What happens to the Republican Party now? (2 Viewers)

[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]

Moderates need to learn to tell the difference between somebody sincere and a snake oil salesmen like Youngskin. They seem to get fooled a lot, constantly going back to that same trough of "moderate Republican". It's not just in Virginia.

It's way past time people stop claiming they "got fooled" when all the evidence they need is right in front of them. Very little having to do with Republicans/Trump has surprised or fooled me in the last 6 years. Most of it (including Youngskin) could be seen coming far in advance if people just paid attention and saw what they were doing/saying publicly.

I'm not attacking you, hope it doesn't come off that way. I'm just tired of giving voters a pass by claiming they were fooled. I see it in the media all the time. No they weren't. That might have worked in 2016, but no longer.

and now that the primaries are over, those in purple states where they can't win with just the MAGA votes are backtracking a bit from the 2020 election denials they were giving during the primaries

This is who I was thinking of
=====================

If they had a Mount Rushmore for shameless politicians who, without a hint of embarrassment, will say anything to get elected, whether or not they actually believe what they’re telling voters, then the face of New Hampshire Republican Don Bolduc would be on it.

Bolduc is a retired Army general who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire. For almost two years, he’s been telling voters that Donald Trump really won the presidency in 2020, that Democrats stole it right out from under him. He said what he thought he had to say to win the GOP primary against a more moderate Republican who didn’t claim to believe the election was stolen. And it worked; last week, Bolduc won.

But just two days after his primary victory, he began telling voters he had seen the light, that he got it all wrong, that he came to the conclusion the 2020 election hadn’t been stolen.

He said he uncovered information that shows Joe Biden really is the legitimate president of the United States, and that the voters of New Hampshire should simply forget everything he had been telling them about how Trump really won in 2020.

I don’t want to come off as cynical, but it sure sounds like Don Bolduc was channeling Emily Litella, the ditsy “Saturday Night Live” character who, after saying something that made no sense, would brush it off with a simple “Never mind.”

Here’s what The New York Times had to say about Bolduc’s change of mind — or, more accurately, his change of political strategy — now that he has to face incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) in the general election: “Like a driver making a screeching U-turn, Don Bolduc, the Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire, pivoted on Thursday from his primary race to the general election, saying he had ‘come to the conclusion’ that the 2020 presidential election ‘was not stolen,’ after he had spent more than a year claiming it was.”

In fact, just one month before the New Hampshire primary, in a debate with his Republican opponents, Bolduc said: “I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying that Trump won the election and, damn it, I stand by my letter.” The audience cheered, and Bolduc finished with a dramatic “I’m not switching horses, baby. This is it.”

Well, baby, that was it, until he did switch horses two days after he won — and now he has to win over not only hard-right primary Republican voters but moderate voters as well, in a state Trump lost by 7 points in 2020.

Bolduc might have gotten away with his fairy tale about how “Trump won the election” in some ruby-red state like Alabama or Wyoming, but he must have figured out that stuff like that doesn’t play well in New Hampshire, a purple state with a GOP governor and two Democratic U.S. senators..............

If you believe any of it, you’re as gullible as Don Bolduc hopes New Hampshire voters will be when they cast their ballots on Nov. 8.

You think maybe that “research” came not from Granite State voters but from GOP strategists who warned him that if he stayed with his loony story about a rigged presidential election, he’d be a loser in November?.......

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...sedgntp&cvid=0a211e4e74f64e9ca98684b3a799d937

 

[insidejob]

This is who I was thinking of
=====================

If they had a Mount Rushmore for shameless politicians who, without a hint of embarrassment, will say anything to get elected, whether or not they actually believe what they’re telling voters, then the face of New Hampshire Republican Don Bolduc would be on it.

Bolduc is a retired Army general who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire. For almost two years, he’s been telling voters that Donald Trump really won the presidency in 2020, that Democrats stole it right out from under him. He said what he thought he had to say to win the GOP primary against a more moderate Republican who didn’t claim to believe the election was stolen. And it worked; last week, Bolduc won.

But just two days after his primary victory, he began telling voters he had seen the light, that he got it all wrong, that he came to the conclusion the 2020 election hadn’t been stolen.

He said he uncovered information that shows Joe Biden really is the legitimate president of the United States, and that the voters of New Hampshire should simply forget everything he had been telling them about how Trump really won in 2020.

I don’t want to come off as cynical, but it sure sounds like Don Bolduc was channeling Emily Litella, the ditsy “Saturday Night Live” character who, after saying something that made no sense, would brush it off with a simple “Never mind.”

Here’s what The New York Times had to say about Bolduc’s change of mind — or, more accurately, his change of political strategy — now that he has to face incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) in the general election: “Like a driver making a screeching U-turn, Don Bolduc, the Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire, pivoted on Thursday from his primary race to the general election, saying he had ‘come to the conclusion’ that the 2020 presidential election ‘was not stolen,’ after he had spent more than a year claiming it was.”

In fact, just one month before the New Hampshire primary, in a debate with his Republican opponents, Bolduc said: “I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying that Trump won the election and, damn it, I stand by my letter.” The audience cheered, and Bolduc finished with a dramatic “I’m not switching horses, baby. This is it.”

Well, baby, that was it, until he did switch horses two days after he won — and now he has to win over not only hard-right primary Republican voters but moderate voters as well, in a state Trump lost by 7 points in 2020.

Bolduc might have gotten away with his fairy tale about how “Trump won the election” in some ruby-red state like Alabama or Wyoming, but he must have figured out that stuff like that doesn’t play well in New Hampshire, a purple state with a GOP governor and two Democratic U.S. senators..............

If you believe any of it, you’re as gullible as Don Bolduc hopes New Hampshire voters will be when they cast their ballots on Nov. 8.

You think maybe that “research” came not from Granite State voters but from GOP strategists who warned him that if he stayed with his loony story about a rigged presidential election, he’d be a loser in November?.......

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...sedgntp&cvid=0a211e4e74f64e9ca98684b3a799d937

Honestly, I wish there were more who pulled this play instead of actually being nuts.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Honestly, I wish there were more who pulled this play instead of actually being nuts.

This is the question I've wondered about for years, here and on PDB

Is it better or worse if they believe everything word they're saying, or they know it total bullshirt and they're saying whatever they need to to win an election (or get clicks/likes/ TV ratings)? or if it matters either way

 

[Taurus]

Honestly, I wish there were more who pulled this play instead of actually being nuts.

But is he? Which is the smokescreen and which is his real position?

 

[bird]

This is the question I've wondered about for years, here and on PDB

Is it better or worse if they believe everything word they're saying, or they know it total bullshirt and they're saying whatever they need to to win an election (or get clicks/likes/ TV ratings)? or if it matters either way

See Bird's Theorem. They are counting on the stupidity of the electorate.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I've said it before, the religious right is going all out after everything they've ever wanted
===========================================================

Emboldened by the U.S. Supreme Court, today’s religious right is pressing in courts nationwide for what amounts to a sweeping right to discriminate. U.S. courts are flooded with cases brought by institutions claiming their right to religious freedom entitles them to refuse to comply with anti-discrimination laws.

Under the banner of religion, an employer is asserting a right to deny its workers insurance coverage for drugs that prevent HIV— an argument that just Wednesday found favor in federal court. Religiously affiliated schools posit a right to fire unmarried pregnant women. And taxpayer-funded child placement agencies turn away families seeking to foster or adopt because they are Jewish, Catholic or a same-sex couple.

For the past decade, the American Civil Liberties Union has tracked cases invoking a religious right to discriminate, and we’ve never been more alarmed. The sheer number of these cases has exploded. In 2012, the first ACLU report documenting them came in at seven single-spaced pages. The most recent report runs close to 30.

The scope of these claims has also mushroomed. When we began our monitoring, most claimants sought to restrict women’s access to abortion and contraception and deny wedding services to same-sex couples. Now, in the name of religion, businesses assert a right to refuse to hire LGBTQ people, public school teachers a right to misgender students and others a right to discriminate against terminally ill patients exploring end of life options.

These efforts are simply incompatible with a pluralistic constitutional democracy that values both equality and religious freedom. Religious freedom, after all, doesn’t mean a right to hurt others.

Consider an example currently making headlines from Texas. On Wednesday, a U.S. district judge accepted the argument of a for-profit business that it has a right to deny employees insurance coverage for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), pioneering drugs used to prevent the transmission of HIV that can cost as much as $20,000 a year.

The employer argued that buying insurance that covers this treatment — as required by federal law — “substantially burdens” its religious freedom because “homosexual behavior” conflicts with its Christian faith. The court accepted the argument, letting the employer’s religious beliefs override the health of its employees.

The PrEP case is no outlier. In Massachusetts, the Salvation Army is arguing that its shelters can discriminate against people with opioid use disorder who rely on medication-assisted therapy, the most effective treatment for addiction. The charity maintains that its objection is religiously based and should therefore trump its obligations under federal civil rights law to serve people with disabilities.

Proponents of religious exemptions portray them as a shield to protect religious people from an increasingly secular United States. In reality, they’ve become a sword wielded to impose religious beliefs on others..............

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/07/supreme-court-religious-right-antidiscrimination-laws/

 

[Optimus Prime]

Many in the media had a meltdown when President Biden called the MAGA movement “semi-fascist.” They tut-tutted because they said his speech in Philadelphia was too “divisive.” In reality, the fault in Biden’s speech is that he was not tough enough on Republicans.

Biden seems to believe there is a mass of normal, non-MAGA Republicans out there. If there is, it is a small minority in the party. Most are all too comfortable with the extremism and violent rhetoric of their peers.

Donald Trump and his flunkies have predicted violence if he were prosecuted for hoarding highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. He did it again Thursday, declaring that if he were indicted, the country would have “problems ... the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.” He added that Americans wouldn’t stand for prosecution.

His statement is an incitement to violence, plain and simple. It echoes the same rhetoric he deployed in the run-up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. No pundit or Republican official who continues to defend Trump or who feigns outrage at characterizations that his movement is “fascist” can claim ignorance.

Scores of Republican election deniers are on the ballot, including many who actively sought to overturn the 2020 election (e.g., Doug Mastriano, candidate for Pennsylvania governor; Adam Laxalt, candidate for Senate in Nevada). To call these individuals “conservatives” or to treat them as garden-variety candidates is to conceal that they, too, are a threat to democracy.

The horror show does not stop there. The Post reported last week, “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) claimed credit Thursday for flying dozens of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, a resort island off Massachusetts, to make a political point about the record influx of those coming across the southern border.” Some called it “depraved”; others labeled it “inhumane.”

Let’s put it this way: Sending migrants to “liberal elites” attempts to use non-White human beings as “punishment.” This conduct is not only dehumanizing; it is racist.

As Jonathan V. Last explains at the Bulwark, DeSantis used migrants as “props” because “he saw that he could use them as a means to the ends of his personal ambition.” He concluded, “I’m trying — really trying — not to get too hot here. But Christians should look at this act and be revolted. They should be horrified.”

Some are, no doubt, but the MAGA base is delighted, which is why DeSantis is doing it.............

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/18/republicans-desantis-migrants-busing-cruelty/

 

[Optimus Prime]

WASHINGTON — A military veterans organization is calling on prosecutors to get more aggressive with the Patriot Front, a far-right, white supremacist group that has been marching in cities across the country, arguing existing laws provide the authority needed to bring criminal charges against its members.

Task Force Butler, an organization founded by U.S. Army veteran Kristofer Goldsmith with the tagline "Veterans Fighting Fascism," published a report this week that identifies members of the Patriot Front and specifies criminal statutes it says can be used against them.

The report, shared exclusively with NBC News, has been sent to various local and state law enforcement officials in an effort to "hold Patriot Front legally accountable for their politically and racially-motivated harassment of vulnerable minority communities, their terrorizing of local residents in cities and towns throughout the United States, their acts of violence, and their use of American cities as backdrops to showcase for the media and the nation the ethno-nationalist agenda."

Goldsmith, who said he worked with 10 volunteers on the 200-plus-page report, is hoping to spur action by detailing what he says is evidence against dozens of Patriot Front members, in addition to laying out a road map for prosecution...........

Veterans group presses state and local prosecutors to go after far-right Patriot Front

 

[Optimus Prime]

???

 

[MT15]

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

This is what I mean when I say the Republican party, at its core, lacks integrity:

 

[superchuck500]

 

[MT15]

This totally tracks. Kudos for being honest about it though. Rest of the GOP won’t be honest about it.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Ladies, he's single

 

[superchuck500]

This totally tracks. Kudos for being honest about it though. Rest of the GOP won’t be honest about it.

"Anne Marie Schieber, a spokesperson for Gibbs' campaign told CNN that Gibbs believed women should be allowed to vote and work."


When your campaign spokesperson has to issue this kind of statement, you're done.

 

[Optimus Prime]

"Anne Marie Schieber, a spokesperson for Gibbs' campaign told CNN that Gibbs believed women should be allowed to vote and work."


When your campaign spokesperson has to issue this kind of statement, you're done.

I always find it odd when a campaign issues a statement that says the exact opposite what the candidate just said

"Gibbs believes that America was strengthened when women were given the right to vote and they govern just fine"

 

[MT15]

"Anne Marie Schieber, a spokesperson for Gibbs' campaign told CNN that Gibbs believed women should be allowed to vote and work."


When your campaign spokesperson has to issue this kind of statement, you're done.

I would hope so, but I’m not convinced anymore. I think a majority in the R party think like he does. Just depends on the district whether he can get elected or not.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

When your campaign spokesperson has to issue this kind of statement, you're done.

Have you seen today's Republicans lately?