Which Came First? The Republican Chicken or the Trump Egg? At This Point, It Doesn't Make a Lick Of Dlifference!
How did we get here? It looks like "Humpty Trumpty" is on the way to a great fall. The way that all the kings horses and all the kings men are jumping off the rapidly sinking ship, there won't be anyone left to put Humpty Trumpty together again {except for maybe Sean Hannity and Steve Doocey}. But....... the truth is that Donald Trump is not a one off president. He is the logical and unfortunate result of a Republican Party that has been going further and further off the rails since the days of Richard Nixon. Until Trump, however, the Republicans have devolved primarily in their constituencies and party platforms while running honorable and honest candidates for the highest office in the land. They did that by maintaining an old Republican tradition......he who is next in line gets the nomination. That led to mainstream, yet well vetted candidates running for the highest office in the land.
So how did they get to Trump? For this, we have to go back to the election of 1968. The country had endured the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. We were embroiled in a war in Vietnam that was tearing at the fabric of America. And, in some ways, the political landscape of the nation had forever changed when a Southern Democratic President passed the Civil Rights Act and alienated a large portion of southern white America. The Republican Party, under their standard bearers Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew developed what became known as the "southern strategy". It was an overt move to bring into the party the disaffected white voter with racist tendencies who previously had voted for Democrats. This was a major reorganization of the politics of America. Disaffected conservatives migrated to the republican side while Republican liberals increasingly found their party hostile to them and eventually gravitated toward the Democratic party which became more and more inclusive.
The second seed change came in the late 1970s and early 1980s and coincided with the rise and election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency. Reagan, who started his career as a liberal democrat, had become increasingly conservative in his views throughout his political career. He had been one of the most iconic and recognizable individuals to ever run for office. His message was positive and his campaign was effective. As part of his appeal, Reagan brought a new power group into the political limelight. This was the age of the "moral majority", a compendium of religious right organizations that had banded together to bring issues of social import into the political arena. The decision of Roe v, Wade angered social conservatives {or family values conservatives} since the moment of its implementation. By the time Reagan ran for president, the Republican policy platform was firmly in line with these "values voters" and further solidified the status of the Republican Party in the so called bible belt where dissatisfaction with Democratic policies was running deep. It also entrenched conservative social politics as part of the Republican agenda. That included hostility toward not only pro-choice Americans but also toward members of the LBGT-Q community.
The next twenty five years were highlighted by an increased emphasis on constitutional originalism. This movement within the Republican party addressed the strict interpretation of the constitution and the obligation for judges on local, state and federal levels to strictly enforce the laws on the books without excess interpretation. This emphasis led to an increasingly conservative judiciary which has led to narrowing of rights for many minorities and immigrants. It also laid the seeds for much of the overt and covert racism that we are currently seeing from the Trump administration.
Then, as we moved toward the second half of the first decade of the twenty first century, a traditional republican meme was brought back to the fore with the ferocity of a feral cat that hasn't eaten for weeks. The creation of the so-called non-partisan TEA {taxed enough already} Party became a touchstone for Republican politics. The meme was that the United States was the most over taxed nation in the world {not true} and that our rates of federal taxation were confiscatory {again not true}. Within the conservative right, this was an extremely popular argument and in 2010 the movement managed to parlay the movement into electoral victories in Barack Obama's first midterm election. What the TEA party movement did was move Washington and many states into legislative gridlock. They declared victory by inaction.
At the same time, there was a growing discontent in the Republican party with the issue of immigration. Illegal immigration had risen to extremely high levels. Legal immigration was still high and consisted primarily of non-white immigrants. Most projections indicated that by 2050 the nation would no longer be a majority white nation.
Into this history came the 2016 election. The Republican primaries were a battlefield with votes spread early with 16 candidates in the race. Out of the chaos emerged Donald Trump. Trump's claim to fame was as a businessman who made multiple millions of dollars in the real estate markets, a long and successful stint on television as a reality show host, and as a vehement anti-Obama birther. He was matched against Hillary Clinton, the first female candidate for the Presidency. Both candidates had unprecedented negative ratings and the race itself was remarkably depreciating and issue light. One of the major issues for Trump was the promise to build a southern wall and to have Mexico pay for it. On election night, Trump won the electoral vote, though losing the popular vote by three million.
This brings us to the Republican {or Trumpian} party of 2017/18. It has become obvious that this is no longer the Republican Party that was representative of those who identified as Republicans in 1968. There is hardly any minority representation and both the party and the president continue to offer nothing to draw minorities or immigrants to their fold. The President demonstrates both racist and anti-immigrant attitudes and the Congress has done nothing to counteract that. In fact, neo-Nazi and other racist groups have publicly praised this president as being one of their own. The inability of the Congress to move on issues such as DACA without poison pill legislation attached only reinforces this president's position.
The Russian investigations are picking up steam. Not only has the scandal gotten closer and closer to the president, the web of deceit that surrounds the investigation has just gotten thicker. Pairing that with the raging river of exits from the Trump White House and there is more and more question about the possibility of massive obstruction of justice in the west wing. Indictments are becoming more frequent and a pattern of potential guilt is beginning to emerge.
Even with the horrendous shooting at Parkland, the President has been talking out of both sides of his mouth on the issues of background checks and gun control. When he meets with certain groups, he appears to be in full favor of changes to both background checks and limitations on AR15 type weapons, then when he meets with the NRA, he gives a totally different story.
That leads to the issue of a presidency that the nation cannot trust. The inability of this President to tell the truth is well documented. His lies total over 2200 in his first 400 days in office. His policies are either non-existent at worst or confusing at best. He announces policies like trade tariffs without anyone in his administration or party knowing what is coming. He makes statements that his "team" has to refute within minutes or hours. There is no rhyme or reason to what he is doing.
And yet, the core {30-35%} of the electorate and the Republican members of Congress continue to support this president. It is easy to understand that those in Congress want to appeal to the same core that Trump does. That is why this party is now the Trumpian's and not the Republicans. Neither the core nor the Congress seems to have a policy core anymore. The family values base has been destroyed by a president and candidates who have been credibly accused of molestation and rape by women in their past, some of the accusers as young as 14. The law and order base has been decimated by the President's ongoing battle with the FBI and the Justice Department. The party and the base now appear to see these agencies as extensions of the President, dedicated to protecting him at all costs.
We are a nation divided. We have always had different political and social viewpoints, but in the past our differences were our strengths. We would sit down with one another and find solutions that brought us together, not rip us apart. In difference lies strength and because of those differences we have been and will stay the greatest nation on earth. We will survive Trump. Our political landscape will return to a sense of normalcy and the extremes will recede to the edges where they might influence, but not dominate the political discourse. We will come together in times of national crisis as one nation, accepting of all who embrace the idea of democracy and equality. It may take a bit of time, but we will get there.
Tags
Who is online
306 visitors
Interesting article.
Your point about the recuperation of the racist vote fifty years ago is important. It is significant that today's White Supremacist fellow-travelers (of whom there are quite a few on NT) are so vociferous about the pre-Southern Strategy Dems. Today, White Supremacism is the glue that keeps lower/middle class Whites stuck to a party whose economic policies are detrimental to them.
The GOP has always been "the party of business", and with the gradual suppression of all limits on political spending, it has become the party of the 1%. It is insane for lower/middle class people to vote for the GOP, but the race card trumps all else.
Another long winded lament by an unhappy and angry liberal. It's a real yawn inducer. It's good that they have a place to harmlessly vent here on NT.
So I guess you would have no problem with me saying that the Democratic party is the glue that keeps lower class blacks stuck to a party whose plantation policies are detrimental to them.
That has far more truth to it that the drivel you spewed.
Sorry, Doc, I didn't think you were capable of resorting to smear's & outright lies, which your article is full of
Yes, I remember the Democrat Party of the 50's and 60's. Back then the radicals in their Party wanted to keep guns out of the hands of African Americans who lived in their little communities and were honest law abiding citizens. They needed their guns to protect themselves from the KKK and other racists. If it weren't for those guns, many more African Blacks would have been tortured and killed. What these Radicals really dreamed was to put the African Blacks back on the plantation where they thought they belonged.
It wasn't until a President came along and found a way to keep them on the plantation and convince them he was on their side at the same time. He came up with what was to be called 'The Great Society'. This was a ploy to make them slaves to the state. He promised them all kinds of goodies if they would just vote Democrat. It is said he once said 'I'll have those n****s voting Democrat for 200 years.' Although this statement is unproven, President Lyndon B. Johnson was a known racist by many.
Well, it has been pretty successful so far. He fooled them and the Democrat Party started putting their attention on anyone who didn't go along with the new Leftist policy of some kind of Communist Utopia where all the masses would be servants to the state. The goodies kept coming and the Democrats started replacing all the good honest, hard working people in their Party who weren't racists with more of these radicals until today nearly all the good honest Democrats have been driven out of the Party, except many of Useful Idiots who haven't been able to come to terms with the reality that their Party has been totally hijacked by Radical Leftists.
The Democrat Party is still doing what they can today to keep guns away from hard working honest citizens, but now it also includes anyone who is not fooled by their evil intentions. And they still are doing all they can to keep the African Blacks on the plantation, only today the physical chains are replaced by chains that assure Blacks remain dependent on the State for their very survival and convincing them they aren't equally capable of becoming successful citizens no matter how hard they try, convincing them they are inferior beings.
Yes, the Democrats haven't changed much from the days when some Southern Democrats kept Slaves on hard cold medal chains dependent on their masters for their survival as Slaves to the State. They've not changed much since the 'Good Ole Days' of old, except they are left with a few good people who can't accept their Party has now been hijacked by an even more sinister faction.
This faction wants to divide the country, divide the family and take away the fathers from their children. They want to import more people they can make dependent on the State and erase their evil past.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have become more tolerant and have allowed these Radicals to rise to the level they have with little resistance. Now they may not have many options to deal with this situation because this faction of the Democrat Party have put themselves in positions that has allowed them to have many years to brainwash several generations.
Well said my friend. Progressives have even ratchet it up quite a bit since the days of LBJ. You see now they have lied to much larger groups, whom they absolutely depend on for a vote. Open border policies have produced the greatest migration in history. So dramatic a change in the demographics of the United States that the future of the nation could hang in the balance. Thus it was so important to lie to them. To tell them through leftist proxies such as "Univision" & others that the newcomers are "victims", that it is somehow unfair to enforce the law and (the most important lie of all) that they are some how "different".
From the Doc's disingenuous article :
"At the same time, there was a growing discontent in the Republican party with the issue of immigration. Illegal immigration had risen to extremely high levels. Legal immigration was still high and consisted primarily of non-white immigrants. Most projections indicated that by 2050 the nation would no longer be a majority white nation."
According to Doc's logic, based on nothing but what liberals tell themselves, Republicans are concerned about non-white immigrants! That is lie #1. That is what Univision runs with. The bigger lie that never gets contested is that highly touted projection that by 2050 the nation would no longer be a majority white nation! Please note that Doc dosen't provide the evidence for that projection. Do you know why? Because if he did, it would show that ALL HISPANICS have to be identified as SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHITE for that to be true. Most Hispanics ARE white. So progressives not only have to convince the general public of such a blatant lie they need to convince Hispanics of the same thing.
Thus, I say: Despierta a mis hermanos y hermanas. eres blanco, eres Cristiano y crees en la familia!
The Democrat Party is still doing what they can today to keep guns away from hard working honest citizens, but now it also includes anyone who is not fooled by their evil intentions. And they still are doing all they can to keep the African Blacks on the plantation, only today the physical chains are replaced by chains that assure Blacks remain dependent on the State for their very survival and convincing them they aren't equally capable of becoming successful citizens no matter how hard they try, convincing them they are inferior beings.
*Yawn. It is both disturbing and sleepily depressing that you think so much of guns and so less of African-Americans. Here is the statement in the article that I would like to highlight:
That leads to the issue of a presidency that the nation cannot trust. The inability of this President to tell the truth is well documented. His lies total over 2200 in his first 400 days in office. His policies are either non-existent at worst or confusing at best. He announces policies like trade tariffs without anyone in his administration or party knowing what is coming. He makes statements that his "team" has to refute within minutes or hours. There is no rhyme or reason to what he is doing.
Sixpick, this ought to alarm you. This untrustworthy 'fool' for whom you have no criticism to write of has people in cabinet posts to bounce his opinions off—he won't. President Donald Trump has your and our lives in the palm of his hands, he is isolating himself, and he is not listening to his so-called, "advisors." Can delusion and burnout be far behind? Yet, today you make vain attempts to dehumanize black people? Shameful. I reject your so-called, "message."
calbab, I have plenty of criticism of Trump. I think he is a big mouth liar, but I voted for him for two reasons The first one was Hillary is not President now and the Supreme court hopefully has another Conservative Justice, who I hope will make his decisions based on the Constitution, not politically.
You know Trump had every Constitutional right to put a freeze for the countries where radical jihadist camps were, but the Leftist Appeals courts are full of Leftist Justices and the Constitution doesn't matter to them. They even said, if Hillary had done the same thing, they would have went along with it.
I don't like everything Trump has or is doing. I am not in favor of the tariff restrictions. I don't think he'll go as far with it as the media and others have said, but we can blame quite a bit on ourselves for the deficit. Like where were our shoes made or who built our car?
I can tell you what. I now have two Hondas and I love them. Of all the cars I've owned, I have a feeling these are going to be the best built cars I've owned. And my shoes are made in China. I use to buy shrimp and realized they came from China. Stopped doing that. The thought of shrimp coming from China didn't do the trick for me. Anyway as you will see in the article below, our biggest trade deficit is with China. Will have to wait and see what happens, that's all. Seeing how Trump operates, one can only guess at what will come of it all.
Thank you for possibly the first principled response to my article from a conservative reader. I certainly understand your rational as it relates to the election. I do have a question for you. Under the rules of the Senate that McConnell manipulated in order to get Gorsuch confirmed, he is legitimately the newest member of the Supreme Court. I don't agree with his selection, but, then again, there are other SCOTUS members that I hardly ever agree with. My question, however, has to do with how does any individual who considers themselves a conservative and a constitutionalist accept the process that took place in the year + leading up to the seating of Gorsuch. Didn't the Republican Party and the leadership of the Senate violate every principle of government that conservatives espouse by not even allowing the Garland nomination to move through the process once President Obama nominated him? The process has always been that the President in office at the time of a vacancy made the nomination, and the Senate acted on that nomination. Wasn't what the Republicans did against all of your principles? Wouldn't you guys go ballistic if, say Alito and one other conservative judge passed away with 12 to 14 months left in the Trump term with the Democrats controlling the Senate? Isn't this exactly the type of shenanigans that have torn this nation apart?
When has the Democratic party EVER tried to keep guns from hard working mericans? It's more of keeping guns from the wrong people. Loyal NRA member who reads their articles every day?
Here's a example of who and what. A year ago this February, Trump reversed a Obama order that people who were on Gov pension for having certain mental disorders, or had or are having treatments and/or medications for certain potently dangerous mental disorders or have been ruled incompetent to handle their own affairs, their firearm applications get a second, harder look.
Too strict for the NRA, and since they donated $31 million to trump, it had to go. Seems to me that the NRA was supposed to be AGAINST letting people with mental problems get weapons, but they made it easier for those people to get them instead. I guess the NRA thinks everyone no matter what should have several guns until they blaze away in a school or a church, then those people shouldn't have gotten a gun. (it makes the NRA look bad.) Besides, it had President (the FIRST black President) Obama's name attached to it.
Just exactly how does that rule or stronger background checks threaten some people so much? I mean the NRA gets big money contributions from firearm manufacturers so that's why they do it, but why on earth do people blindly follow this dribble?
How many people are afraid they couldn't pass a background check? Is that it?
Sorry for any confusion. Though I used our Quote feature on that post, by "centering it," I now can see the quote appears as less of a quote. This is SixPick's 2.1 comment which reads in the middle:
Again, sorry for causing confusion. (Smile.)
Sixpick, i am just today seeing this message (almost a week later). It used to be one of my political mantras that this nation does not elect lying presidents. Emphasis on the word, "Elect." Donald Trump was a "big mouth liar" who mocked everything you and I separately stand for when he lied about others during his "showboat" campaign. It is no wonder to me that he has been 'special-counselled' this long, because he is a conspicuous loud-mouth who tells so-called "white-lies" as process expediency. He expects the fall-out to be "negligible, manageable, or deferred."
Is it any wonder why a world leader won't properly staff government agencies to serve for his benefit? It is right down Trump's alley to work with saving federal dollars by not hiring federal officials—the more skeleton the crew—the less eyes, ears, and hands to discover his shortcuts and mismanagement methods (nips and tucks) before his lawyers can hide them away under threat of legal action or presidential privilege.
So you get a set of Trump presidential power "trinkets" in the short-term, but you may have underestimated the caliber of energetic deviousness this man can rage in the long-term. Everybody are arriving now, with eyes wide open, to the Trump escapades engulfing our Situation Room, West-Wing, White House, D.C. and beyond.
oops. (blushing emoji)
No, it's me. My goof!
history is history......... I suppose our textbooks are full of the lies that I cite?
Enough with the bumper sticker patter - Answer my specific charge if you can !!
Let's start by dropping the white vs. non-white status of Hispanics. It is only a conservative meme when they are trying to debunk the charge of racism or anti-Hispanic bias. The census bureau statistics state that brown, black, Asian, and other minorities will make up a majority of Americans by 2050. They are not making a differentiation over language, which seems to be what you're trying to do. Should we stop people coming to this country because they speak Afrikaans? How about Swahili? The language meme is idiotic. The reality is, however, that the idiocy of a southern wall is a racist attempt to keep brown and black illegals from entering this country. There is never a discussion about a northern wall with Canada, where statistically, most foreign terrorists enter from according to Homeland Security. Why? Because Canadians look like us. They are not predominately brown or black. They don't come from "shithole" countries like our President calls the third world. They come from places like Norway, which seems to be the preferred source of immigration for our President.
According to Ancestory.com and 23andme.com
all Hispanics are North and Central American Indians with varying degrees of DNA from Spain, Italy & Greece.
Some may fly under the radar claiming to be "white" but they are in the distinct minority in this country.
When they start filling out census forms as Native Americans
watch out.
What a day it was!
Yes. Another day that will live in infamy.
President Donald Trump can't stop lying and he can't hold onto staff. He is the most lying president in modern history. And, who loves lies?
Rahm Emanuel was released from his presidential staff duties with a symbol of a laurel wreath for service to the leader. How many times has Donald Trump fired Omarosa three or four times? Now Ms. Omarosa is one mad woman! She might have a valid charge of firing 'abuse' — seeking legal counsel?
As for projection, we only have to list one my one the "boogeymen" on Trump's Twitter Account since. . . wayback. Did Donald Trump ever produce proof of Obama's Kenya birth? Let's take a quick look at this sweet gem:
Lies, lies, and videotape.
President Trump lies. To put it graciously, President Trump's "truthful hyperbole" is EVERYTHING and nothing. Question remains: Has Trump ever fired anybody for lying?
That's a lie . Flynn resigned, tendered his resignation . Sooo, this one's a " No-Go. "
And Bush and Carter and Clinton and Nixon and Ford and Johnson etc................
After 9 years of this BS aren't you tired of the hatred yet?
Yes calbab, but they're little white lies, like 'I had the biggest and best inauguration in history', not 'There's not a smidgen of truth in it'.
What does an article that was written 13 months ago, before the full extent of the problem was known, have to do with the price of apples today? At the time the article was written, the information was what almost every outlet was talking about. Now it is nothing but old news.
Darn letter simply would not format better. (That's why I supplied the link in the first place!)
How "white" are these lies??
Why President Donald Trump Constantly Makes Promises
He Doesn't Intend To Keep | TIME
You may not be surprised that Donald Trump hasn’t kept
a number of promises as president, but you should be.
It’s a truism that politicians make promises they
don’t intend to keep, but decades of academic research
has actually shown the opposite: that presidents try
to keep an average of about two-thirds of their campaign pledges.
It's just too bad they can't round up ALL them Dems and throw them in prison, if for no other reason then they're evil Democrats. They can't build enough prisons for all the people you want in jail.
Oh wait, that's right, you can't convict anybody without FACTS so guess we won't need any extra prisons after all.
You mean for allowing that Bag-o-Shit on his right to enter the WH?
I really love when an opinion piece that I write gets exactly the reaction that I hope for from the radical right that makes up the republican base in 2018. The reaction to a piece that is based on historical fact is attack, attack, attack. It is as if the facts of history don't apply to them. The reality is that historical facts are historical facts. The debate can be over the motivation for those facts but the facts remain the same.
The southern strategy is a historical fact, as are the civil rights laws, the moral majority, the tea party, the anti-immigration platforms of the republican party, the Mueller investigation, etc.. The reader can debate the motivation behind these acts of history, but the history and its result, the ultra-nationalist conservative, NRA owned republican party is a fact.
The rightists on this site can continue to moan and groan and attack those with viewpoints to the left of Sam Brownback and Mike Pence. They cannot, however, change history, nor can they change the arc which this country is moving toward..... away from the reactionary politics of the right and back toward the center with a wobble between the soft right and the soft left. This aberration is temporary and the daily events of our nation in a time of our greatest national mistake is proving that.
The far right can remain delusional and I welcome your baseless attacks. What you can't do, however, is stop the march of history.
The interesting thing is that no one has actually answered you.
You posted a lucid argument: historical data and logical conclusions. That's almost unethical, when dealing with Team Red. They don't know what "facts" are, and logic is beyond them.
So they launch insults and deny reality. Kinda tiresome...
No, we look at his posts as yet another "attack, attack, attack" on Trump and the GOP. That's what the Democrats have been reduced to. They offer no wisdom or solutions to any of the problems this nation faces, just ongoing, never ending negativity, most of it written at a middle school level and devoid of any coherent or intelligent content.
Well, if you want to be nasty about it: Is President Donald Trump laying across the foot of President Putin's bed at night during the cold winter nights or the medallion on Putin's furry Russian hat?
Well, that was not nasty...just stupid.
Well, let's drill down on this, shall we? Point me to the article or statement where President "push-back" Trump is planning to sanction Putin's new nukes posture! Maybe it's coming from a long, long, journey across the North Sea. . . .?
I don't know you.
... Except that DocPhil isn't particularly concerned with Trump here. He rightly treats Trump as an odd phenomenon, but entirely within the GOP tradition.
Did you bother to read the article?
oh, wait... read the article....
Uh, I don't know. Something about "ring through. . .nose" set me off!
This seems to be a recurrent problem for me on Newstalkers. There doesn't appear to be a group of conservatives who want to engage in a dialogue on the real issues that confront us all. I purposely wrote this article as a non-attack piece and actually praised some Republican efforts under Reagan as effective and efficient. What I hoped to elicit was a discussion on why conservatives thought they've moved so far from traditional Republican orthodoxy and into the realm of conspiracy theories and fringe positions and what could be done to bring Americans together from their perspective. You're right, not one tried to engage in a conversation. They perceive every article that doesn't praise their point of view or their leadership as an attack. I'm beginning to feel that putting time into writing anything that requires honest intellectual discourse is lost on this site.
Trying to spark honest intellectual discourse is lost on the entire right wing these days, Doc, it is, indeed, hopeless. You can't even talk about basic, obvious truths with them. I gave up on that years ago and now mostly just laugh at them and mock them. I'm not so sure that this isn't the best approach anyway. Trying to discuss their crazy views legitimizes them. Shaking your head in disbelief conveys the message that they are totally out to lunch, which they are.
They don't believe half of what they post. It's pure Bad Faith.
These nukes were in the production and testing stage during the Obama years. Where was Obama with his sanctions? Oh, yea, I forgot. He told Putin to "cut it out", but not for the nukes, for messing with an election that the Russians did nothing to change any votes. I'm sure he did the same with these nukes. Obama.....oooooooo...scary....
They neither want to nor are capable of. This is not an NT phenomenon. It is far more general. (The rare conservative who is open to dialog, like David Frum, is immediately labeled "RINO", and immolated.)
Their problem is that GOP/Trump policy positions are impossible to defend: socially regressive, environmentally dangerous, fiscally irresponsible, and so on. If conservatives debated honestly, they would quickly be confronted by this reality.
So... They do not debate. They deny reality. They insult anyone who doesn't agree with them. They SHOUT!
Among them there are two populations:
First there are some who are kinda crazy... off-kilter enough to actually believe the tripe that circulates in their echo chamber. In order to hold their "ideas" they are required to maintain a high level of cognitive dissonance - so high that they go ever crazier. They are in a "nutzoid spiral".
Second (and I suspect the majority), there are those who do not believe a word they say. There are a lot of White Supremacists, who (as you pointed out in your article) understand that voting GOP is the best way to keep them uppity Niggas down. They never come out openly, of course. They always use circumlocutions and dog whistle words. But they're easy to spot.
There are authoritarians, who want something between a narrow republic (vote restricted to wealthy White males) and outright dictatorship. This is the "America is not a democracy, it is a republic" bunch.
This "never be sincere" population includes gun nuts, anti-abortion nuts, and lots of other "nuts". They are unified in one thing: their true position is unspeakable, so they never speak it. They always are in Bad Faith .
"Believe me."
You're right...it should have stopped with the the one that was in office during the production stage...Obammy.
Oh boy! This is feeling weird. Maybe, . . .we should ask former President Obama to look after us again? How about four more [Obama] POTUS years, Bugsy?!
Well, that made no sense, but....meh..
But your facts are your opinion unless you didn't write it. And if you didn't write it, where is your link to the original article?
The facts are the Republican Party hasn't changed very much at all. They're more tolerant today than they were 10, 20 or even 30 years ago. The fact is it is the Democrat Party who has been totally hijacked by the Leftist in it. The average Democrat doesn't want many of the Democrat policies that have been forced on them over the last 8 years under Obama.
It wasn't the Republicans who switched over to vote for a Democrat for President, it was Democrats, several million Democrats left the party when they went to the poll to vote.
There wasn't and hasn't been any Republican candidate who was mentored by a confirmed Communist or I don't recall any Republican appointing any Communists to Czar positions.
I've never heard a Republican say his or her most favorite author was Mao Zedong.
It wasn't a Republican who went to the Soviet Union and colluded with them when Reagan was running for President, it was Ted Kennedy, a Democrat, one of the Leftist in the Democrat Party.
Since that time the Democrat Party has succumbed to the Leftist in their party. This other crap you're calling facts is just what your article says, Opinion.
Are you saying that the facts that are in just about every history and political science text of the past forty years is "fake history"? This is the typical republican meme and it's laughable. Everything I state in the article is factually correct. The lunacy of Obama being a communist is just blather with no basis, just paranoia. I don't remember any American president appointing confirmed communists to jobs in their administrations.....the accusation that it happened in the Obama administration is a joke.
You accuse Obama of being a radical leftist. If most of us on the left had any real annoyance with Obama, it was that he was a classic centrist. He didn't move strongly enough on human rights, on women's rights, on economic stabilization, on closing the gap between management and worker, with strengthening Roe v. Wade, with ending the failure of vouchers, with not allowing church based entities to infringe on government, etc. If there was a true progressive like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or even Sherrod Brown in office, we could have a real conversation about liberalism versus conservatism. What we now discuss is centrism versus right wing reactionarianism.
The liberal / communist meme is a right wing joke.
No. Some of them actually believe this claptrap. Many of them don't believe a single word of what they say. They post in pure Bad Faith . In no case is this a joke. It is a tragedy.
Let's hope they never make it to the White House. You were duped and still haven't come to terms with it. Don't you know Socialism is for the people not the Socialist? Obama fooled you.
It's not what you said in your opinion piece, it's how you presented it that makes it fake. You're Party has been hijacked, but it appears it still hasn't gone far enough to the left to satisfy you. You lost over 1000 political positions basically because of Obama and Obama knew in 2012 the Russians were meddling in the elections. Why didn't he do anything or even bring the subject up? Maybe that open mic could give us a better understanding of it because it has been proven his administration spied on everyone they could. 20 to 25% of the polls said we were heading in the right direction for the most part of 2016. I don't think people wanted to continue down that hole, do you?
Pay attention to the last half of the article. I don't care or blame him for make as much money as he can or continue to hang out with the elite as he always did while he was in office.
There's so much to respond to in what you said. Let's start with the thousand seats that were lost during Obama's tenure. Historically,the presidents party loses seats on a state and federal level through every administration. The more complex the political situation, the more seats flip. No one thinks that these weren't volatile times. Seat flipping was compounded by what we are finding to be less than legal gerrymandering and messaging by the republicans that was more effective. What we do know is that seat flipping is cyclical. In this first off year, those seats are flipping back at a record pace.
The reality is that for conservatives, every Democrat is a raging liberal. To liberals,every Republican is a conservative reactionary. The truth is probably somewhat different. We've all survived presidents we disliked who had policies we despised. For many,however, this president is different. He is not a Republican or a Democrat at heart. He doesn't care about policy. He only cares about himself and how the presidency can enrich him. He is a leader without a core. His comments have been dangerous to our nation.
We are never going to have a president we all can agree on. What we can expect is better than Trump. Whether Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, we deserve a president who represents us all.
No, I'm not saying that at all. It is a fact Lyndon B Johnson was elected and pushed for the 'Great Society'. Seems like a noble thing to do, doesn't it? But has it been successful? Food stamps for the poor is a noble desire, I agree, but no one was starving in the 1960's. Originally it was set up for 350,000 people. Today it's for 44 million and everyday they are on the TV crying about all the children going to bed hungry. The government expenditures have grown exponentially since the 1960s in providing this. Have we seen positive results and if so, what are they? What about the family? Has the family stature become better or worse for the people it was aimed at helping? How many fathers were in the homes in the 1960s and how many fathers are in the homes today?
Another question: Is America Racist?
Your article was well written and you should send it to the New York Times, because I think they would consider publishing it.
You probably don't even notice some of the things in your article that I do, such as....
So you have nothing to say about Hillary?
Essay, Blizzard of Lies
Of course it's not the Party it was in 1968, but neither is the Democrat Party. Would the Democrat Party or the Republican Party have voted in favor of unisex bathrooms in 1968?
There's a problem with getting people to fill positions in Washington for many reasons. The Democrats block nearly everyone of Trump's appointments. You should know as well as I do, if Trump appoints a black, the Democrats will vote against him, calling him an Uncle Tom. I don't see the Racist demonstration you seem to see.
Jesse Jackson praises and thanks Donald Trump for a lifetime of service to African Americans
Donald Trump Teases a President Bid During a 1988 Oprah Show | The Oprah Winfrey Show
Keep in mind Trump wasn't racist until he ran for President. And Trump just like Obama had no control over who supported him.
Barack Obama and the Communist Party
This thing I keep seeing from a couple of members here accusing this site of having a bunch of White Supremacist is unjust and untrue. I don't see anyone here who I would consider to be a White Supremacist. We have fringes on both sides of the isle, but no White Supremacist on this site. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. The population demographics here are 43.5% white and 34.4% Black. Now what would really be interesting would be if you would be kind enough to tell where you live and what the demographics are there. You can find it here:
Search your city and state and then choose demographics.
Neighorhood Scout
I have a feeling these people who are so critical of the south and others by calling them White Supremacists don't have anything like the demographics we have here. And after being a victim the first part of February to having two young black guys jump me and throw me out onto the pavement and then taking a very large amount of money from me, I'm a little prejudice toward young black guys with their pants hanging half way down their asses in black hoodies. This doesn't mean I haven't discussed this situations with other good black people I see every day, but it is lawlessness and it appears from what I've experienced and what I see on the TV every single day, the majority by far are young black men in their early 20s or younger.
Wishful thinking in my opinion since none, nada has tied Trump or his campaign with collusion with Russia at this point. The one thing I do think is it is a witch hunt for anything to get Trump on. And I say it would be nearly impossible for anyone who has been as public as Trump to survive a Soviet Style investigation like this one. I feel they are going to even take lies and give them credence if that's all they can find in order to accomplish their goal.
So yes you wrote a good article. Perfect material for the NYT. Biased in very subtle ways you're probably not even aware of. I'm sure I do the same. We all do. It's human nature and Egocentrism is a characteristic of most of us. I see the facts you wrote, but you left out a lot of information because that's the way you see it from your perspective in my opinion.
You wanted a discussion and I'm always interested in someone who wants a discussion if I have the time to put into it.
Everyone knows how we got here. The DNC rigged the primaries and tried to shove a lying unlikable criminal down the countries throat.
I'm sorry Ninety-six Dubya, on behalf of liberals everywhere, I'm so sorry we forced the country to elect Trump. Can you ever forgive us??
High Bullshit warning!! Not even Sanders ever accused the DNC of this at the time or since.
-------------------
Time to stop trying to claim what isn't true. Even left-wing Snopes doesn't support your comment:
Oh the irony of that incomplete sentence.....
I guess moving on to an entirely different subject is your way of trying (and failing) to pretend the "primary fixing" thing wasn't a lie.
I didn't move on "to an entirely different subject". My comment 6.2.2 directly addressed your comment 6.2, and I even used a left-wing source to prove you wrong.
Happy Sunday!
Keep telling yourself that. You are such a good sheep!
THEY FRIGGING ADMITTED IT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
On August 25, 2017, Federal Judge William Zloch, dismissed the lawsuit after several months of litigation during which DNC attorneys argued that the DNC would be well within their rights to select their own candidate. “In evaluating Plaintiffs’ claims at this stage, the Court assumes their allegations are true—that the DNC and Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Clinton and sought to propel her ahead of her Democratic opponent,” the court order dismissing the lawsuit stated. This assumption of a plaintiff’s allegation is the general legal standard in the motion to dismiss stage of any lawsuit. The allegations contained in the complaint must be taken as true unless they are merely conclusory allegations or are invalid on their face.
The Court continued , “For their part, the DNC and Wasserman Schultz have characterized the DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise ....A PROMISE THAT THEY ADMITTEDLY BROKE
They don't ever want to admit that the DNC hand-selected, er, were bought off, by Clinton. They actually think they had a say in who the Dem nominee was. isn't that so cute?
I guess if you are going to ignore Wasserman's own statement's you really should move on....and probably shouldn't come back to it until you are in touch with reality.
Tim Canove: "DNC superdelegates are registered lobbyists" "Bylaws in the constitution of the central labor councils were violated" explains how Wasserman rigged primary
What's cute is the boobs that still try to argue it wasn't rigged. I guess they just can't admit to being duped. Or that their party is just as corrupt as the one across the isle.
Unfortunately it was just as bad for me here in Colorado with the Republicans. We didn't have a primary election or a vote at the party caucus. We had no say in who the Republicans were going to pick as a candidate.
Yea I know, RNC did the same thing to Ron Paul, the difference is we are not in denial. You and I have the sense to see and admit the truth, why can't liberals? The 2 party system is rigged on both sides.
The difference is that the GOP didn't try to pretend anything else. The Democrats went ahead on a national level with primaries although the issue had already been decided.
I can always rely on rightwingers to never read (or understand) the links they use. Here's the final paragraph of the Snopes review of the matter (emphasis added):
IOW, no rigging but maybe, sorta, kinda "unfair." Notice also that Sanders's name is not among those saying that. Nice try. 'Nother FAIL.
This is the first I've heard that he RNC admitted this. Can you provide proof that this isn't something you just made up or the RNC just decided to say years after the fact in order to try to make themselves look good in retrospect?
Sez you.
------------------------------------------------
Back atcha.
So, again, another quote not from Bernie. Don't you think you could find at least one from him if there was any meat in this sandwich. But I really am enjoying watching you lot pretend you care about what happened to Bernie.
yeah, says me.
And, of course, the FACTS say so, too.
I was hoping that you'd done some research before making such a comment. Here you go:
You've never used a fact in your life, Tex.
And if you read the whole article without cherry picking the sentences - you will find that Mr. Sanders (I-VT) is talking about Laura Moser (D) not himself.
The winner will be trying to unseat long time incumbent John Culberson (R) (serving upscale Houston's 7th Congressional District since 2001).
Still got your blinders on, eh?
The DNC was bought by Hillary, plain and simple.
Only a fool would be willing to even try to deny that FACT.
Carry on!
I replied to the NT user's specific challenge. He wanted a direct quote from Bernie Sanders and did not specify whether or not Bernie's quote needed to relate to 2016 or 2018 elections. Have a great week, SP.
The specific challenge was to find a Sanders quote that addressed the DNC rigging of their own 2016 presidential primary with respect to Sanders and Clinton.
Nice try, not buying it.
As a rightwing lie, yes.
Once again, I am providing the Sanders quote regarding 2016:
Time for you to stop ankle biting.
And you still haven't provided one for any year, despite your patent attempt to get "cute" with a switcheroo. The quotes you try to pass off as "rigging" were not rigging* and not a single quote from Sanders comes within a light-year of such an accusation. It was another matter of the DNCC having legitimate concerns about a candidate who just lately returned to TX to run for Congress. (She actually won enough votes to a May run-off election.) So, a continued FAIL on you and any other rightwinger to claim Sanders ever accused the DNC or the Clinton campaign of rigging in 2016. I look forward to your continued efforts to push this lie as it will provide me with additional opportunities to show that is one.
*Unless you want to accuse Trump of "rigging" the AL primary against Roy Moore by campaigning for Luther Strange.
Sanders said in a question relative to Laura Moser who was not only not being supported by the TX DCC but being actively undermined by it in favor of the Party's official nominee.
But I find myself repeating myself.
You have a nice week too
and try to keep everything in context.
What part of Sanders' use of the word "again" is difficult for you to understand? He was referring to what Hillary and the DNC did to him in 2016, and you're smart enough to know it.
Good-bye.
Sorry Deb,
Since he was responding to a reporter's questions about what had already happened to this years Texas candidate,
he was referring to Moser in 2017 & 2018 and hoping the DCCC and the Texas Democrats who did opposition research against Moser, a Democrat candidate,
don't do this again.
Go ahead and believe what you will, it just shows how beholden to your party you are.
Hillary Bought DNC, Clinton’s Deepening Legal Trouble, Fed Head Change
By Greg Hunter On November 3, 2017 In Weekly News Wrap-Ups 127 Comments
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com (WNW 308 11.3.17)
Former head of the DNC (Democrat National Committee) Donna Brazile dropped some bombs on Hillary Clinton in her new book. Brazile says Hillary Clinton basically bought the DNC by loaning it $20 million in return for complete control of the organization. Brazile also charged Clinton rigged the 2016 Democrat primary to cheat Sanders out of the nomination. That means Clinton was the top person in both the Clinton Campaign and the DNC that paid Russian sources $12.6 million for the discredited and phony so-called “Trump Dossier.” This is same dossier that helped start the investigation into Donald Trump for Russian collusion, which has rendered zero evidence after more than a 15 months.
Let's not forget that while Trump's craziness preoccupies the media, his lieutenants continue the destruction of Obama's legacy. DeVos, Pruitt, Sessions, Perry, ...
Good for them.
Not for long.
Long enough to repair the damage caused by Obama.
This is fascinating, DocPhil!
Your article has been up for a couple days, with eighty-odd Replies... and still not a single pertinent one. Deflections, denials, insults... but nothing substantive. Nothing at all.
If your purpose was to provoke these members into demonstrating their own vacuity, you've succeeded brilliantly.
Ten hours later... the delirium continues. Half of the posts have been about Obama, who wasn't mentioned in your article.
I did mention the ex-President, to say that DeVos, Pruitt, & Co. are destroying Obama's legacy. That apparently replaced the topic of DocPhil's article for many participants.
Short attention spans, maybe.
short attention span + no true rebuttal arguments = rants about Obama
not understanding history + hatred of anything center or left = rants about Obama
not knowing what a conservative is + not knowing what a liberal is = comments that only make sense if you're Donald Trump
114 comments and counting = a lack of conservative dialogue
the truth is.....there could be 114,000 comments from most Trump supporters and they still wouldn't want to talk about policy or how we move forward...... the discussion always reverts to how we can destroy Obama and his legacy...... even the esteemed Ronald Reagan couldn't make this group happy..... too many tax hikes.... too much positive relationship with the public...... not enough done for the religious right...... not enough done for the NRA......a truly professional group of people in the white house with him..... some degree of normalcy.
A couple years ago, even before the Presidential primaries, I tried to goad our conservative members into discussing policy. I suggested various policy domains, and even some possible orientations.
Nothing!
I have come to the conclusion that they literally do not think about policy. Fox News tells them what they must believe, and they obey. They would gleefully accept a dictatorship, I think. Their prejudices would be confirmed by authority, and the inferior peoples would be kept in their place.
It's in their nature to do so since authoritarianism has a very strong appeal for conservatives. It's a big reason why Trump was elected.
When people refuse to look at mathematical evidence, for instance the number of Americans who vote. The majority of our population does not even vote.
Then look at the fact that Trump did not win the popular vote of the American people.
Out of the people who did vote for Trump, about 5% were revenge voters who really did not approve of Trump or believe in him or his policies, but out of revenge for not getting Bernie on the ticket, or other peevish reasons.
Out of the percentage who voted for Trump just because he was a "Republican" on the ticket, many of those only cast their votes out of revenge against Republicans for doing such a terrible job from 2000 up to the Republican obstruction and laziness we saw from 2008 to the 2016 election. They wanted to "send a message".
The problem is, the only people who voted for Trump were not united in any way. They were not united in belief, they were not united in confidence in him, they were not united in approval of his policies.
This minority of American voters that barely squeaked out an electoral college "victory", only did so for all the wrong reasons.
In fact, out of the total of registered Republican voters, only a minority of them approved of Trump, the rest just did what they always do and check the "R" box on the ballot.
The majority of Americans voted for Hillary as a country. Messaging or propaganda or Fox won't change that. The "tea party" and the right wing fringe of the Republican party won't change that.
The only way forward is to stop arguing with them. They will never agree. They won't accept facts. They don't believe in science. They are one minded, single minded, never to be dissuaded from checking the "R" box on a ballot.
There is nothing we can do about this Republican fringe minority and the lifelong dedicated Republican voters who will perpetually rationalize their votes no matter how it hurts them.
It is going to take letting them go, and moving forward with what I truly believe is the majority of people and then getting the remaining non-voting majority on board who don't buy into the Trump scam or the Republican scam pulled on the American people.
Just make sure everyone gets registered to vote, gets proper ID that each state requires and then help each other like true Christians and help the disabled and disadvantaged get to the polls and vote.