Bringing Liz Cheney—who is just as odious of a person in her own way as Trump—on stage with Kamala Harris so they could cosplay as gal pals was such a bizarre exhibition of intellectual and moral bankruptcy it is difficult to imagine how that conversation got started. “Hey, let’s bring on the Republic who unabashed promotes her father’s legacy as an unprincipled warmonger and would do the same if given a chance because Trump doesn’t like her.” It is like bringing on Megyn Kelly as the campaign’s communication director
This is not even remotely true. Barely sixty-five years ago, the Democratic party was a protectionist, anti-immigration, anti-labor, pro-war polity which was significantly under the influence of the ‘Dixiecrat’ contingent which was pro-segregationist and anti-civil rights. The ‘socially conscious’ Democratic party is a creature of ‘Sixties protests and nearly being torn asunder by its inability to represent diverse voices and find a wining platform, thus handing Dick Nixon of all people a decisive Electoral College win in that election and a landslide election in 1972 (both popular vote and Electoral College) despite open questions about corruption in the Nixon White House. The Democratic party has certainly moved ‘left’ (as defined as more progressive) on social issues, but until recently so had the Republican party, while the Democratic party under Clinton moved distinctly right on fiscal issues, social welfare, et cetera. In part, this just demonstrates the inadequacy of defining parties on a left-right spectrum of principles, and even more regarding policy because there is not a lot of distinction in policy between Clinton, W Bush, and Obama; they’re all pretty conservative in most of the ways that matter in terms of governance.
The GOP has certainly “gone crazy”, although it is difficult to define that as ‘conservative’ in any conventional sense. They’ve dove head first into a proto-fascist MAGA cult of personality and they’re mostly happy to adopt any policy or position that their leader demands even if it is at total odds to previous Republican stances (like reforming legal immigration to make it easier to bring workers into the country, a position that the GOP mostly supported through the W. Bush era). The Republicans, or more properly, the MAGA party operating in the guise of the former GOP, is completely on board with autocracy, punitive action against political opponents, bald-faced lies that even a child could not believe, and general all-around fuckery with a White Christian Nationalist bent.
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