Well, I still disagree. When the Reagan administration saw that the tax cuts weren’t actually leading to lower deficits, they raised taxes. Then, GHW Bush raised them again.
Then, the Republican legislature and Bill Clinton balanced the budget. The Republicans didn’t stop pretending to care about deficits until the GW Bush administration. Similarly, you could still argue about the effects of CO2 and climate change, probably until the '90s. Its wasn’t really a thing in the '80s. So, when the Republican Party went full climate-change-is-a-hoax later, a scientifically minded Republican may have thrown his hands up in disgust. Both parties were opposed to gay marriage until the 2000s, so if that was a key issue for you, when the Democrats went the other way, you could have joined them – your position didn’t change, the party did.
Things have been learned since the '80s and progress has been made, on the economics front (trickle down was tried and failed), on the social front, and on the environmental front, at least. It looks like you’re arguing that, since the Republican Party is immune to facts and refuses to change (or, in the case of climate change, got even more anti-science), then someone who actually grows and learns would have moved to the Democratic Party. I guess that might be the case and may explain why institutes of higher learning are increasing Democratic.
ETA: And, on the Trump side, the Republican party is now the party of Trump. They are doing nothing to hold him back, and are in fact enabling him. There’s no daylight between the party and the party’s leader anymore.
You are absolutely wrong here. I used to be one of those lock-step Reagan conservatives who towed the “Don’t tax the rich so much that they’ll leave the country and take our jobs with them” line. I used to believe in the values they espoused, such as honesty and accountability.
Now the conservatives have turned their backs on those values. Not just that, they’ve completely destroyed them and pretend they still follow them. Conservatives used to be into looking at the heart of the matter and rejecting hyperbole. Now they’re nothing but lies and hyperbole, using fear and panic to scare voters to their side. They use the media to isolate and control their followers, much like the way they accuse liberals of doing. They see corruption and conspiracy because they practice it themselves and project that dystopia on ooh-so-scary liberals.
Remember how conservatives used to tell us the Russians were the enemy? Now, despite the election meddling, Crimea-conquering, mafia mentality, and doing what us imperialist yanks used to do to control the Middle East, the Cons are apparently fine with that nowadays, because Trump leases out 35% of his Tower space to Russians.
At least liberals (meaning anybody who isn’t right of center) are more partial to actual facts. Liberals also understand the changing world dynamic and see foreign parties as potential investors and new clients, not dangerous mud people who need to be kept away with a nationalist wall. They see a collapsing environment and envision ways to survive and eventually profit from non-traditional sources of energy, instead of greasing the gears for dinosaur industries to bypass regulations that are meant as safeguards, not poison daggers aimed at the rich.
I didn’t leave the Conservatives. They left me. Liberalism is now the old conservatism. Liberals are now the moral backbone because Conservatives won’t practice what they preach. They’d rather shelter themselves with hypocrisy and “We get to commit bigamy, have abortions, and consume coke by the truckload, but don’t want anybody else to do it.” That’s how fucked our society has become because of ideologies based on lies and self-delusion. That’s why you make such asinine assumptions like the above.
It might make a good ass-wipe. He is demonstrably none of those things, and even if he were a Muslim, so what? There are a couple of Muslims in Congress and I haven’t seen a bill yet to impose Sharia law.
I’ve always found that argument to be quite troubling, especially when it comes from the same folks who say “support our troops and honor their sacrifice.” It seems that they expect some people to love this country, to work, struggle, and sacrifice to keep it safe, and to give up their lives for it if necessary. But there are other people who can’t even be expected to give up a little bit of money; ask them to sacrifice for their country and they’ll go shopping for a better offer.
I’d say “don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.” The Republicans give them tax breaks.
Yeah, I kinda "WTF?"ed when I read that. Not being a Chicagoan, I’m not familiar with the Tribune’s current editorial stance, but historically, it’s been a strongly Republican, conservative paper. Hell, it was owned and published by Robert McCormick, who was famously opposed to FDR, the New Deal, and American entry into World War II. Time said of him that “…the Tribune has been made into a worldwide symbol of reaction, isolation, and prejudice by a man capable of real hate.”
I believe that, according to urban legend that might not be true, he forbade his reporters to use the word “evening”, saying it was a weasel word for “night”. Supposedly, he changed this policy when the society reporter described a society gala where a prominent socialite appeared in a fancy, flowing night gown.
Yeah, but that’s just plain old hypocrisy; having different standards and expectations for yourself than for everyone else. That’s common. I’m tempted to say that everybody in the universe does that, but that’s probably not completely true.
What I was describing was an attitude that parts of society have different expectation on what they give to our joint safety and well being. Members of the military, who all too often have very little, are honored for giving the most precious things they have. Those who have a lot are expected to jump ship if some other country promises them more, and some politicians kowtow to them because of that.
