“Our primary system”? I wasn’t aware that the Republicans were unable to change how their party picks party endorsed candidates.
Exactly. The primary system isn’t enshrined by the government as being required; it’s something set up by the two major parties, and operated by the states. The parties used to select their candidates largely, if not entirely, via selections by party leadership; it’s been since the late '60s that leadership of the parties, in nearly every state, have instituted binding primaries (or caucuses) to select their candidates.
Reversing this would give GOP party leaders the ability to stop Trump, but at the price of severe dissatisfaction within the GOP rank and file, and even by some big D Democrats, due to the association of the primary system, in many minds, with little d democracy.
In theory, a party could do something this unpopular, but it goes against their nature.
So, this,
should have read,
there is an ability for “the Republicans” to allow, or disallow, candidates, but due to their lack of will the current primary system won’t change
Correct?
Perhaps there’s a middle ground on this primary rules question.
Primaries are creatures of their parties. Which details have been at least partially written into state law to varying degrees in varying states. Leaving some changes practically impossible and other changes readily doable, legally speaking.
Armed with enough desire and enough lack of scruples, there are skullduggerous ways for the party leadership in at least some states to torpedo at least some candidates in some primary elections. And also to do so using relatively aboveboard ways such as withholding or de-prioritizing funds or volunteers from less-desired candidates.
Which leads me to this set of conclusions:
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Do the 2022 Rs have enough lack of scruples to use their maximum skullduggery wherever and whenever? Of course they do.
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Are “they” (Washington DC Establishment Rs) sufficiently united to form a coherent “they” able to concoct a coherent plan? Nope. More like a bunch of post-2012 chancers jockeying for personal gain and a separate bunch of Old Guard paralyzed by the unthinkable novelty of where they find themselves: on the outside looking in.
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Do “they” have the coordinated desire to run the risk of trying to torpedo Trump in enough states to matter? Not a chance.
Religion combined with politics of the religious right seems to be a great answer. We know that God loves to co-rule His kingdom and share His glory with the Republican party controlling the USofA. As such Trump became a messiah type figure to lead the party to take their rightful place as ruler and king. The corruption of the bible belt churches away from the message of Christ is saddening, but there have been many such instances in history such as the conquistadors. Once God is assumed to have chosen a side it is very hard to see the harm one is doing to others and to their religion.
The short answer to the OP’s question: after Trump and his followers overcame initial Republican establishment resistance, short-term gain and lust for power overcame common sense and the long view of what Trumpism would ultimately cost the party.
It’ll take awhile to get themselves out of that hole. First step: stop digging.
Thankfully we have you to tell us what Jesus actually wanted.
Moderating:
Please don’t take gratuitous swipes at other users in P&E threads. If you must, you know the way to the Pit. Thanks.
Not a warning.
And this chart is from 2020. I can imagine that the GOP would be even further along the x axis by now, as their “respect for liberal democratic principles, norms and practices” has gone through the floor, and is busy hurtling towards the molten earth’s core.
How long of a while will, I think, depend on what happens this November. If all the most extreme GOP Senate and gubanatorial candidates who polls now say will lose, do lose, that could lower the time it takes for them to get out of the hole a bit. If that all happens, plus Vance loses, I think the next batch of GOP congressional candidates will look different. If Charlie Chris can start appealing to median voters, explaining why he used to be a Republican and would be still if not for extremists like DeSantis, the hole could look more like a dent.
I think you’re misunderstanding the chain of events.
Trump ran without huge expectations of winning the nomination, and it was all about his personal brand and media exposure. I get the impression that winning the nomination and election was almost as much of a surprise to him (and the Republicans) as it was to everyone else.
As for the party as a whole, I don’t think they were so much co-opted by anything Trump, as they saw a powerful grass-roots movement of support for him that was more or less aligned with them. So they jumped on that bandwagon and fed that fire.
Now there seem to be three sorts of Republicans. One type is the far right die-hard Trumper who would have been a die-hard Tea Partier some years back, but now they’ve attached to Trump, even though his personal politics haven’t ever been that far right. The other type is the more traditional Republican that basically sacrificed any self-respect and political principles on the altar of being part of the Trump bandwagon, and is now likely trying to figure out what’s happening next, and how to attach themselves to it like some sort of evil barnacle. Ted Cruz is a perfect example.
The third are the ones who sort of paid lip-service to Trumpism and were happy to use it when they thought it was personally advantageous, but are now in the position of having to appease it, or lose their positions. I don’t really think they enjoy that much, but they’re too spineless to just confront the Trumpers, so they just go with the flow, like so many elephant-shaped jellyfish in the current. Greg Abbott and Mitch McConnell are great examples of this sort of Republican.
His name is “Crist”. Yes “T”, no “H”.
And he’s nothing but an actual full-on loyal Republican who decided that by switching to the D party he could collect a lot of R votes from people who knew what he really was, while simultaneously capturing a lot of D votes from people who didn’t know what he was.
The electoral advantages of a state-level pol having an (R) after their name are especially big in FL. Something Crist knows well since he had so much to do with setting all that chicanery up.
Growing up, people talked about about wanting this type of President (warning uses the F word) rather than the typical weasel-worded politician. If that is true then is it any wonder people voted for Trump.
Those who are saying the Republican Party has always been like this are hyperbolic as to not add to the discussion. There is a lot that has contributed to where the party is at. One important point is that the Republican Party has had a history of not suffering dissent. I’ve been told since the 80s that I’m not a “real Republican” since I am pro-choice.
(IMHO) The current Republican Party started with the 1994 midterm elections and Gingrich vs. Clinton, especially when it was up to the Republicans to be the inquisitors for morality. It continued with the blending of the Religious Right and the Tea Party. But specific to the OP, the current Republican Party attitude is an over-reaction to the current trend of diversity and the loss of power so if we can put a starting date on it I suppose Election Day 2008 is the birthdate. Let’s face it, the Republican Party is a collection of Whitey Oldmans that have been in power forever and the fact that now they are expected to be in business meetings listening to the women, the blacks and browns, the gays, etc. scares them since taking power away from white straight men takes power away from them. That is why Republicans loved when McConnell obstructed that colored President Obama. That is why we can’t have a nominee with the name Cruz or Rubio. So Trump gets nominated against this backdrop.
You know how cult leaders work? They take your feelings that you already have and make you feel welcomed into their community. Then they twist your feelings into the feelings they want you to have. You don’t think it is a cult? Then explain the drinking of the Flavor-Ade aka Jan 6th insurrection.
I don’t think anyone has said that the Republican Party has been like this since 1860. Or even 1960.
But the pieces have been falling into place for decades. And by the time Trump walked onto the stage in 2015, he didn’t have to do anything to the Republican Party. They were all but ready for him.
I don’t know where anyone gets the idea that there was a major shift in the Republican party. Their base voters are the same, their policies are the same, their love of power over country is the same.
The Republican Party has been corrupt all along. Trump simply exposed them.
I think you’re skipping a lot here by starting with 1994. Robert Taft I, McCarthy, Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan were essential to putting the Republicans on this path. And that’s not to forget people like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms. Gingrich was building on what came before him.
“All along” here—I believe—means that Trump didn’t do anything to change the party. It had already been corrupt by the time he stepped up. This isn’t a claim that the Republican Party was corrupt when it nominated Fightin’ Bob LaFollette in 1860.
yeah, this is a strawman argument from this point forward. I think I’m among the more extreme of those who are saying anything like the GOP has “always” been like this, and I think I’ve been pretty clear that that’s not what I’m claiming. It’s been a continuum, as the idea slowly grew that the demographics that the white Christians are losing population and therefore power over the past half-century. When people like me were recognizing this 50 years ago, we were thought “alarmists” (to the GOP) and “crazy optimists” by the Dems but now that it’s more or less accepted as a fait accompli, the GOP has decided to undermine the concept of majority vote and has embraced itself as an authoritarian faction that will use any and every means of minority rule available to it, legally and otherwise