The Democrats figure a election should be decided by who gets the most votes. The Republicans favor voter ID laws, gerrymandering, giving some states more votes than others, suspect voting procedures, and getting the Supreme Court involved. Republicans treat the voters like they’re an enemy that needs to be outmaneuvered.
Sure, the Republicans have been successful but it’s not a success they should take pride in. Look at Ronald Reagan. He won elections because people voted for him. He wasn’t afraid of voters the way modern Republicans are.
Sure, there’s going to be partisan opposition. Democrats are going to oppose Republicans and Republicans are going to oppose Democrats. That’s normal politics.
But we’re discussing the attacks that go above and beyond normal politics. And I’ll agree that Trump gets that. Trump gets attacked in ways that Rubio or Kasich would not be. But Trump brings that on himself by his own behavior. It’s the same way that Clinton got attacked for his personal behavior in ways that Obama was not.
You seem to be the one who keeps saying Nazi. I guess you find it easier to fight a straw man than to argue against the things people are actually saying about the Republican party.
Out of curiosity, I just checked all my uses of the word “fascist” on this board. From 2000-2008, I used the word seriously to describe Pinochet’s Chile and the utopia of a “white brotherhood” nation described by one of the occasional Aryan Nations idiots who drifts by the board; otherwise I used the word to criticize lazy leftists or in facetious back-and-forths with other posters.
I’ve used the word multiple times to describe Trump’s plans over the past few months.
So yeah: there have always been leftists too quick to use the word “fascist,” just like there have always been rightists too quick to use “communist.” But then there are some of us who never used the word to describe W, indeed spent time criticizing leftists who did, who use the word to describe Trump.
Well, W was called every name in the book around here, but I mostly associate SDMB lefties as liking ‘chimp’ as the overwhelming tag for him. But when I do a search on Fascist and Republican I am certainly getting a lot of hits on the board, even if you limit it to just GD. It’s the problem when a group goes over the top with the hyperbole…they are in danger of making a term meaningless by applying it so loosely and imprecisely.
Indeed, as I noted in a pit thread it is unfortunate that many conservatives, even in the SDMB, seem to have trouble to just spit something like “I do not approve what the President is doing here”. And yet I have seen right wing sources to not pull punches as items like this need to be criticized, regardless of the politics one has.
Here I’m talking about the latest tweet from Trump.
Think about it guys, do you really think that is something Rubio or Kasich would be doing? Someone that has a lot of power in his hands and he is unwilling to check the proper intelligence channels and instead relies on sources full of conspiracy theories or propaganda geared to be in favor of Trump himself?
That is not going to lead to good results when real big emergencies or crisis pop up.
If you are saying that nearly every president, going back as far as George Washington, has suffered outrageous, often libelous, personal attacks, then you probably have a point. If you are asserting that Republicans are attacked more viciously than Democrats, then i would guess that you were simply out of the country from 1993 to 2000 and from 2009 to 2016. I don’t know enough about Florida news or political jabs to know how Rubio is regarded, there. However, Kasich is not continuously attacked in Ohio, despite his failed effort to copy Walker’s attempts to slash the unions and his persistent efforts to inject religion into public policy.
Attacks on Clinton, including the stupid smear effort to link him to dozens of murders that never occurred, were prolific during his presidency and there were still people attacking Obama (and Mrs. Obama) as “monkeys” even as he left office while we had a poster in the last few weeks accuse Mrs. Obama of being a transgender man.
As long as people keep bringing up Bush, let’s keep in mind he was attacked for stuff like evading service in Vietnam, having the 2000 election stolen for him, invading Iraq without justification, introducing torture into the American legal system, screwing up aid to New Orleans after Katrina, and allowing his Vice President to set up a shadow government. You can argue about the details but this is stuff that has some connection to the reality of the Bush administration.
With Democrats we see attacks based on things like people being born in Kenya, being secret Muslims, plans for declaring martial law, running secret drug operations, having their political enemies murdered, having schoolchildren murdered, and being part of child molesting conspiracies.
No doubt? Exactly the same treatment? Your certainty didn’t develop reading SDMB. During the primary season, many SDMB “liberals” were applauding right-winger Kasich as strongly preferable to Trump. Where do you get your info?
[QUOTE=Originally Posted by Shodan]
Any Republican President or Presidential candidate is going to get called racist, sexist, homophobic, corrupt, stupid, insane and evil on the SDMB.
[/QUOTE]
Was Romney described as sexist, even once? Or stupid? Or homophobic? Even George W. Bush, perhaps the 2nd-worst President in history, was seldom or never called “evil” by any serious writer (though the word was used for Cheney). And Bricker tried to make the same point as Shodan. Where do you people get your ideas?
This thread is disheartening. Some comments are so utterly divorced from reality, all I can think is that many on the right get all their “knowledge” of “liberals” by watching caricatures by Ann Coulter and other FoxNews types. It is baffling that this holds even here at SDNB, where intelligent “liberal” commentary is on display.
Thank you.
Thank you too, Little Nemo. And don’t forget that Hillary was allegedly operating a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor — this charge was even pursued by Michael Flynn’s son. :smack:
I am disappointed in the right-wing “thought” on display in this thread. Almost like the “Many worlds” model of quantum physics, America really seems to have bifurcated into two realities. Even the more intelligent Republicans seem to rely totally on #FakeNews.
I think they, Bricker, Shodan, are referring to this board and among the shrill Left side partisans I think the calling of Bush an evil was not uncommon.
but to pretend it was general among the critics here, that is a whiny exaggeration which seems to be a common thing that the American right side here goes to immediately.
looking from the outside, both the highly partisan sides tend strongly to ‘forget’ the bad comments from their own side or minimize and excuse them and whine about the same treatment they have served when it comes from the other side.
I find it easier to judge the different position by looking at what the centrists are saying, to use an example Mace.
Hahahaha. Yes, the Republicans have been successful. Which is why the Democrats have lost control of both houses of Congress. And the White House. And most governorships. And most state legislatures. The Democrat Party is currently, desperately, trying to slow the Republican Party’s progress. But that’s just politics as usual.
According to the existing rules, elections are decided by who gets the most votes. In the case of the POTUS, it’s the votes in the Electoral College. It’s been that way for a verrrrry long time. Currently, 270 votes are needed to win. Individual states, and their voters, decide how their Electorial College electors are selected. Many in the democrat collective seem to have just discovered what every high school student was taught. SURPRISE!
What will the Democrats do to regain control? With that as a goal, is there any reason to believe that the elected Democrats would treat any Republican POTUS victor any differently than they are treating the current Republican President, or the next Republican Supreme? No. This is simply another political campaign of attack, attack, attack, stall, blow smoke, stall some more, point fingers, claim that winning is losing and losing is winning, etc… Who should Republicans and independents believe, their own lying eyes, or the Democrat spin?
At this point in time, does anyone believe that the two major political parties could actually agree on a Supreme Court Justice? Neither party is willing to compromise. The votes required to confirm lesser federal judges was reduced from 60 to 51 in 2013. The noble idea of requiring affirmation from both political parties was flushed down the toilet 2013. Except for the Supreme Court. It was important enough for the Supremes, but not for other federal judges???
I would hate to see the filibuster rule set aside, but it’s either that or let the Democrats pick the next Supreme Court Justice(s).
“Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.”
– President Obama
So, what you are saying (ok, it’s really NOT what you are saying) is that the right wing crazies are crazier than the left wing ones? Hm. I think that’s not true. I’d say, rather, that the right wing crazies are more mainstream in today’s fine Republican party, so there are more of them, while the left wing fringe is every bit as batshit, but is more marginalized in the Democratic party.
Outside of protesting the Iraq war (which by luck history shows I was right about) I limited my actual actions with both of the Bushes to letter writing and publicly complaining about policy as did my friends. And to be fair there was public complaining and letter writing with Clinton and Obama.
Trump is a completely new level, and very unique compared to most republicans. He is seriously mentally ill as demonstrated through long term actions like his conspiracy theory obsessions and he is literally the least American POTUS we have ever had.
While some people may not like having people they do not agree with in power, many people including myself are fine with a normal power struggle and existing with those who do not share the same ideals. In fact if you are not too attached to a particular side you will notice that posters from both sides of a subject tend to try and find common ground. I honestly think that the basic concerns and fears of the population in general are similar but the preferred approach often differs.
Trump is the exception, his ideals and wishes are very dangerous to both our country and the lives of my friends, family and fellow Americans.
Had I known that he was going to win I would have actually campaigned for Romney, which seeing as my main issue with the Clintons was that they weren’t that liberal in my mind should show how passionate I am about this.
I do not agree with most of the GOP platform but I can share a society with them in power if it is the will of the people.
But Trump scares the hell out of me, for everyones sake.
Let me know if you are going to respond to this with something other than hand-waving, or at all, before I waste time proving things that you don’t really concern yourself about.
Right - and Obama was attacked for stuff like being a socialist, buddying up to terrorists, lying about his health care bill, selling arms to narco-terrorists, and other things that bear a equal connection to the reality of the Obama administration.
Shodan, saying any Republican would have gotten the same treatment from the most lefty wing is reasonable. Saying any Republican would have gotten the same criticism full stop isn’t remotely reasonable.
Actually, not really, if you had bothered to read that thread. Old fashioned, out of touch, but not sexist.
That thread is about Santorum- altho Romney is mentioned a couple of time. If you’re gonna use that thread as a cite, you had better tell us which post.
Here is proof we never called Romney a racist: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php
:dubious::dubious::dubious:
Originally Posted by Shodan Any Republican President or Presidential candidate is going to get called racist, sexist, homophobic, corrupt, stupid, insane and evil on the SDMB. There is such a thing as a knee-jerk response. Show me those comments for McCain in 2008 or Romney in 2012.
Obama isn’t a socialist. But, whatever, fair enough; he was attacked for those things. All Presidents will be attacked, correctly, for shady things they did, no matter what party they represent.
You are, as Trumpists love to do, pretending equivalence exists where it does not. Obama was roundly attacked, sometimes justifiably and sometimes unjustifiably; so were W. Bush, Clinton, H.W. Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, and you can go all the way back to Washington. That does not mean, however, that the level and justification of attack was the same for every President.
Trump is under FAR more ongoing heat than any President in my lifetime, and there is no chance - zero, nada, zilch - that a normal politician like Marco Rubio would have taken as much heat. The reason for that is that Donald Trump is the most awful President who ever held the office, by an extremely wide margin; there is more of a gap between him and 44th place than there is between 44th and 1st. That could not have been said of John Kasich.
Yes, Kasich would have been called lots of mean things. All Presidents are. But far less often, by fewer people, and not, for the most part, deservedly. It’s is simply ludicrous to pretend otherwise.
