False equivalence is noted.
The Republicans are riding his coattails because he is doing well. I don’t seem them pivoting away right now. In fact, I would say Trump has “won” this impeachment episode, and he has gained more support from Republicans, and also others. I am not a Republican.
I don’t disagree that public servants need to act as standard bearers. The problem, however, is that their virtues are constrained by their ambitions, namely their ambition to keep their job. Congressmen/women know that the President, right or wrong, gets credit for the economy, even if voters can’t associate a single policy that has contributed to our economic situation. If nothing else, he’s a good luck charm, and they don’t want their lives interrupted by something that they largely believe to be political theater and over a matter that is largely considered to be on the periphery of their lives and our national well being.
That’s why nearly all Republicans wouldn’t dare vote to support an impeachment conviction, and why even some Democrats may be squeamish about pushing this matter past December.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. I don’t think Trump really cares about the Republican party. He doesn’t care about the Democratic party either. He doesn’t care about judges he’s appointed or Obama policies he’s reversed. Remember, he was a Democrat until fairly recently, is on record of having approved of Obama (early in Obama’s first administration) and actually espoused opinions that are fairly left-leaning (such as not being against late-term abortions). He affiliated himself with Republicans because their economic policies are more in line with him keeping more of his money. What he cares about is money, power and adulation. Oh, and maybe golf. That is all he cares about. That’s why he caters to his base, because that’s what he thinks they want to see, and in return they will give him what he wants. He gives not fuck one regarding what happens to the country after he’s gone. The fact that Republicans are stepping all over themselves to appease him shows the sorry state of the party.
Once Fox and the RNC stop protecting him, I’ll agree.
But, if an outsider wolf comes to the pack, beats up the old alpha, and the whole pack swears allegiance to the outside, saying that the pack is still the property of the old alpha simply because the new leader came in as an outsider doesn’t really reflect the reality on the ground.
But obviously you identify with them, and vote for them, and generally approve of them.
I don’t think Republicans necessarily want a dictatorship, but they do want to ensure minority rule. By that I mean, they want the interests and agenda 1/5 the population to dominate the rest of the country, similar to how oligarchs rule Russia, how a Shia minority dominates Syria and how the Sunni minority dominated Iraq. Minority rule isn’t achieved simply by winning elections and obstructing the majority when they lose elections; it ultimately needs mechanisms by which it can remain in power reliably, which means destroying the civil service system and replacing a workforce selected by merit and replacing it with one that is selected on the basis of fealty.
Those career, nonpartisan civil servants who testified this week? Their careers are probably finished except for lectures and think tanks. And eventually, if given enough time, whatever Leviathan is built will demolish those outposts as well.
Yes. It has been in the works for a long time. They know that as American demographics keep evolving they need to do more anti-democratic things to maintain power over the majority. Voter suppression. Extreme gerrymandering. Kneecapping incoming Democratic Governors before they get into office by stripping many powers that the outgoing GOP Governor had. Promising not to vote on 9/11, then rushing through a budget veto override while Democratic colleagues were at 9/11 tribute ceremonies:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/north-carolina-house-republicans-surprise-9-11-vote.html
At the same time, many on the right still think it was wrong for Nixon to resign and that if they had only had a Fox news type thing back then to spout their propaganda he would have survived that scandal. Many of them are or have been Trumpers. Roger Stone. Bob Barr. Bob Barr wrote a memo before becoming AG that Mueller really had no right to investigate the president, then surprise surprise, he’s the new AG. The unitary executive theory, long advanced by the right, is a very anti-democratic idea that the President has ultimate power and isn’t really answerable to anyone.
The correlation between voters on the right and authoritarian views is very strong. Ultimately the right feels as if it may begin to be drowned out by the increasing amounts of more urban and more liberal voters and they are acting like they need to do anything, anything at all, to hold on to power. Even if it means acting against or even hostile to democracy. And this is certainly nothing new to the era of Trump.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/06/republicans-cancel-primaries-trump-challengers-1483126
What primaries?
I can’t argue with this. It’s not really about whether or not the public gets to have a say in the impeachment process, but that’s cool.
I had a thought while reading a rundown of the weeks of impeachment testimony on Reddit: the republicans seem to be assuming that there’s nothing the American people can do to touch them. They’ve gerrymandered so much that our votes don’t count and the electoral college votes “on our behalf” but lately actually against us. The current administration has shown that there’s no scandal so big they will get thrown out of office. That’s a big exaggeration but I don’t feel like typing EVERYTHING that we’ve discussed here over the last few weeks. You guys know what I’m talking about. There is one thing we haven’t tried and I want to know if it’s because it’s not possible or just that nobody thought of it. What if we built up a giant class action lawsuit against the republican party, with some members specified by name like Moscow Mitch?
I want those idiots out of the senate but more to the point right now I think the whole party needs to be removed. Lots of complications, like building a new party to replace them (if we stick with a two-party system), or eliminating the party system entirely. Really, my thought was that if We The People can’t dictate our system of government by voting, then how about the legal system?
If nothing else this impeachment inquiry has shown us how far the Republicans are willing to go to stay in power, and the answer is so far up Trump’s ass you can see their beady little eyes when he opens his mouth.
If I had to accept a label it would be Libertarian. I actually long thought I would never vote Republican for any office. Now I intend to vote all Republican so they can’t remove the true outsider Trump from office. If they hadn’t gone berserk with impeachment since even before Trump was sworn in, i would have voted mixed for the other offices. I guess I am one of the swing voters the Democrats have lost entirely for 2020.
QFT, in every particular.
Which adds to the bizarreness of these motherfuckers being unchallenged when they lay claim to the descriptor “conservative.”
So the party trying to fight the corruption in the white house is making you vote for the corruption in the white house and all it’s enablers?
Please.
Out of spite, it sounds like.
Sorry chicken littles, the falling skies are gonna be delayed for a bit longer…
I realize that the chicken littles will say “Mueller already failed.” Congrats, that what Republicans are gonna say (and already saying).
The fact is that Democrats believe that there are more charges of impeachment - including Trump lying to Mueller in his written testimony.
You know how the latest goal post move is “misguided but not impeachable?” Yeah, well, lying under oath is kind of a big deal. If nothing else, if it is proven that he lied under oath, it would get the Steve Chabots of the world to move the goal posts even further.
If the Democrats had ignored all the corrupt, hateful, and bigoted things Trump has said and done, they would have lost most black voters, most LGBTQ voters, and most white voters who are opposed to corruption and bigotry.
If the police wouldn’t have been trying to arrest this criminal since the time they found out he was committing crimes then I wouldn’t be forced to support the criminal and his accomplices.
That is what you sound like Jim Peebles
All reprehensible actions, of course. My issue though was with your use of the words “strategy” and “lawless”, suggesting to me at least a desire on the part of the Republicans to turn the US into a society run amok, if the alternative is to have no Republican party at all. In any case, while I’ve long said that if the US ever goes under, and eventually becomes something far from a democracy, it won’t happen overnight. It will begin with things such as you mention, and may take a 100 years, but that’s how it will start.
ETA: And okay, how maybe it has already started, for all I know…