Why should we have done so? We didn’t try to use a toxic combination of lies and violence to try to maintain power in perpetuity.
I frankly think the distinction between merely allying oneself with a treasonous movement (regardless of one’s reason), and actually being a traitor, is one without much of a difference.
This post is still operative: now that impeachment has failed again (predictably), use the criminal justice system to the max.
Do you feel …enfranchised… by the Trumpublican Party? Really?
You make it sound like you’re handicapping a horse race, like the election is about voting for the the guy you think will win, because if he wins…You guessed right! You then get to run all around town proclaiming “I guessed right and you guessed wrong! I backed a winner! But that’s not what elections are about.
You aren’t disenfranchised if your candidate loses a free and fair election, that’s not how the voting franchise works.
Unless you are simply talking about party registration. I understand the dynamics of being a voter in a deep red or deep blue district, and how your local races will generally be effectively secured by the primary, even if they aren’t officially won until the general - it’s why AOC’s primary wins are considered her decisive races.
But that’s evading the problem on a technicality. I’m not questioning your party registration. I knew registered NYC Dems that consistently voted Republican in national elections and considered themselves Republican.
I’m talking about your party affiliation as defined by the policies and candidates you support, how you describe yourself, who you carry water for. And I really don’t understand your allegiance to the Republican Party and Trump. After reading the posts I quoted, I understand it even less than before.
I guess I had assumed you were a creature of habit, an old school Reagan Republican who maybe got a little too into watching Fox News.
But I can deduce from the quoted posts that 2016 was the first Presidential election you voted in. So you are either young - else you were politically disengaged until recently, so I fail to understand your attachment to the label “Republican”.
Translation: I am ok with the evil.
Yes I do, at least by registration in that party. I would not feel disenfranchised if it ceased to exist altogether.
I don’t look at it like this at all. It’s all party registration for me. My local races will be secured by who wins the Republican primary. I vote for some Republicans at the local level general election because often the opposition candidate sucks and/or is a write in that didn’t campaign. If you look at some of the other posts in this topic, including the OP and the post immediately above this, you will find that some do demonize registered Republicans by virtue of their being registered Republicans.
You can click my name to see my age.
~Max
I can understand this. Ohio is an open primary state, so I don’t have to register with one party or another, but I do often vote in the Republican primaries, as it is extremely doubtful that the democrat will win, so it gives me a chance to put my preference towards the less damaging one.
I used to do this. I don’t anymore, and pretty much just go “D” all the way down. As you said, they aren’t going to win, so it’s not like I am installing an unqualified person into office, but what it does do is to show that there is enough support for a democratic candidate that someone qualified for the office will bother to run.
Most of the time, the D is some 20 something fresh out of college with a poly-sci degree, more running a campaign for experience than to win the office. No one who is actually qualified for the office is going to run when they are guaranteed to lose.
Sorry, too late to edit.
I also do not vote for people running unopposed. I want there to be an undercount, and for potential candidates to see that there is room for competition for that office.
@k9bfriender’s approach was exactly mine when I lived in deep-red land.
IMO the least bad and mature thing to do is vote in the R primary for the least offensive R, then vote D in contested elections and abstain in uncontested elections.
No part of that voting pattern should be construed as that voter approving of R policies or being an R. It’s sound damage control and nothing more. That person is signalling as loudly as they can that sensible Rs are better than crazy Rs, and that Ds are better than Rs.
Possibly because they are part of the Republican machine. This machine, that you support, has actively punished any Republican office holder that tried to do the right thing, i.e defy Trump or hold him accountable in any way.
Punished meaning censured, ostracized, threatened with death and disowned by their families. If you want cites for this, I gots 'em.
People are leaving the Republican Party at much higher rates than are leaving the Democratic Party at the moment. What if leaving could help build momentum, and show that, say, a moderate to conservative Democrat could run a non-hopeless campaign?
Republicans in places where everyone registers R because the race is decided in the primary don’t have to run moderate candidates. The choices will often be between two terrible choices, trying to appeal the most to the base. Leaving might make the remaining R Party more conservative, but it will also make its candidates have to appeal more to the middle, eventually.
You have to think in terms of collective action though. Not just, will my one vote make a difference.
I do think that voting in the general is a much bigger act than where you vote in the primaries.
And voting in the primaries for the more “middle” candidate will also make them have to appeal to the middle.
If everyone but the most RW people leave the Republican party, then they will continue to run candidates that are further and further to the right.
I am actually of the opinion that it makes sense for lots of Democrats to go join the Republican party, and start voting for more moderate candidates to start steering them towards more moderate candidates. Dilute the hate, as it were.
Well, it’s a bit paradoxical, or chicken/egg, isn’t it? If more people leave, including voting D in the general election, a smaller and more conservative R party may be inclined to pick more rightwing candidates, but those candidates also have to have broader appeal in order to win, so need to be more moderate.
Some of that will be addressed by just voting D in the general, but I wonder how much people who voted for the saner candidate in the primary convince themselves that that person is actually moderate, and vote for them in the general, too, if they’re the nominee.
I’ve considered whether it would be helpful to switch my party affiliation to try to exert a moderating influence in the primaries, but I do still want a say in my own party’s primaries, and, Rs in my state are leaving their party at a fair clip, so I think there’s a different set of forces at work. Joining (or for existing Rs, staying) works against that process that’s already happening.
One thing to remember about the reddest of red states: For many of them, they used to be Democratic strongholds. Now, part of this is about the politics of the parties changing, but it shows that which party is dominant is changeable. It isn’t like, once a party has dominance, it cannot be beaten, and thus is the only game in town. In fact, it seems highly relevant. Racist Democrats realized that the Democratic Party no longer represented them, so they moved away from that party and eventually the Republican Party became dominant.
So, moderate Republicans who are no longer represented by the Republican Party could move to the Democratic Party and potentially restore the dominance of that party, or at least make it competitive.
Republicans admit that more people voting is bad.
Here are the Republicans blaming the Democrats for power failure in Texas:
The Governor, who Don Jr just called a Democrat, lying has ass of with Hannity, who has never told the truth if his fucking life.
This IS the Republican Party.
That’s not even a new tactic for Fox News. They regularly will misidentify Republicans in the news for doing something bad as Democrats. I can remember it being pointed out on the Daily Show multiple times back when Jon Stewart was the host. I assume they’ve been doing it in the years since as well.
It is designed to fool the stupid, which is your average Fox viewer\Republican. Stir up sentiment against Democrats for their own sins. Win\Win!
That is who is left in the Party. The Evil, the Stupid and the Betrayed.
“Well ya see the problem is, AOC, the Squad, the socialists, and Bernie…they killed Enron through regulation. If they’d just bring back Enron, they’d fix this by moving the rolling blackouts to California.”
As should be the case.
Waitaminute, only some?
Republican = Evil
Yeah, on the radio today I heard a RW talk show host spout the BS about Pelosi intentionally allowing the insurrection to occur to have an excuse to impeach Trump. Supposedly she knew about it and somehow in her role as Speaker got the police to stand down or something…? It’s really hard to figure out how some of these conclusions are reached, but maybe I’m just not insane enough to understand.