Pundits describe a fractured Republican party: the cult of Trump versus policy conservatives. This narrative compounds wishful thinking with ignorance of life outside the beltway, but has some truth. Trump, some say, is considering nurturing a third party.
The Republican establishment thinks they are more Republican than the Trumpists and have decades of battle scars to prove it. But they need him – whether he runs again or campaigns for others or is a strong voice. But for him the structural support of a party with a century and a half’s institutional memory can be helpful; most voted consistently with him. When Biden swears in 1000 appointees before his first full day in office, I worry that any Republican splits weaken a future Republican president’s hand. It is true that some of Trump’s best bets were ones the establishment would never have considered, but it is also true minor posts took a long time to fill.
The Trumpists need to accept that all of the people pulling back are not the sorry excuses for Republicans of the Lincoln Project, though they may not want to share a foxhole with them. Trump could have handled the last two months better and in not doing so, he irritated some, like McConnell, left to pick up the pieces. McConnell may be a Rino but he got those appointments through because he knew what he was doing. However, the establishment needs to remember, Trump nominated and backed them, their strengths came from their abilities rather than political resumes.
The establishment needs to be honest with itself. For decades the party promised and didn’t deliver, risks weren’t taken. They must acknowledge where Trump’s strength lay – at least in terms of the people I read, the people I know. It was policies. His actions – and boy did he act – in a Republican tradition. A good many people first voted for Trump as the better of two bad choices and came to see him as a transformative president. Some that hadn’t in 2016 said they’d crawl over broken glass to vote for him in 2020. Sure, some found him offensive, some had buyer’s remorse. He engendered turmoil and tension, though often in response to the wolves that circled him. (A baying that hasn’t stilled as he leaves the White House.) A resonant fact, however, is that many more voted for him in 2020 than in 2016. And the reason for most was, I suspect, what he’d done. Whether or why he lost, with 74 million votes he’s a force.
He was volatile and transparent. He wounded and was wounded. We winced at ad hominem attacks on his staff. He entertained. We were used to laconic heroes, but here was a man of action but also of emotional responses. But the four years – how and what he accomplished, the assumptions that made of his tenure a coherent whole – embodied instincts true to human nature and its potential. And that whole was conservative, American conservative.
He seemed to possess endless energy to push back while striding forward, he persevered. And his focus was on what counted: internationally, improving the United States’ ability to respond quickly and forcefully, to expand its frontiers; domestically, reducing the government’s (especially the national government’s) impositions and cleansing the unAmerican doctrines of tribalism parading as political correctness. In doing so, he implicitly respected his constituents. Are these not what they wanted, had wanted?
Whether it was his new space program or leveraging America’s oil abundance to reduce Russia’s already weak economy as well as diminish our Middle Eastern obligation or moving the embassy to Jerusalem or the Abraham Accords or bringing treaties to the Balkans or imposing sanctions or needling the Chinese or approaching North Korea, his choices were those of American president as advocate for America, for its people, its values, and its long-term success. No new wars, but he used the tools he had– mainly economic ones – strategically. He met resistance in the State Department, the most dangerous of his opponents. But both K. T. McFarland and Ric Grenell came out of early meetings energized, describing the give and take of debate as exhilarating after decades of bureaucratic obfuscation, dead ends. Of course, as anyone from Adam Smith to the local hot dog vendor knows, the free market requires a win/win experience. The economies in the Middle East saw little profit in the recalcitrance of the Palestinians nor did Mexico as one long highway for caravans of lawless immigrants. Isolating Iran and stopping migrants a country away were our reward – but what was good for us was good for others as well. Trump listened and acted.
Deregulation, lower taxes, advocating for parental choice in schools and for traditional rather than Kafkaesque trials in colleges – all these increased independence. These four years have defined the role of government in traditional terms: to provide a structure where business and families can grow. Strengthening small business was a Republican priority. And with that strength new business could thrive. Wealth grew disproportionately in the homes of the working class. Clearly those aren’t Democratic goals (if they were why would they come up with the $15 minimum wage?) He limited the state’s imposition, the limits of the Bill of Rights. Few thought he’d be a proponent of religious freedom, but he was. Policies like these drew minorities to the Republican party. Transparency, cutting red tape, limiting the regulations that stifle new businesses – all help the country grow. Diss Trump and you are dissing the outreach he did. That is no way to build the party. The Trumpian way is to trust constituents. Ensuring freedom unlocks progress, productivity, and the pursuit of happiness.
Trump intuitively accepted what leaders should know: his first responsibility was his own country. Personally, for each citizen, the family has that role. So, Trump’s instincts were not first to nationalize but rather last, when it was the only solution. Governors in his mold did not micromanage when their counties or even their citizens could make choices. Biden’s instincts are different: he intends to nationalize much. I suspect he (or his clique) would like to nationalize the police and that explains the policies of both the summer and the inauguration.
And so, this ends. And the final note – well that’s where we are today, the day of Biden’s Inaugural, bleak and dark.
95% of Republicans voted for Trump. making it out that like the republican party is split 50-50 between “Trumpists” and the “establishment” is odd. You also seem to forget the reality of the last 4 years. The Democrats and the media viciously attacked Trump 24/7 every single day and stole the election from him. With the support of the Republican establishment. The idea that “we” all need to band together now is puzzling. Its the never-trumper minority that has been viciously attacking everyone and supporting Joe Biden.
Further, the idea that we need to avoid the issues of immigration, globalism, and social issues and go back to talking about “School Choice” and “lower taxes” is a sure way to lose. This sort of “moderate Republicanism” failed with Ford, Bush, Dole, McCain, and Romney. And Bush-I got elected by posing as “Reagan Part II” and destroyed his popularity when he governed like Gerald Ford. Given the Democrat lock on Minorities, the only way for the Republicans to win is the MAGA agenda.
The sort of Big Business Republican – like McConnell – is happy to be the junior partner to the Democrat’s. Just give him some Corporate Tax cuts and some “Deregulation” and he’s happy. Most of us want more, and think the USA needs more.
Pundits describe a fractured Republican party: the cult of Trump versus policy conservatives.
Cult of Trump is exactly the description I’d expect from policy conservatives. Those sort of people have made conservatives and conservative policy utterly irrelevant, and I’ve had quite enough of them. It’s typical they’d describe Trump supporters as members of cult, which is why Trump won votes and their candidates didn’t.
McConnell may be a Rino but he got those appointments through because he knew what he was doing.
Oh, I’m sure. When Trump won the election, I read that the GOP establishment was taking resumes from Trump supporters and laughingly throwing them in the trash. Later, I read that myriad appointed positions sat vacant- because demon Trump didn’t personally hunt down people to fill every obscure post in the bureaucracy. Compare and contrast with the 1000-positions in a day that senile Joe Biden personally selected, right?
Sorry, I’m just not buying this shinola anymore. No political party could fail as thoroughly as the GOP has for as long as it has by accident. McConnell knows exactly what he’s doing- as Paul Ryan did, George Bush did, as Bush’s dad did, etc. They’re making sure the GOP remains the minority party, by sabotaging any chance the party has for success, by ensuring it never has an agenda that could build a winning political coalition. Trump has that winning agenda and they could not let it succeed.
The divide in American politics today isn’t between conservative/liberal, or right/left. It’s between nationalist/globalist. The GOP establishment is globalist- and has been for a long time- while the base of the party is nationalist. The democrat establishment has a similar problem, I think, in that some large fraction of their base is also nationalist. But that’s not my circus to critique.
Bottom line- the geee ohh peeeeee can go straight square to blazes. If Trump starts a third party, I’ll never vote for another gope again. Not that votes matter so much.
Good summation, Ginny. Well done, and thank you.
McConnell could have done so much more to stymie Trump’s agenda, and I remain unconvinced that he did all that much. It was McConnell who held the line and made Pelosi blink on the first impeachment when the Democrats tried to turn the Senate into a kangaroo court. If he (and Pence) had really wanted Trump out, that would have been the perfect moment.
His ‘fury’ at Trump a few days ago got Pelosi to jump on impeachment II but when McConnell backed away from the emergency session, he pulled the pin on grenade that he could hand to Schumer – either take up impeachment on 21 January, or start work on Biden’s agenda. He appears to have gotten sufficient leverage to implement the almost 50-50 power sharing agreement from 2001, rather than the feared full Democrat control of the Senate.
Read this piece about how Kevin McCarthy and Trump worked to get the GOP House results in 2020.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/how-republicans-crashed-nancy-pelosis-party
There’s a whole generation of GOP politicians who owe their start to the work that Donald Trump did.
There is much in our current politics that induces revulsion and dismay. A generation or two of substandard public education and the more pervasive tawdriness of news/entertainment in the electronic age has given us an electorate largely incapable of critical thought. They will believe, mostly on the basis of Feelings!, all manner of nonsense. And naturally of varying political flavors. This will not improve easily, soon, or perhaps at all.
The result? A Reality Show Presidency. Ugh. That’s not to say that Trump did not have good ideas along with nonsensical ones. Rated on accomplishments it was a positive administration for the country. But thoughtful people voted for him not because of what he was but in spite of it.
So many alternate realities to ponder. If he had on Inauguration day 2017 said he was setting aside Twitter for the duration of his Presidency he’d likely have been re-elected. If the prosperity of the Pre-Covid times had endured he certainly would have been. But as an interesting thought exercise, absent the political gift from Wuhan, what would the Democrats have dug up/cooked up/made up instead?
It would have been something out there….
Ah well. Here we are with yet another implausible President. That makes three in a row. Anything can happen in politics now. Even, although it’s long odds, a tolerable Biden administration.
TW
The presidency of W broke the GOP coalition, and the realignment hasn’t really been allowed to complete yet. The Obama presidency revealed the schism, with several instances of “establishment” candidates losing primaries and then refusing to support or endorse their opponents, and the general opposition and contempt that they showed for the tea party folks.
The Democrat party has always been based on patronage, which is how political coalitions usually work. Groups give votes in exchange for something they want, usually but not always money. The Dems have the PMC, organized labor, and urban political machines, all of which give votes in exchange for jobs.
What does the GOP have? Their base has increasingly just been the groups that the Dems don’t want or need–rural voters, small business owners, those who value traditional values, etc., but the GOP has delivered them absolutely nothing over the past 30 years.
Trump’s fundamental problem was that he assumed that the presidency was powerful, and that once he won the election he’d actually have authority. Haha. The establishment showed him who is really in charge.
Trump isn’t going to start a new party. The GOP is and is going to remain a populist party. There is no room in its top ranks for the likes of George Will, who is living in 1988, Bill Kristol, nepotist trash still living in 2003, etc. It’s not going to be the party that nominates the wives of billionaires, it’s going to the party that nominates women who run bars and gyms.
It’s easy to resort to whining about the situation, but things were far more dire in 2008, after Obama and the Dems won a real landslide and had far more power, and the GOPe was still completely in charge. The Empire has struck back, but they are as feeble and pathetic as Chernenko Joe.
T.Wolter implausibly wrote: “If he had on Inauguration day 2017 said he was setting aside Twitter for the duration of his Presidency he’d likely have been re-elected.”
Come on, man! Part of President Trump’s genius was he by-passed the Extreme Leftists and Empty Headed Followers of Fashion in the media by using Twitter to communicate. If he had not done that, we the people would have heard nothing about what he was trying to do for the USA.
President Trump did win the election, despite all the media/political assault on him. No-one would even suggest that there was any election fraud to boost his votes. Given that we see strong evidence that Extreme Lefties took votes from him to give to China Joe, President Trump got more than 74 Million votes from actual American citizens — an unprecedented level of support for any candidate. All Creepy Joe the Usurper got was an unprecedented level of fraudulent votes — and the media on cue has memory-holed any coverage of that giant fraud.
This leaves us in an interesting situation — What is the point of voting in any future election? We know that the Democrats will steal any election they wish to, with absolute impunity guaranteed by the formerly “supreme” court and total obfuscation by the media and the Silicon Valley dog faced pony soldiers.
An even more interesting question is — Why vote for the Republican Establishment? They have mostly demonstrated they are part of the DC Swamp that is destroying the US.
My guess is that the Establishment Republican Party has signed its own death warrant. And very few people outside of the Swamp will shed tears over its grave.
Lincoln Project couldn’t have written this any better.
Onward, decepticons!
And Bush-I got elected by posing as “Reagan Part II” and destroyed his popularity when he governed like Gerald Ford.
The worst mistake Reagan made was Bush. I’ve been reading Bob Novak’s memoir “Prince of Darkness” and anyone who is old enough to remember back to Jimmy Carter will enjoy it. I’ve always wondered why Reagan did not choose Jack Kemp as VP and Novak explains it. There was a rumor going around Washington that Kemp was gay. It wasn’t true but it was enough to cause Reagan to choose Bush. Had he chosen Kemp, many worried the rumor would get out and harm Kemp as well as the party.
Thus a rumor gave us the last 30 years of grief.
So many alternate realities to ponder. If he had on Inauguration day 2017 said he was setting aside Twitter for the duration of his Presidency he’d likely have been re-elected.
Nope. He would have been driven out of Washington. The years since Reagan had poisoned TV news, as we see with CNN. I have never joined Twitter or looked at it other than links from stories. But it got his word out.
Trump certainly has his issues, mostly a product of his history. He has had a real reputation for accomplishment but only among those who actually know anything. Conrad Black hired him to build a project at the Sun Times building in Chicago. He acknowledges that Trump’s bombastic reputation gave him pause but the project was on time and under budget. The Rockefeller Plaza skating rink was another example for those who know about it.
The fundamental problem is that Trump came along too late. The Administrative State had consolidated its control and no one can overcome that control until the economic collapse arrives. They may be in control but they are incompetent.
“What is the point of voting in any future election?”
To make them cheat as maximally as possible, to make them rub it in our faces, to make it completely undeniable to as many people as possible.
“Why vote for the Republican Establishment?”
No reason at all. Absolutely none.
“The fundamental problem is that Trump came along too late.”
Nah. It’s that he didn’t ever see the real rules of the game. He thought you seize the presidency and then you’re in charge. Nope. Whoever comes next won’t be as naive.
“They may be in control but they are incompetent.”
Bingo. And only appear strong because they want to isolate and destroy one by one, without letting opposition coalesce. No one who is standing by silently at this time has a chance to lead in the future, which basically rules out all of DC. And the Dems are going to continue to go after Trump, because as they’ve said from the beginning, they have to make sure no outsider ever gets in again. But keep your chin up, someone will step up.
If a third party emerges and Trump and Trump’s policies are the center of it, I would vote for it.
This was an argument that Trump’s policies and actions were those that fulfilled what had long been the theoretical goals of the Republican Party. And it was an argument that he would be better served if this were recognized by the Republican establishment and its rebirth came from that recognition. Perhaps this is impossible – that the swamp is where that party lives and it dies outside it. But the pile of destructive and counterproductive executive orders Biden signed yesterday would seem to lead to a large group of dissenters – and how those dissenters will be dealt with was clear from Biden’s address. This would seem to be a time for an all hands on deck approach.
The lists of Trump’s successes I thought implied that this was an argument that it is his voice that best represents what we considered Republican ideals – ones Biden is rapidly and cluelessly destroying. It was also an argument that it was with those policies that Trump captured and held a large number, probably a majority, of his voters. If Mike’s observation is correct, it is hopeless – certainly if Trump’s success did not break the swamp’s control, he may be.
The size of the Covid crisis with its pressure to close down the engine of his success may indicate the fear that success evoked in our adversaries and the response to it in America may indicate the fear it evoked in the administrative state. (Or more accurately the rapidity of those responses may indicate the readiness to never let a crisis go to waste.) That Trump’s instincts were often correct – not to nationalize, to yoke business and government to save lives, etc. would be enough in a sane world to save his legacy but not in one dominated by the current media. Appealing to fears is always a powerful way to go. Trump’s optimism and sense that his role was to motivate not scare was sensible.
Certainly, this was not an argument against his twitter feed – it was just an emphasis that that feed communicated policies and a vision that was deeply conservative – that emphasized strength abroad and minimal control within.
The overly simplified division between “Rockefeller Republicans” and every other stripe of the GOP (silent majority, religious right, tea party, pluralists, nativists, know-nothings, Rand-ites {Ayn AND Ron}, law-and-order zealots, and freehold farmers just to begin such a list) is helpful in grokking Trump. Money matter. And the Rockefeller wing had it. But Trump didn’t need it, and so was more responsive – whimsically so – to the underfunded factions of the right.
“The worst mistake Reagan made was Bush.”
Milton Friedman had the same opinion
“I believe Reagan made a mistake when he chose Bush as his vice-presidential candidate – indeed, I regard it as the worst decision not only of his campaign but of his presidency.”
Twenty years ago I knew a bunch of lefties, Kucinich supporter types, who used to argue about whether to be in the Green Party where they were more welcome or to be in the Dems and pull them left. The smart ones did the latter, of course. The system is set up for two parties, period. So the play is to keep and consolidate control of the GOP. Talk of a new party just plays into the hands of the GOPe.
Great discussion. I know, during the 2016 primary, I was initially appalled at Trump’s bombastic and aggressive style, but eventually I came to “get it” and understand it was in response to provocation, and a means to get over and round hostile media. I hope we realize that many voters, who are not necessarily evil or anti-American, never grasped this. Going into 2020, I thought Biden’s deficits and that he is an obvious fatuous gasbag would offset Trump’s style. As for myself, I thought pocket bock issues would prevail, as they do for me. Unlike Biden voters, I’m pro American workers and pro Americana sovereignty. How many of the Biden voting minions even comprehend they supported killing the American Dream in favor of Chinese /global corporatist hegemony or how that plays out for them down the road?
So the play is to keep and consolidate control of the GOP. Talk of a new party just plays into the hands of the GOPe.
That may be true but Winfield Scott, in 1852, found that sometimes a party runs out of energy or is too divided to elect anyone. The question is whether the GOP is that divided. The glee with which some nominal Republicans are going after Trump, their last president, suggests we might be at that point. It might be moot if the Democrats have got a foolproof system of stealing elections. The 2022 election might show if this is true.
The Whigs only existed as an anti-Andrew-Jackson coalition, more than a proper party. They had no unifying reason to exist, and the political party system wasn’t nearly as entrenched then as now.
If the GOP can’t be rebranded with a “China Bad, USA Good” message to defeat the “Men must be allowed to play women’s sports, or your college gets defunded” party, which is a 10% issue that the Dems nevertheless feel the need to do on Day 1, then we’re done anyway…
The GOP coalition that fought and won the Cold War, with an assist from conservative pro-American Democrats like Zell Miller, Sam Nunn, and Scoop Jackson, was destined for a break up after 1989 regardless of who was in power. Without the Cold War fight against communism to provide justification, globalism in the U.S became just a way for the elites to increase their take relative to the working middle class. The reaction to 9/11 provided W with a pseudo-Cold War that held the more patriotic elites to the GOP for a bit but once a critical mass of people who actually believe the 1619 Project is accurate took hold of the electorate, those people were going to migrate to the Democrats since they place much more emphasis on class (disguised as racial) divisions.
Mike K: “The 2022 election might show if this is true.”
The 2022 election will show that this is true.
If the Democrat Fascists were smart, they would allow a few token Republicans to be elected — mostly ones in the formerly-supreme court chief justice John Roberts mode, i.e. ones who will cooperate with the Democrats’ Chinese agenda. But DC Swamp Democrats are not noted for being smart.
Like Mike K, I doubt there is much chance of changing direction before the inevitable economic collapse. And I am nearly certain that once the collapse is upon us, DC Swamp Republicrats will NOT be part of the solution.
Enough with the doom and gloom. FL used to have late night ballot dumps that magically pushed Dems over the threshold into victory. Some say that Jeb! had his first governorship race stolen in just that way, putting him behind his brother in the race for the 2000 GOP nomination…That’s all been fixed, and now FL is clearly a red state. There is no reason why the GOP in PA, MI, WI, and GA can’t fix their elections as well.
If the states don’t or can’t fix their elections, then nothing is going to work. And to be effective, it is those that agree with Trump’s vision that should be aggressive. I suspect Biden’s puppeteers are working to nationalize these as well, using Covid as cover. There are a lot of people that are going to recognize that Trump had nudged America away from that economic collapse – we’ll soon see how crony capitalism diminishes the gains in blue collar and minority employment, how the $15 minimum wage and climate regulations slow new business growth.
Bravo, Ginny. 100%
The party is not divided so as to be ineffective. It is led ineffectively by at least 50% of its leadership. That was gradually being weeded out. The new members of the house and senate are on balance more populist (in the good way).
The next two years will be bleak nationally, but at the state and local levels there is opportunity to allow all that pent up frustration to focus on getting elections straightened out. It is likely a long process, but reversing the Covid effects should be doable. We even gained one statehouse, I hear tell. At any rate there is local power that will figure in this as well as setting the congressional districts based on the census. We are in a position to gain seats with the population shifts to be reflected. This, of course, will also be reflected in the electral college. Given mid term wins in both houses, “Feedom Kamela” will find out how difficult being in charge can be. 2024 could be a good year.
Our support needs to focus on determining the outcome of those local and state fights wherever they are occurring. More independents need to be courted to join in this effort.
There will be a push for national legislation to consolidate the lax election policies and laws which permit fraud. This is where the Republicans will be challenged to stop this. It may require inserting poison pills to allow it to be quickly overturned through suit by many states.
Death6
The GOP coalition that fought and won the Cold War, with an assist from conservative pro-American Democrats like Zell Miller, Sam Nunn, and Scoop Jackson, was destined for a break up after 1989 regardless of who was in power. Without the Cold War fight against communism to provide justification, globalism in the U.S became just a way for the elites to increase their take relative to the working middle class.
I agree with this, however, I think the presence of Bush and his team (Baker and Darman) in 1991 allowed Gorbachev too much credit and then Yeltsin was inundated with bad advice by Sachs and the Clinton grifters. Sachs showed his true colors and the communists don’t even like him.
Yeltsin was badly flawed but Russia’s only chance to be saved. Sachs made sure he failed.
McConnell could have done so much more to stymie Trump’s agenda, and I remain unconvinced that he did all that much.
I’ll list two items. The border wall, supposedly a GOP priority for many years that somehow the party couldn’t get done when they had control of all three branches of government. And the vote fraud commission Trump wanted, which was stonewalled by the establishment. I’d argue McConnell could have hardly done more to obstruct Trump’s agenda, considering how popular he was with Republicans. And I’ll add a free bonus item in that the party failed to repeal Obamacare, which was a goal the party had been running on since the day Obamacare was jammed through Congress.
If he had on Inauguration day 2017 said he was setting aside Twitter for the duration of his Presidency he’d likely have been re-elected.
This is utterly ludicrous. One, because he was in fact re-elected. And two, because twitter was one huge thing he was able to do to bypass the Deep State and tell his side of the story.
Twenty years ago I knew a bunch of lefties, Kucinich supporter types, who used to argue about whether to be in the Green Party where they were more welcome or to be in the Dems and pull them left. The smart ones did the latter, of course.
This sort of thing is what conservatives activists have been doing for many years, just like your greens. They’ve been stymied by the gop establishment which does not want to win. Eventually, the activists gave up. Later, they voted for Trump over Jeb! et al.
One famous definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I no longer expect a different result.
“Yeltsin was badly flawed but Russia’s only chance to be saved.” Yeltsin was the west’s path to domination and stealing Russia’s wealth. Where do you think all those oligarchs in London came from?
Putin saved Russia from this fate, and you are right to hate him for destroying your chance to dominate Russia and to steal Russia’s wealth. Now he is making you look stupid at almost every turn, not that that is hard. ;)
Death 6: “There will be a push for national legislation to consolidate the lax election policies and laws which permit fraud. This is where the Republicans will be challenged to stop this.”
You are undoubtedly correct about the coming Democrat push to institutionalize electoral fraud — to their advantage. Remember that electoral fraud is a moving target, with the Democrats improving on a situation where US votes are recorded by a Venezuelan company on servers in Germany. Next time, they may have all-American Google count the votes, with an assist from all-American Twitter.
The issue is whether the Republicrats have enough trust from we the people to promote honest voting processes. Speaking only for myself, I have no more confidence in today’s Republicrats than in Swamp Democrats. Maybe new blood will enter the Republican Party, expel the Republicrats, and win the confidence of a substantial majority of the population. Maybe! But the clock is ticking on the exploding FedGov deficits, the staggering growth in the unrepayable National Debt, and the unsustainable Trade Deficit.
Time is not on anyone’s side.
The issue is whether the Republicrats have enough trust from we the people to promote honest voting processes. . . . Maybe new blood will enter the Republican Party, expel the Republicrats, and win the confidence of a substantial majority of the population. Maybe! But the clock is ticking on the exploding FedGov deficits, the staggering growth in the unrepayable National Debt, and the unsustainable Trade Deficit.
In order for this to happen, people need to start laying the groundwork now. They need to identify the offices in their state that control elections and start building support for candidates who will use those offices to make sure that elections aren’t stolen. (They can also do this at the county-level as added insurance, but the immediate focus needs to be on state-level positions.)
Then, when it’s time to start campaigning for those offices, they need to avoid re-litigating past elections, but rather keep the focus on making elections unquestionable. As in, “I don’t know if there was election fraud in the past, and I’m not worried about those elections anyway. I’m running because I just think that an election should be conducted in such a way that there is no possibility of fraud. My goal is to make sure that for every future election, the process and the results are so far beyond question that even bitter political enemies won’t be able to disagree about what happened.”
Where Republicans could gain traction with the country folk is by constantly pointing out that the slate of initiatives that Biden and his cronies are launching killing the Keystone pipeline, banning fracking, ‘re-entering the Iranian nuclear deal, etc., etc. — are policies that none of the public have ever voted on. They are assumed by the leftist elite to be the “correct” ones.
The Democrats are driven by ideology, which allows them to ignore the people. The Republicans could make great gains by emphasizing that the people ought to have a say in things, and that they will return power to the people, not the corporatists.
OC: You sound like you’re living in 2000. To win right now as a GOPer you’re going to have to say that GOP lifers in DC are worse than the Dems, the power there is going to be shattered by term limits, etc., and you’re going to take control and send mountains of goodies to our own voters–spend tons of money in small towns, tax the bejeezus out of imports and big business, etc. And you have to say it nicely.
The idea that Trump getting off Twitter would’ve saved his presidency has to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. Its only twitter that allowed Trump to respond to the non-stop 24/7 lies and attacks on him. And I’ve got news for people who are acting like Trump lost. He didn’t lose the election it was stolen. He got 14 million more votes than 2016!
If only he’d governed more like George Bush. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Because the American people wanted Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney but got stuck with Trump for some reason. There’s a certain kind of well-to-do Republican voter that never gets it. Like the Bourbons “They learn nothing and they forget nothing”. Linsey Graham is always on TV, he got 1% of the vote in 2016. And nobody wanted what Kasich, Pawlenty and all the other moderates were selling. If Mitch McConnell had run in 2016, he wouldn’t have done any better than Graham.
Moderate Republicanism is a LOSER. There aren’t enough nice, middle class white people who are moderate on social issues and love tax cuts. They may dominate the Republican party organization and have lots of campaign money to spend, but ultimately they will lose to the Ds. Mittens, McCain, Dole, Bush I, and Ford all lost. And Bush II won by pure dumb luck in 2000. Trump and Reagan were disliked by the moderates and they’re the only 2 who really won on their own.
Brian, have you seen this?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/huge-john-brennan-gives-plan-away-biden-officials-moving-laser-light-fashion-identify-root-political-opposition-population-video/
and this
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/legal-multiple-banks-close-donald-trumps-accounts/
Note – one of the banks is in FL.
I’m not living in 2000. I’m talking about how to energize the voters to come out and vote. Any candidate has to make a connection with the voters, and that connection could be made by emphasizing that DC is not listening to anybody except a few well-connected ideologues and corporatists. Part of that also requires that voters take local and state elections more seriously as well. I think you have to ax-handle that DC’s actions are completely unconnected with Joe and Mary Sixpack.
Trump had that touch. He connected with Joe and Mary Sixpack who have clear, here-and-now needs to survive that our government doesn’t care about. To the DC elite of either party, these folks are just background noise.
What the Dems and GOPe are going to do now is try to make an example of Trump to make sure no one else like him tries to come in from the outside again, and only people inside, and already corrupted by, the system can rise to the top.
I suspect Trump will be ok. He has good lawyers, and there are places the Trump name is still gold. But it’ll be exhausting for him and his family.
I don’t know who will want to go through that. I half-joked recently that Dana White would mop the floor with any GOP pol beinf touted right now. Heck, so would Joe Rogan, and I don’t think he is a Republican or any recognizable sort of conservative. But he could believably attack the system, and I think that’s going to continue to be what it takes. I highly doubt Trump is going to just stew in Mar-a-lago and wait for them to come after him. I don’t think he should run again, or anyone in his family, but I presume he’s been working on next steps.
The GOPe thinks it’s 2013 again and they can crush the “Trumpers” the same way they crushed the Tea Party. They are very, very wrong.
does it matter:
https://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2021/01/but-can-they-rule.html
The vote fraud commission crashed because Democrat state governments wouldn’t give up the necessary data.
Spending bills start in the House. Mcconnell had little to do with funding the wall.
Ditto the Obamacare repeal. That was Paul Ryan’s deal.
Christopher B: “The vote fraud commission crashed because Democrat state governments wouldn’t give up the necessary data.”
You mean that a FedGov which used the power of the purse to force all State governments to “voluntarily” adopt a 55 mph speed limit could not have found a way to force the State govs to release all required election data?
Similarly with spending bills and Obamacare repeal — if Cocaine Mitch and a united group of Republicrats in the Senate had wanted those things to happen, they could have forced the worthless Paul Ryan to comply. It is called horse-trading, which seems to the the only skill the Political Class admires.
OP is too wedded to conventional thinking, and is overlooking the factors which clearly show that this is much too unpredictable be talking about how Trump and the GOPe have to work together.
Pelosi is clearly determined this cycle. Possibly for reasons of age, which with the 1993 motor voter imply that this has long been in preparation.
Around nine months ago, Youtube was clearly going all in on BLM and covid propaganda. PRC is obviously the government that Youtube, Google, and Alphabet have the friendliest relationship with. The silence when it came to accusing Trump of being friendly with China, or a Chinese proxy, when he was accused of everything else, is a corroborating ‘dog that didn’t bark in the night’.
‘Long term’ and ‘China’ theories fit with a certain possibility with regard to the officer corps. Dem appointments to Annapolis, West Point, and the Air Force Academy could have been deliberately of poor character, in coordination with the Chinese in order to recruit people for Chinese intelligence. Take a look at Fat Leonard, and ponder the peculiarities of the publicly revealed information.
GOP brands itself as the Party of Lincoln.
Lincoln decided to wage the first ACW when confronted with a violent political combination too significant for the ordinary processes of court to address.
Exactly the situation that Trump found himself in.
But, the officer corps did not support Trump, and the GOPe did not support Trump.
Armed forces could be excused for that if they really have been compromised by the Chinese.
What is the GOPe’s excuse? Are they blind? Have they sold us out for reasons of domestic politics, or some other reason? (Mitch McConnell is married to Elaine Chao. Elaine’s family and family’s business are out of Taiwan, but have recently partnered with the PRC for shipbuilding.) Either the GOPe is too stupid to be useful, or they are too treacherous to be useful.
Nixon conceded to JFK, but Nixon was a squish, and JFK at least could be trusted not to commit mass murder of more than an eighth of the population, and probably not even that. BLM’s actions and words combine to be a promise of mass murder. ‘Addressing AGW’, if you look into the thermodynamics, amounts to a promise of mass murder. The covid lockdown itself is certainly not a promise of decent treatment in accordance with human rights. Then consider the PRC’s active campaign of mass murder, and the left’s scant condemnations of it. Joe Biden is not so decent a person as JFK, and Kam Harris is not so decent a person as LBJ. And both JFK and LBJ were monsters.
The Kapos were not exactly all enthusiastic volunteers. And, afterwards, it may have even been possible for the other survivors to coexist with the Kapos. I’m skeptical of the idea that very many of the other survivors were all ‘sure, he was a Kapo, but I completely trust him without any reservation’.
There are three (or four) categories of problems that must be addressed for voting strategies to matter in 2022. a) Voter rolls b) use of electronic voting systems c) physical security, records, and witnesses of procedure d) the d@mn3d crooked courts. Voter rolls has aspects that can lawfully only be addressed at the national level. Is the GOPe going to come through for us on those? No. In theory, vigilante enforcement of finger inking could work, if combined with lawful residents inking in advance of voting day, and illegal aliens being killed or driven off. In practice, the Dems will push to civil war first, and we have no idea how bloody that will be.
The immediate future is going to be much too crazy to be assessing the process for the 2022 election cycle. Talking about Trump and the GOPe having to cooperate in the future is plain nuts. The Dems will most likely kill Trump soon, and the Dems will kill the GOPe who sold Trump out.
The old times Egyptians when a pharaoh died killed a bunch of slaves to . . . something something in the next life or whatever they concocted.
What should we do to mourn the death of the greatest Constitutional Republic ever that lasted 244 years, some of them pretty good, and died of an infestation of leftoxenomorphs that the devolved into pusillanimousness and indolence late citizens didn’t bother to exterminate when the extermination was good?
Couldn’t find an answer on how to conduct the funeral rites of a whole civilization and its most important moral and political representative.
Read a long time ago a scientific fiction story about the finding on a remote planet in another galaxy of the deserted remains of an ancient civilization that had left a doll that cried out mournfully when heated a little bit by holding it in one’s hand, the lament of a long ago murdered civilization. Can’t remember either the author or the book. May have been Asimov or Bradbury or someone like that?
Anyway, I don’t know how to build one of those.
We should do something . . .
The vote fraud commission crashed because Democrat state governments wouldn’t give up the necessary data. Spending bills start in the House. Mcconnell had little to do with funding the wall. Ditto the Obamacare repeal. That was Paul Ryan’s deal.
There is always always always a list of excuses as to the gop can’t do what it promised to do.
Vote fraud has been a topic of discussion at least since John Fund wrote his book Stealing Elections in 2008. I presume he started writing it before that. I can’t recall the gee ohhh peeee ever doing anything about it while they controlled the government back then. Neither did the party do anything to build a border wall, either. In fact I recall illegal immigration becoming such a hot issue that Bush 43 was forced to give a speech about it. He essentially told the people who voted for him to F off, he wasn’t going to do anything about it. On Obamacare, the party raised money and promised to repeal it as soon as they could, for several elections cycles. Then, when they had a president who would sign any repeal bill they gave him, suddenly it just couldn’t be done. It didn’t matter that when Obamacare destroyed the individual market for health insurance that it seriously screwed over an important segment of the GOP base. Nope, just too hard- and the party made no effort to campaign on a better proposal for the 2018 elections.
Look: You folks- you know who you are- can keep thinking these people are going to be part of the solution. I know better.
I’m done with them.
Xennady: I don’t think anyone here thinks the GOPe personnel are worth anything. But the GOP as an institution is. Abandoning it to start a 3rd party is what they want, and is the surest way to destroy any chances of saving the country.
Brian, the only chance of saving the country is to admit GOP failed us, forfeited our trust and to start a new party.
What Brian said. Faint hope? I hope not.
Death6
The GOP needs to be gutted down to the studs, but you don’t rebuild a party from scratch in contemporary America. We need to nominate the most populist possible candidates for every position. In the majority of states, that will be someone far better than we’ve ever had before. You could nominate a proper populist and they’ll cruise to victory as GOP but would get a couple percent as a member of a 3rd party.
Hope is not lost. Chernenko Joe is a joke and a fraud, and everyone knows it.
Neither did the party do anything to build a border wall, either.
A bCongressman from Arizona got a bill passed and signed to build a wall in 2006. That, of course, was followed by the Democrat takeover and the wall was dropped. But it was passed and signed by Bush.
I don’t think anyone here thinks the GOPe personnel are worth anything. But the GOP as an institution is. Abandoning it to start a 3rd party is what they want, and is the surest way to destroy any chances of saving the country.
If you defend China Mitch, like some have, then you’re most certainly asserting that GOPe personnel are worth something. The GOP as an institution is surely the most absolutely worthless such thing in the history of American politics. Abandoning it to found a 3rd party would actually be abandoning it to start a 2nd. And the country isn’t going to be saved, in anything remotely resembling the form in which it used to exist.
Get used to that.
A Congressman from Arizona got a bill passed and signed to build a wall in 2006. That, of course, was followed by the Democrat takeover and the wall was dropped. But it was passed and signed by Bush.
And then Bush spent the next two years attempting to jam open borders and open-ended amnesty into law forever, hand in hand with his demonrat friends. I remember Hugh Hewitt, squishy establishment-friendly lawyer, looking into the specifics of that particular bill and not being a fan.
Getting a bill passed that shortly thereafter becomes meaningless is completely typical of the kabuki theater modus operandi of the gop. If the party actually wanted to get a border wall built, it wouldn’t have been in a bill passed just before the gop ditched control of congress.
It would have been in a bill ready to go the very first day the party took control of congress, after the surprise wins of the 2002 election.
But just like after the surprise wins of the 2016 elections, the gop had no plan to enact its supposed agenda, because the gop is nothing more than a placeholder to fool the rubes into thinking they have representation at the cancer on the Potomac.
Nuff said.
“If you defend China Mitch, like some have”
Not in this thread that I can see. Everyone here is done with him, and the entire GOPe.
“But just like after the surprise wins of the 2016 elections, the gop had no plan to enact its supposed agenda”
The GOP didn’t win in 2016, Trump did. Paul Ryan had zero interest in Trump’s agenda. Neither did Mitch. Ryan wanted tax cuts, and Mitch wanted judges, so that’s what they did, and the bare minimum of anything else.
It’s beyond me why Trump didn’t run an entirely different reelection campaign, but what’s done is done.
Everyone agrees that Trump made a catastrophic mistake in allowing GOPe figures to “help” him choose who to put in what positions. The next guy won’t be so naive.
But just like after the surprise wins of the 2016 elections, the gop had no plan to enact its supposed agenda, because the gop is nothing more than a placeholder to fool the rubes into thinking they have representation at the cancer on the Potomac.
Oh, I agree. I was just pointing out that such a bill did pass, even if too late.
I was actually optimistic when the 1994 landslide occurred. I was just finishing up a masters’ degree in health policy at Dartmouth, and thought it was be fun to get involved in health reform. Hillary had screwed up so badly by excluding all providers from her secret “task force,” which was all bureaucrats. Judd Gregg was then NH Senator and arranged some appointments for me. I was retired and would be happy to work for free. I met with a few senior people in health care policy, not politicians. I was informed that the GOP committees involved in “Health care reform” only wanted tax lawyers. No interest in provider reps. I had retired after 40 years in private practice and then went back to school for a year to learn some nuts and bolts about health policy. Not interested. That was 1995.
“Neither did the party do anything to build a border wall, either.”
One party did everything they could to STOP a border wall. The other – the GOP – just did it as kabuki theater. The law was put on the books but deliberately NOT funded. After that, numerous GOP Pols – including one from Arz who was rather famous – would pretend to be all hot for “building the dang fence”. But it was all a lie.
Trump eventually had to use DoD money. After the D’s and 11 GOP senators stopped him from doing it the regular way.
Personally, I think its much easier to take over an existing party than build a new one. But whatever way its done, the voters need to get rid of the Cheney’s, Romney’s, Bushes, McConnells, etc.
“I was informed that the GOP committees involved in “Health care reform” only wanted tax lawyers.”
You fooled me on that one. I expected the GOP would’ve only wanted Pharma Lobbyists disguised as “Experts”.
The Republican establishment thinks they are more Republican than the Trumpists and have decades of battle scars to prove it.
On the long list of things the Republican establishment does not grasp is that the idea is to inflict battle scars, not to suffer them.
There don’t seem to be many Democrats in these here parts. If there were, I’d ask them if slo Joe and the Ho were really the best and the brightest their party had to offer.
Sure, they put over a good one, stealing the election where we weren’t expecting it. It’s as if they ran a whole, elaborate, Oceans 11 scam to steal a Cracker Jack prize, one of the paper ones, not one of the good ones.
I’d be feeling more than a little let down.
You fooled me on that one. I expected the GOP would’ve only wanted Pharma Lobbyists disguised as “Experts”.
No, that was Pelosi and Schumer and insurance company lobbyists. They saw part of what Hillary’s error was. She excluded the insurance industry and they beat her with advertising. So Nan and Chuck let them write Obamacare.
I won’t go through all this again, as I have explained it. Insurance companies HATE health insurance because it is no longer insurance. Insurance means having actuaries calculate the risks and premiums. That ended in about 1972. There used to be what was called “indemnity style insurance,” in which the insurance paid a fixed amount for an “insurable event” like a broken hip or appendicitis.
What insurance companies like is becoming “Administrative service organizations” to service claims paid by the employer, or in the case of Obamacare, by the feds. The Democrats made a deal with the insurance companies to force everyone to buy their product (The “Mandate”). Then, after the reality struck some Democrat constituencies, like small group plans for artists and orchestras, they realized that the unions would burn the Democrat party to the ground if they tried to take away the union health plans. And here we are.
Not in this thread that I can see.
That’s not how I read it, but ymmv.
It’s beyond me why Trump didn’t run an entirely different reelection campaign, but what’s done is done.
Trump ran a perfectly good reelection campaign that won the election. I say again, he won the election, in that he got the most votes, and in such a way to be reelected president, except for the endless and massive fraud committed by the traitors of the demonrat party.
Never forget that.
No election campaign will ever be good enough when the opponents can simply create all the votes they need for their candidate to “win.”
Everyone agrees that Trump made a catastrophic mistake in allowing GOPe figures to “help” him choose who to put in what positions. The next guy won’t be so naive.
I suppose, but what choice did he have? He had to work with the party as it existed, not how he would have wanted it to exist. And naivete doesn’t matter so much, although I take your point.
Unless and until the apparatchiks who control the gop establishment can be replaced wholesale, any nominee is going to face roughly the same situation. And for the apparatchiks to be replaced, you need to find and motivate a swarm of people to run for obscure party offices that most people have never heard of and wouldn’t care about if they had. And if you can find and motivate people in such a way, then you’ve already done most of the work in building a new party anyway. May as well go all the way…
I don’t care if that new party keeps the name, but for all intents and purposes today’s gee ohh peeeee needs to die.
I was actually optimistic when the 1994 landslide occurred.
Yeah, me too. Subsequent events cured me of that.
Reading your anecdotes over the years about healthcare policy have been illuminating, if infuriating, and have helped me understand just how far American governance has gone off the rails. Alas.
In Florida, the state legislature spent at least 4 years checking out voting systems that would be permitted to be used by county Supervisors of Elections. Each county gets to pick its own, but the system has to be on the approved list. (This just after the 2000 election, “stolen” from Al Gore by a well- meaning but incompetent Democrat SOE in Palm Beach). And in D controlled counties, there is still plenty of opportunity for theft. Broward had to prove that the SOE had “re marked” spoiled ballots that were deliberately spoiled. Republicans at the state level found 44,000 dead people on the rolls and had to go to court to get them removed. And we won’t even talk about all the people double voting in two states. Florida elections violations are FELONIES – if anyone were actually convicted. I am convinced that the latest violations took place because no one takes voting seriously. How is it the name recognition always wins – this is the source of the legacy votes and the 94% incumbent re election.
About that SOE removed for violations. Broward is a D county 2 to 1 D registration. For this election the SOE was a Republican appointed by the Governor. For the next election the D’s have managed to get their man in, so I wouldn’t count on Florida remaining in the R column. You can gin up a lot of votes in Broward and Miami – who knows how many are real?
Fiona: My understanding is that FL requires local aithorities to report the number of ballots almost immediately after the polls close, which has eliminated the sort of brazen cheating we saw in November where they just kept producing more ballots in Philly, Atlanta, etc, until they’d got enough..
no they haven’t the only dem cabinet member was the agriculture secretary, who hasn’t been too bad on balance, but House Rule 1 will mandate dominion machinery and standards,
Brian:”Chernenko Joe is a joke and a fraud, and everyone knows it.”
I thought his name was Von Hindenburg, guess I missed the notification about the replacement…
I asked the better half if she had heard anything about electoral fraud or chicanery since the election. She admitted that she had heard nothing on network TV.
I suspect that those who realized the results were very likely the result of electoral misconduct were in the minority, and those whose only source are TV networks would have heard nothing and take on their word that the claims were lies and mirages, products of a broken mind(DJT) and Jo&Ho were duly elected.
Mitch and minions effectively abandoned the leader of the Republican party, and effected a coup in collusion with the Ds. The GA senate elections demonstrated that the voters were not as gullible, though I did vote as I understood the consequence. Threatening to withhold voting was the only lever GA voters had on the SoS, governor etc., and given the response, some indeed stayed home. The Republican Party is on life support, if it is still alive. At least the party of Mitch is in that condition. Ripe for a takeover? Likely. The voters don’t like the merde they have been forced to swallow. It may be time.
TomW: “The Republican Party is on life support”
No, the Republican Party is a Dead Man Walking.
But, in a sense, it does not matter any more. Normal political discourse in the US is over. The economy is crumbling, and the top priority of the Would-Be Junta is to try to impeach a private citizen. Nero fiddling while Rome burned made more sense.
“Paul Ryan had zero interest in Trump’s agenda. Neither did Mitch. Ryan wanted tax cuts, and Mitch wanted judges, so that’s what they did, and the bare minimum of anything else.”
Brian, I think you’re making Xennady’s point for him.
Kirk, the discussion wasn’t about whether the GOPe personnel are good, it was about whether it makes any sense to leave and start a new party, which is absolutely guaranteed to fail.
The problem we have is that the “establishment” by definition likes the status quo, so they are happy with sabotaging any populist insurgents, because they’d rather be in the minority with the Dems in charge than in the majority with populists in charge.
parties are replaced when their internal structure, reason for being dissolves, so the tories who are embarassed by thatcher, much less churchill, lost a certain percentage to the brexit party, the progressive conservatives to the reform party in canada, the populares (they aren’t all that) to citizens and vox and spain, the latter split is why the socialists and the podemos faction, are now in charge there, when the christian democrats collapsed under
tangentipoli,’clean hands’ berlusconi’s forza italia and lombard league and national alliance took charge, for a time, lawfare claimed their scalp, and the party of soclal democracy ended up on top, till salvini was deposed before the outbreak of the wuhan flu, spread largely by chinese investment and workers in the northern region,
For most of my lifetime, the Republicans have been enablers of the Democratic program. Period. With the odd outsider aberration like Reagan and Trump, all they’ve done is tell people they oppose the Democrats, then roll over cooperatively and offer up their ass for penetration. See “McCain’s campaign promises vs. actual actions regarding Obamacare”.
The problem for them is that it is now becoming very clear to the majority of those they’ve cozened that they’re really not an opposition party, but a willing partner to the real oligarchy that runs this country, which is currently engaged in running it into the ground. Their manifest failures and willful cooperation with the enemies of the Republic and the common citizen are becoming impossible to ignore.
Asshole local Republican state rep called me up, asking for money. I asked him why, and what he’d done to deserve any money or attention from me. He had no answer, none whatsoever.
In 2018, Washington State’s Democratic political machine pushed through Initiative 1639 under false pretenses, criminalizing the “transfer of firearms”. Asking the average voter, you’d find that most if not all of them understood that as “sale of firearm”, not “hand someone a gun temporarily”. Still, it became state law.
During the 2020 CHAZ street theater, you had innumerable videos showing such “transfers” of firearms going on inside CHAZ, ones obviously happening without benefit of Federal Firearms License holder, background check, or waiting period. People were pulling up and handing out “assault rifles” (what are actually semi-auto military-style weapons) out of their car trunks.
These transfers represent actual felonious activity, on video record for all to see.
To date, not one of those “transfers” has been investigated, let alone prosecuted. The sole firearms crime that I can find evidence for being properly dealt with stems from the idiot who stole an M4 carbine out of a police cruiser, and then tried selling it and the accessories that he got with it online. That’s it.
I’ve asked my State Senator and State Representative why the hell that is being allowed to stand, and their answer for me is that it’s not their job to “get involved”. My question to them then was “And, then, what the hell justifies you being in office?”. They don’t even have the balls to call a press conference and put the Governor and his minions in King County on the spot, saying that doing so would be “politically inexpedient”.
I am no longer voting for Republicans in my state, and likely not for national office. Instead, I’m going to vote against the incumbents, and throw these lying con men out of office. Perhaps random chance will get us better representation, but I can assure you of two things: One, the first time someone not of the left goes on video record “transferring” firearms like they did in CHAZ, they’re going to get raided and put in jail. Two, the Republican scum traitors are going to do nothing about it, simply donning their usual ball-and-gag gimp harnesses and rolling over for their Democrat mistresses and masters. That’s all they are good for, in this state–Aside from losing elections and enabling electoral fraud by not fighting it.
Kirk, the discussion wasn’t about whether the GOPe personnel are good, it was about whether it makes any sense to leave and start a new party, which is absolutely guaranteed to fail.
As opposed to remaining in the old party, which has already failed.
The problem we have is that the “establishment” by definition likes the status quo, so they are happy with sabotaging any populist insurgents, because they’d rather be in the minority with the Dems in charge than in the majority with populists in charge.
Thank you for making my point for me again. You did a good job.
I’ve asked my State Senator and State Representative why the hell that is being allowed to stand, and their answer for me is that it’s not their job to “get involved”.
I think the most pathetic thing a politician can ever say is that it isn’t their job to get involved in politics. That response has been the default answer of the GOPes when questioned about their relentless failure since roughly forever ago.
They’re done, whether or not the official name of the gop gets thrown into the trash or kept as a skinsuit to be worn by something better.
“or kept as a skinsuit to be worn by something better.”
Exactly. That’s the play.
““or kept as a skinsuit to be worn by something better.”
Exactly. That’s the play.”
Oddly enough, that was what the Tea Party tried to do. They got rolled.
The only way to fix the political system is to replace, not reform. Reform was tried, and failed, because of the grip the machine politicians and their handlers have on everything inside the party structure.
You might warp the Republicans into doing something semi-right, via something like a “take-over”, but there’s no long-term benefit to it. The same apparatchiks will be in charge, and the same nomenklatura will be benefiting.
As well, leaving the party intact will just encourage the idea that they can get away with it. Burning it all to the ground would provide a salutary lesson to the oligarchy.
I honestly don’t think reform is going to happen until most of the incumbency and the unelected bureaucracy in DC are dangling from the cherry trees along the Mall. This is a situation like a termite infestation, where you can’t afford to leave any of the nests intact.
And, frankly, until I see that enough of the electorate is going to be on-board for the project, I’m staying well out of the way. Y’all created this mess through feckless inattention, and I flatly refuse to be the poster child for “Acted before it was time…”.
I really hope it doesn’t require Killing Fields levels of destruction before enough of you wake the f**k up, but I strongly suspect that it might have to be that bad before the average American sees this clown crew for what it is.
There will be no electoral solution to our current problems.
First, the ruling Democrats now know they can pull off any level of electoral fraud they chose, with the blessing of the Supreme Court.
Second, even if a miracle gives us free & fair elections, it would take 3 or 4 decades to effect significant change. For a model, look to Scotand — which has gnerally fraud-free elections. There was a massive switch from domination by the Labour Party to domination by the Scottish National Party — but it took 30 to 40 years, depending on when one wants to start the clock.
We don’t have 30 – 40 years before the Budget Deficit and the Trade Deficit result in financial collapse. It looks like we will only be able to move forward after that financial collapse and the resulting civil disorder has burned down the current system and led to a very different world.
Kirk: Does this feel like the Tea Party? In 2009 there was frustration about policies, and we thought that the GOP could be part of the solution, now there is incandescent rage at the entire system, and the fury at the GOP is greater than at the Dems. There have been a few quotes in recent weeks about GOP congresscretins being surprised to go back home and hear how angry people are at them, for not supporting Trump enough. I honestly think we need to pass a law that members of Congress can’t leave their districts while in office, and that would go a long way towards moving them back towards representing their constituents and not DC interests.
I have relatives who are old Italians who vote Dem 100% because FDR saved the country. They have zero interest in or support of “woke” issues, but they still put out their signs and vote 100% for the Dem at every level. Party matters, is all I’m saying, and that’s why starting a Patriot or MAGA or whatever party is a terrible idea.
It may be too late. Remember our thread here in the summer or so about whether we were on the brink of civil war? I said nah, not unless…well, everything that’s happened since November happened…I sound like a prophet here, but it was all pretty obviously coming…
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/63692.html#comment-1037268
“Let’s posit a really bad scenario:
At midnight on election night the map looks just like 2016. Trump leads in all of the same states, with leads of several hundred thousand in FL, WI, MI, PA.
Biden refuses to concede since there are so many mail in votes outstanding.
Over the next month enough votes are “found” and counted to flip each of those upper Midwest states, perhaps even FL. Lawsuits are constant in all of them, i.e. it’s basically FL 2000 on steroids. At the same time so many votes are coming in from CA that Biden is clearly the national vote winner.
The Dems and the media are constantly screaming that Trump is subverting democracy. The likes of Romney, Murkowski, etc, are at first quietly, then loudly saying Trump needs to face facts and concede.
I don’t even want to relook up Electoral College details, but Biden is declared the winner. The Senate is even, let’s say.
The Dems in the first month propose stuff like strict gun control, legalization of all “undocumented”, fracking ban, etc. Nothing gets passed. RBG resigns. The Dems confirm some lesbian Asian. They say that 51 is good enough for justices, it should do for legislation.
They abolish the filibuster, and pass all the above. Lawsuits immediately start flying from red states. Mostly either lose or very slowly wind their way through the courts.
I’m still trying to figure out where the “people start shooting each other” happens in any realistic scenario?
The first time someone on the “right” does anything violent they’ll be held up as an example of violent insurrection and their victim made a martyr. Anything vice versa will be suppressed a la the Steve Scalise shooting.”
Remember when we thought that we still lived in America?
https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1355205878585110533
“Disgraced FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith has been sentenced to PROBATION.
Alter a CIA email, lie to your FBI supervisor, cause the FBI/DOJ to lie to the FISA Court: PROBATION!
Message of today: we live in a clown world.”
(note: the “lie to your FBI supervisor” thing is nonsense–they were all in on it, the FBI is a joke and needs to be abolished.)
Ginny had me until she said Trump may or my not have won. Everybody knows that Trump won, and we have to be unafraid to say so at every opportunity.
The problem we have with the GOP is the same problem the Bernie Bros have with the Dems … the professionals at the top have rigged the system so they can dominate it.
Until they are rendered irrelevant, a takeover of the GOP will not succeed … so perhaps the best way to do that is to leave them in a rump GOP to die on the vine.
We have a critical mass of people right now who might be amenable to that, in favor of establishing a new party designed from the start to thwart the professionals from dominating it. But the effort needs to start now, in order to get around all the hoops the major parties have erected in election/ballot-access laws to maintain their advantage.
Kurt Schlichter agrees w me.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/01/28/stop-the-third-party-insanity-n2583768?281
“Ditching the GOP is a bad idea born of justifiable frustration, and we need to stop being emotional and start being ruthless in our campaign to retake this country from these liberal establishment aspiring fascists. A third party is not the way. It is a bad idea, one that is technically impractical and which is strategically inept. It will lead to disaster. And the Democrats know it, which is why they love this third party palaver. The only thing that makes the tooting likes of Eric Swalwell coo in delight harder than some mediocre Chi Com honeypot is the thought of us conservatives committing ritual suicide by splitting our half of the country in two because some of the 50 percent of Americans in our camp are insufferable sissies.”
Brian ! Brian ! Brian ! You still don’t get it. Electoral politics is over, finished, kaput, done.
Suppose the Republicrats were to be transformed overnight into a coherent group of people committed to federalism, small government, and equality under the law. What could they do? They are not going to win elections as long as Democrats control the counting process (as they do now). They are not even going to get their message out of the echo chamber as long as the Democrats and their super-rich backers control all the media, including social media. They are not even going to be able to get justice in the Courts in a country where the “supreme court” looks the other way when confronted with obvious electoral fraud.
All we can do is wait until the utter foolishness of the Political Class destroys the economy of the US, leading to the collapse of the current system. With an unrepayable National Debt, unsustainable Federal Budget Deficits, and unsustainable Trade Deficits — that crisis may occur sooner than some of us expect. Then we need to be ready to rebuild from the rubble.
Gavin, if you have no stomach for this fight, you may depart, we would not die in that man’s company who would not die with us, etc., etc.
Brian:
I suspect that Gavin is not a quitter, but realizes that the rules of the game have changed beyond anything our normal world views could conceive. I have been in a debate at INSTAPUNDIT today reference Col. Schlichter’s defense of the Republican Party as is.
We are now unavoidably in a very different game. If I may offer a short quote of myself there:
“1) because of fraud and GOPe betrayal, we cannot win electorally in or out of the Republican Party. And the Republican Party has micturated in the Wheaties of all their non-GOPe constituents, who no longer owe them even feigned loyalty.
2) to create an alternative view of what politics is and should be, outside of Leftist totalitarianism and GOPe submission, we have to create a definitely separate voice from the Republicans.
3) see #1 above, we cannot win electorally because all elections are as rigged as they were in the Soviet Union. HOWEVER even the temporary existence of a separate voice, which will eventually be crushed by the Security Organs of State Power in a series of atrocities will be battlefield preparation for the struggle to come.
4) resistance to the dictatorial state will no longer be complicated by past loyalties, and the fight will be on. There is no guarantee that the forces of liberty will win. Submission to the current regime and its allies does guarantee no chance for our children and grandchildren to be free.
Not defeatist. Cynical realism. Prevailing does not have to be immediate. It does not have to be electoral. And we are at the point where neither victory nor survival are guaranteed. Our children and grandchildren will write the new social compact.
Subotai Bahadur
We’re just going in circles here. The GOP is going to take back Congress in 2 years, quite easily, unless the base does something stupid like just not show up, and even then they probably still win easily since the economy is going to be a disaster and who knows what foreign policy debacles are going to happen. Good grief, chin up, people.
Brian: “Gavin, if you have no stomach for this fight, you may depart …”
Brian, I am not trying to avoid the fight — it is simply that we need to be brutally honest with ourselves about the current situation and chose our future battles carefully. Let’s try to identify a battle which we might win (although, as Subotai makes clear, it will be a long — even multi-generational — struggle, with no guarantee of success). Let’s not waste our efforts on a fight we are certain to lose.
The Democrat Establishment controls the horizontal and the vertical, the vote-counting and the courts, the legacy media and the new media. There is a very low probability of beating them on their home turf. What they don’t control is the economy, which their own actions are causing to collapse. And the Chinese Communist Party is watching closely, ready to give the stumbling US a powerful shove at a time of their own choosing. History suggests that the inevitable collapse will likely be followed by chaos, poverty, and eventually a strongman.
For now, those of us who don’t like that future have to keep alive the doubleplus wrongthink ideas of limited government and equality under the law. We have to look to history and learn where the US jumped the tracks, and devise methods to (literally) build back better. Especially, we have to spread the word among the untutored and increasingly disaffected young. It is a big challenge, and not one where current Republicrats have much to contribute.
re: GOPe, is there any instance on record where the Dems disavow one of their own? Ever? They “no comment” and/or defend to the end the most insane stuff from their side, and now again the GOPe is wetting itself apologizing for Trump and now some rando House freshman. Pathetic losers. I don’t blame anyone for wanting to wash their hands of them completely…