I don’t suppose you could have LED with an invitation to add a qualifier or two?
Sadly, I believe you. Which is worse than any insult I could otherwise make.
I figured asking what his response would be to a counterexample would achieve the same result. And, as far as I can tell, it did. And possibly this whole thing will encourage folks to add a qualifier or two without an invitation, which, as far as I’m concerned, would be super.
Abortion I was going to give you in my last post. I’m pro-choice myself, but accept this as a valid position an informed person could take. Just as my ISIS friend wanting to promote Islam is a valid position.
As for the rest, you’re not doing a good job showing that your friend McStrawman is neither a bad person nor ignorant. e.g. he’s against kneeling at the flag…so he supports extra-judicial killings by police, or believes the fox news schtick that it’s a protest against “our troops” or whatever?
I was never out to make the case that he’s neither bad nor ignorant. It’s merely that (a) I saw a claim that, to be a Republican in 2021, one needs to believe X; and (b) I know a Republican who, in 2021, doesn’t believe X. That’s all.
He says it’s disrespectful to the troops. I, of course, disagree.
“It’s fear and narcissism. And that fake patriotism, that’s just nationalism wrapped up again with worshipping an idol,” Meeink said, commenting on what is driving the growth in domestic extremism within the U.S.
Iowa suppresses voting with a bill to ‘protect election integrity’ even though it has NO history of election shennanigans
Republicans said the new rules were needed to guard against voting fraud, though they noted Iowa has no history of election irregularities and that November’s election saw record turnout with no hint of problems in the state.
Because Republicans are lying mutherfuckers.
Okay, I started this thread, but haven’t been able to keep up. Life intervenes. I’ll get back to points in a minute, but my first reaction reading the thread is some of you folks are getting too wrapped up in personalities of other participants in this thread. Please don’t. If you have an issue with another poster, take it to a thread about that poster. I wanted this thread to discuss the issue, not be “You are a dummy.” “No, you are!” Stop shitting in my thread.
Fair enough. I suppose it is more of a rant than a debatable position. But what has happened is exactly what I feared - the thread has too many people hurling insults instead of focusing on the issues.
Yes, that does seem a good summary of their philosophy. It accounts for the uber-rich who are trying to make more and the working class whites who see their livelihoods in jeopardy and their privilege in society being challenged.
But it doesn’t account for the deliberate meanness of separating children at the border from their parents and losing them in the foster care system instead of placing them with relatives or keeping records so they could be reunited. That is not merely fighting illegal immigration, that is deliberate evil.
And it doesn’t account for Christian conservatives backing a woman-abusing liar who is blatantly a Christian only in name (something Republicans were damn fine to accuse Obama of being as one of their myriad of complaints about him) and has the morals of a snake. (Sex with a porn star, then paying her to keep silent, using fraud to cover up the payment. Paying other women to keep silent about his affairs. Admitting to grabbing women because he can.)
It doesn’t account for conservatives continuing to support a man who watched with glee while white supremacists lead a riot and insurrection against the Capitol with intent to “Hang Mike Pence” and probably any Democrat they could find, and maybe most of the Republicans too just out of spite. All based on vicious and deliberate lies.
Normally I would agree with you here. I am absolutely not a person prone to hyperbole, or as my friend once put it, superlatives. I avoid the word “favorite” and extremes like “best” and “worst”. I am generally empathetic to people with opposed ideas and try to see their perspective. Hell, I have friends and relatives who are in that camp.
But the Republican party has gone far beyond mere politics of economics or “moral values”. I’m granting them their opposition to abortion even though I don’t agree with their premise, I’m granting them their desire to reduce government regulation, opposition to Climate Change on grounds of economic expense, even opposition to gay marriage and transgender rights because it is against God’s directives or whatever. I’m granting opposition to “open borders” and for stricter immigration control and tighter policies. I’m granting them the desire for fracking because money. I’m granting them their opinion on gun ownership and resistance to gun control measures.
But they have moved to a candidate who all but openly supports White Supremacists. “Stand back and stand by, but somebody has got to do something about antifa,” is a far cry from dismissal and rebuking. “There were good people, on both sides,” when discussing a protest lead by people chanting outright racist slogans - “The Jews Will Not Replace Us!”
They have leaders in the party who DELIBERATELY separated children of people illegally crossing the border from their parents or relatives and placed them into foster care without tracking them to be able to return them to their family.
They openly seek to reduce voter access, especially urban and especially black people, because they know those demographics are generally opposed to their policies. Their lawyer admitted it in court. While they claim to be the defenders of democracy, they are preventing voter access.
They support a person who, as President, championed the word of Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies - not just one or two people in the agencies, but the collective conclusion of all the agencies. The Party of Reagan (“Tear Down That Wall!”) is the Party of Putin. The people will take in Russian propaganda lies as truth before they will listen to mainstream media sources because “Those have a liberal bias.” WHAT AGOUT A TRUTH BIAS?! Do you care about that at all?
They voted in Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and Josh Hawley - folks that support the capitol insurrectionists or, like the weasel Cruz, claim they condemn the insurrectionists and rioters but continue to push the lies about the election that gave the rioters the ammunition to stir up the crowd. They continue to feed the narrative that drove the insurrectionists, knowingly supporting a lie. Cruz may weasel-word his arguments about “voter lack of confidence in the election process”, but he omits that that lack of confidence is directly because of lies by him and his party about the election.
This is the party that fought measures to control the Covid19 pandemic. They fought measures to provide financial aid to suffering Americans, fought health measures like mask mandates and closing venues and reduced capacity. They rushed reopening and fought unemployment assistance to people laid off because of the closure of businesses, when a better alternative was available and implemented in other countries. Because “Socialism” and “the need to foster responsibility”. “Good heavens, we can’t have people sitting around getting paid to not work - that will mean they never go back to work again.” They continue to fight providing economic aid to struggling families who have to go to food banks and food giveaways because they have no money to buy food. They oppose giving money to states and municipalities for much needed relief efforts.
This is the Party that thinks kneeling for the flag as a sign that maybe our country isn’t living up to its promise for some Americans is a deliberate insult to veterans rather that an indication that the values the veterans fought to defend are not being lived up to. They are seeking insult rather than listening to the message.
This is the Party trying to defend flying the Confederate Battle Flag out of some claim of “heritage” and “historical significance” while refusing to acknowledge the heritage is of slavery and the historical significance is Jim Crow and racist oppression of Black people and a fracturing of the country leading us to a War, that they lost. They are worshipping traitors to the United States and racists through some gobblety-gook about “States Rights” and “noble ancestors who fought for their beliefs” or however they phrase it.
Oh, no question. I am fully aware that the word “evil” has been used to the point of watering down to near meaningless. I’m not sure a better word to have used for my thread title to really capture the depth of their depravity. They’ve gone from “the Party of Things I Oppose” to “the Party of Racism, Hate, Obstruction, Lies, and Malicious Vicious Punative Policies”. But that’s a bit long for a thread title.
The malicious hatred is demonstrated by the social media memes I get every day from relatives. They have a bitter hatred of Biden, Harris, and AOC that shows itself through mean, horrible jokes. Oh, I get that some of that is fair play given the stuff liberals directed at Trump. I resist the urge to call out much of it. But Trump earned his hatred through his treatment of people. Biden and Harris and AOC get nasty hatred merely for having liberal opinions and fighting for progressive change.
Stuff like “A man and a prostitute walk into a bar - wait that was the inauguration.”
Bitterness saturates the posts from conservatives.
TLDR summary - “Evil” is the best descriptor I could come up with that encapsulates the entirety of what the Party now stands for.
I think it fits, and the fact that they can say “No-YOU are!!” is not a defense at all. It is an excuse to carry on with the evil, pretending that everybody “does it” therefore everybody doing it is now the New Normal.
Dr. Evil: All the most evil stuff [in the Trump admin] was me.
Jimmy Fallon: Even deporting Dreamers?
Dr. Evil: No, Jimmy. Even I have my limits. I’m evil, but I’m not a monster!
Any possibility of entertaining a “both sides” or “what about” is confronted with the reality that Republicans are actively trying to make it more difficult to vote, despite the fact that even numerous Republican partisans have rejected claims of voter fraud.
Democrats don’t try to make it harder to vote when they lose elections; Republicans do. There’s your difference. I could accept the notion that both parties contribute to the dysfunction (to different degrees but do so nevertheless) were it not for this single pattern of behavior that has repeated itself over and over again and become more extreme. What Republicans are doing in 2021 isn’t just a matter of working the refs or getting an edge; it’s approaching Jim Crow-era restrictions. And yes, that is evil. That makes Republican legislators and those who support them in their efforts evil, at least in some sense.
ISTM that despite the historical trend that the president’s opposite-party members gain control of one or both houses of Congress in midterms, (and despite the almost Enabling Act-like GOP consolidation of voter suppression, now), Ima say we’ll see a repeat of the Georgia run-offs, where ultimately, the message was: fuh-huh-huh-UCK this shite. Shut us down all you want, fuckers. Won’t stop us.
Trumpism has already thrown a wrench or two in the gears of historical trends, perhaps, so, even if the math might look a little daunting at this point in time, I wouldn’t be surprised if ex-президент Trump pulls another “this election midterm is rigged” or something down the road.
I’m not talking about historically. The parties have been all over the map. When Lincoln founded the Republican Party, it was the party against spreading slavery, it was the party of the North, the party that lead reconstruction in the South.
There have been serious realignments in both parties since then. The Democrats were the party of the racist southerners, now it’s the party fighting racism. The Republicans were the party fighting slavery, now they are the party of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys and all the other boy bands white supremacists.
Right NOW, in 2021, the Republicans have given up fiscal conservatism for white supremacy. They’ve given up any premise of democracy and are fighting to reduce voter registration and voter turnout. They’ve given up the premise of standing against tyrannical governments like Turkey and Russia and let them get away with anything. They aren’t the party of Reagan and the Cold War, they are the party of “let Putin and China do whatever they want, we are just worried about America”. Threatening to pull out of NATO. They’ve given up any pretense of protecting American lives during a pandemic because money. They support a conman with the morals of a weasel and the compassion of a rock and the empathy of a shark and the singular interest of, not America First, but Donald J. Trump First and Last and Only and nobody else matters.
The Republicans are so worried about Gun Control they won’t give an inch on even sensible measures that the majority of the country supports, like universal background checks. They care more to protect the ability of gun vendors to sell to drug addicts and spouse abusers and people who are paranoid delusionals and schizophrenics than they do about crazies shooting up schools and malls.
The Republicans are supporting delusional conspiracy theories that liberals are baby-eating pedophiles. That is NOT an exaggeration - that is an actual qanon claim that Republican people are believing and acting on.
Right now, I’m trying to come up with anything the Democrats support that is on any level close to the above. The best case I can make is that liberals support the right to abortion and conservatives see abortion as murder. That’s it.
“Open borders” and raising the minimum wage and The Green New Deal and free college and Universal Health Care don’t come close. “Taking away all guns” and “insulting veterans by kneeling during the anthem” and any other thing I can think of on the Republican punch card don’t come close.
Let’s look at some quotes from the articles. From the first one by Michael Reagan:
Now, thanks to the Democrats’ ugly smear campaign against Judge Kavanaugh, Republican senators like Susan Collins and Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders need security guards 24/7.
Um, right. Ok. Who on the left needs security guards? All of them. Hell, Mike Pence needs security not because of Democrats, but because of Republicans and Ex-President Trump.
Death threats and threats of violence have sadly become all to common a response to any situation. People have taken that to be acceptable discourse. It disgusts me, but it’s not a liberal or conservative thing - it’s the culture of internet trolls dialed up to 11.
What about George Christie’s letter in The Daily News?
Recognizing both the presentation from the House managers’ attempt to prosecute the president for obstructing Congress and abuse of power — and the ensuing defense arguments from the president’s team that clearly sink the prosecutor’s arguments — we are now forced to witness actions from congressmen and women that are directly interlaced with their own political ambitions.
Irony much?
Clearly a large representation of congress members are incredibly biased as to their individual missions, and those loyalties are not necessarily what the people represented want or care about.
Which party is he talking about here?
The Democrat party has swung so far left, which has caused reaction from the Republicans. President Obama caused increased race division during his two terms, and the Democrats are adding an anti-American, anti-Constitution globalist twist during this administration.
Wait, it was the Democrats swinging left that caused the Republicans to respond? WTF? What about the Tea Party? It’s like he’s ignoring the 1990s and 2000s completely. And Obama caused increased race divisions? How? By being Black and President. It was the Republicans spreading birther lies and casting Obama as if liberals worshipped him as some messiah. Ridiculous.
Okay, what about the Nevada Republican Club article?
I’m now going to play the role of Paul Revere. I’m going to expose a new bill in Congress designed and championed by congressional Democrats called, “H.R. 5383: The Way Forward Act.” It’s so extreme, radical, hateful and offensive towards American citizens, it’s clear its only possible goal is the end of America.
[snip]
The New Way Forward Act says anyone and everyone in the world can come to America- no laws, no papers, no background check required. It eliminates illegal immigration.
And it makes it virtually impossible for anyone to ever again be deported, for any reason. Being here illegally will never again result in deportation. But neither will committing serious crimes. This bill brags about ending the “prison to deportation pipeline.”
No criminal can be deported for drug offenses, or fraud, or felonies; or depraved acts of moral turpitude- like sexual assault, child abuse, sex crimes against children. Any crime that carries a sentence of fewer than five years will no longer result in deportation. In many cases this includes manslaughter.
But even if you are convicted of a crime with a five year or longer sentences, like murder, rape or kidnapping, this bill gives liberal judges complete discretion to allow anyone to stay in the country.
The bill even eliminates the statute that bars anyone from immigrating to America if convicted abroad of drug crimes, or any crimes involving moral turpitude.
[snip]But I’ve saved the worst for last. The bill is retroactive.
It allows anyone and everyone ever before deported out of our country to come back in, as long as they would have been eligible under the provisions of the new law.
Worse, DHS must pay for all the criminals deported to come back with your tax dollars. The list of dangerous illegal alien criminals deported numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Their all invited back in, and YOU- the American taxpayer- are on the hook for plane tickets for all of them.
And of course, once here, they’ll all get free healthcare. Remember, every single Democrat running for president raised their hands in support of free healthcare for illegals.
Now you know I’m not being harsh or exaggerating. Democrats really are extreme, radical, Kool-Aid drinking, America-hating, Stepford Wives. Democrats are intent on destroying America and your way of life. And there is no way to compromise with people who believe in the end of America.
Okay, I agree with him that that bill seems extreme. I doubt it will get any real traction, much less get passed out of the House, let alone make it to the Senate. But that’s his summary and conclusion about Democrats - that they want to destroy America. Not that they want to get rid of the abuses of the immigration system that Trump and his cronies enacted. I would have to read the actual bill to see if his summary is even correct, given how outlandish his interpretation.
And this is “evil” for conservatives. Separating babies from their mothers forever is seen as an acceptable tool to demotivate illegal immigration, but changing immigration law to be more accepting is evil. Right. The rolleyes on this board now is insufficient to express my dismissiveness.
Now the letter from the Augusta Chronicle:
Has a group of people ever been so evil, anti-American and tyrannical as the Democratic Party? They tried to remove a president from office based upon lies they initiated. They try to sabotage everything the president does, says or may think.
The irony, it burns! NO, Democrats did not try to remove a president from office based upon lies they initiated. But Republicans did try to overthrow an election and are now initiating massive voting limitations based upon lies they created.
As for sabotaging everything a president does, says, or may think, you seem to forget it’s the Republicans who started that with Trump’s efforts to reverse or overthrow every accomplishment of Obama. Every accomplishment.
Now, they’re calling for violence, impeachment and chaos if the president nominates someone to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, as is his duty. There are some pseudo-Republicans demanding that no one be nominated until after the election. Pathetic.
Um, January 6, 2021 would like to have a word with you. As for the not nominating someone for the Supreme Court, they were just quoting the Republicans on their opposition to Obama nominating a replacement during his last term. Sucks to have your words come back and bite you in the ass like that. But people without integrity (Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham) have no shame in directly contradicting their previous claims and promises.
There is no parity here. No equivalency. The Republican claims about “Democrats are Evil” are ludicrous exaggerations and hyperbole. Whereas the statements about Republican positions is accurately descriptive.
Again, I’m not talking about tax policy or environmental regulations or trade deals or gun control. I’m speaking about their genuine affiliation with white supremacy, with deliberately malicious acts against illegal immigrants, anti-democracy attempts to undermine the election and to prevent citizens from voting, support for dictators like Putin and Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Trump’s pathetic pandering to Kim Jung Un.
Here’s the thing - I don’t think all conservatives are evil. I don’t think all people who are members of the party are evil. But the Party itself now stands for evil, and many of the members are evil. I would say that most of the regular voters who affiliate with the party are misled and misinformed and misguided and deluded, or are choosing political expediency of “this is the party of Conservative Values so this is who I have to support” over being outright evil themselves. But their complacency is aiding and abetting evil.
I don’t know if the solution is to disband the Republican Party or to overcome the evil. I don’t know how you accomplish the latter. But good people need to recognize where the Party currently stands and what it stands for, and if they don’t agree with those actions and positions, they need to do something. The simplest and most achievable something is to leave the party. Since they won’t stop being conservatives and won’t support much of the Democratic agenda, the other alternatives include not affiliating with any party, or finding another party, or building another party.
I think misinformation and distortion is the root of the problem for most of the Republican voters. I think decades of distortion starting with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News have created a bubble of alternate reality for many conservatives. How do we undo that? How do we fight the modern social media bubbles formed by limiting information to what you like? (I’m guilty, too.)
Right now a number of Democratic members of Congress need protection from other - Republican - members of Congress.
You obviously haven’t dealt with any flat-earthers. I have a genuine honest-to-gawd one in my town. He has his vehicle and house done up with all sorts of nonsense claims. Stuff like “Sea level is level.” Stupid nonsense and misunderstood science. He’s completely intractable. I haven’t personally discussed with him, but do know people who have.
Alternately, you use as your example “election integrity is good”. HA! That’s not what I’m talking about. How about the claim that the election was rigged? That the Dominion voting machines changed votes to Biden? That massive voter fraud is how Biden beat Trump? That antifa was behind the insurrection as a false flag effort? That liberals are pedophiles and eat babies? Are those debatable issues? Or factually provable claims?
Ok, you say, that’s only a small portion of the Republican Party. No, it is the people getting elected like Boebert and Greene and Cruz and Hawley. It is the effing ex-President. If the bulk of the Republican Party does not agree with this nonsense, THEY SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Stop promoting Trump. Stop repeating the lies. Loudly refute them. Tell the Proud Boys to fuck off and get the hell out of your party. Stop selecting the nutjob in the Republican Primary. Get rid of the snivelling cowards and weasels like McConnell and Graham.
Well, for starters they will call all those former Republicans traitors to the true cause and evil villains for abandoning Trump, and you don’t want to be like them.
What it takes is being vocally opposed to those conservatives that are nuts. Call them out! Refuse to agree with them. Abandon the party loudly and proudly for their positions.
Or keep the party and chase them out. Tell the fucking Proud Boys to go to hell. Tell anyone waving a Confederate Flag that that’s the flag of losers. Tell the Greene’s that their nonsense is exactly that - nonsense. Tell Trump to shut up, tell Graham to grow a spine and McConnell to pull his head out of Trump’s ass. Tell Cruz he can waddle off to Cancun and stay there. Support the folks like Romney (shit, I’m lauding Romney) and Cindy McCain.
Silence is complicitness. Voting for them is voting for everything they are doing to destroy America. And not in a hyperbolic “they want to make everyone gay and let in all the foreigners” way, but in a “they want to limit the vote and overturn an election because they lost” way.
Yes, I acknowledge that, but that is a temporary result. The ultimate outcome is a rebuilt conservative party that is actually about ideas and helping America, not race hate and “owning the libs”. “Liberal tears” should not be your goal.
Exactly!
Yes, this is ultimately what needs to happen. We can’t have insular media platforms that distort truth. And I’ll back that up by saying that MSNBC needs the same kind of balance or oversight. Fact-checking embedded in the programming, not requiring the viewer to go to an alternate source at a later time and place on their own. Facebook AI algorithms trying to give the user a tailored experience has contributed to the information bubbles. Being “friends” with the other side provides some counterbalance in that you are at least exposed to other claims, but it doesn’t go far enough.
I think it’s possible to be a Republican and not be a Trump cultist, but then they censure you and try to kick you out.
Republican now MEANS Trump Cultist.
If you favor smaller government, rule of law, State’s rights, lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, you must join a different party.
How do I upvote you w/o some MAGAt chiming in…?