Lets discuss the coven of left wing bullies, faking their christianity on here.

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Comments

  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    edited May 2019
    Ohher's post actually puts it rather well. Having lived a long time, I recognise her father's personal code which contained merit. He would recognise Donald Trump as dishonest, dishonourable, untrustworthy, unfit to be trusted with high public office.

    The problem I see with the dark side of his code, which Ohher spells out very well and which I also found in some of my old deceased relatives is that I think that part of his code was also dishonourable. But I think the blind spots and unfairness to others it contained were not obvious in previous cultures. They were 'respectable'. They protected enduring privilege. In my lifetime, the lid has been lifted off and the unfairnesses have been revealed for what they are. As Ohher has accurately summarised.

    Continuing to support such values, giving them some cover of 'respectability,' is reprehensible. Ohher's dad's code of honour contained things we now, correctly, recognise as dishonourable. Something about the past to acknowledge with shame. But I see many rank and file GOP members who are in denial about that.

    Reminds me of a line from James Blish's marvellous book 'A Case of Conscience'.

    "He wanted nothing to change and was now, unchangeably, nothing".

  • Ruth wrote: »
    You know, fuck it all. Go ahead and believe I’m an idiot liar acting in bad faith like every other Republican in recorded history. And hold me personally responsible for Trump, too, and every one of his evil policies. I’m fucking done with trying to explain anything to you.

    Still not one damn thing the Republican party has done that you can point to as a reason for being a registered Republican. So sure, go ahead and throw a tantrum and leave the thread. Because you've got exactly nothing to justify your position.

    Before Nixon was that party okay?
    Definitely terrible for those not wealthy once Reagan showed up and did his so very Christian Raidenomics. Which hurt everyone around the world because of America's great economic influence. Basically looking like a plan to prop up an economic order at home by specifically planning the exploitation of defenseless poor countries for their resources.

    And the huge amount of money spent making ploughshares into swords, FDRs today (flying death robots). To defend the economic interests of those at the top. Which damns the whole. So much spent on killing people.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Ohher's post actually puts it rather well. Having lived a long time, I recognise her father's personal code which contained merit. He would recognise Donald Trump as dishonest, dishonourable, untrustworthy, unfit to be trusted with high public office.

    The problem I see with the dark side of his code, which Ohher spells out very well and which I also found in some of my old deceased relatives is that I think that part of his code was also dishonourable. But I think the blind spots and unfairness to others it contained were not obvious in previous cultures.

    A case can be (and has been) made that there has been a well coordinated propaganda effort to transform people like @Ohher's dad into rage-fueled extremists. Luke O'Neil collected stories from people whose older relatives got addicted to Fox News and changed from basically decent, if someone conservative, people like @Ohher's father into the kind of people who'd support abducting children and putting them in cages. He also wrote an article about it for New York magazine.
    No matter where the stories came from they all featured a few familiar beats: A loved one seemed to have changed over time. Maybe that person was already somewhat conservative to start. Maybe they were apolitical. But at one point or another, they sat down in front of Fox News, found some kind of deep, addictive comfort in the anger and paranoia, and became a different person — someone difficult, if not impossible, to spend time with. The fallout led to failed marriages and estranged parental relationships. For at least one person, it marks the final memory he’ll ever have of his father: “When I found my dad dead in his armchair, fucking Fox News was on the TV,” this reader told me. “It’s likely the last thing he saw. I hate what that channel and conservative talk radio did to my funny, compassionate dad. He spent the last years of his life increasingly angry, bigoted, and paranoid.”

    Both articles are worth a read if you've got the time.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    The US has two main political parties. One is right-wing. The other is really right-wing.

    I don't see that as much of a choice, tbh.

    This was also true of Thatcher and Blair.

  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    You know, fuck it all. Go ahead and believe I’m an idiot liar acting in bad faith like every other Republican in recorded history. And hold me personally responsible for Trump, too, and every one of his evil policies. I’m fucking done with trying to explain anything to you.

    This is absurd. The only person here conflating you with Trump or the Republican party is you.

    Remember you started in here with this
    May I suggest that there are a great many more like me out there, but they don't get any air time because a) the idiots scream louder, and b) our colleagues on the liberal side have forgotten we exist. I darkly suspect that some of them have willfully forgotten we exist, because it's hard to demonize a whole faction when you remember that there are reasonable people possessing hearts in it who joined that group purely because they are fiscally cautious. (Another thing Trump emphatically isn't)
    A delightful combination of delusion and accusation of bad faith against liberals, with a truly hilarious invocation of fiscal caution - as if you're completely unaware of the history of US budgets over the last 40 years.

    But then you had the unmitigated gall to add this:
    PS I suppose, also, because we have a tendency to expect the worst of human nature, and fear that our liberal friends are too easily taken in by evil-minded liars (and here I'm thinking dictators and strongmen--another case where Trump's ***kissing ways don't fit with proper conservatism).
    In the face of two years of fervent conservative support for Trump, you have the nerve to say that you fear liberals are too easily taken in by evil-minded liars?

    Who the fuck do you think got Trump into office? Must have been those evil other-demonizing fiscally incautious liberals, adoring evil-minded lying dictators and strongmen! Oh wait, no - those were conservatives? No, that's not true! That's impossible! No true conservative! But where are the never-Trump conservatives? Why do we never hear of them? Their numbers are surely vast, but nearly all are invisible and very shy, so they almost never talk to outsiders and are nearly undetectable in polls. They're the neutrinos of the political world.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Two -- well, one-and-a-half -- Republican "goods," neither recent:

    1. The Emancipation Proclamation
    2. Republican role in the 19th Amendment (yeah, Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat; but it was Congress whut did the deed, though it certainly took its time.)
  • You know, fuck it all. Go ahead and believe I’m an idiot liar acting in bad faith like every other Republican in recorded history. And hold me personally responsible for Trump, too, and every one of his evil policies. I’m fucking done with trying to explain anything to you.

    No one thinks you're a bad person, LC. Honestly, from things you have posted here it sounds like you're a far better Christian than most of us. (I don't comment much but have been lurking around here for... ten years or so? So I have read about your hard, self-sacrificial work on behalf of poor people and refugees. It's certainly more than most of us have done or will ever do.)

    I think what is puzzling us is why you would have spent a significant part of your adult life in a party that's diametrically opposed to your sincere, lived-out values. Does it not frustrate you to spend so much of your own time and money and energy supporting the poor and vulnerable, just to watch Republicans slap them right down again? They've been harming poor people and blowing up the federal budget with debt since at least 1980, this isn't a symptom of the last couple elections. You have worked for/with your friends and neighbors so hard. Why undermine them with your vote?

    Missouri Republicans seem to be even nastier than the national party. They shot down the Medicaid expansion, which would have saved thousands of lives and cost them exactly zero dollars through 2016 (and only 10% of the total cost thereafter).

    I'm sympathetic to the idea of strategic voting - my own dad spent decades registered Republican in North Carolina just so that he could vote against Jesse Helms in primaries and then vote Democrat in the general. But that's different from being a sincere Republican for a long time and only getting disillusioned in the 2010s.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    Fascinating links, Croesos. I've thought for years that Fox News and similar alt right media were poisonous, but hadn't given too much thought about who might be poisoned.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    You know, fuck it all. Go ahead and believe I’m an idiot liar acting in bad faith like every other Republican in recorded history. And hold me personally responsible for Trump, too, and every one of his evil policies. I’m fucking done with trying to explain anything to you.

    Still not one damn thing the Republican party has done that you can point to as a reason for being a registered Republican. So sure, go ahead and throw a tantrum and leave the thread. Because you've got exactly nothing to justify your position.

    Thanks, Ruth. I am actually leaving the thread because it is provoking all my self-harming tendencies and I'm not going there. Carry on.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited May 2019
    ((LC))

    I'm sorry its gone this way. It could have been interesting. However, personal health must come first. Hopefully one of the other US conservatives can take up the slack.

    I find the stuff about David Brookes interesting. I usually encounter him on PBS Newshour. I wonder if his unwarranted criticism of Obama was in part related to his own investment in being 'the Republican guy', and as the Republicans shifted right in their stonewalling of Obama and in response to the radicalising of their electorate, Brookes couldn't bear to give his allegiance away. And so, he instead became obviously conflicted. Is that what's happening to some life-long Republicans now?

    Its hard to comprehend that for me, as I bounce around the spectrum from issue to issue, mood to mood. But I can see that party affiliation, like church affiliation, might be a particularly difficult thing to change.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate
    Choosing sides can be complicated, and have consequences.

    Writer Christopher Buckley, son of the late and brilliant conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr., voted for Obama in 2008.

    "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama" (Daily Beast).

    For the vote and that article, CB was pushed out of the magazine his late father founded, The National Review. I gather he later was displeased with Pres. Obama. But there was a firestorm over the whole thing. (Search on "Christopher Buckley Obama").

  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    ((LC))

    ... Hopefully one of the other US conservatives can take up the slack.

    ...
    Don't hold your breath. Most conservatives are given a pretty rough ride, just like was given to LC. This being hell, that is to be expected even more than in purgatory. I'm not sure why anyone would willfully walk into this one.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    Let's try a straightforward question or two.

    1. What do your think of the Fox News channel?
    2. What did you make of Croesos's links about its impact?
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    Let me clarify. I believe there is a real value in enabling people to distinguish between news and propaganda. Any methodology for doing that should be independent of political viewpoint. The critical method used should focus on what is verifiable (fact checking) as opposed to what is simply asserted.

    It also helps to have some historical insight into the baleful effects of propaganda and the dangers of uncritical acceptance. I suppose in biblical terms what I'm talking about is our itching ears. Without critical check we are all in danger of uncritical acceptance of statements which feed out prejudices and prior opinions.

    That's not the way to learn, nor to understand.

  • Don't hold your breath. Most conservatives are given a pretty rough ride, just like was given to LC. This being hell, that is to be expected even more than in purgatory. I'm not sure why anyone would willfully walk into this one.

    Lamb Chopped was unable to name a single positive thing the GOP has done since Reconstruction and then flounced. That's not a rough ride, that's getting caught bluffing without even a pair of deuces.

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I just wish we still had sigs so that I could make mine "proud member of the Left Wing Bully Coven"
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    My sig would be "very stable genius".
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    ((LC))

    ... Hopefully one of the other US conservatives can take up the slack.

    ...
    Don't hold your breath. Most conservatives are given a pretty rough ride, just like was given to LC. This being hell, that is to be expected even more than in purgatory. I'm not sure why anyone would willfully walk into this one.
    US conservatives and their party gave us Donald Trump. I think any conservative who fails to come to grips with that but instead peddles fatuous bullshit about "a great many" never-Trumpers who are only in it for "fiscal caution" and whose vast numbers are maliciously denied by liberals with a soft spot for "evil-minded liars" can hardly expect to be welcomed with sweets and flowers.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    I suppose if you support a strict view of the Constitution, your primary position is defensive. Rather like the old Anglican churchwarden, when a new Bishop observed that in his time he must have seen many changes. 'Yes' he replied, 'and I am proud to say that I resisted every single one of them'.
  • anoesisanoesis Shipmate
    Dave W wrote: »
    US conservatives and their party gave us Donald Trump. I think any conservative who fails to come to grips with that but instead peddles fatuous bullshit about "a great many" never-Trumpers who are only in it for "fiscal caution" and whose vast numbers are maliciously denied by liberals with a soft spot for "evil-minded liars" can hardly expect to be welcomed with sweets and flowers.

    Okay - but say, just say, that somewhere upthread, someone had alleged that Muslims have a monopoly on, I dunno...terrorism, forced marriage, and capital punishment, shall we say - and a long-time shipmate and poster had piped up and said, "Uh, I'm a Muslim, and that's actually not a fair characterisation." Would that shipmate have copped quite so much shit as LambChopped has, here?

    I mean, the thing that really got her going was this exchange:
    sionisais wrote:
    Then again, Trump is hardly a Republican. I believe he was a Democrat until he got presidential ambitions, whereupon it was pointed out that the Democrat vote wouldn't turn out for him, but the Republicans just might.
    Crœsos wrote:
    Donald Trump is a racist, sexist greedmonster. In what way isn't he a Republican?

    I can understand why such a statement might get under someone's skin, if they identify as Republican. What I can't understand, is why not one person, so far, has called it out as the utter, utter, bullshit it so evidently is. Croesos' comment, off-the-cuff though it may have been, goes further than suggesting, even, that all Republicans are evil. It suggests that all evil people, when the veneer is scratched off, are Republicans. Which is just mind-bogglingly stupid - Republicans don't have any sort of worldwide trademark on bigotry, venality, and xenophobia, even in this inglorious hour.
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    No, that's not how it happened. The post I'm quoting came four days before that. Croesos can speak for himself, but I don't think LC has any justifiable kind of claim to hurt feelings after the bullshit she was pleased to spread.
  • anoesisanoesis Shipmate
    Dave W wrote: »
    No, that's not how it happened. The post I'm quoting came four days before that. Croesos can speak for himself, but I don't think LC has any justifiable kind of claim to hurt feelings after the bullshit she was pleased to spread.

    Uh...the post of yours, that I responded to, quoted Sharkshooter, and was from May 12, which is yesterday, here, and today, in most places. However, that's not my main point, and probably not yours, either.

    I'm not seeking to deny or paper over the fact that LambChopped has been unable to substantiate some of the claims she's made - but nonetheless I really do think the dog-piling has been disproportionate to the provocation supplied. She is well-known, and (I had thought) generally well-respected on these boards. She's not given to trolling, or being contrarian in, general. On this occasion, she's taking a position that the majority of shippies disagree with, but it feels to me like it's gone beyond disagreeing - instead people are falling over themselves to be the first to fucking hold their skirts out of the way and shake the dust off their shoes, which isn't a great look, in my view.
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    LC wrote this on May 5:
    Simon Toad, I'm glad to have delighted you. May I suggest that there are a great many more like me out there, but they don't get any air time because a) the idiots scream louder, and b) our colleagues on the liberal side have forgotten we exist. I darkly suspect that some of them have willfully forgotten we exist, because it's hard to demonize a whole faction when you remember that there are reasonable people possessing hearts in it who joined that group purely because they are fiscally cautious. (Another thing Trump emphatically isn't)

    PS I suppose, also, because we have a tendency to expect the worst of human nature, and fear that our liberal friends are too easily taken in by evil-minded liars (and here I'm thinking dictators and strongmen--another case where Trump's ***kissing ways don't fit with proper conservatism). In short, we hidden conservatives are basically just cautious. Not assholes. And not intrinsically opposed (God help us) to measures that help real human beings in need. Simply concerned with the best way to carry them out.
    That's the post of LC's that I was quoting (the use of "quotation marks" around several key phrases might have tipped you off, along with the link I supplied.)

    I think this is a big steaming load of bullshit, and since she chose to post it in Hell I feel quite comfortable saying so.

    Nobody should feel required to pretend along with her that there are large numbers of anti-Trump "hidden conservatives" who are just "fiscally cautious", or that the real problem is that liberals are "too easily taken in by evil-minded liars."
  • anoesisanoesis Shipmate
    DaveW, I'm going to defer to you on this one, because, insofar as I understand things, you occupy the same continent as LambChopped, and are thus less likely than me to be having cross-pond/cross-cultural misunderstanding going on, with respect to that post. I had read that post of LambChopped's, and I honestly (I mean, really, actually), interpreted aspects of that second paragraph as self-deprecating-ironic-edging-into-sarcastic, (eg: 'evil-minded liars', 'proper conservatism'), and thus didn't take it seriously. Looking at it again, I accept that anyone who self-identifies as liberal and did take it seriously is justified in feeling that they have been supplied with a degree of provocation. I'm still sad the whole thing has gone down the way it has, though.
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    I think it's safe to say that on this side of the pond, at least, self-deprecation usually doesn't involve accusing the other side of bad faith and having a weakness for evil-minded liars.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    It may be different elsewhere, and I'm plainly speculating here, but it's worth considering how and why people end up identifying with a political party at all. I wonder if it's all that different from how we end up in our assorted religions/ denominations / etc. According t Pew Research, people reared in a single-faith household tend (if they follow any religion at all) to stick to what they were raised with.

    I was struck, on another discussion board, when a poster I knew fairly well spoke about his kids, mentioning that his 12-y.o. daughter had asked him, "We're Republican, aren't we?" It came across to me exactly as though she'd asked, "We're Presbyterian (or whatever), aren't we?" I think she was asking about identity, not political affiliation.

    Since kids can't vote, most of us likely think of civic engagement as an adult activity. But if we grow up in households where politics gets discussed and where adults claim a party allegiance and vote, isn't it likely we'll follow parental leads here as well?

    I know that Crœsos often characterizes Republicans in decidedly negative ways, and I've never called him on this because I generally agree with this view, though I don't necessarily agree with his wording . Currently, AFAICT, that political party really is up to no good. But is it really fair to assume that anyone who has recently worn that label or voted that way is 100% on board with stacking courts, stonewalling Congress, etc.?

    After all, with only two parties to choose from, and with both parties having less-than-pristine track records, a voter who "signs on" as an affiliate to either inevitably dances with some devils. Coupled with the likelihood that we're following family footsteps in our political worldviews, it reall does seem unfair to come down on LC as we have.
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    You can apologize if you think you’ve been unfair, of course; I don’t think I have been. I haven’t accused her of being personally responsible for Trump and the Republican party; that was her own petulant formulation.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Dave W wrote: »
    Don't be ridiculous. Do you honestly think that Clinton's scandal was even remotely comparable to the multi-dimensional garbage fire the Republican party has visited upon us? That the problem with Trump is that he's been unfaithful to Melania? That if he only had the personal affect of Mike Pence, everything would be fine? ...
    The Clintons are, frankly, an appalling pair to whom the rules have never applied, any more than they apply to Trump. The way they've run their private charity is not nearly so disgraceful as what he did with his, but it's not good. HRC using a private email server for government business is not good. In some ways, they paved the way for Trump, just as Obama's overuse of executive orders helped pave the way for Trump.

    I voted for HRC because I could never - as a Christian, as a thinking human being, as a moral human being - vote for that malign misogynistic sociopath.

    I lived in Cook County, Illinois, for years, and I usually voted for Republicans there because the alternative was open, matter-of-fact, flaunt-it corruption. There are no saints in this business, but they were better than the party of the Daleys and Madigans.

    I vote for individuals, not party labels. I'm voting for a lot fewer Republicans now, because I will not vote for a Trump supporter. But @Lamb Chopped is not the only decent Republican I know. And if Trump has a challenger in the Republican primary, I'll take a Republican ballot and vote against that loathsome narcissist.



  • Thing is, if the supposedly decent republicans exist in large numbers, why is it not a single republican senator or congressperson is willing to defy the orange menace?

    The reason LC got a lot of stick is that denouncing Trump is insufficient to claim decency; one might also need to distance onseself from the other awful actions of republicans over the last half century that have gleefully persecuted the poor and vulnerable. Just like if I call myself a communist I have to explain I'm not in favour of gulags, purges, ideologically induced famines and so forth, only more so because the Republicans are perpetrating active harm right now.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate
    Thing is, if the supposedly decent republicans exist in large numbers, why is it not a single republican senator or congressperson is willing to defy the orange menace?

    Isn't it obvious by now that Repub. senators and congresscritters are perfectly comfortable ignoring and/or defying their constituents' demands? The "supposedly decent republicans" came out, along with Democrats and Independents, in town halls to protest the gutting of health care; they sat in politicians' offices, etc. Then these protesters were characterized as "opponents." It's part of their strategy now to claim cover for their decisions only when it's the extremists they respond to; everyone else, including fellow repubs, are now "the socialist pinko commie traitors to the cause."
    The reason LC got a lot of stick is that denouncing Trump is insufficient to claim decency; one might also need to distance onseself from the other awful actions of republicans over the last half century that have gleefully persecuted the poor and vulnerable. Just like if I call myself a communist I have to explain I'm not in favour of gulags, purges, ideologically induced famines and so forth, only more so because the Republicans are perpetrating active harm right now.

    Exactly what was LC and others like her required to do to demonstrate their decency? She DID do more than denounce the orange idiot; she voted for his opponent. I'm sure the 3 million vote plurality that went to Clinton included more than a sprinkling of Republicans.

    And how, exactly, does a (say) 35-y.o. Democrat in 2019 distance herself from the profound and poisonous racism that party promoted 70 years ago? How does she go about that, exactly? Do we now have "do-over" powers that allow us to alter parties' histories? Neither party can offer ideologically pure track records. Yet somehow we're willing to shrug off the Dems' sins as a case of "That was then; this is now," while insisting that the rank-and-file membership of those who identify as Republican have zero power to redeem their party from the errors of its current ways.

    THAT IS the real point of LC's cri de coeur about remaining WITHIN her party: the urgent need, the pressing demand, for change from those who embrace some of the party's ideological stances. If the party sheds all its decent members, the need for change and the demand for getting the party back on its small-d democratic rails disappears -- and the two-party system along with it.

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Rossweisse, I cannot believe you're going with "but her emails" at this point. That that comes even close to the level of shit were seeing in the current administration would be laughable if it the press's promotion of this ridiculous notion hadn't directly contributed to Trump's election.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    anoesis wrote: »
    I mean, the thing that really got her going was this exchange:
    sionisais wrote:
    Then again, Trump is hardly a Republican. I believe he was a Democrat until he got presidential ambitions, whereupon it was pointed out that the Democrat vote wouldn't turn out for him, but the Republicans just might.
    Crœsos wrote:
    Donald Trump is a racist, sexist greedmonster. In what way isn't he a Republican?

    I can understand why such a statement might get under someone's skin, if they identify as Republican. What I can't understand, is why not one person, so far, has called it out as the utter, utter, bullshit it so evidently is. Crœsos' comment, off-the-cuff though it may have been, goes further than suggesting, even, that all Republicans are evil. It suggests that all evil people, when the veneer is scratched off, are Republicans. Which is just mind-bogglingly stupid - Republicans don't have any sort of worldwide trademark on bigotry, venality, and xenophobia, even in this inglorious hour.

    The question isn't whether sexism, racism, and venality exist outside the Republican party. The point is that those things are official Republican policy and pretending to be some wide-eyed innocent who asks "What is this Southern Strategy of which you speak?" (or similar) is not credible at this point. Donald Trump is a perfect fit for the party of Newt Gingrich, Jesse Helms, and George W. Bush. Contrary to what various apologists claim, this is not some shocking recent development but the obvious end-point towards which the Republican party has been shambling since at least the 1980s, and I don't think the problem can be solved if it's still considered bad manners to even mention it!
  • jbohnjbohn Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    jbohn wrote: »
    Ruth wrote: »
    I'd be interested to see a list of the good things championed by the Republican party in the last 60 years.

    Diplomatic relations with China?

    I'm not sure this counts, given that Republican red-baiting was one of the main reasons the U.S. didn't have diplomatic relations with mainland China before the 1970s. In other words American presidents prior to Nixon were unwilling to normalize relations with China for fear of being red-baited by people like . . . Richard Nixon.

    It's a reach - but it's about the only good thing I could come up with having come from the GOP in the last 60 years...
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    As an addendum, I came across this article by a member of the Iowa state legislature on why he's switching to the Democratic party. He took a 15 year break from being in the legislature to serve as county supervisor. The change when he returned to the state legislature was notable:
    I also found a very changed Republican caucus. While I have great respect and personal regard for my Republican colleagues, I found myself more and more uncomfortable with the stance of my party on the majority of high-profile issues, such as gutting Iowa’s collective-bargaining law and politicizing our method of selecting judges. I worked for changes to improve legislation that I had concerns about, but also voted against many of these priorities.

    I might have limped along — attempting to work within my caucus for what I felt was best for the people I represent — if it hadn’t been for another factor. With the 2020 presidential election looming on the horizon, I felt, as a Republican, that I needed to be able to support the standard-bearer of the party. Unfortunately, that is something I’m unable to do.

    He goes on to put more blame for this on Donald Trump personally than I would assign, but it's a good read and short.
  • Ohher wrote: »

    And how, exactly, does a (say) 35-y.o. Democrat in 2019 distance herself from the profound and poisonous racism that party promoted 70 years ago? How does she go about that, exactly? Do we now have "do-over" powers that allow us to alter parties' histories? Neither party can offer ideologically pure track records. Yet somehow we're willing to shrug off the Dems' sins as a case of "That was then; this is now," while insisting that the rank-and-file membership of those who identify as Republican have zero power to redeem their party from the errors of its current ways.

    THAT IS the real point of LC's cri de coeur about remaining WITHIN her party: the urgent need, the pressing demand, for change from those who embrace some of the party's ideological stances. If the party sheds all its decent members, the need for change and the demand for getting the party back on its small-d democratic rails disappears -- and the two-party system along with it.

    You seem to be suggesting the disappearance of the two-party system would be a bad thing. Kill the republican party and it might be possible to have a meaningful discussion about the problems America faces that the Republicans have repeatedly sabotaged solutions for, like healthcare or gun violence or gerrymandering. You might even have the emergence of two sane parties. Trying to stop the GOP being racist, misogynistic, transphobic et al is like trying to get the Church of Scotland to renounce Presbyterianism and restore Episcopacy. Sure, you could do it if you got enough people on to the General Assembly but why on earth would you bother and what would you have once you succeeded? Presbyterianism is kind of the point of the Church of Scotland. What is it about the GOP that is worth saving?

  • Colin SmithColin Smith Suspended
    edited May 2019
    Is this commitment to and identification with one political brand, regardless of its stance on social issues, a consequence of the US two-party system? Or is it more to do with the way a person's politics in the US seems to encapsulate something about that person's whole outlook on life to a greater degree than what happens in the UK?

    Over the forty years I've voted in the UK I've usually had at least three parties to choose from, and often many more. Currently, there are... well, more parties than I can immediately number but it's somewhere around 7, excluding regional parties like PC and the SNP. That means that if I disagree with whatever my party of preference is doing I can vote for another party without having to vote for my preferred party's main rival. That makes it far easier for me to register a protest vote or to help highlight particular concerns. In a two-party system any vote for another (the other) party is far closer to an act of betrayal.
  • OhherOhher Shipmate

    You seem to be suggesting the disappearance of the two-party system would be a bad thing.

    [/quote]

    It's infinitely preferable to one-party rule, which is the current alternative.

  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Ohher wrote: »
    You seem to be suggesting the disappearance of the two-party system would be a bad thing.

    It's infinitely preferable to one-party rule, which is the current alternative.

    Given both Duverger's rule and American history (see my previous brief essay on how the collapse of the American Whigs led almost immediately to the emergence of the Republican party) any one-party system in American politics is likely to be relatively brief. (See also the Era of Good Feelings for a similarly short-lived era of single party politics.) The electoral structure of the American Constitutional system (plurality-rule, single representative districts, etc.) tends towards the existence of exactly two political parties.
  • So the thread that was started to discuss how terrible left wingers are has turned into a failed search for good right-wing policies.

    My cockles are strangely warmed.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited May 2019
    Well yes. The problem with the Republican party is not corruption, narcissism, or any other misbehaviour by its elected representatives. It's the fact that it's a right-wing party dedicated to making the rich richer, keeping healthcare available only to those who can afford it (and never mind who dies) and generally follow a right-wing programme which screws the disadvantaged.

    Like the Tories, really, only worse.

    To this it adds screwing any attempt to put a lid on the USA's appalling gun deaths statistics and giving voice to reactionary religious fundamentalists who want to control other people's sex lives and be allowed to fuck over gay people when ever their twisted religion tells them they should.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    Thing is, if the supposedly decent republicans exist in large numbers, why is it not a single republican senator or congressperson is willing to defy the orange menace?

    The reason LC got a lot of stick is that denouncing Trump is insufficient to claim decency; one might also need to distance onseself from the other awful actions of republicans over the last half century that have gleefully persecuted the poor and vulnerable. Just like if I call myself a communist I have to explain I'm not in favour of gulags, purges, ideologically induced famines and so forth, only more so because the Republicans are perpetrating active harm right now.

    China is still a human rights disaster area. Let me know if you need that substantiated.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    I think one of the problems about the treatment of LC is that people were very easily triggered by her attacks on liberals, rather than focused on making her feel comfortable about expressing her opinions, so that a genuine exchange of views could take place.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Yes, let's focus on making people feel comfortable spouting nonsense.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Ruth wrote: »
    Rossweisse, I cannot believe you're going with "but her emails" at this point. That that comes even close to the level of shit were seeing in the current administration would be laughable if it the press's promotion of this ridiculous notion hadn't directly contributed to Trump's election.
    I'm not. It's just another example of how the usual rules do not apply to the Clintons. I voted for her, though, and I would absolutely do it again.

    The level of real evil being promoted by the current administration truly makes me fear for the future of the Republic. I have always shunned party labels, but if I had to choose one today, it definitely could not be Republican.

  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Thing is, if the supposedly decent republicans exist in large numbers, why is it not a single republican senator or congressperson is willing to defy the orange menace?

    The reason LC got a lot of stick is that denouncing Trump is insufficient to claim decency; one might also need to distance onseself from the other awful actions of republicans over the last half century that have gleefully persecuted the poor and vulnerable. Just like if I call myself a communist I have to explain I'm not in favour of gulags, purges, ideologically induced famines and so forth, only more so because the Republicans are perpetrating active harm right now.

    China is still a human rights disaster area. Let me know if you need that substantiated.

    Sure, but it ceased to be communist in any meaningful sense some time ago. Unless you want to claim the DPRK as an example of democracy? That, of course, is the distinction here. I can point to ideals in communism that are at least arguably worth salvaging. I would struggle to do that with the GOP.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I think one of the problems about the treatment of LC is that people were very easily triggered by her attacks on liberals, rather than focused on making her feel comfortable about expressing her opinions, so that a genuine exchange of views could take place.

    1. Hell.
    2. She didn't attack liberals, more waved a white handkerchief
    3. No one stopped her expressing her opinions. She didn't have any to express.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    Ruth wrote: »
    Rossweisse, I cannot believe you're going with "but her emails" at this point. That that comes even close to the level of shit were seeing in the current administration would be laughable if it the press's promotion of this ridiculous notion hadn't directly contributed to Trump's election.
    I'm not. It's just another example of how the usual rules do not apply to the Clintons.

    Yeah, remember when Colin Powell was put on trial for using private email as Secretary of State? Or when Condoleezza Rice got prison time for it? Yeah, me neither. I'd agree that "the usual rules do not apply to the Clintons", but I don't think I'd inflect it exactly the way you would. Things which get overlooked when done by anyone else suddenly become a big federal case (literally) when a Clinton is involved.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    Ruth wrote: »
    Yes, let's focus on making people feel comfortable spouting nonsense.

    Its easier to talk through the issues when people feel comfortable. You might even find common ground, or even change someone's mind, or modify your own opinion. Hell isn't the board, but that was where we found ourselves.
  • You're right. Hell isn't the board.

    Pro-tip: it never will be the board.
  • There's also this: Do you really WANT a one-party system in the U.S.? Because if the Republican Party destroys itself (and it's damned close to having done so, if not over the line already), that's effectively what we'll have. None of the smaller parties are big enough to step up yet. And a de facto one-party system here would be a disaster.

    No, it isn't. If the Republican party finally explodes, you'll have Democrat domination for less than a decade before a viable second party emerges from the ashes. The Democrats are a big tent - they'll stay united for as long as they have more in common than they do with Republicans, but if the Republican party disappears, the Democrats will naturally fragment into a progressive-lefty grouping and a centrist grouping. And the centrist Democrats won't be so terribly different from where the Republicans were a generation ago on many issues.



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