It really seems like the Republican party has left you behind. I mean, nearly all of the positions you stated in this thread fit right in with the Dems. Are you a party rep or something? I guess I just don’t feel that kind of attachment to any political party – I’m a registered Democrat so I can vote in the Democratic primaries. I agree much more with their stances than I do with the Republicans. But, if I didn’t like the leaders or their policies, I would no longer be a Democrat. It’s about the loosest tribal attachment I have – I am much more of a loyal Islanders fan than a Democrat. I’m more attached to my 1/8th English heritage than the Democrats.
Well that’s why I put a question mark on it. It seemed implicit in what you were saying.
But thanks for clarifying.
I will add though, that if I were a member of the Republican party before 2016 I would have quit in disgust at any number of turning points of the last few years.
In terms of your (rhetorical?) questions for me, I’m British. But I can say that I have voted for all 3 major parties at one time or another here: Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat.
This reminds me of a guy who is unhappily married to an unattractive,embittered alcoholic abuser.
But every time his friends suggest that he consider leaving her, he pulls out a twenty-five year old photo of his wife in a bikini and starts talking about how she is so sweet and sexy and hot and how could anyone leave the woman in that photo.
Change happens. Your wife isn’t the woman in that photo anymore. Your political party bears no resemblance to the party you described. In fact, the two things you mentioned…..democracy and public education….are actively under assault by conservatives.
You say you are fighting to make your party into it what it once was. My question is, you and who else? One of the most baffling things about the right wing authoritarian takeover of the Republican Party is how the entire “principled Republican” wing of the party just fucking disappeared without a fight as soon as Trump burst on the scene.
They are still around in the pundit world, there’s the Bulwark and Lincoln Project and conservatives like Joe Scarborough and Nicole Wallace are working for MSNBC, but with the exception of Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, the entire Bush Ryan Kasich wing of the party just disappeared from the public service sector.
It’s frustrating for an independent thinker with a full range of varied and well-thought out beliefs to be slotted into one of two stereotypes. I get it, it happens to liberals, too. I see cringey facepalm inducing bullshit from my own “side” on a daily basis.
I have a neighbor that’s a pro-life the election was stolen religious conservative, except that she believes strongly in single payer health care. As individuals, we all have our own set of beliefs and I think most of us recognize this.
But we still need shortcuts for discourse. When I say “conservatives believe x, y and z”, I am saying that because these are the positions that the party organizations, elected leaders and popular pundits are taking publicly. I am not saying that every single person that is a registered Republican believes those things. I know they don’t.
But I still want to talk about those conservative public policy positions, because even though you aren’t a goose stepping Trumpist marionette, a significant percentage of conservatives, especially those in positions of public influence, are.
Using this analogy, I would definitely cling to my wife if she went through some tough times, but I wouldn’t do it for decades. For a political party, I would certainly let go much, much, much easier.
For which you would need a 2/3 majority in both Congress and the Senate, if I’m correct. Which is unlikely to happen right now.
Which probably also needs a majority vote.
Which is not going to happen in the current division of power.
Sooooo… Looks like you’re… ehm… up a stream of excrement (is this allowed in P&E?)? Or am I missing something?
These need to be reversed to have any realistic impact. #3 can happen – with considerable heavy lifting – in our current climate. #2 requires 2-3 new SCOTUS justices who understand that voters can’t correct a problem when that problem reduces the effectiveness of their vote. #1 requires a constitutional amendment which may be impossible but at best is a far-off pipe dream.
IOW, start with something you can actually accomplish.
Ninja’d 
Dammit!
Your version at least leaves a glimmer of hope…
Like the speech that Biden gave recently that was not covered on Fox (or any media that the R’s will watch) except for the big headlne where McConnell trashed it?
The Democrats ARE doing what you want. The Trumplicans WILL NOT LISTEN.
Maybe it’s time for the Democrats to lower the bar and take a page from he who shall not be mentioned - perhaps a campaign-style rally where Joe and prominent party figures give speeches about the election, voter suppression, vaccine hesitancy, reminding people about the infrastructure bill, etc. Call out Republicans by name and don’t give them any cover for lying. Maybe do one of these each month.
Maybe send someone who is confident, competent, and willing to go into the sewer of Fox News to trade punches with Tucker Carlson. I do agree that the current D messaging, and messengers, are not reaching enough of those who are under the spell of Republican messaging. There are many ways for the Democrats to do something different to reach more people, but they should not hold their noses at any channel, no matter how odious, to try to reach people and communicate what’s at risk. They wont be able to reach all of them, but a few may help in some of the key swing states.
Bring back Celebrity Deathmatch! 
Carlson would not have such a person on his show. Because he is a cowardly lying sack of shit.
Yes, this.
It used to be they occasionally had guests on with contrary views; they were asked leading questions and immediately interrupted before they could get two words out. Tucker would then wrap up with a monologue about what they were really saying.
But nowadays they don’t even bother with this.
Too much of a risk of their audience hearing even two words of rationality.
It’s right out of Rush Pigbaugh’s playbook.
And if you played stupid, or faked party allegiance, to get on the show (as a caller), as soon as their barometer sensed a triple-digit IQ (because you were scoring rhetorical points), Pigbaugh would just quietly end the call, and then bloviate interminably until the fact that there ever was a call had long been forgotten by the troglodyte masses stultifyingly enthralled.
Sorry @Akaj for the snark upthread. I thought you beat me to it, and then I was too late to edit.
Isn’t there a possibility to kick Fox off the network? Idk, for undermining democracy or something? At least throw some lawsuit? I have no idea how this stuff works with you guys. Would there be a case to be made?
They lost their Christmas tree! What more can we do?! /s
More seriously, I’m sure they have long and arcane “freedom of speech” defenses all lined up with heavyweight lawyers.
There was actually a whole thread about it:
There are some high-profile lawsuits against some of these outlets, but it’s hard to know which way they’ll go, and – typical for late-stage capitalism – if the economic impact is one that can be absorbed (ie, more profit than pain at the end), nothing will change.
Segmenting the market for “news” consumers was as brilliant from a business standpoint as it was devastating to a populace. Until and unless the strategy’s effectiveness wears off, I see very little standing in its way.
I go back to primary education as a possible way to reduce ‘demand’ for these outlets, but education is just another very basic social service with nearly unlimited benefits that meets powerful resistance from the US Right Wing.
Again: no coincidence, I’m sure. They’re evil but they’re not stupid.
I remember when a British news story was being covered on CNN and they mentioned the “news regulators” in the UK. The panelists were aghast at the state of free speech in the UK that there is such a thing as “news regulators”.
But of course the UK regulators don’t tell the news agencies what they can say per se; it’s more about methodology and ethics.
There is nothing in government regulation about printing lies; that is only guidance by the industry body itself.
I think a good case could be made that the US would benefit from something like this (and indeed the UK’s regulators should have more teeth). Obviously not going to happen though.
Thanks for the link and your elaborate response. Obama was spot on in the Atlantic article calling this an epistemological crisis. The irony of it is IMO that we should have learned this lesson from the 20th century already. From nazi propaganda to Milosevic, we know that mass indoctrination can and will lead to war. What’s new is that the Republicans have managed to do this even within a pluriform media landscape, so without limiting access to other sources, because social media algorithms create an automatic tunnel vision and thus have played right into their hands. This does not bode well for the rest of the world. Of course, e.g. the Rohingya people have already experienced that as well.
When it comes to primary education, critical thinking and logic skills should be first and foremost taught/developed. That’s a lesson for us as well.