What happens to the Republican Party now? (1 Viewer)

[MT15]

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?

 

[Optimus Prime]

An insurrectionist Republican gubernatorial candidate is refusing to concede his primary loss despite finishing in fourth place.

Ryan Kelley, who was indicted on federal misdemeanor charges for his involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, finished more than 25 points behind GOP primary winner Tudor Dixon, but he called for a recount in a post echoing election fraud claims made by Donald Trump, reported WNEM-TV.

“Looks like the 'testing' was not testing after all, and it was a release of their preferred and predetermined outcome," Kelley posted on Facebook, suggesting that tampering with voting machines had cost him the election. "NOT CONCEDING! Let’s see the GOP and the predetermined winner call for a publicly supervised hand recount to uphold election integrity.”

Dixon unofficially won more than 40 percent of the vote, while Kelley drew a little more than 15 percent and finished fourth in the five-way primary...........

MSN

….He wasn’t the only far-right Republican crying foul on Wednesday. State senate contender Mike Detmer lambasted the results in his election as well as others, including Mr Kelley’s, and proclaimed that he would not concede. It wasn’t clear, as was the case with Mr Kelley, whether he would actually take any meaningful action to oppose the results.


“When we have full, independent, unfettered forensic audits of 2020 and 2022 I’ll consider the results. You cannot tell me that Ryan D. Kelley, Garrett Soldano, Kevin Rinke and Ralph Rebandt came in a DISTANT 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th place to a milquetoast DeVos patsey in the 22nd Senate District or across Michigan for that matter. So, I’m calling bullshirt!Beyond that, it appears that the crooked, bought-and-paid-for SWAMP candidates won most of the elections last night with only a few exceptions,” wrote Mr Detmer.

“I’m just not buying it folks. And I’m not buying it because I cannot believe that the majority of the people in Michigan who have been complaining about the state of affairs would be that stupid to keep the culprits in power! Sorry...not sorry,” he posted as he trailed his rival Lana Theis by 16 per cent…..

Michigan Republicans refuse to concede after brutal primary losses

Far-right candidates cry fraud, echoing Trump playbook

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis attorney who shot to fame when he and his wife threatened Black Lives Matter protesters with guns outside their home in the summer of 2020, lost in the Republican primary for US Senate in Missourion Tuesday night.

Mr McCloskey received just three percent of the vote in the hotly contested primary to replace retiring Sen. Roy Blunt, finishing in fifth place behind victor Eric Schmitt and three other candidates…….

Missouri man who pointed gun at BLM protesters loses GOP Senate primary

Mark McCloskey finished in fifth place with fewer than 20,000 votes

www.independent.co.uk

 

[zztop]

another republican punished for doing the right thing

Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers loses state Senate bid

Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers has lost his bid for a state Senate seat after refusing former President Donald Trump’s pleas to help overturn the 2020 election results and testifying before Congress about the efforts.

apnews.com

He lost to former state Sen. David Farnsworth, who criticized him for refusing to help Trump or go along with a contentious 2021 “audit” that Republican leaders in the Senate commissioned.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I agree. I’ve said before I think this is a stupid plan of attack
==============
Tuesday’s primary in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District was a miniature referendum on Donald Trump and the future of the Republican Party.

On one side was Rep. Peter Meijer, one of only 10 Republican congressmen who voted to impeach Trump over the events of Jan. 6. On the other, John Gibbs, a former Trump appointee who has gone all in on stop-the-steal zealotry.


Around midnight, it became clear that Meijer had lost, and hearty congratulations were due to … the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.


Yes, you read that right: The DCCC intervened to help the Trumpiest candidate win — spending, in fact, more money boosting Gibbs than his own campaign did.

Given the tight margins of the race, there’s a good chance its support was decisive.

And why did it do this apparently insane thing? Why, because it thinks Gibbs will be easier to beat in November.


After six years of calling Trump the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War, the hypocrisy of this is astonishing.

Yet the two-faced chicanery is somehow less amazing than the cavalier disregard the Democratic politicians involved are showing for their oath of office.


Last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged the Republican Party to “take back the party,” saying, “Hey, here I am, Nancy Pelosi, saying this country needs a strong Republican Party, and we do, not a cult, but a strong Republican Party.”

She was absolutely right, and yet somehow, a year later, her party is running a recruiting drive for the cultists. It’s not just Gibbs; Democrats have run the same playbook in several tight primary races, unfortunately with considerable success.

They’ve done this despite the risk that Trump’s minions will not just take over the Republican Party but also the House and the Senate — possibly with Trump himself back in the presidency come 2025.

It’s so obviously dangerous that even some Democrats have publicly expressed disquiet. The defenses, meanwhile, range from paper thin to actually transparent…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/03/gibbs-meijer-michigan-democrats-help-trump/

 

[DaveXA]

I agree. I’ve said before I think this is a stupid plan of attack
==============
Tuesday’s primary in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District was a miniature referendum on Donald Trump and the future of the Republican Party.

On one side was Rep. Peter Meijer, one of only 10 Republican congressmen who voted to impeach Trump over the events of Jan. 6. On the other, John Gibbs, a former Trump appointee who has gone all in on stop-the-steal zealotry.


Around midnight, it became clear that Meijer had lost, and hearty congratulations were due to … the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.


Yes, you read that right: The DCCC intervened to help the Trumpiest candidate win — spending, in fact, more money boosting Gibbs than his own campaign did.

Given the tight margins of the race, there’s a good chance its support was decisive.

And why did it do this apparently insane thing? Why, because it thinks Gibbs will be easier to beat in November.


After six years of calling Trump the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War, the hypocrisy of this is astonishing.

Yet the two-faced chicanery is somehow less amazing than the cavalier disregard the Democratic politicians involved are showing for their oath of office.


Last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged the Republican Party to “take back the party,” saying, “Hey, here I am, Nancy Pelosi, saying this country needs a strong Republican Party, and we do, not a cult, but a strong Republican Party.”

She was absolutely right, and yet somehow, a year later, her party is running a recruiting drive for the cultists. It’s not just Gibbs; Democrats have run the same playbook in several tight primary races, unfortunately with considerable success.

They’ve done this despite the risk that Trump’s minions will not just take over the Republican Party but also the House and the Senate — possibly with Trump himself back in the presidency come 2025.

It’s so obviously dangerous that even some Democrats have publicly expressed disquiet. The defenses, meanwhile, range from paper thin to actually transparent…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/03/gibbs-meijer-michigan-democrats-help-trump/

I hate to say it, but I hope the Trumper wins. That'll teach them (the DNCC) not to play with fire....maybe? Supporting Trumpers in primaries is insanity.

 

[coldseat]

An excellent recap of the Republican parties decent into what it currently is.

==========
.......

But a sober look at history might have lessened the shock, for the seeds of sedition had been planted earlier — a quarter-century earlier — in that same spot on the West Front of the Capitol.

On Sept. 27, 1994, more than 300 Republican members of Congress and congressional candidates gathered where the insurrectionists would one day mount the scaffolding. On that sunny morning, they assembled for a nonviolent transfer of power. Bob Michel, the unfailingly genial leader of the House Republican minority for the previous 14 years, had ushered Ronald Reagan’s agenda through the House. But he was being forced into retirement by a rising bomb thrower who threatened to oust Michel as GOP leader if he didn’t quit. “My friends,” a wistful Michel told the gathering, “I’ll not be able to be with you when you enter that promised land of having that long-sought-after majority.”

Newt Gingrich had almost nothing in common with the man he shoved aside. Michel was a portrait of civility and decency, a World War II combat veteran who knew that his political opponents were not his enemies and that politics was the art of compromise. Gingrich, by contrast, rose to prominence by forcing the resignation of a Democratic speaker of the House on what began as mostly false allegations, by smearing another Democratic speaker with personal innuendo, and by routinely thwarting Michel’s attempts to negotiate with Democrats. Gingrich had avoided service in Vietnam and regarded Democrats as the enemy, impugning their patriotism and otherwise savaging them nightly on the House floor for the benefit of C-SPAN viewers.

“Newt! Newt! Newt! Newt!” the candidates and lawmakers chanted. A pudgy 51-year-old with a helmet of gray hair approached the lectern. “The fact is that America is in trouble,” Gingrich declared. “It is impossible to maintain American civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS and 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can’t even read.” The pejoratives piled up in Gingrich’s shouted, finger-wagging harangue: “Collapsing … Failed so totally … Worried about their jobs … Worried about their safety … Trust broke down … Out of touch … Wasteful … Dumb … Ineffective … Out of balance … Malaise … Drug dealers … Pimps … Prostitution … Crime … Barbarism … Devastation … Human tragedy … Chaos and poverty.” “Recognize that if America fails, our children will live on a dark and bloody planet,” Gingrich told them.

Somewhere in this catalogue of catastrophe, Gingrich signed the Contract With America, a 10-point agenda proposing a balanced-budget amendment, congressional term limits and other reforms. “We have become in danger of losing our own civilization,” Gingrich warned.

Americans had seldom heard a politician talk this way, and certainly not a speaker of the House. But that’s what Gingrich became after the GOP’s landslide victory in the 1994 election. The Contract With America made little headway — only three minor provisions (paperwork reduction!) became law — but the rise of Gingrich and his shock troops set the nation on a course toward the ruinous politics of today.

Much has been made of the ensuing polarization in our politics, and it’s true that moderates are a vanishing breed. But the problem isn’t primarily polarization. The problem is that one of our two major political parties has ceased good-faith participation in the democratic process. Of course, there are instances of violence, disinformation, racism and corruption among Democrats and the political left, but the scale isn’t at all comparable. Only one party fomented a bloody insurrection and even after that voted in large numbers (139 House Republicans, a two-thirds majority) to overturn the will of the voters in the 2020 election. Only one party promotes a web of conspiracy theories in place of facts. Only one party is trying to restrict voting and discredit elections. Only one party is stoking fear of minorities and immigrants.

Admittedly, I’m partisan — not for Democrats but for democrats. Republicans have become an authoritarian faction fighting democracy — and there’s a perfectly logical reason for this: Democracy is working against Republicans. In the eight presidential contests since 1988, the GOP candidate has won a majority of the popular vote only once, in 2004. As the United States approaches majority-minority status (the White population, 76 percent of the country in 1990, is now 58 percent and will drop below 50 percent around 2045), Republicans have become the voice of White people, particularly those without college degrees, who fear the loss of their way of life in a multicultural America. White grievance and White fear drive Republican identity more than any other factor — and in turn drive the tribalism and dysfunction in the U.S. political system.
Other factors sped the party’s turn toward nihilism: Concurrent with the rise of Gingrich was the ascent of conservative talk radio, followed by the triumph of Fox News, followed by the advent of social media. Combined, they created a media environment that allows Republican politicians and their voters to seal themselves in an echo chamber of “alternative facts.” Globally, south-to-north migration has ignited nationalist movements around the world and created a new era of autocrats. The disappearance of the Greatest Generation, tempered by war, brought to power a new generation of culture warriors.

But the biggest cause is race. The parties re-sorted themselves after the epochal changes of the 1960s, which expanded civil rights, voting rights and immigration. Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” began an appeal to White voters alienated by racial progress, and, in the years that followed, a new generation of Republicans took that racist undertone and made it the melody.

It is crucial to understand that Donald Trump didn’t create this noxious environment. He isn’t some hideous, orange Venus emerging from the half-shell. Rather, he is a brilliant opportunist; he saw the direction the Republican Party was taking and the appetites it was stoking. The onetime pro-choice advocate of universal health care reinvented himself to give Republicans what they wanted. Because Trump is merely a reflection of the sickness in the GOP, the problem won’t go away when he does.

...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/04/dana-milbank-republican-destructionists-book-excerpt/

 

[el caliente]

I hate to say it, but I hope the Trumper wins. That'll teach them (the DNCC) not to play with fire....maybe? Supporting Trumpers in primaries is insanity.

Are they viewing this strategy like a vaccine that is used to prevent a disease?

I don’t see how this works as they hope it will, but I’m a simple man.

 

[DaveXA]

Are they viewing this strategy like a vaccine that is used to prevent a disease?

I don’t see how this works as they hope it will, but I’m a simple man.

It's a stupid risk imo. What happens if the Democratic candidate has an unforseen scandal? What if he/she is unable to take office due to illness or death? What if the R candidate convinces people to ignore the warning signs and vote for him/her anyway? Just too much can go wrong.

Play stupid games...and you see where this is going.

 

[el caliente]

It's a stupid risk imo. What happens if the Democratic candidate has an unforseen scandal? What if he/she is unable to take office due to illness or death? What if the R candidate convinces people to ignore the warning signs and vote for him/her anyway? Just too much can go wrong.

Play stupid games...and you see where this is going.

I think that the new “play stupid games…” saying is “f around and find out”.

 

[bird]

I would put forth that the origin lies deeper, much deeper, than that.

We can start with the concept that history is not divided into eras. This is done primarily to allow for study of certain sections of history. History flows, day to day, people are born, live and die. The origin lies in the manner in which groups of people organize themselves and thereby determine who is human (part of the group) and who is sub-human (“the other”, sub-human). This division allows for people to visit all sorts of horrors on other people because those others are not human. It would take to long to delve through the millennia so we will leave that for now.

The concept of slavery being acceptable required various rationale to support it in what we now call the west. To stave off any bullschlitz, yes, slavery existed elsewhere for various reasons most having to do with, imo, the concept of human/sub-human. The west utilized religion by claiming god approved and then the west did something else: they invented race. Tribalism existed before obviously but the concept of race was tribalism on steroids.

The focus should be on three people particularly during the late 40’s and early ‘50’s in the US and on one crucial event. The people are Russell Kirk, Leo Strauss and William F. Buckley. The event is Brown v Bd of Ed. It is interesting on a side note that at the same time Leo Strauss was formulating what would become neoconservatism there was a person in the U.S. who was radicalized by what he saw in dancing and interactions between males and females. That person was Sayyid Qutb who went back to the Middle East and helped build the Muslim Brotherhood. But let us mush on.

Conservatism is by its nature resistant to change unless change betters the conservative. Liberals, perhaps too often depending upon the circumstances, embrace change. Does this mean a liberal is a “better” person than a conservative? No. It means that psychological inputs are processed and reacted to differently in different people. After the Brown decision conservative Democrats in the South and elsewhere resisted the change that leveled the concept of human/sub-human. Until they couldn’t. The key there were three things: the civil rights act, the voting rights act and the Vietnam war. Yet during that time we saw the beginnings of what would morph into today’s Republican Party. While certainly not on par with the Trumpers, Barry Goldwater nurtured the seeds plant in the prior 15-20 years. It took Nixon to make the move to reach out to disaffected conservative Democrats. Then came Reagan. So either tone-deaf, simplistic or perhaps a good understander of his target audience that under his or, more likely, his handlers the Republican Party on the ground starting lurching further reactionary.

The rise of Gingrich, a piece of excrement if there ever was one, and his so-called “Vulcans” accelerated the pace.

Does this mean Democrats bear no responsibility? No. But it does mean that the Republican Party is responsible for its own actions. That includes most importantly the rise of the delegitimizers.

 

[coldseat]

It's a stupid risk imo. What happens if the Democratic candidate has an unforseen scandal? What if he/she is unable to take office due to illness or death? What if the R candidate convinces people to ignore the warning signs and vote for him/her anyway? Just too much can go wrong.

Play stupid games...and you see where this is going.

I agree. The DNC and Democrat aligned groups should not be/have been propping up primary opponents to Republicans that voted to impeach Trump after Jan. 6th. It's political gamesmanship and calculation at rawest, given many of those Republicans are in districts that are purple and therefore a more extreme Republican candidate is less palatable. But given the seriousness of Jan 6th, it's also highly hypocritical. I don't know what effect it had on the actual race, since Republican primary voters all over the country are electing elections deniers, but it's a bad look regardless and only opens Democrats up to more criticism and derision. And it's very much warranted.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

I agree. I’ve said before I think this is a stupid plan of attack
==============
Tuesday’s primary in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District was a miniature referendum on Donald Trump and the future of the Republican Party.

On one side was Rep. Peter Meijer, one of only 10 Republican congressmen who voted to impeach Trump over the events of Jan. 6. On the other, John Gibbs, a former Trump appointee who has gone all in on stop-the-steal zealotry.


Around midnight, it became clear that Meijer had lost, and hearty congratulations were due to … the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.


Yes, you read that right: The DCCC intervened to help the Trumpiest candidate win — spending, in fact, more money boosting Gibbs than his own campaign did.

Given the tight margins of the race, there’s a good chance its support was decisive.

And why did it do this apparently insane thing? Why, because it thinks Gibbs will be easier to beat in November.


After six years of calling Trump the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War, the hypocrisy of this is astonishing.

Yet the two-faced chicanery is somehow less amazing than the cavalier disregard the Democratic politicians involved are showing for their oath of office.


Last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged the Republican Party to “take back the party,” saying, “Hey, here I am, Nancy Pelosi, saying this country needs a strong Republican Party, and we do, not a cult, but a strong Republican Party.”

She was absolutely right, and yet somehow, a year later, her party is running a recruiting drive for the cultists. It’s not just Gibbs; Democrats have run the same playbook in several tight primary races, unfortunately with considerable success.

They’ve done this despite the risk that Trump’s minions will not just take over the Republican Party but also the House and the Senate — possibly with Trump himself back in the presidency come 2025.

It’s so obviously dangerous that even some Democrats have publicly expressed disquiet. The defenses, meanwhile, range from paper thin to actually transparent…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/03/gibbs-meijer-michigan-democrats-help-trump/

It's a dumb strategy that plenty in the party feel is stupid as well. They interviewed Tim Kaine the other day and he said he wouldn't let that strategy anywhere near his campaign. Apparently, some are saying this is birthed from Jamie Harrison alone (I'm not a fan of his).

 

[MT15]

It's a dumb strategy that plenty in the party feel is stupid as well. They interviewed Tim Kaine the other day and he said he wouldn't let that strategy anywhere near his campaign. Apparently, some are saying this is birthed from Jamie Harrison alone (I'm not a fan of his).

I don’t think it started with Harrison or even with the Democratic Party. I’m sure there have been times the Republicans have done this as well. I think the practice goes back years and years.

I’m guessing the reason it’s being talked about now is that the bad candidates are worse than we have seen for at least half a century. The worst in my lifetime for sure.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Kinzinger was on CNN and basically said that Dems can no longer say "where are all the 'good and moderate' republicans? Why aren't they saying anything?"

Well, when 'good and moderate' republicans try to run, or are the incumbents and do speak out/vote against Trump/Trumpism and are now vulnerable for doing so from their base, the DNC actively tries to make them lose their primaries

 

[MT15]

Kinzinger was on CNN and basically said that Dems can no longer say "where are all the 'good and moderate' republicans? Why aren't they saying anything?"

Well, when 'good and moderate' republicans try to run, or are the incumbents and do speak out/vote against Trump/Trumpism and are now vulnerable for doing so from their base, the DNC actively tries to make them lose their primaries

I don’t like the practice either, but there are factions in both parties that do it.

 

[DaveXA]

I don’t like the practice either, but there are factions in both parties that do it.

Oh come on, making excuses is supposed to be a Republican trait. You're better than that, I hope.

I was starting to appreciate that the Democrats would call out their own people for stooping to supporting Trumper candidates in the primaries. That's a good thing. Why give fodder to Republicans who say...well if Democrats can do it, we can do it better.

 

[brandon]

Oh come on, making excuses is supposed to be a Republican trait. You're better than that, I hope.

I was starting to appreciate that the Democrats would call out their own people for stooping to supporting Trumper candidates in the primaries. That's a good thing. Why give fodder to Republicans who say...well if Democrats can do it, we can do it better.

Concur. Both sides is a stupid game to play. This is a problem within the Democratic Party and should be addressed. It does not matter if it is or is not occurring in the Republican Party.

 

[Optimus Prime]

(CNN) - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday suspended Tampa's elected prosecutor, Andrew Warren, for pledging not to use his office to go after people who seek and provide abortions or on doctors that provide gender affirming care to transgender people.

DeSantis also accused Warren of not pursuing criminals to the fullest extent of his powers as the state attorney of Hillsborough County.

"To take a position that you have veto powers over the laws of the state is untenable," DeSantis said at a press conference in Tampa surrounded by law enforcement.

The move by DeSantis, a Republican, to remove a Democrat twice elected by Hillsborough voters drew an immediate and sharp rebuke from Democratic state lawmakers and officials. Minority Leader Sen. Lauren Book said DeSantis was "behaving more like a dictator than 'America's governor.'"

And Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democratic candidate for governor, called Warren's suspension "a politically motivated attack on a universally respected state attorney democratically elected to exercise prosecutorial discretion."

"Ron DeSantis is a pathetic bully," Fried said….

DeSantis suspends Tampa prosecutor who took stance against criminalizing abortion providers

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday suspended Tampa's elected prosecutor, Andrew Warren, for pledging not to use his office to go after people who seek and provide abortions or on doctors that provide gender affirming care to transgender people.

www.cnn.com