# The "Republicans are too far to the right" notion **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 1, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republicans-are-too-far-to-the-right-notion/614460 "2012-03-01T16:21:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republicans-are-too-far-to-the-right-notion/614460/121 "2012-03-15T14:24:57Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > I don’t think the Right is moving further to the right. I think they’re not moving at all and the middle and the Left are moving further left. Essentially, Progressives are progressing (moving the whole scale, including the middle) where Conservatives are conserving (digging in and refusing to move forward). > > Shit that was considered moderate 50 years ago would be considered downright fascist by today’s standards. > > And this is as it has been throughout recorded history. Where’s the big surprise? Over the long arc of history, you may be right but over the last 20 years or so, not so much. the conservatives have been running to the right and the liberals have been chasing them. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I’ll believe that when “socialist” is no longer a dirty word even to most Democrats, as it is now. What you are describing is the **flat reverse** of real-life recent American political history. Ever heard of Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich? They’re as lefty as it gets around here these days; and leftists in other countries would shake their heads at such pathetic milksops. I have relatives in Europe who are self described conservatives and Obama is slightly to their right. > [@IntelliQ](#): > > What you just described I dont see a culmination of a right leaning agenda taking hold or even a moderate push to the right. The reading material you mentioned, when grouped together like that, sounds a little Beckian to me - as in connecting dots to form a picture of something when they’re really just random dots. There’s not enough of those dots forming a pattern in my view. What’s random about it? Its a movement, they don’t keep it a secret, they advertise it. > [@](#): > > Im not sure what Reagan did that would put him in the Rino camp today except amnesty, and Im fairly certain if he was alive he’d be against doing it again with the broken system we still have, and still (sigh) the same arguments are being debated. What else did he do that would make him a RINO by today’s standards? Raised taxes 7 times. > [@](#): > > The Tea Party is seems fiscally minded responsible people, Ive got nothing against them. They’re likely to give me a job, donate to a charity, or tip a few back at the pub with me without worrying if left my wallet in my jacket (or dive under the table to have sex with my sandals) unlike the “other” movement which shall remain nameless. The Tea party is largely a reincarnation of the John Birch Society with a little KKK and a whole lot of HALLELUJAH mixed in. > [@](#): > > Back to the point - I wish democrat politicians would quit with the tactic, it’s not helping anyone solve problems and it’s dishonest. Tactic? You mean claiming that the Republicans are too far to the right? I suppose that Republicans never say that Democrats are too far to the left? For some odd reason, its only the notion taht Republicans are too far to the right that seems to be gaining any traction. I wonder why that is. Damn liberal media. > [@](#): > > (so you know, im not blindly partisan about it and not shy about ramming it up the right’s ass when they push similarly unproductive and ridiculous talking points) cite? > [@MEBuckner](#): > > Now, Republican orthodoxy is that taxes should be cut–always, no matter what. Only when it largely benefits the very very wealthy. Not when its social security taxes that benefits the 99%. See, Taking the budget hostage over extension of the Bush cuts to millionaires. Cf., Republican resistance to extending the Social Security tax holiday. > [@](#): > > That government is–always–the problem, not the solution. Only when the government is doing things like regulating pollution, not so much when it is doing things like regulating a woman’s vagina. > [@](#): > > We’ve gone beyond pro-life to open opposition to contraception–not even on the grounds that this or that method of contraception terminates a fertilized egg and is therefore actually abortion; just opposition to contraception as such. This is probably where Democrats have dropped the ball. They spent too much of the 70’s and 80’s too far left on this issue and it has soured people on Democrats for generations. Now the fairly moderate Democratic platform on abortions still sounds like baby murder to folks who have lived in an echo chamber on abortion for the last few decades. > [@](#): > > Social Security and Medicare get described as “socialism”–it’s downright bizarre how much the S-word gets thrown around, given how greatly the actual threat (or “threat” if you favor socialism) of socialism has receded. > > I don’t think that American society as a whole has gotten massively more right-wing. I do think that the _Republican Party_ has moved to the right. I guess we will see this November. I think the past couple of years have been particularly bad but the Republicans have really overreached and they will pay the consequences. In any other economy, Obama would walk into his second term and carry the house and keep the senate. With the economy the way it is, its anybody’s guess. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republicans-are-too-far-to-the-right-notion/614460/122 "2012-03-15T14:52:17Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > I have to step up here. In 1980, Reagan won a hair over 50% of the vote. Hardly the landslide that his 1984 reelection was. If Carter had been able to negotiate/rescue the Iran hostages, he likely would have had a second term. Former Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr, former Naval intelligence officer and National Security Council member Gary Sick; and former Reagan/Bush campaign and White House staffer Barbara Honegger claim that the Reagan campaign negotiated an arms for hostages deal with Iran before the 1980 election. > **[1980 October Surprise theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise_conspiracy_theory)** > > The 1980 October Surprise theory refers to the claim that members of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign covertly negotiated with Iranian leaders to undermine incumbent President Jimmy Carter by delaying the release of 66 American hostages detained in Iran. The hostage situation, which began when Iranian revolutionaries seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, was one of the biggest news stories of 1980, and Carter's inability to resolve it is widely believed to have contributed to his loss. > Aft... In addition, when preparing for his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan was aided by a briefing book that was stolen from the Carter campaign. [http://www.frumforum.com/reliving-reagan’s-victory](http://www.frumforum.com/reliving-reagan%E2%80%99s-victory) Until that debate Carter was generally ahead of Reagan in the polls. When Ronald Reagan was elected president the United States took a sharp turn to the right. The enduring legacy of the Reagan presidency is the delusion that tax cuts generate more revenue than tax increases. This delusion is responsible for the increase in the national debt that makes it difficult for President Obama to deal with the Great Recession. There is plenty of reason to believe that in 1980 Reagan won fraudulently. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republicans-are-too-far-to-the-right-notion/614460/123 "2012-03-15T15:05:47Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > There is plenty of reason to believe that in 1980 Reagan won fraudulently. No, no, no, sneakily != fraudulently. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republicans-are-too-far-to-the-right-notion/614460/124 "2012-03-15T15:45:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, no, no, sneakily != fraudulently. Studying from a stolen briefing book was probably a felony. A pre election deal with the Iranian government was probably treason. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republicans-are-too-far-to-the-right-notion/614460/125 "2012-03-15T16:31:23Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Yeah, but it’s not 1980 or 1984 anymore. In fact it’s a different world in some ways. People feel radically different about some issues now than they did then. Like gay marriage, or contraception, or DADT. Things have shifted, and the Republicans seem, above all, to want to return to another time, to go back. I think even people who wish it were so are recognizing it’s just not possible, in so many ways. Christian conservatives are unhappy that a smaller percentage of the American people attend church than did during the 1950s, and that a much larger percentage of them engage in sex outside of marriage. In the United States there is little the government can to do influence religious and sexual behavior. Therefore, they are not really political issues. Since 1980 leaders of the Republican Party have used unhappiness over changes beyond the realm of politics in order to promote changes that increase the wealth and power of their rich clients. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republicans-are-too-far-to-the-right-notion/614460/126 "2012-03-15T18:07:20Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > In the United States there is little the government can to do influence religious and sexual behavior. True. > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Therefore, they are not really political issues. False. They always will be political issues, in any society where the norms of such are not completely unquestioned. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republicans-are-too-far-to-the-right-notion/614460/127 "2012-03-15T22:16:22Z")
I still favour this interpretation of the [rightward shift](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKRCLXEa8_8). > [@](#): > > unlike the “other” movement which shall remain nameless. Yeah, they’ve been notoriously opposed to [charity](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9909016) and [compassion](http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/11/occupy_cleveland_attempt_to_pr.html). Unlike the [stalwart](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/20/tea-party-activists-make-stand-health-care-vote/) expression of [Americanism](http://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart/2005-06/charity.php)… You may be more likely to be employed by a Tea Party member, but I’d far prefer to be unemployed in Occupy than a greedy scrounging tax thief under the Tea Party. Both protested the bailouts, by the way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republicans-are-too-far-to-the-right-notion/614460.md?page=6)