What happens to the Republican Party now? (5 Viewers)

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    MT15

    MT15

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    This election nonsense by Trump may end up splitting up the Republican Party. I just don’t see how the one third (?) who are principled conservatives can stay in the same party with Trump sycophants who are willing to sign onto the TX Supreme Court case.

    We also saw the alt right types chanting “destroy the GOP” in Washington today because they didn’t keep Trump in power. I think the Q types will also hold the same ill will toward the traditional Republican Party. In fact its quite possible that all the voters who are really in a Trump personality cult will also blame the GOP for his loss. It’s only a matter of time IMO before Trump himself gets around to blaming the GOP.

    There is some discussion of this on Twitter. What do you all think?



     
    MT15 said:
    Great newsletter (again) by Tom Nichols. No link, so am posting most of the newsletter because it’s important. I know it’s a lot to read, but very much worth it.

    “For weeks I’ve been watching a parade of Republican officials describe how they worked inside a Republican administration under Donald Trump as the GOP fell to a bunch of kooks, opportunists, racists, and aspiring fascists. I do not know how many of them still think of themselves as Republicans, and I don’t care. I’m sure, however, that many of them—like the mendacious and oily William Barr—would still describe themselves as conservatives.

    Such “I would still vote for the conservative” paternosters are required among the right wing in Washington. For the rest of us, who do not think of ourselves as “liberals” and who are not members of the Democratic Party, we have to try a little harder to think through our own political identity as voters and citizens. What does it even mean to be a conservative in the Trump era?

    I’m not alone, of course, in wondering about this. I have a bookshelf in my home office where I have gathered the second thoughts of a lot of conservative authors who have broken with the GOP, including Charlie Sykes, Max Boot, Stuart Stevens, Jack Pitney, and Rick Wilson, among others. I’ve been thinking about it again while plowing through new books by people like Tim Miller and my Atlantic colleague Mark Leibovich.

    Conservatives, or what used to be called “conservatives” before the GOP implosion, are the only people who can answer this question for ourselves. Our friends and coalition partners to our left are no help. If you ask them, I am a “conservative” by virtue of not being a liberal (or not being liberal enough). Many of them are invested in narratives about how “the right wing was always like this,” or how Ronald Reagan (alternate version: Richard Nixon) “destroyed America,” or “conservatism was always inherently evil,” and on and on. This is not only tedious and silly, it’s pointless: In almost every democracy, the “right” and the “left” are part of a legitimate dialogue about government. Differences between the right and the left are meaningful and important.

    But what are they? And are they worth arguing over at this point in American history?

    I don’t speak for all conservatives. (Or any of them, if you listen to my critics from the GOP or among the anti-anti-Trump gripers.) And I am not going to launch into a long discourse here on Burkean conservatism or John Mill or John Locke or any of that. I have written, in bits and pieces, about what I think—at least for me—constitutes a conservative temperament, including ideas about human nature, the role of government, civic virtue, and the balance between freedom and responsibility.

    The fact remains, however, that many of us are now in a coalition with an array of groups to our left. Among our former comrades on the right, this makes us apostates, defectors, heretics.

    …

    What I am “conserving,” by being a conservative, is our political order and the future freedom to argue and advocate within that order. This is why, for the duration of this national emergency (one that began in 2017 and is not over yet), I approach policies and politicians with two questions that—again, for now—override my policy preferences:

    1. Does this issue strengthen or weaken the Republicans as they continue to advocate for sedition and authoritarianism?
    2. Does this political figure caucus with the Republicans? Will he or she vote to make Kevin McCarthy the speaker of the House and Mitch McConnell the majority leader of the Senate?
    Everything else runs in third place.

    The practical effect here is that I will root for GOP defeats on policy even where I might otherwise agree with them. The institutional Republican Party must be weakened enough so that it can’t carry out the larger project of undermining our elections and curtailing our rights as citizens.

    Put another way, it does no good to support small Republican wins on policy if the cumulative effect is to strengthen the party so that it is larger and more cohesive when it makes another run at destroying the Constitution. Politics is an ugly business; strategy requires some painful decisions. I believe we are in an existential political crisis, and I intend to act accordingly. (I wish some of my liberal friends would do the same, as I have argued here.)

    But if I am being honest, I have also changed my mind on some of the issues that once kept me on the GOP ranch. I am not as conservative as I once was.

    …

    I’ve also been thinking about something Charlie Sykes said in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Charlie asked how he, a pro-life stalwart, could now be so concerned about finally getting what pro-lifers have wanted for 50 years with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The answer, as he wrote in June, is that he simply does not trust today’s Republicans to act in a humane or responsible manner. Neither do I.

    In fact, I do not trust the GOP to enact conservative policies in any but the most repressive and cruel fashion. I do not trust that their goal is limited government; I believe their goal is limited democracy, and specifically, limited only to themselves and people who think as they do.

    Are the Democrats any better? Of course they are. I have never been shy about noting the totalitarian streak on the American left, but the Democrats have not been captured by their fringe. More to the point, they are not institutionally capable of implementing the plans of their young-Stalinist wing. (Let's face it: On most days, the Democrats couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery.) And they are led by Joe Biden, a fundamentally decent man. I disagree with many leading Democrats, but I do not think they are delusional authoritarians, and for now, that’s a lot.

    The conservatives, in any case, have become completely un-conservative. The traditional conservative emphasis on law and order and on limited government has not held the GOP’s theocratic-nutball wing in check. The same people who decried the growth of executive power now worship a sociopathic real-estate con man as a demigod. The party that prided itself on its national-security cred is now voting against admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO like some early–20th century isolationist know-nothings. Even Republicans who should know better cheer the Supreme Court siding with a high-school football coach pulling his players into prayer sessions. And as my Atlantic colleague Jerusalem Demsas recently pointed out, Republicans went from “giving abortion back to the states” to trying to figure out how to allow those same states to interfere with the rights of Americans to move freely in their own country.

    Am I defector? From the GOP, yes. My ultimate loyalty, however, is to the Constitution. Especially in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, I now regard every elected and appointed seat held by a Republican as a possible vote for autocracy, and every Republican victory, no matter how small, as one more advantage for a party whose litmus test for membership is accepting Donald Trump’s lies and whose platform seems to be that the next free and fair American election will be the last free and fair American election.

    I’ll never be at home in my current coalition. That’s the nature of politics. But if joining with Democrats to stop an authoritarian takeover of the United States means that I have to grit my teeth and endure silly arguments about student loans and preferred politically correct terms, so be it. One of the things conservatives believe in—or this one does, anyway—is that human nature, immutable and indomitable, can fix most of our problems, and that after doing enough dumb things we’ll come to good solutions.

    But to find those solutions, we need to maintain a system of constitutional freedoms under the rule of law. If we lose that, the rest is meaningless.”
    Click to expand...
    Very interesting and I largely agree except for one point.

    "I’ve also been thinking about something Charlie Sykes said in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Charlie asked how he, a pro-life stalwart, could now be so concerned about finally getting what pro-lifers have wanted for 50 years with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The answer, as he wrote in June, is that he simply does not trust today’s Republicans to act in a humane or responsible manner. Neither do I."

    IMO they should have known that the anti-choice position was inherently dangerous from the beginning.
     
    Last edited:
    Yes, I don’t agree with everything Tom or Charlie says - at all. But if we had more Republicans like them we’d be in a much, much better place right now.
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    not sure what thread this goes to

    But I'm afraid this is the new normal - dispute every loss
    ==================================

    The election wasn't even close.

    Last month, Natalie Adona won her race to become the clerk-recorder and registrar of voters in rural Nevada County with 68% of the vote — nearly 15,000 votes ahead of the man who came in second place.

    But despite Adona's landslide victory, the race will be the subject of a potentially lengthy hand recount.

    It is expected to take 38 days, cost more than $82,700, and require the hiring of temporary workers to count nearly 38,000 ballots.

    And it is being funded by Randy Economy, a leader of the unsuccessful Republican-backed effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom last year.

    Economy spoke vaguely about his motivations, saying "something doesn't smell right" about the county registrar's race.

    "We have a crisis here in this state of who's in charge of democracy, and it ain't the county clerks, and it's not the local city clerks. It's the people," Economy said.

    Economy was a spokesman and advisor for the campaign to recall Newsom. The special statewide election last September, in which voters overwhelmingly chose to keep Newsom in office, cost state and local governments more than $200 million.

    In Nevada County, the involvement of Economy — a conservative radio host who lives nine hours south in the Coachella Valley — has baffled local officials, who say the recount is a waste of time and resources and is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to sow doubt in the elections process..........

    Click to expand...

    Failed far-right Nevada Republican gubernatorial candidate Joey Gilbert filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn his primary defeat, citing an "analysis" that found his loss to be a "mathematical impossibility" even after a recount he requested confirmed the results.

    Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo last month defeated Gilbert, who attended former President Donald Trump's Jan. 6 rally ahead of the Capitol riot, by double-digits, 38-27. But Gilbert, a voter fraud conspiracy theorist, refused to concede the race.

    Gilbert on Friday filed a lawsuit on Friday in Clark County seeking to overturn his loss. The suit claims that Lombardo's win is a "mathematical impossibility." Once the results are "statistically corrected," said a copy of the complaint obtained by The Nevada Independent, will show "with irrefutable geometric finality" that Gilbert won by more than 55,000 votes.

    Nevada counties already completed a recount sought by Gilbert, which confirmed that he lost to Lombardo by more than 20,000 votes.

    The suit raises questions about Gilbert's differing vote shares among early, mail-in and Election Day ballots, which the suit argues is a "geometric impossibility" derived through an "illegal formula.".............

    MSN

    www.msn.com
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    Failed far-right Nevada Republican gubernatorial candidate Joey Gilbert filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn his primary defeat, citing an "analysis" that found his loss to be a "mathematical impossibility" even after a recount he requested confirmed the results.

    Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo last month defeated Gilbert, who attended former President Donald Trump's Jan. 6 rally ahead of the Capitol riot, by double-digits, 38-27. But Gilbert, a voter fraud conspiracy theorist, refused to concede the race.

    Gilbert on Friday filed a lawsuit on Friday in Clark County seeking to overturn his loss. The suit claims that Lombardo's win is a "mathematical impossibility." Once the results are "statistically corrected," said a copy of the complaint obtained by The Nevada Independent, will show "with irrefutable geometric finality" that Gilbert won by more than 55,000 votes.

    Nevada counties already completed a recount sought by Gilbert, which confirmed that he lost to Lombardo by more than 20,000 votes.

    The suit raises questions about Gilbert's differing vote shares among early, mail-in and Election Day ballots, which the suit argues is a "geometric impossibility" derived through an "illegal formula.".............

    MSN

    www.msn.com
    Click to expand...

    May Republicans reap what they have sown. Haha!
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    Failed far-right Nevada Republican gubernatorial candidate Joey Gilbert filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn his primary defeat, citing an "analysis" that found his loss to be a "mathematical impossibility" even after a recount he requested confirmed the results.

    Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo last month defeated Gilbert, who attended former President Donald Trump's Jan. 6 rally ahead of the Capitol riot, by double-digits, 38-27. But Gilbert, a voter fraud conspiracy theorist, refused to concede the race.

    Gilbert on Friday filed a lawsuit on Friday in Clark County seeking to overturn his loss. The suit claims that Lombardo's win is a "mathematical impossibility." Once the results are "statistically corrected," said a copy of the complaint obtained by The Nevada Independent, will show "with irrefutable geometric finality" that Gilbert won by more than 55,000 votes.

    Nevada counties already completed a recount sought by Gilbert, which confirmed that he lost to Lombardo by more than 20,000 votes.

    The suit raises questions about Gilbert's differing vote shares among early, mail-in and Election Day ballots, which the suit argues is a "geometric impossibility" derived through an "illegal formula.".............

    MSN

    www.msn.com
    Click to expand...
    :saywhat:
     
    brandon said:
    It’s called counting, Joey.
    Click to expand...
    His so-called expert has a problem with that

    From the article:

    The "expert mathematician" cited by Gilbert is infamous election conspiracy theorist Edward Solomon, who falsely claimed to have found evidence that the 2020 presidential election was rigged using an algorithm — a claim repeatedly debunked by expert fact-checkers, who noted that Solomon's claims show a "basic misunderstanding of how vote counts work."
    Click to expand...
     
    I’ll admit I’m not a fan of this tactic

    Even if it works it’s shady and it might backfire and you might lose
    ==========================

    If the Democratic Party is to be believed, the coming midterm elections will herald the most radical field of right wing Republican candidates to ever run for office.

    President Joe Biden summed up his party’s pitch ahead of the November 2022 vote when he called the MAGA movement “the most extreme political organisation that’s existed in American history.”

    So why, then, are Democrats trying so hard to help them win?

    Across the country, in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Illinois, Democratic groups are bankrolling political ads to bolster fringe Republican candidates. The aim of that support is to elevate extreme GOP candidates over their moderate rivals during primary season, with the expectation that they will be easier to beat in a general election.

    Among the candidates being promoted by Democrats are Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator running for governor who worked to overturn the 2020 election and even chartered buses to the US Capitol on January 6.

    Then there is Dan Cox, Republican gubernatorial candidate for Maryland, who has pushed the same election fraud falsehoods. Larry Hogan, the departing GOP governor, called Cox “a “conspiracy-theory-believing QAnon whack-job.”

    In Arizona, GOP candidate Kari Lake said she would not have certified Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona, as she was required to do by law, and has repeatedly spread falsehoods about the 2020 election. She, too, is receiving help from Democrats.

    It’s a bold but risky strategy, as former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton can attest. During the GOP primary campaign in 2016, her team spoke often of their ideal match-up against an inexperienced wild card named Donald Trump…….


    www.independent.co.uk

    Why Democrats are helping some of the most extreme Republicans to ever run for office

    Democrats are once again employing a controversial strategy to boost extremist Republican candidates in primary campaigns. Experts say they’re “playing with fire.”
    www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    I’ll admit I’m not a fan of this tactic

    Even if it works it’s shady and it might backfire and you might lose
    ==========================

    If the Democratic Party is to be believed, the coming midterm elections will herald the most radical field of right wing Republican candidates to ever run for office.

    President Joe Biden summed up his party’s pitch ahead of the November 2022 vote when he called the MAGA movement “the most extreme political organisation that’s existed in American history.”

    So why, then, are Democrats trying so hard to help them win?

    Across the country, in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Illinois, Democratic groups are bankrolling political ads to bolster fringe Republican candidates. The aim of that support is to elevate extreme GOP candidates over their moderate rivals during primary season, with the expectation that they will be easier to beat in a general election.

    Among the candidates being promoted by Democrats are Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator running for governor who worked to overturn the 2020 election and even chartered buses to the US Capitol on January 6.

    Then there is Dan Cox, Republican gubernatorial candidate for Maryland, who has pushed the same election fraud falsehoods. Larry Hogan, the departing GOP governor, called Cox “a “conspiracy-theory-believing QAnon whack-job.”

    In Arizona, GOP candidate Kari Lake said she would not have certified Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona, as she was required to do by law, and has repeatedly spread falsehoods about the 2020 election. She, too, is receiving help from Democrats.

    It’s a bold but risky strategy, as former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton can attest. During the GOP primary campaign in 2016, her team spoke often of their ideal match-up against an inexperienced wild card named Donald Trump…….


    www.independent.co.uk

    Why Democrats are helping some of the most extreme Republicans to ever run for office

    Democrats are once again employing a controversial strategy to boost extremist Republican candidates in primary campaigns. Experts say they’re “playing with fire.”
    www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
    Click to expand...
    Yeah, if you take that approach and end up with a GOP full of extremists, what do you think their endgame is going to be? Nothing short of the complete destruction of the American government. I mean, 1/6 is gonna be a walk in the park if that happens. But yet again, Democrats are going to find a way to fork up the majority support they should have.
     
    GrandAdmiral said:
    I believe I read that's what they're doing in Utah in one race.
    Click to expand...
    Yes, in Utah the Democratic party opted to endorse Evan McMullin, a conservative independent, rather than a Democrat who would stand zero chance of winning. It will be interesting to see how McMullin fares but ultimately I think Mike Lee wins fairly comfortably by 6-8% or so. There are still plenty of MAGA cultists in Utah and you also have to factor in Democrats who probably aren't that wild to go out on election day and vote for a guy that, albeit decent and sane, is still basically a Republican.
     
    SaulGoodmanEsq said:
    Yes, in Utah the Democratic party opted to endorse Evan McMullin, a conservative independent, rather than a Democrat who would stand zero chance of winning. It will be interesting to see how McMullin fares but ultimately I think Mike Lee wins fairly comfortably by 6-8% or so. There are still plenty of MAGA cultists in Utah and you also have to factor in Democrats who probably aren't that wild to go out on election day and vote for a guy that, albeit decent and sane, is still basically a Republican.
    Click to expand...
    I’m holding out hope that the average democrat in Utah is certainly capable of seeing the crucial difference between Lee and McMullin, and will vote accordingly. I don’t think democrats are as mindlessly tribal as Republicans and I also don’t think there is a democrat in the race, is there?
     
    This is a chilling article that details the many conservative groups that are actively planning for a second Trump term. I would especially be interested in Steve’s take on it, as it seems to be a well-coordinated and well funded effort to basically dismantle many of our institutions should Trump win in 2024. What is equally disconcerting is that most of this planning could easily pivot to someone like DeSantis if Trump doesn’t run. Its a long article, so even if you can’t read it all, you‘ll get the drift pretty quickly. One sickening fact: Trump currently has more money in his PAC than the RNC and DNC combined. If you don’t think Trump will be a big factor in R politics for the future, I’d like to hear a reason for that belief.

    www.axios.com

    Inside Trump '25: A radical plan for Trump’s second term

    Allies want to empower him to purge potentially thousands of civil servants.
    www.axios.com www.axios.com
     

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