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?

 

[SamAndreas]

Oh Deer:

Florida Sen. Rick Scott says defeated Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker will 'continue to be a leader' in the GOP 'for years to come'​

Florida Sen. Rick Scott says defeated Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker will 'continue to be a leader' in the GOP 'for years to come'

Walker began his Senate bid with high hopes from many GOP leaders, but his campaign was eventually weighed down by a series of public scandals.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[superchuck500]

 

[SamAndreas]

Yeah, but she's a talking horse. Talking horses always say strange things.

 

[MT15]

That article is somewhat disturbing. I would like to have known the total attendance and some other information about the organization. Is it considered fringe by the rest of the GOP?

 

[Optimus Prime]

Backlash Response 101: "I was just joking" or "I was being sarcastic"
===========================================

The Biden White House on Monday criticized Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after the Georgia Republican said had she been in charge of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, the rioters “would’ve been armed” and “we would have won.” Congresswoman Greene is now attacking the administration while suggesting she was just joking when she made her remarks Saturday night at a Republican event............

In a press release Greene used extremist rhetoric to try to deflect the White House’s criticism and attack Democrats.

“The White House needs to learn how sarcasm works,” Greene claimed, suggesting it is acceptable to “joke” about an armed insurrection, an armed attempted coup, overthrowing the federal government or overturning a free and fair election, and acceptable to joke about the seven people who died in conjunction with the January 6 insurrection............

'Learn how sarcasm works': Marjorie Taylor Greene backpedals on 'armed' insurrection gaffe

 

[Optimus Prime]

............“I want to tell you something: If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won,” Greene said. “Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”

The statement carries with it all the plausible deniability that the RNC resolution did, since Greene was telling jokes onstage at an event for young Republicans in New York. (Her office issued a statement criticizing those who were “trying to weaponize a sarcastic joke I made.”) The provocateur congresswoman is inviting journalists to write this up as if it were an entirely serious comment, at which point she can claim persecution — a valued commodity.

But consider the game Greene is playing. She’s making Jan. 6 a punchline and inviting extremists in her party to believe that there’s more than a hint of truth in her quip — even that she’s expressing common cause with the insurrectionists (“we would have won”). And given her priors, it’s no secret what the intent is, no matter how much she’ll claim otherwise.

It’s a remarkable moment, but also one that’s been a long time coming.

A Monmouth University poll in July showed not only that many more Republicans labeled Jan. 6 a “legitimate protest” than an “insurrection,” but that more Republicans also labeled it a “legitimate protest” even than a “riot.”

Against that backdrop, a particularly extreme congresswoman from Georgia has decided that a quip like this might land with a certain crowd of young Republicans in New York.

But also consider the substance of the quip. While Greene hasn’t been linked to organizing the insurrection, she did tell people on the eve of Jan. 6, “You can’t allow it to just transfer power ‘peacefully’ like Joe Biden wants and allow him to become our president, because he did not win this election.”................

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Jan. 6 ‘joke’ has been building for a long time

 

[GrandAdmiral]

What an butt crevasse.

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

so she is basically laying the ground work for when they lose in 2024. Rallying the troops.

 

[Saintamaniac]

so she is basically laying the ground work for when they lose in 2024. Rallying the troops.

She's laying the groundwork for a lot of people to get killed because there will be no repeat of January 6th. The next insurrection attempt will be put down by force and I, for one, hope they get every single one of them.

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

She's laying the groundwork for a lot of people to get killed because there will be no repeat of January 6th. The next insurrection attempt will be put down by force and I, for one, hope they get every single one of them.

She doesn't care about who dies. But i guarantee she won't be on in the front. She'll be leading from the rear, from Twitter safely in her office..

 

[SFIDC3]

She's laying the groundwork for a lot of people to get killed because there will be no repeat of January 6th. The next insurrection attempt will be put down by force and I, for one, hope they get every single one of them.

I hope she tries to lead the next one in person....but BigDaddy is probably correct....

 

[Optimus Prime]

She doesn't care about who dies. But i guarantee she won't be on in the front. She'll be leading from the rear, from Twitter safely in her office..

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

I hope she tries to lead the next one in person....but BigDaddy is probably correct....

well, as nice it would be for leading from the front and taking a hail of bullets, that would make her a Maryter. The worst thing for her would be her being tried for treason..

 

[MT15]

This is an email newsletter I get from the Atlantic. I cannot tease and link it, so I have copied it. Worth the read. It’s from Tom Nichols:

“The near miss of the midterms, in which almost all of the most extreme Republicans were defeated, seems to have generated a certain amount of complacency about the ongoing threat to the American system of government. I know, of course, that many of our fellow citizens are well aware of the dangers posed by conspiracy theorists, election deniers, and other assorted enemies of the Constitution. And I cannot blame people for becoming numb: You can watch a Paul Gosar or a Marjorie Taylor Greene spouting off like pinwheels of paranoia only so many times.

But we cannot ignore recent developments. Only a few days ago, Greene took the stage in formal attire at the New York Young Republican Club gala and said, “I want to tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that”—the January 6 insurrection—“we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.” A few days before that, Gosar posted and then deleted a tweet supporting Trump’s call for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution.

These are not examples from the fringe. Dozens of Republicans contacted then–White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after the 2020 election and right through to Trump’s last days in office with wild theories and desperate ideas about how to keep the 45th president in power. The Meadows texts were obtained by the House January 6 committee and then published by Talking Points Memo. The messages are alternately stomach-turning and comical, in some cases at the same time.

For example, on January 17, 2021, only 11 days after the insurrection and roughly 72 hours before Joe Biden was to be sworn in, Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina pleaded with Meadows:

Mark, in seeing what’s happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!
This is a member of the U.S. Congress insisting, in a jumble of exclamation points and capital letters, that a sitting president call out the men and women of the United States military to nullify an election and prevent, by force of arms, the constitutional transfer of power. This is sedition, and it is madness. It is also evidence of a shocking inability to spell; if you’re going to advocate for a coup, the least we might expect is that you first learn how to spell martial law.

Asked for comment, Norman told TPM, “It’s been two years. Send that text to me and I’ll take a look at it.” Well, sure. Two years is a long time in a busy life, and it’s easy to forget contacting the chief aide to the most powerful man in the world with a panicked demand to unleash the army against your fellow citizens. People get busy; assaults on the constitutional order get lost in the shuffle.

What Norman is probably counting on, of course, is that people will forget about his behavior and that of his colleagues. We are all prone to “normalcy bias,” the human inclination to disregard the danger that things could change dramatically in a short time. Normalcy bias is why our minds sometimes refuse to grasp threats that range from natural disasters to nuclear war; we assume that tomorrow will always look something like today.

But this unwillingness to think about danger should not stop us from confronting the undeniable fact, as the TPM report put it, that we now have a record of “Republican members of Congress strategizing in real time to reverse the results” of the 2020 election. As my colleague David A. Graham wrote today, these election deniers and seditionists are still in Congress—Norman won reelection with nearly 65 percent of the vote in his district—and they have faced no real repercussions for their disloyalty to the Constitution.

Indeed, these same people will be sworn back into office in January, making a mockery of their oath. Worse, they will be the majority. Representative Jim Jordan is expected to become the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. (I know it’s become a cliché to say “Let that sink in,” but I am not sure what to say about a scheming fabulist chairing such an important committee other than “Let that sink in.”)

Conservatives bristling at this as a selective focus on the fringe might argue that there are still loyal Republicans out there who will defend the Constitution, and that it is a mistake to describe the entire party as a dangerous movement based on lies and sedition. But we must ask when those Republicans are going to rise up and oppose the enemy in their midst. What conclusion can we reach about the GOP when a supposed centrist such as Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin campaigned for Trump’s would-be clone in Arizona, Kari Lake? How much fidelity to the Constitution can we presume from Ohio Senator-elect J. D. Vance (a Yale Law School graduate) when he gladly accepts Greene’s endorsement and support?

It is not enough to say, as New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu did, that the GOP should stop nominating “crazy, unelectable candidates.” That is a utilitarian argument, not a moral one. What will it take for prominent Republican leaders to say that they will not share a party or a platform with the likes of Norman, Gosar, and Greene? Who will stay, and who will go? If there was ever a time for the last sensible Republicans to remember that they are the party of Lincoln, the man who saved the Union and its Constitution, and to declare a war against their seditionist wing, this is it. And if they won’t—or can’t—then that should tell Americans everything they need to know about the party and its base.”

 

[Taurus]

well, as nice it would be for leading from the front and taking a hail of bullets, that would make her a Maryter. The worst thing for her would be her being tried for treason..

The fear of making martyrs is vastly overemphasized.

MLK was made a martyr and while his name is still invoked, his movement fractured, faltered and has been largely marginalized without his leadership.

Take out effective leadership whenever you can. A dead martyr is way less impactful than a live leader.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The most consistent theme articulated by the Republican Establishment in response to the midterm elections is a determination to solve what Mitch McConnell euphemistically called its “candidate-quality problem.” “We ended up having a candidate-quality test,” McConnell told reporters yesterday.

“Hopefully, in the next cycle, we’ll have quality candidates everywhere and a better outcome.” Politico reports “some House members and operatives are already debating and trading ideas about how to multiply the number of top-tier candidates and avoid unelectable ones.”

Republicans are certainly wise to try harder next time to nominate candidates who live in the state they are running to represent, are not violent criminals, have avoided publicly calling for the overthrow of the government, and so on. That said, this advice is so blindingly obvious that one wonders why it became a question at all and why it took a cycle of election defeats for this lesson to set in.

The answer is that the candidate-quality problem is merely the byproduct of a much more deeply rooted crisis of delusion that has spread up and down the ranks of the party. The GOP’s voters and its elites reside in a hermetically sealed world of paranoia so far removed from reality that it is often difficult for them to relate to the concerns of average people. The attempts by the likes of McConnell to address this problem at the level of the nominating process only scratch the surface of the predicament.

The esteemed conservative critic Roger Kimball has written a column that inadvertently reveals the depth of the intellectual rot. Kimball begins his argument by recalling the closing message of Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign: “Where’s the outrage?” Dole decided to end his campaign by harping on a collection of wildly overtorqued accusations against the Clinton administration.

“Back then, the chief issue was the Clinton Administration’s use and abuse of 900 FBI files on their political opponents,” Kimball writes. “Imagine! An American president using the FBI as his secret police!”

In 1996, Fox News was just getting off the ground. Weird charges might burble up through the right-wing media — The Wall Street Journal editorial page spent years insinuating that Bill Clinton murdered his lawyer to cover up a cocaine-smuggling operation — but most Republicans still got most of their news from real media organizations.

A candidate like Dole might cynically use some of these stories to crank up the base in the closing days of the election, but he almost certainly knew Clinton had not in fact turned the FBI into his secret police.

But a person like Kimball did believe this, and he seems to still believe this. And in the quarter-century since then, the conservative alt-news ecosystem has grown to the point where these paranoid beliefs are the predominant worldview among Republicans, not just a fringe.

This explains why Trump, insurrection and all, is a perfectly rational response. If you believe Democrats have been engaging in massive voter fraud, forming secret police squads, and so on, it only makes sense to fight back.

Kimball uses the imagined Clinton secret-police episode to ask why people aren’t literally staging armed demonstrations to protest Twitter’s content-moderation policies, which he sees as yet another element of the generational left-wing conspiracy.

The right-wing conviction that the Democratic Party is a Marxist cabal that does not operate by normal democratic principles is the central idea promulgated by Fox News and the conservative media. Responding to that belief is not just a messaging choice. It can’t easily be turned off because the voters and their nominees actually believe it.........

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

A veteran Georgia Republican operative who is slated to be chief of staff for incoming Rep. Mike Collins was arrested last month for allegedly kicking a dog.

Brandon Phillips was arrested on Nov. 17 on a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty and held on a $1,200 bond, which he posted to get released, according to a booking report. In 2016, Phillips resigned as Donald Trump’s Georgia state director after his prior criminal history was revealed.

In the latest incident, Phillips allegedly kicked the dog of a woman named Tifani Eledge with his boot, causing a cut to the animal’s stomach, according to an affidavit attached to a warrant for Phillips’ arrest. The alleged incident occurred on Aug. 23 in Albany, Georgia.

Collins (R-Ga.) has not formally announced that Phillips, 36, will be his chief of staff, but three Georgia Republican congressional staffers told POLITICO he has been selected for the job...............

GOP operative who allegedly kicked a dog hired as top aide to new congressman

Brandon Phillips was arrested last month on a charge of animal cruelty. In 2016, he resigned as Donald Trump's Georgia state director after his criminal history was revealed.

www.politico.com

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]