# "When Did The GOP Lose Touch With Reality" by David Frum **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 28, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320 "2011-11-28T05:29:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/261 "2011-12-01T05:51:10Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Cool. More trutherness. Have you ever considered a career in politics? You seem to have the most necessary qualification; an uncanny ability to not answer a question. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/262 "2011-12-01T05:53:19Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Have you ever considered a career in politics? You seem to have the most necessary qualification; an uncanny ability to not answer a question. I don’t answer truthers. I just point and laugh. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/263 "2011-12-01T05:58:28Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I don’t answer truthers. I just point and laugh. I don’t think there are any truthers in this thread. Did I miss a post? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/264 "2011-12-01T06:03:00Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > You don’t recall correctly. The long form birth certificate was released on April 27th. My mistake. … [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll\_05052011.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_05052011.html) … Go figure. Time to drop that point, I suppose. :o > [@Terr](#): > > That quoted sentence - do you have a cite for that? > I presume you mean evolution. Is that the national Republican policy? Can you point to that plank in the Republican platform please? As in their personal policy? Well, on a regional level, it was not the dems who supported teaching creationism in schools from Texas to Dover. But furthermore, isn’t it at least a little bit telling that out of the current candidates, Perry, Paul, Bachmann, Santorum, and probably Cain and Gingritch are all staunch creationists, leaving, AFAIK, only the two mormons? > [@](#): > > No, not “short of national defense”. And not “incapable of doing”. But yes, federal government should be limited to the enumerated powers in Article 1, Section 8. Unfortunately, that’s not the Republican policy. But I wish it was. But common belief and practice in the republican party, especially among candidates like Paul, Perry, and Bachmann is that the 10th amendment basically means that the federal government has almost no powers whatsoever. > [@](#): > > I am fundamentally, in principle, against income tax. So, the lower it is, the better. This philosophical position sadly does not apply to smart economic policy nor to a balanced budget. . > [@](#): > > Your problem is not with “the republican party”. It’s with the strawman you created and named “the republican party”. It’s also with Fox News. Then again, they seem to dictate what the party actually is, so… > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > ROTFLMAO!!! I have almost as little respect for the Republicans as I do for the Democrats. Both of them are perfectly willing to sell out working stiffs like me for the sake of political power. But at least the Republicans don’t openly hold working class whites in contempt. They’re a little more discrete about it. …What? The republicans have slashed services while lowering taxes on the richest people; a clear redistribution of welfare towards the rich and away from the lower and middle classes. Now people like Cain and Perry are advocating flat tax, which slashes taxes on the rich, while slamming the lower and middle classes. I mean, by working class, do you mean people making above $1M/year? > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > As for crazies, anti-nuke kooks won’t let us develop nuclear power, I don’t support this viewpoint within the party, but it holds some merit, as we still have no way to dispose of radioactive waste with a long half-life. Just sayin’. > [@](#): > > eco-wackies won’t let us mine coal (Obama has specifically stated his intention to make it too expensive for coal companies to mine coal) Cite? Also, Coal is the single dirtiest industry kicking around right now. There is _extreme_ merit to getting rid of coal power and replacing it with some other form. > [@](#): > > or drill for oil, In deep-sea locations, or on national land? Yeah, that’s never given us any problems, has it? :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > and have shut down fertile farm land in California. You can complain about the religious right controlling the Pubs all you want, but the fact is that a technophobic Earth worshiping cult has much the same influence on the Dems. Bullshit. These are all modern concerns with very real impact. Switching to renewable energy is very important. Moving away from coal is crucial. Nuclear waste is a concern going into the future. The few points you’re right on I actually agree with. > [@Terr](#): > > Cool. More trutherness. No… facts. Look, it’s one thing to claim that Bush was involved in 9/11. It’s another to point, accurately, to the fact that NPAC wanted a new pearl harbor, that he had defense briefings describing that Osama Bin Laden was probaby going to attack prominent targets with planes… and did _nothing_. Those are _facts_. The conclusion you draw from it may be different, but I find it hard to see how this doesn’t implicate bush as either lazy, incompetent, or evil. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/265 "2011-12-01T06:11:17Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I don’t answer truthers. I just point and laugh. How do you determine who is a truther and who isn’t? A related question would be how would you define “truther”; is it someone who believes the September 11th attacks were orchestrated by the Bush administration, or just that the administration should have done more to stop it? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/266 "2011-12-01T06:21:25Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > I might remind you that there have been no rapes at tea party events, no killings, no problems with sanitation or even litter, no tea partiers tried to stop anyone from working or shut down a whole city, nobody felt the need to defecate on a police car, and nobody had to call in a hazmat team to remove two hundred pounds of human excrement from a tea party site. Would you settle for the TEA Party’s predecessors, the death panel panic town hall terrorists? One of those worthies bit off a kid’s finger! > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Tell ya what. Persuade the lefties on this board to quit using terms like redneck, hillbilly, white trash and trailer trash–in other words, to show lower class whites the same respect they would show to blacks, Hispanics, Asians, gays or anybody else, and not rationalize that these terms of abuse are somehow different from nigger, spick, kike, faggot, gook, etc.–and I’ll take it back. I’ll admit that I was wrong. > > Good luck with that. I’m from hillbilly country, “Lonesome,” and as this is not the Pit, will refrain from answering you in the manner of my people. “Redneck” & “hillbilly” are not slurs any more than “French” & “Swede” are slurs. They’re ethnic terms used by people to describe themselves. A far, far cry from “kike.” And considering the Democratic base most places is blue-collar, unionized, working class white folk, it’s pretty funny saying the Democrats hold them in more contempt. Of course there are pretentious social climbers and the like in both parties, the sort who hold their “inferiors” in contempt. But in the Democratic Party, they are expected to be civil to the working man, because without the working man, you don’t have the Democratic Party, you have a small dinner party. The highly educated types with their arugula and such are the hangers-on, friend. The core is blue collar steak-and-potatoes. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/267 "2011-12-01T06:23:22Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > How do you determine who is a truther and who isn’t? A related question would be how would you define “truther”; is it someone who believes the September 11th attacks were orchestrated by the Bush administration, or just that the administration should have done more to stop it? There are two flavors of truthers. MIHOP and LIHOP. The LIHOPers are in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/268 "2011-12-01T06:37:32Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Well, as[this piece in the New York Times shows](http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/the-future-of-the-obama-coalition/), the Democratic Party has for all practical purposes turned its back on working class whites, depending instead on a coalition of upper class progressives and lower class blacks and Hispanics to keep the Party in power. This means, of course, that they will have to pit lower class blacks and Hispanics against lower class whites. This isn’t surprising to anyone who isn’t blind to the left’s racial politics for the last forty years. From your cite: > [@](#): > > It is instructive to trace the evolution of a political strategy based on securing this coalition in the writings and comments, over time, of such Democratic analysts as Stanley Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira. Both men were initially determined to win back the white working-class majority… If Democrats choose to back Hispanics and blacks over white Anglos, it may be because white Anglos like you abandoned them. But you do have a point. You just don’t realize what it is. > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > And considering that the Democrats are the party of Warren Buffet and George Soros, that Obama got more money from Wall Street than McCain, and that many Democratic politicians such as Barney Frank, Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi are millionaires who haughtily inform the commoners of the sacrifices that must be made, knowing full well that they themselves will never have to share in those sacrifices, I find it awfully hard not to believe that the Democrats are not also a party of privilege and power. You’re right. But the key word here: **also.** Of course the GOP is a party of privilege and power. Two seconds in the vicinity of Nancy Reagan should make that clear. The country clubbers freak out at how much the low-class evangelicals nominate their own kind and run the show, because it used to be the jet set that ran things. The Democratic Party’s problem is that it isn’t populist enough. It’s got too many grasping self-important nitwits in high office. But the Democrats’ failings do not make the GOP a good party any more than Stalinism justified the Nazis. You’re pretty much whining a _tu quoque_–complaining that you’ll vote Republican because the Democrats are as bad. Well, you implicitly concede that the GOP are pretty bad. And as bad as the Democrats are, as much as they roll their eyes at even their own base, as much as they fail to actually serve the people half the time, and as many of them are supply-siders, global warming deniers, and economic right-wingers, at least they aren’t demanding that all Democrats be all of those things or be drummed out of the party. It’s normal for a Republican to be anti-EPA, anti-OSHA, anti-balanced budgets, anti-minimum wage, and pro-pollution. Democrats who think that way are at least embarrassed by some of it. So they are for many of us the lesser evil. –an ex-Republican. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/269 "2011-12-01T06:45:58Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > There are two flavors of truthers. MIHOP and LIHOP. The LIHOPers are in this thread. That doesn’t really answer my first question. And I had to look up MIHOP and LIHOP. I assume it’s not Model International House of Pancakes. But let me see if I can connect all the dots here. The claim is that truthers among Democrats offset any claim that Republican are less in touch with reality. Do you have anything more recent than 2006 that says Democrats believe the previous administration acted “on purpose”? And is it your claim that a belief that the Bush administration didn’t stop the 9/11 attacks comparable to a denial of evolution, climate change, Obama’s birthplace, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/270 "2011-12-01T06:53:57Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > The claim is that truthers among Democrats offset any claim that Republican are less in touch with reality. Nope. Certainly not. You would have to add a myriad other existing silly Democrat beliefs to offset “any claim”. > [@](#): > > Do you have anything more recent than 2006 that says Democrats believe the previous administration acted “on purpose”? Just look in this thread. There are quite a few that believe that the previous administration acted “on purpose” to overlook any threat so that the attacks could occur. > [@](#): > > And is it your claim that a belief that the Bush administration didn’t stop the 9/11 attacks comparable to a denial of evolution, climate change, Obama’s birthplace, etc.? A belief that Bush administration on purpose didn’t stop the 9/11 attacks is definitely comparable to other conspiracy theories, yes. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/271 "2011-12-01T06:55:07Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > The Arab Spring was fueled in large part by ever rising food prices in which our asinine ethanol program played a considerable role. Yet we can’t get rid of this program because of the Democrats. You misspelled IOWA. > [@](#): > > You can complain about the religious right controlling the Pubs all you want, but the fact is that a technophobic Earth worshiping cult has much the same influence on the Dems. Well. I’m one of those Earth-worshipers, so what can I say? Oh, yeah. I’m not a technophobe. Rejecting an inferior technology for a superior one is not technophobia. > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > No I mean governmental welfare programs: I want private charity to play a larger role and government welfare to be more efficient. Pick one. > [@](#): > > And obviously economists should help determine where regulations are necessary and where they should be reduced. No, that’s not necessarily the case. Economics is a soft science. Biologists and ecologists should hold the trump card, not accountants. > [@](#): > > What the flying fuck. No seriously, unless you are shitting me that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a while. Yeah, that’s just nonsense. The gutting of government revenues is far more important to the GOP than tormenting homosexuals. We should have called that post out earlier. Also, go wash out your mouth with soap. > [@](#): > > I find it interesting you have no problem calling Republicans evil while trying to be euphemistic and politically correct with totalitarian dictators. Yeah, that’s weird. > [@](#): > > Your dogmatic, unsubstantiated assertions are laughable and hilarious. Give me cites. I can understand one of those: “The state-sponsored execution of black people for the amusement of white Christians.” Read **The New Jim Crow** and you’ll see why some people react that way. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/272 "2011-12-01T07:01:23Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Those are some Republicans not all. This is a good all-purpose answer, and applies to both parties. The important question is, what do the leadership do? Look at party leaders and whips, they’re the ones who get laws passed. > [@Bayard Rustin](#): > > It is much too easy to take a position… which simply says both political parties stink. They do! But that is not the point. The point is that one will find himself in some situations having to coöperate with that one which is in power… and on other occasions… to select the one which stinks least. That is the nature of politics. > [@Stokely Carmichael](#): > > I want to touch on the problem which Mr. Rustin raises about the lesser of two evils. It’s about time this country tells the political leaders that we do not vote for evil men. Period. And that for me to beg to get into their community is to dehumanize myself. And I shall not do that. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/273 "2011-12-01T07:20:40Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Well, as[this piece in the New York Times shows](http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/the-future-of-the-obama-coalition/), the Democratic Party has for all practical purposes turned its back on working class whites, depending instead on a coalition of upper class progressives and lower class blacks and Hispanics to keep the Party in power. This means, of course, that they will have to pit lower class blacks and Hispanics against lower class whites. This isn’t surprising to anyone who isn’t blind to the left’s racial politics for the last forty years. In fact, that’s not what it says. > [@](#): > > The 2012 approach treats white voters without college degrees as an unattainable cohort. The Democratic goal with these voters is to keep Republican winning margins to manageable levels, in the 12 to 15 percent range, as opposed to the 30-point margin of 2010 — a level at which even solid wins among minorities and other constituencies are not enough to produce Democratic victories. > … > “Seizing the New Progressive Common Ground” describes instead a “new progressive coalition” made up of “young people, Hispanics, unmarried women, and affluent suburbanites.” It means winning majorities in that cohort is unattainable. But Democrats still want their votes. They’re just relying more on young people and single women than married white Boomers and Busters, who are set in their ways and harder to sway into voting Democrat. But those young people and single women are still somewhat white and working class. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/274 "2011-12-01T07:33:19Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Nope. Certainly not. You would have to add a myriad other existing silly Democrat beliefs to offset “any claim”. Then why are we even discussing it in this thread? What the hell do truthers have to do with David Frum and the article cited by the OP? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/275 "2011-12-01T07:43:32Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > A belief that Bush administration on purpose didn’t stop the 9/11 attacks is definitely comparable to other conspiracy theories, yes. Oh, really. In what way? It fits all the evidence, it doesn’t require violations of physical laws or implausibly large & effective conspiracies, it fits the known goals & characters of the accused, it fits exactly with how 9-11 and its aftermath played out; it wouldn’t even have been hard to pull off. In what way is that similar to “other conspiracy theories”? In what way is it even implausible? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/276 "2011-12-01T12:29:25Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > This is a good all-purpose answer, and applies to both parties. The important question is, what do the leadership do? In the particular case before us, the leaders gave assent via silence, from which one may reasonably conclude that that they share the sentiments of most people who boo American soldiers (i.e. hatred of America). ---
**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:** [December 1, 2011, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/277 "2011-12-01T12:29:45Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I keep hearing that the wacky far right religious maniacs control the GOP. The religious right never controlled the Republican Party. If it did abortion would be illegal. Public school days would begin with prayer and Bible reading. The Motion Picture Code would have been restored. Ronald Reagan courted the religious right but he never did anything for them because he never really cared about their agenda. Reagan was our first divorced president. Unlike Bill Clinton and Barack Obama he seldom attended church. The only things Reagan cared about were fighting Communism and making the rich richer. On those issues he was effective. ---
**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:** [December 1, 2011, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/278 "2011-12-01T12:45:40Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > He wants the GOP to step back far enough to salvage its relevance. At this point, I’d rather see it crash and burn and wait for some other party to coalesce and offer a _sane_ alternative to the Democrats. You are more optimistic than I am. It is not clear to me that the GOP will self destruct. It may be possible indefinitely into the future for Republican politicians to get lower income whites to vote against their economic interests by appealing to their nationalism and racial bigotry. For well over a century Southern Democrats were able to do that in the South. Prior to the Civil War only about five percent of the Southern whites owned slaves. The rest usually had a lower standard of living than people with their skills had in the North. Family owned farms were at a particular disadvantage in competing with plantations. Nevertheless, non slave owning whites enthusiastically joined the Confederate Army. I have read that as many as one third of Southern white males from the ages of fifteen to thirty were killed in the war. Right now working class whites are afraid of a time when whites will be in the minority in the United States. The more scared they get the more likely they are to vote Republican. Even if whites become a minority it is not clear to me that the Democrats will benefit. After one or two generations Asians tend to make more money than whites. When they do they have more reason to oppose high taxes than the caprices of capitalism. In the neighborhoods where they live blacks and Hispanics often hate each other. A Democratic coalition that depends on them will be unstable. ---
**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:** [December 1, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/279 "2011-12-01T12:51:47Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because greed, bigotry and malice have been core Republican values for decades. All that’s changed recently is that they’ve added “insane” to the list of reasons to condemn them. > > Unions are near dead - and breaking them is a major reason why incomes have stagnated for decades. We don’t have “excessive welfare”, we have people reduced to homelessness. And removing regulations has ruined the economy and damaged the quality of just about everything. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > Really? Isn’t it? _Words mean things,_ as Rusty Limbaugh used to say. > > Unions are a way of democratizing business decisions. You want less power to the people? > > Welfare means well-being. We had excessive well-being, you say? Are we better off with less now? > > Regulations are laws. Who decided which laws were excessive? I’ve seen Republicans fall over themselves to outlaw burning a US flag (before you were born). Doesn’t that seem excessive? But some environmental law, like air quality, that’s excessive? Who decided again? I was trying to think of a response to Qin Shi Huangdi, but the two of you said it better. :)😃 ---
**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:** [December 1, 2011, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320/280 "2011-12-01T13:01:56Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Of course Frum hit the nail on the head on pretty much everything in that article, but why do I get the feeling he’s angling for something? > > Very few who remain proud to be members of the Republican party are going to heed a word Frum wrote, and he knows this, so who was the article written for? Democrats, who’ve been saying the exact same things? Former moderate Republicans, who feel they no longer have a political home? Independents, who aren’t sure whether to be more concerned about Democratic spinelessness or Republican malevolence? I’m just not clear what Frum hopes to achieve with his missive? Perhaps he wants to become a virtual Democrat and write stuff Democrats will enjoy reading because it will say, “You were right all along.” Kevin Phillips and Bruce Bartlett seem to have transitioned successfully. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality-by-david-frum/604320.md?page=15)