Per this article, many of our world allies are concerned that even with tRump gone, America may still not be back to normal. The CPAC program and its worship of the Golden Ass statue demonstrate that those concerns are well founded.How can people of sound mind and good will help the remaining sane Republicans wrestle control of their party back? For the sake of the country we need to help oust tRumpists from the world of US politics. It can be done. The Klan and the American Nazi party were driven down for decades. Democrats need to help mainstream Republicans! How???
Praise the good ones. Don’t tear them down. Point out which things in them are good.
Any flaws they have are flaws that Trumpers have. So it’s important to pick fights. In other words, if they want to cut taxes, so do Trumpers - so that’s not really something to bash them for. But if they fight against Qanon - help them in the fight.
Vote Democratic, and encourage lots of other people to vote Democratic, and support responsible and public-spirited Democratic politicians who will implement policies that are beneficial for all Americans.
The only way that non-Trumpublican conservatives in the US can regain control of their party and/or movement is by demonstrating to their fellow conservatives that delusional anti-democracy misgovernance isn’t ultimately an effective strategy. If anti-Trump Republicans want to defeat Trumpism, they need to support Democratic efforts for responsible governance.
Not just keep sitting on the fence hoping for a miracle so they can become magically stronger than Trumpublicans and regain control of their party without running the risk of Trumpublicans getting mad at them and calling them RINOs.
I think that Democrats voting in the Republican primary for the non-Trump Republicans is probably the only option that has any chance of success. If the Republicans had split anywhere close to 50 / 50 between the Trump wing and the non-Trump wing, things would be different. But from what I can tell it seems like the split was more 90 / 10 or even 95 / 5.
Form a coalition with the ten that voted to impeach. Help Dems purge Trump loyalist from the party, and in return donate to their campaigns and don’t support any Dems running against them.
Heh. We don’t. 
Gosh, it has been rather a short four years from “Fuck your feelings, liberal snowflakes, this is why Dems don’t win elections!” to “Oh please kind Democrats, help us retake control of our party that has been wrested from us by a bunch of delusional insurrectionists!”, hasn’t it? Felt longer, I must say.
No, I don’t think Democrats should be spending our political capital trying to prop up the anti-Trump rump of the Republican Party. Sure, let’s make common cause with them on issues we agree on, and let’s consider any sincere offers they may make for political compromise in situations where compromise would help both sides. And of course we can support anti-Trump Republicans in any race where a Democrat couldn’t possibly win and an anti-Trump Republican might be able to.
But devote our time and resources to figuring out how to get mainstream Republicans’ nuts out of the anti-facts, anti-science, anti-democracy wringer that they voluntarily stuck them into? Nah, I think that’s their problem.
Thoughts and prayers, of course. But at present we Democrats have a hell of a lot of work on our plate already, cleaning up the aftermath of the anti-public-service crony-capitalism shitshow that the Republicans dumped on us. I don’t think we should make their intra-party struggles a high priority for ourselves.
The best way to help Republicans these days is to turn a lot more of them into Democrats. And the way to do that, to the extent that it’s possible at all, is by focusing on enacting responsible and effective government and protection of rights for all Americans.
Convince them to become Democrats and support Democratic policies.
Encourage them to start their own party totally separate from the crazies.
This will, to be sure, split the opposing vote and ensure Democratic wins in many areas they would otherwise lose. But that outcome is best for the country and therefore for the Republicans. It’s doing them a favor.
This thread raises difficult questions.
I think Nikki Haley is the closest to non-Trump that’s at all realistic in terms of getting the nomination. I can’t see many Democrats here voting for her under any circumstance. And wouldn’t what you propose cause her to lose popularity among loyal Republicans?
My answer as to how to bring back moderate Republicans is to solidly defeat the Trumpers several elections in a row, with 2024 the most crucial. As to how to do it: Policy moderation, especially when it comes to hot button social issues.
Democrats can lead by example. (You know, if they’re able. Gov. Cuomo, cough.) That’s all they can do, that’s all they should do to combat something they had nothing to do with. Anything more would be a rejected by the intended beneficiaries, useless, futile watste of Democrats’ time, energy and resources.
This. Present your POV, if they decide to try to be Assholes, then f-ck em. But don’t stand there and take shit ( or threats ) from election losers.
That is a complete fantasy. We won’t be converting anyone.
Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. I don’t mind fighting with repubs, but I rather fight the non Hitler-y kind.
I think the idea that significant numbers of non-Trump Republicans could become Democrats is a lot less of a fantasy than the idea that Republicans can “purge Trump loyalists from the party”, with or without Democratic help.
Trump loyalists are the bulk of the Republican Party now.
They definitely are. I think as recently as 2014 the distribution of voters from left to right was likely bell curve shaped. Now I believe it’s bimodal, with one large hump at the far right, a very small tail just to the right of center, another somewhat smaller hump just to the left of center, and a larger tail drifting towards the far left. The area under the curve to the left is larger than that on the right, but on the left it’s skewed towards the center, and on the right it’s mostly at the far right.
Encourage red-state and red-district anti-Trump Republicans to leave the Republican party and become independents who caucus with the Democrats. Then support them in the general election.
For example, the Democrats are almost certainly not going to win a Senate seat in Utah or Louisiana anytime soon. If Romney and Cassidy became Independents who caucused with the Democrats, that would be enormously beneficial to the party (and the country, for that matter). And they’d probably easily keep their Senate seats as long as Democrats didn’t run against them, since they’d consolidate the Democratic vote + the Republicans who already like them, only leaving the pure Trumper Republicans to vote against them.
They’d be extremely conservative and usually vote against the Democrats, but they’d do that anyway, and as long as they vote for the Democratic leader, then that’s a trade well worth making. Not even a trade, really – just benefit.
Unlikely to happen, but that’s what we should try.
Put yourself in the position of America’s allies and competitors/rivals. Why would anyone walk away with the feeling that the last four years were just one of democracy’s hiccups? They’re right to be skeptical, and I don’t think the free world should count on a country that clearly has a lot of authoritarianism in its DNA.
They have to be shown, in election after election, that their party is no longer attractive to anywhere near a majority of eligible voters. That explains why they’re busy trying to write more restrictive voting laws in Arizona, Georgia, and other states where Democrats are equally competitive. At one time, the GOP actually tried to compete with Democrats and ran campaigns that were at least partially based on ideas. Republicans have stopped trying to debate ideas; their attempts to sow doubts about elections show they are competing for one thing and one thing only: power.
The only thing the rest of us can do is to keep voting against them, again and again. That is why I’ve repeatedly said that there are no good republicans. If you see an R on the ballot, vote against it; if you see a D on the ballot, vote for it. That simple. Do this over and over again everywhere until they finally get it that they can’t win by appealing to divisive themes.
You know what? Fuck figuring out the Republican party and their voters. Just fuck 'em. I don’t have time for their ignorant shit.
I’d rather spend a lot more of our time making sure all of our voters can get to the polls and vote.
I think Stacey Abrams is on to something: The harder Republicans try to make it for people to vote, the harder you fight to make sure everyone who can vote, has the ability to do so and then does so. Work like hell to get even more of that vote out.
If Republicans keep going down that path, it will only become more and more clear that they are an authoritarian party that cares only about power and nothing else, and that they only appeal to the super rich and angry whites, and nobody else. If we adopt the Abrams approach and just focus on our voters and bring more into the democratic process, then two good things happen: a) Republicans keep losing; and b) it puts more pressure on the winners to put legislation into place that really helps people and not corporate donors.
We need to spend every day until November 2022 getting people ready to vote. If the Republicans push a voter ID law in a state, let’s get volunteers out there and do what it takes to get them their IDs. If absentee ballots need to be notarized, let’s get notaries out in the churches to get those ballots notarized. If they’re purging voters, let’s proactively get the voter lists and keep a watch on that and alert people when they’re removed. Let’s rent buses on election day and get people to the polls. The Republicans have no intention of fighting a clean fight, we just need to be prepared.
Let’s give up any notion that Romney and Cheney represent the core of a reasonable Republican Party. They are the last dying gasp of that party. Right now we have the Democrats and the GQP, only one of which has any interest in governing. Until DJT is dead or in prison, it’s his party and his alone. The specter of another Donald term is real and should scare the bejeezus out of us, we need to start now to prevent it.
Fuck ‘em. I dread the day sane Republicans figure out that it’s easier to take over the Democratic Party than to take back the GOP.