I think religious conservatism is authentic (a lot rests on the details). The religious zealots and the racists are happy to work together when they don’t outright overlap.
It’s more of the same. The religious wing of the Republican party has no basis in religious belief, in fact they are incredibly amoral. It’s already been noted the party has not even tried to deliver on their promises to the religious right, and they never will because it won’t line their pockets.
If we’re talking about Republican Party leadership then I agree. If we’re talking about rank-and-file, I think most of them are serious about their beliefs. I find many of their beliefs nutty and unsupported by the texts, but I don’t doubt they are following some internally consistent system that squares the circles they need.
I didn’t see that part, but I disagree with it. The Republicans have really done a number on the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court by packing it with Federalist ideologues.
An ordinary polity might see this narrow focus as political malpractice. But Evangelicals correctly the see judiciary as central to their interests. (Their interests mainly involve violating people’s religious freedoms and hoping SCOTUS will wave them past third base to score the winning run).
Basically over 50 years “conservatism” has been redefined as “to reverse whatever changes in the world have upset my Single-Issue Voter Demographic” and never mind what other things the politician may be doing with their power. The Republicans’ quest to create a coalition of everyone who has a single-issue objection to something identifiable as liberal – be it racial diversity, sexual freedom, secularism, gun control, public benefits… Hell, the *&^%$ FDA – and the “movement conservatives”'s unwillingness to say “OK this is too far” at any point because OMG, sweet, sweet court seats within reach!, fed on each other perfectly. But of course long ago the monster took on its own life and turned on its creators – Stevens and others like him were simply in denial for a long time and really IMO what scares them now is the realization the monster is not even waiting to finish off the “adversaries” before going after them .
Who knows what the rank and file actually believe. Many of them are serious yet don’t notice the disconnect between words and actions.
You are right about the courts, but it hasn’t been backed up with legislative action. And it won’t be because it doesn’t serve their ends. They are well aware that success in this area leads to electoral loss broadly across the country. It’s about as useful to them as gun control is to Democrats, nice rallying cry in limited areas but a long term loser at the polls.
And also note, most of these so called anti-abortion judges are actually federalists who like the main party hate the power of democracy.
The tank and file Republicans are otherwise known as marks. The President of the US is a con man, literally - he ran a massive get rich quick scam that stole the life-savings of people that put their trust in him.
It’s so pervasive I don’t know where to start. Read the “long con” article. Mike Huckabee Ben Carson and Herman Cain sold miracle cancer cures via email. Orrin Hatch made it legal for them.
Liberty U and the NRA have been exposed as self-dealing frauds. Fraud is rampant among conservative fund-raisers.
Here’s a National Review article outlining several scams targeting conservatives.
I’m not saying that Democrats are totally uncorrupt but non of them have done anything approaching the scale of Republican fraud. In my research on scam PAC’s, I found one scam Bernie PAC and one scam Hillary PAC - but these were started by a guy that also started multiple fraudulent conservative PACs. I found dozens of cases of scam conservative PACs.
I’m putting out a challenge. I dare anyone to find fraud on this scale targeting liberals. Bring it on.
Well, I certainly don’t know everybody, but in my life of observation, all white evangelicals support Republicans. It’s wholly a tribal identity where insiders deserve the Golden Rule treatment, and outsiders are “do unto others before they do unto you”. There’s never a moment of reflection on consistency, little serious scholarly engagement with the text. Us and them.
This must have gone over my head, because I thought the entire point of court-packing was bypassing legislative action. Much safer to have your agenda in the hands of grateful, conservative, lifetime appointees.
If you’re talking about electoral losers, I think you’re referring to abortion, but that game has changed. Republicans have dropped the pretense of standing for anything except control of the government, and everybody knows that judiciary control is the golden unchallenged road to total unaccountability (if we’ve not already arrived there).
That’s how they sell it. It’s still part of the con though. The judges they are putting in aren’t there to overturn old decisions, they’ve actually been chosen based on a philosophy of doing nothing. Remember that the GOP is a do nothing party at the legislative level also, they aren’t passing laws that will appear before the court at the federal level. The action has been at the state level and that could grow into a dangerous situation. So far, when states get into controversial legislation that could appear before the courts their insane zealotry produces obviously unconstitutional laws. Luckily the Republican party has no real interest in helping them, this is a long con, you never actually give them the carrot.
You are aware, I hope that there is no actual GOP platform for this current election cycle. Well, there is one - it is the 2016 platform which was re-adopted. With the addition of “We support Trump in whatever he tweets.”
The official GOP election platform for this election contains this statement condemning the current president:
The President has been regulating to death
a free market economy that he does not like and
does not understand. He defies the laws of the
United States by refusing to enforce those with
which he does not agree. And he appoints judges
who legislate from the bench rather than apply the
law.
We, as Republicans and Americans, cannot allow this to continue.
Biden can’t keep track of all his lies. Lied about marching for civil rights. Falsely smeared a man as “drunk” who was in the accident that killed his wife.
Plagiarism that continues to this day. Caused his current wife to cheat on her husband.
Eight women have alleged that Biden either touched them inappropriately or violated their personal space in ways that made them uncomfortable.
“touched them inappropriately” is not the same as actual sexual assault like “grab 'em by the pussy” is.