Fair, and if my parents stop being Republican voters, then maybe I’ll gain some optimism over the fate of our country.
But I live in Republican country, and I see these people every single day, and I don’t see them abandoning their party, I see them doubling down.
We’ll see in November how far things have swung. I can only hope that you are right.
ETA: Technically, I used to be a Republican voter, as that was the ideology in which I was raised, but my last vote for a Republican was Dole in 1996, I voted for Dave Barry in 2000, and voted Democratic ever since.
One more thing, hopefully an extension to the argument of Ann_Hedonia; at least one congressional candidate in Arizona’s Senatorial race signed a false slate of electors. He is a rabid as they come, and if he ends up being the Republican nominee . . . he may also be found guilty of seditious acts and not be qualified to serve. Look up Jim Lamon and see his “Let’s go Brandon” spot for an example of how extreme he is.
I have this same observation, those who remain dedicated Republicans do not seem to be quick learners. My hope is that the civil war they keep fomenting happens only in their own party. That Mitch McConnell and half the party take on Kevin McCarthy and the former POTUS and split the party as deeply as they have already split the country. Then whichever side loses the primary stays home because they don’t want vote for that Republican and they- as surely as there is a heaven above and a hell below, are not going to vote for any Democrat.
My ideal vision for the future of the Republican Party would be for Trump and McConnell to kill each other in single combat and the resulting melee reduces the party to insignificance. Most just opt out of voting or caring – some move toward a moderate party, and less than a million rabid, racist, misogynistic, hateful beings remain. Then in four or eight or twelve years a reasonable opposition party reemerges with significantly less Evangelical support and influence.
Mr. Trump & co, Mr. Brooks, etc. frequently accused of criminal incitement.
Consider that the RNC’s angle here is to protect those people, the power figures. Of course they have to say it’s legitimate political discourse. What makes you think they care what happens to the pawns?
The vast majority of Americans were shocked and disturbed by Jan. 6, and a majority of Americans blamed Trump to some extent. If you look at the polls taken before the politicos and pundits could shape the narrative, roughly the same number of Republicans blamed Trump to some extent as those who didn’t. It is a testament to the power of the conservative propaganda machine that only a minority of Americans today hold Trump responsible for the attack.
I’ll go back to 2016 when I hoped and actually thought that Trump would cause the Republican party to impoode, leaving the Democratic party to split into a moderate faction and a leftist faction.
I still hope that happens, but I have far, far less confidence that it actually will.
Well originally I was looking up individuals and making a list but then got lazy. He had a whole entourage of people for the event that didn’t participate in the violence after. These are the people, I should add, the RNC is sticking up for. Because now they are being called in to testify before the House select committee.
I would rather if the Democratic party stayed big tent and owned from just just left of center to far left of center while Republicans split into rabid right warriors - - and a moderate party that covered all the middle ground. In an ideal organization the “Republican Moderates” would overlap significantly with those Democratic voters toward the center – but be separate and full of disdain for the “Right Republicans”.
But your observations about those who remain GOP apply here too. I live in a very progressive district for Arizona that includes ASU, but there are any number of holdover Republicans who are not pleased with their party . . . . . . . but just . . . can’t . . let . go of it. On this particular block I am related to almost half of them.
You know, this is something I never really recognized. Like I know about segregation from history books but it never occurred to me, when I see some old dude, that he may have grown up totally estranged from other skin tones, and how that affects his worldview today.
Now that I think about it I’m remembering a Beetles documentary where they had interviewed a woman who attended a concert and she had never been in the company of white people before. That was a very strange “of course” moment then, too.
Me too. The more the GQP leadership “betrays” Trump, the more likely he is to nuclear on the party. He will destroy the party if he doesn’t get his way. That’s who he is. It will be beautiful when it happens…if it happens before he destroys our democracy.
I wasn’t too political, as a drifted from my conservative upbringing, and hadn’t really find an identity in liberal circles yet, and was in landscaping at the time.
So my joke that cracked me up everytime was that the two candidates were just opposite ends of a woodchipper. Put in Bush, get out Gore.
So yeah, I voted for Dave Barry, and discovered over the next 4 years the distinct differences between the parties, and never wasted a vote again.
When more people voted for him in 2020 than in 2016 was when I grew morose. Doubly so when you consider there had to be some number that fell away from T**** after fseeing his administration, that means the 11-million extra he picked to had to include a bunch who hadn’t voted for him earlier. Where have those people been for four years?
Having now read the whole thread, I have to disagree with Mr. Muler’s assessment. I think the Republicans will do moderately well in the midterms. Not nearly as well as they could have if they could somehow have managed to get Democrats to just hush the whole storming of the Capitol - there’s plenty of fodder to be made of the Biden administration and the general state of affairs under Democratic leadership.
The Republicans have a few things going for them. We know their machine is in tip-top condition - moving the polls some 10 points away from Trump being responsible for an attack on the Capital is no mean feat. The opposition party has historically done well in the midterm election. Turnout is lower and more politically aware voters have more of a say, and the Republican machine seems to be doing well, so I’d expect them to do well at getting out the vote. But perhaps more importantly, Biden’s approval rating is loooowwww. This goes to the population that identifies as independent (even if registered otherwise). If the Democrats can’t get things together before election day, normally a low approval rating is a good predictor for lost seats. But I haven’t bothered tracking individual House elections yet since some states (including mine) still haven’t drawn up the new districts.
As far as the Senate goes, I’m watching Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. If you believe in the incumbency advantage, all of the incumbents running for re-election are Democrats: Senators Kelly (D-Arizona), Masto (D-Nevada), and Warnock (D-Georgia).
Oh yeah… I was born in 1972, and my parents went to segregated schools, in whole or in part. I never did- we had all sorts in my elementary school all the way through.
I get the impression that most Gen-Xers, even the older ones, went at least to integrated high schools, even if elementary and junior high might have been segregated. Past a certain birth year, all of us went to wholly integrated schools, at least where it was reasonably possible. (some parts of the country just don’t have large black populations) My guess is that’s probably somewhere in the mid-late 1960s, but that’s just a guess.
A lot of voters in predominantly Hispanic areas, like Texas and south Florida (especially Miami), or so I’ve read. Also along the Appalachian Mountain range, and the rural eastern U.S. in general, and don’t ask me why or how, but apparently he also picked up votes in some predominantly Black areas.
I was lucky to have grown up in a very diverse neighborhood. I was raised pretty conservative, but without the racism stuff. It’s hard to be racist when most of your friends (and parents’ friends), as well as neighbors and classmates, are different than you are.
I also lived on Guam for a couple of years, and was in a school where whites were a pretty small minority and were hated by a lot of people. I was picked on and beaten while teachers turned a blind eye. Also called names every day. Experiencing racism really sucked. It made me feel worthless (I was very depressed, even considering suicide) and trapped.
The white kids also formed gangs there but I refused to join. I didn’t want that trouble and I’d have rather been a target than be with that crowd.
But it really made me empathetic. So I guess it was good for me in the long run.
I really like and admire Mark Kelly and I am looking forward to voting for him again. But this guy here really knows how to stir up my neighbors and make them salute. Kelly is still the front runner; I sure hope this guy gets the nomination – he seems to have a narrow lane of appeal for a state wide race. (Can you believe this guy? And the Trump supported Gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, is just as bad.)
