We will always have this only if it’s sustainable long-term, about which I have my doubts. But I don’t know what will happen. Maybe both parties will fully embrace the misinformation and hatred approach.
Perhaps we’re saying the same thing, however, beyond Kinzinger and Cheney, who in the GOP isn’t a hardcore nut?
And then to add to the scariness, this seems to be becoming seen as acceptable behaviour; also demonstrated last month in Canada btw.
It saddens me to say that I think it’s much more likely that Democrats embrace the misinformation and hatred approach than for Republicans to get back to policy discussions.
I’m talking about voters. I think you’re talking about politicians.
It seems to me that what the GOP pols will need to do, once Trump’s declining appeal takes hold (which might be a few years down the road), will be to say “What my opponent has been saying about me all happened in the dim, distant past, way back in 2020 and 2021, and has no bearing on the crucial issues of today.”
This kind of avoidance of responsibility often works, but I think this is an extreme case. The crazier you act in 2021, the harder it becomes to dismiss that in 2024.
Ah ok, you’re correct; I am talking about politicians.
Wrt the voters, do you believe that the rational voters can form a sufficiently large and coherent block to keep out the crazies?
Not in Arizona.
Here is just one more candidate that proves there is no bottom to the crazy barrel on the Republican side:
No, I’m sure the crazies will control certain states for some time to come, and I’m sure that they’ll be able to get 40% of the national vote and then maintain that they actually won crucial states that they lost through voter fraud, etc. But don’t see how this model will serve to win them moderate and independent voters. Eventually, they’ll have to win them back either through insurrection or by changing their crazy policies (or crazy lack-of-policies) to more sane positions.
They will just change those rules so that moderate and independent voters can no longer vote. It will really be a short step for them if they get certain candidates elected. (Like the one in the article I linked to above-- as well as MOST of the Republican candidates in AZ.)
In those days, Democrats and Republicans generally agreed on what constituted decency. Now they don’t.
Rational GOP voter: The party is batshit insane, but the Democrats will raise my taxes. Sigh [Checks box next to (R) candidate.]
Or more specifically “the Democrats will raise (someone’s, maybe not mine) taxes!”
I feel like recent events here in Canada might be a bellwether for the GOP in the US.
With this Convoy crisis, we’ve seen our two conservative parties doubling down on support for the Canadian Crazies, which tracks with what they’ve been doing for years now, particularly during the past two years of the pandemic.
But now, it seems to finally be costing them the support of what actual moderate conservatives still exist. I’ve seen more moderate conservatives (both online and in real life) saying, at last, “Enough is enough”, and declaring that they can no longer support this nonsense.
So it seems possible that the same can happen in the US. As I said on Facebook, the strain of American Crazy seems stronger than the Canadian strain of crazy, so the fight will be harder, but recent days in Canada suggests that it won’t be impossible.
True, and there are several reasons for that:
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The crazy sheeple vote. Millions of voters have been brainwashed into the crazy by Fox and Conservative talk radio.
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If you are not on the crazy train, the crazies will attack you-Look at Cheney
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And worse- there will be death threats, maybe worse than threats…
The GOP is strongly positioned to re-win the House in November, with a decent shot at re-taking the Senate. And it’s a little early. But I predict they will nominate Trump again in 2024, which should scare the Hell out of anyone who is worried about America turning toward authoritarianism. It’s amazing that one year after the attempted 1/6 Coup, the GOP has moved on from that and is lining up to curry favor with the guy who launched the Coup. They didn’t kick him out of the party. They embraced him, and in fact, he now tells them who to kick out of the party.
So, in 2024, if Biden wins the election, we’re going to find out just how far we’ve gone toward Authoritarianism, because Trump and the loyalists installed throughout the State and Local GOP infrastructure will likely try to overturn the election again.
As for the GOP’s views on policy, etc, the only thing they think about is “owning the libs” and opposing anything that the Dems do. That’s it. That’s all they believe in. There is no policy planks anymore. Remember, they didn’t even have a platform in 2020 other than to say, “yeah, whatever Trump wants”…
So, we combine no-policy platform with “own the libs” with Authoritarians…and that’s today’s GOP.