Romney speaks ... again

Politics & Elections
61

What do you mean by jettisoned?

The fringe on the left already is pretty marginalized. We nominated a very centrist candidate, against the wailing and screaming of the far left. We have a pretty central and moderate platform.

If a few of 435 representatives from very deep blue areas have some fringy ideas, so what? They are not taken seriously by anyone but right wing media, who turns around to try to convince you that those are the ones leading the party, when all actual evidence points to the contrary.

OTOH, the fringe of the right has been leading the way. Beginning with the teaparty and culminating in Trump.

It’s not a matter of the roles to sink in, it’s a matter of getting people to stop choosing to consume news sources that reaffirm their delusional beliefs rather than inform them as to reality.

I mean, when someone chooses a news source who has used the legal argument that no reasonable person would believe their reporting as a defense against libel, they are choosing to be lied to. I don’t know how you fix that.

62

If you are going to sit and say that the fringe left is marginalized when you almost HAD to run a fringe candidate for President then I am unsure you will ever be convinced but I am telling you what I see from near the middle.
The sooner you see this as less an Us vs Them issue and that both sides are bad (differences of degree) and that both are after power and big money, the sooner we can all stop being so divisive and come together for the greater good.

The roles was simply to highlight when the definitions of Democrat and Liberal would be
adjusted to account more for the center and not much at all to the fringe.

Again, there was a very real , very liberal run for the Presidency. If you look back at the early threads here you will see that the vast majority thought it was a foregone conclusion who would be the nominee (It wasn’t Biden)

63

But just competing for the Presidency does not a party make. How would they get a ready bench to run for the Presidency? You would need state representatives, Governors, US Representatives, US Senators. In order for that to happen you’d need something like Ranked Choice Voting all over the US and/or some Parliamentary systems

64

Isn’t this basically the platform of the Libertarian Party? They don’t really get that much of the vote.

65

I honestly don’t. This is ends-justify-the-means reasoning. Let’s say the president was clearly a Russian spy and was caught giving secrets to the Russians, but his party declined to impeach him. In this hypothetical, Romney agrees that the president is a spy and should not have the reins of power. Romney should do what he can to render the president powerless.

If he subscribes to that kind of ends-justify-the-means reasoning, he’s just not a moral person. Where does that stop? Is it OK to murder justices to get more conservatives on the court?

Through his vote, he basically said that the president is a criminal who should have power. Now, he’s allowing a criminal (in his mind) to appoint a lifetime judge.

66

I think that it would be start with a large splinter of one of the two major parties that would first gain success at the local, regional level and them perhaps a governorship and Congressional seat. It’s how the parties have formed in the past.

67

The first party to splinter would be 2 minority parties for decades.

68

Because they never have an actual shot, and in addition, they have their share of the crazy too.

69

Yes, he would rather see a conservative (that would uphold THOSE ideals, not the ideals of the current president) judge appointed than a liberal one who aligns not at all with HIS ideals.
I am not getting the ends justify the means. The ends and the means are the same here, conservative judge, conservative politician.

70

It’s all sound byte stuff. You could say that it’s Libertarian (though calling anything Libertarians call for fiscally sound is questionable), but it seems a pretty square fit for the actual Democratic party. Obviously they do LGBT rights, they are much more fiscally sound both in terms of how deficits and economic indicators look under Democratic policies and handling major costly issues like health care and environmental concerns, and are the ones leading drug legalization. As far as guns go…

While Dems call for some Federal gun control like Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes also did, speaking of traditional Republicans, there isn’t any serious move towards outright prohibition. In terms of practical federal gun control, the Democrats have a much better record that Republicans this Millennium, having passed a significant victory for gun rights for regular individuals (concealed carry in national parks) while all the Republicans have done despite their rhetoric and extreme control of Congress and the presidency is to add the bump stock ban. Yeah, Biden talks about an assault weapon ban, and that’s bad right? But Bush I forbade importing semi-automatic firearms fitting the definition in 1989 through executive order, and both W Bush and Trump have declined to remove said ban. W Bush was in favor of continuing the 1994 assault weapon ban, and stated that he would sign a continuation if Congress passed it.

So in terms of actual policies, if those are your objectives you’re much better backing the Democrats and voting for Centrist or Center-right candidates than you are by going to the Libertarians, some hypothetical third party with that platform, or especially the Republicans.

71

The means are allowing a criminal (in his mind) to make the appointment, in the example of the Supreme Court, and allowing a criminal to remain president, in the example of who he should endorse and vote for.

He’s saying it’s OK to have a criminal as president as long as he’s getting conservative judges, and whatever else comes along with having a criminal president.

72

Romney did not put country before party. He made a symbolic gesture, but had there been any chance of an actual conviction, he would have voted to acquit.

Remember when Obama appointed Chuck Hagel? That’s his new angle. Romney thinks he has another shot at Secretary of State under Biden.

73

Ahh, I see. You guys give the Presidency too much authority. The Republicans who control the Senate are the people appointing the Judge, the chump is just going off a list given to him.

He, the chump, isn’t the appointer. Therefore, to me, it doesn’t follow that, they think (even if the likely know he’s not been the greatest leader of the country) that they wouldn’t want conservative judges.

I mean, of course they do, it aligns with their political idealogical vision.

74

What do you mean by this? We didn’t almost have be run a fringe candidate. There were plenty of options that were pretty mainstream.

I certainly don’t think that Bernie would have done any better than he did in 2016, he seemed as though he was doing even more poorly, in fact.

OTOH, the Republicans ran Trump in 2016, and are running him again.

You try to counter reality with an unrealistic hypothetical.

I don’t see this as an Us Vs Them issue, that is the sort of thing that I am trying to fight against in the first place. Unfortunately, Republicans have certainly made it into one. When you have your president campaigning on the idea of hatred for the other, that’s Us vs Them. Show me where Biden has done this. Show me where I have done this.

Ah, bothsideism. Never gets old, even when it’s not even remotely true.

Yes, there were a couple, out of almost 2 dozen, who represented the far left in the early primaries; and I’ll agree that, here on this rather left leaning board, some people thought that they had better chances than they actually did. (And I absolutely disagree with your unsubstantiated assertion that the vast majority thought it was a foregone conclusion.)

But if you actually look at what happened, the Democrats did not go for that fringe candidate, and instead went with the centrist.

Your accusations of what may have happened in a different universe have no relevance in this, the universe that we actually live in. Your hypotheticals have no bearing on reality. Your attempts at equating what the Republicans have done with what you think could have possibly happened with the Democrats is entirely absurd.

75

So, it is an ends justify the means situation.

As long as he appoints the people that he is told to appoint, his criminal wrongdoing will be overlooked.

76

You are the only one here making any sort of accusation(s), and honestly it’s tiring listening to you when you get your panties in a bunch. Forgive me if I ignore your thoughts on this and further issues.

77

You guys? I’m not on the Supreme Court. I’m not a Republican senator who said, effectively, that the president can ignore any and all subpoenas for no reason. Those are the people who gave the president too much authority. I don’t think you’re making a serious argument here, so that’s about all I have to say.

Also, your knowledge of how the nominating process works is flawed if you think the Democrats ran Bernie Sanders. Here in the United States, anyone can seek the nomination for the presidency, even against the wishes of the party, as long as they get enough signatures to be on the ballot. This is obviously off-topic for this thread, but your statement was so bizarre that I thought that it should be corrected.

78

Correct, but unless you are willfully stating that Republican Senators don’t favor Republican leaning judges, why does it baffle you so that they are perfectly fine with appointing one , even if in your eyes, the person nominating them is a criminal?

This reads a lot like … don’t let perfect be the enemy of good …

79

I’m not stating that Republican Senators in general are saying that, since none of them voted to remove Trump from office other than Romney. I’m saying Romney specifically thinks Trump is a criminal who shouldn’t be president and, since the impeachment process failed, he should use whatever means he has to strip him of power, including endorsing Biden and not confirming his justice.

Why would you generalize that to Republican Senators? This thread is about Romney.

No wonder you and k9 go back and forth so much. This is pretty tiresome.

80

And that would make him a Democrat, or at the very least NOT a Republican.
I can’t argue with that, except maybe he doesn’t wish to be NOT a Republican.