The one police shooting they didn’t immediately embrace as being entirely justifiable was Ashli Babbitt, which was one of the best textbook cases of use of force we’ve ever seen.
January 6 was exactly the sort of police action most Democrats have been calling for - take the serious stuff seriously, and cut out the bullshit.