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]

On a cold night in November, a man named Jefferson Davis addressed a crowd of conservative activists gathered in an American Legion hall 20 miles north of Milwaukee. In his left hand, Davis brandished an unusual prop.

“In this diaper box are all the receipts for the illegal absentee ballots that were put into the Mark Zuckerberg drop boxes all over the state of Wisconsin,” said Davis.

Behind him, a long table stacked with papers, binders and a small pile of doorknobs stretched across the hall. They were for theatrical effect: the doorknobs were a tortured analogy for the multiple conspiracy theories Davis had floated, and the diaper box was a visual stand-in for the ballot drop boxes Wisconsin voters used across the state in 2020.

The paperwork, Davis insisted, contained the evidence of an enormous plot to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump in Wisconsin. His audience of more than 70 people, including local and state-level elected officials, sat rapt.

Davis was speaking at an event organized by Patriots of Ozaukee County, a rightwing group that vows to “combat the forces that threaten our safety, prosperity and freedoms” and compares itself to the musket-toting Minutemen of the revolutionary war.

The organization is one of more than 30 such “patriot” groups in Wisconsin identified by the Guardian which claim that the last presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Many, including the Ozaukee county organization, openly embrace Christian nationalist rhetoric and ideology, arguing that the laws of the US government should reflect conservative Christian beliefs about issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

Their religious interpretation of the US’s founding has propelled these groups not only into fights over elections administration but also against vaccine requirements and protections for transgender people.

Now, with the 2024 presidential election less than a year away, Wisconsin’s patriot movement and its allies are fighting for legislation that they believe will protect the state’s electoral process from fraud, and mobilizing supporters to work the polls, observe polling places and spread the word about their concerns – pushing the GOP further to the right and threatening more challenges to the voting process come election day.

Patriots of Ozaukee County was created in March 2021 by local activists who were “upset about the election”, said Scott Rishel, who founded the group. He felt there was nowhere he could speak freely about the 2020 election, or things like Covid-19 vaccines and masks. Plus, he said: “We were tired of the GOP, because they’re not really an activist organization.”

At the urging of a friend, he convened the group’s first meeting.

“With the 2020 election and Covid tyranny, that all opened my eyes,” he told the crowd of mostly older couples at the November event. “The silent majority was killing us. It was killing our country, killing our community. And we needed to learn how to no longer be silent.”

By “we”, Rishel meant conservative Christians. “Jesus Christ is my savior, my lord. It’s amazing how some people didn’t have the courage to say that – they think it’ll make people uncomfortable.”

Their movement of biblically motivated patriots has since roared to life, winning some powerful allies along the way.…….

‘You better pray’: Christian nationalist groups are mobilizing before the 2024 elections

‘Patriot’ groups – which deny Trump’s 2020 defeat and are pressing for voting restrictions – are proliferating

www.theguardian.com

 

[bird]

On a cold night in November, a man named Jefferson Davis addressed a crowd of conservative activists gathered in an American Legion hall 20 miles north of Milwaukee. In his left hand, Davis brandished an unusual prop.

“In this diaper box are all the receipts for the illegal absentee ballots that were put into the Mark Zuckerberg drop boxes all over the state of Wisconsin,” said Davis.

Behind him, a long table stacked with papers, binders and a small pile of doorknobs stretched across the hall. They were for theatrical effect: the doorknobs were a tortured analogy for the multiple conspiracy theories Davis had floated, and the diaper box was a visual stand-in for the ballot drop boxes Wisconsin voters used across the state in 2020.

The paperwork, Davis insisted, contained the evidence of an enormous plot to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump in Wisconsin. His audience of more than 70 people, including local and state-level elected officials, sat rapt.

Davis was speaking at an event organized by Patriots of Ozaukee County, a rightwing group that vows to “combat the forces that threaten our safety, prosperity and freedoms” and compares itself to the musket-toting Minutemen of the revolutionary war.

The organization is one of more than 30 such “patriot” groups in Wisconsin identified by the Guardian which claim that the last presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Many, including the Ozaukee county organization, openly embrace Christian nationalist rhetoric and ideology, arguing that the laws of the US government should reflect conservative Christian beliefs about issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

Their religious interpretation of the US’s founding has propelled these groups not only into fights over elections administration but also against vaccine requirements and protections for transgender people.

Now, with the 2024 presidential election less than a year away, Wisconsin’s patriot movement and its allies are fighting for legislation that they believe will protect the state’s electoral process from fraud, and mobilizing supporters to work the polls, observe polling places and spread the word about their concerns – pushing the GOP further to the right and threatening more challenges to the voting process come election day.

Patriots of Ozaukee County was created in March 2021 by local activists who were “upset about the election”, said Scott Rishel, who founded the group. He felt there was nowhere he could speak freely about the 2020 election, or things like Covid-19 vaccines and masks. Plus, he said: “We were tired of the GOP, because they’re not really an activist organization.”

At the urging of a friend, he convened the group’s first meeting.

“With the 2020 election and Covid tyranny, that all opened my eyes,” he told the crowd of mostly older couples at the November event. “The silent majority was killing us. It was killing our country, killing our community. And we needed to learn how to no longer be silent.”

By “we”, Rishel meant conservative Christians. “Jesus Christ is my savior, my lord. It’s amazing how some people didn’t have the courage to say that – they think it’ll make people uncomfortable.”

Their movement of biblically motivated patriots has since roared to life, winning some powerful allies along the way.…….

‘You better pray’: Christian nationalist groups are mobilizing before the 2024 elections

‘Patriot’ groups – which deny Trump’s 2020 defeat and are pressing for voting restrictions – are proliferating

www.theguardian.com

Hmmm…sounds more like Mr. Rishel’s eyes are wide shut.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

On a cold night in November, a man named Jefferson Davis addressed a crowd of conservative activists gathered in an American Legion hall 20 miles north of Milwaukee. In his left hand, Davis brandished an unusual prop.

“In this diaper box are all the receipts for the illegal absentee ballots that were put into the Mark Zuckerberg drop boxes all over the state of Wisconsin,” said Davis.

Behind him, a long table stacked with papers, binders and a small pile of doorknobs stretched across the hall. They were for theatrical effect: the doorknobs were a tortured analogy for the multiple conspiracy theories Davis had floated, and the diaper box was a visual stand-in for the ballot drop boxes Wisconsin voters used across the state in 2020.

The paperwork, Davis insisted, contained the evidence of an enormous plot to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump in Wisconsin. His audience of more than 70 people, including local and state-level elected officials, sat rapt.

Davis was speaking at an event organized by Patriots of Ozaukee County, a rightwing group that vows to “combat the forces that threaten our safety, prosperity and freedoms” and compares itself to the musket-toting Minutemen of the revolutionary war.

The organization is one of more than 30 such “patriot” groups in Wisconsin identified by the Guardian which claim that the last presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Many, including the Ozaukee county organization, openly embrace Christian nationalist rhetoric and ideology, arguing that the laws of the US government should reflect conservative Christian beliefs about issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

Their religious interpretation of the US’s founding has propelled these groups not only into fights over elections administration but also against vaccine requirements and protections for transgender people.

Now, with the 2024 presidential election less than a year away, Wisconsin’s patriot movement and its allies are fighting for legislation that they believe will protect the state’s electoral process from fraud, and mobilizing supporters to work the polls, observe polling places and spread the word about their concerns – pushing the GOP further to the right and threatening more challenges to the voting process come election day.

Patriots of Ozaukee County was created in March 2021 by local activists who were “upset about the election”, said Scott Rishel, who founded the group. He felt there was nowhere he could speak freely about the 2020 election, or things like Covid-19 vaccines and masks. Plus, he said: “We were tired of the GOP, because they’re not really an activist organization.”

At the urging of a friend, he convened the group’s first meeting.

“With the 2020 election and Covid tyranny, that all opened my eyes,” he told the crowd of mostly older couples at the November event. “The silent majority was killing us. It was killing our country, killing our community. And we needed to learn how to no longer be silent.”

By “we”, Rishel meant conservative Christians. “Jesus Christ is my savior, my lord. It’s amazing how some people didn’t have the courage to say that – they think it’ll make people uncomfortable.”

Their movement of biblically motivated patriots has since roared to life, winning some powerful allies along the way.…….

‘You better pray’: Christian nationalist groups are mobilizing before the 2024 elections

‘Patriot’ groups – which deny Trump’s 2020 defeat and are pressing for voting restrictions – are proliferating

www.theguardian.com

He's named after a traitor to the country. How fitting.

 

[MT15]

This is an R running for Congress from WV. Those are clearly nooses.

 

[MT15]

He has deleted the tweet. It was a Christmas tree with political action figures of Obama, Pelosi, Biden and Harris hanging from the tree with tiny nooses around their necks. With an action figure of Trump looking on. They were clearly nooses. He has posted this after he deleted it. However he left a tweet up from earlier today with the Biden Christmas photo and a naked Hunter photoshopped in. Such a class individual. He sure belongs in government - NOT.

 

[MT15]

Here is a tweet containing a screenshot of the tweet he deleted. I forgot he also had Hillary and Fauci.

 

[bird]

Here is a tweet containing a screenshot of the tweet he deleted. I forgot he also had Hillary and Fauci.

Forcryinoutloud this dumbazz needs to be not simply humiliated at the polls but laughed out of politics forever.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Republican lawmaker Lauren Boebert has announced she is switching Colorado districts in an attempt to stay in Congress.

Ms Boebert was facing a tough re-election campaign against Democrat Adam Frisch in the 3rd Congressional District and announced on Wednesday night she will now compete in the more GOP-friendly 4th.…..

Lauren Boebert switching Colorado congressional districts to save career

Far-right Republican was facing tough re-election campaign against Democrat Adam Frisch

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Booker]

Republican lawmaker Lauren Boebert has announced she is switching Colorado districts in an attempt to stay in Congress.

Ms Boebert was facing a tough re-election campaign against Democrat Adam Frisch in the 3rd Congressional District and announced on Wednesday night she will now compete in the more GOP-friendly 4th.…..

Lauren Boebert switching Colorado congressional districts to save career

Far-right Republican was facing tough re-election campaign against Democrat Adam Frisch

www.independent.co.uk

Ken Buck is the incumbent but he’s retiring. It is a safe Republican district, but I can’t imagine there won’t be other candidates that actually live in it and won’t have her baggage.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a victim as someone who is “injured, damaged, or killed by something.” Experiences and stories of victimization run the gamut from the personal to the political. As a psychoanalyst, I often hear reports from my patients of feelings of victimization. I try both to empathize with my patients’ suffering and understand its unconscious meanings.

But victimhood, real or imagined, has also come to assume a central role in social, political, and cultural discourse in the U.S. A victim sensibility seems clearly to be on the rise across the political spectrum, especially on the right. But while real people are victimized in the real world all the time, not all victimization stories are the same. Some are counterfeit.

For example, talking heads at Fox News tell their viewers every night that they are victims of ruthless, power-hungry and uncaring liberal elites. They present to their audience some version of “They want to replace you with immigrants and people of color.They don’t care about you.”

While it may be true that conservatives suffer genuine victimization by virtue of jobs moving overseas, wages stagnating, communities fragmenting, health care becoming unaffordable, a perceived increase in crime and growing wealth inequality, it is also transparently false that these sources of legitimate suffering reflect a plot by liberal elites to “replace” them.

Still, the right-wing grievance machine continues to spew out narratives of victimization. Consider former Fox News star Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue from 2022, in which he opposed aid to Ukraine while seeking to stir up feelings of grievance in irrational, dangerous and counterfeit ways:

There is nothing in the world worse than finding out that your deepest fears are justified…. That’s the nightmare scenario, that there really is a zombie in the closet…. Let's say you're a kid and you've convinced yourself that your parents really don't love you… They claim they do, but you can tell they don’t really mean it, that they aren’t being sincere…. And then one Christmas morning, confirmation! ...
You discover that they've forgotten to buy you presents … it just slipped their mind. Instead, they spent all their time and all their money buying gifts for a kid down the street that you don’t even know. … So all the things that you asked for, they gave to another 9-year-old…. Well, how would that make you feel? You would be crushed but you would also be vindicated … you would know with dead certainty that your parents really didn’t love you…. They're not really even very interested in you.
That's how a lot of Americans felt last night watching the House of Representatives approve another aid package to Ukraine.… Nothing against Ukraine, but we could probably use a lot of that money here right now.

Carlson’s rendering of his adult audience as unloved, betrayed and abandoned children is common today in conservative political circles. This kind of rhetoric produces counterfeit victims. It’s like a race to the bottom, where the group that can make the best case for being victimized earns the most care, concern and outrage. Trump, of course, is the ultimate victim. When announcing his third presidential run, he said, “We will be attacked. We will be slandered. We will be persecuted, just as I have been.”

There is another, darker side to the victim mentality. The belief in one’s own victimization is the ultimate rationale for striking out at others without guilt or remorse. It is like a ”Get Out of Jail Free” card, justifying heinous actions by reframing them as revenge, retaliation or even a form of twisted self-care, because the “right” to fight back is now morally justified.

We see this all the time, including in the debates about the morality of the current conflict in Gaza. Jewish suffering in the Holocaust justifies the killing of Palestinian civilians. The catastrophes Palestinians have suffered since the Nakba of 1948 are used by Hamas as a justification for its atrocities.

So when Carlson tells people that evil Democratic elites are ruthlessly trying to replace them, the resulting sense of victimization that he evokes easily becomes a justification for right-wing violence. Why would storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 be “bad” if those doing the storming were fighting against an insidious plot to take away their freedoms? If the election was stolen, then stealing it back makes moral sense.

If brown people are being given unbridled access to our borders, benefits and jobs — as part of a sinister plot by liberal Democrats to replace hard-working white Americans — then putting immigrants in cages and breaking up their families can easily seem morally legitimate. It should come as no surprise that victims often become victimizers. We see it all the time in the observation that those who abuse children were themselves often abused as children.............

How the right's counterfeit victimhood narratives harm all of us

Right-wing victimology isn't just irritating and childish. It's also a dangerous incitement to violence

www.salon.com

MSN

 

[Optimus Prime]

We’re about to go into that magical time of the year when Republicans in Frankfort are so scared of you, the voter, that they will go to amazing lengths to hide what they are doing.

For the next four months, they will use parliamentary tricks to make sure you don’t know what they’re doing as they pass bills to take away your rights, reward their friends and generally impose their will on you.

And they figure you’ll never learn about it, or if you do, will forget about it before they’re up for election again. They’re probably right.

It’s not a government by the people or for the people. It’s a government in spite of the people.

What am I talking about?

The Kentucky League of Women Voters came out with a report just a month ago that shines a light on the extraordinary lengths Senate President Robert Stivers, House Speaker David Osborne, Senate Floor Leader Damon Thayer and House Floor Leader Steven Rudy will go to to keep you in the dark.

I’ve told you about these things for years.

In columns, I used to warn you to beware the “ideas of March,” because most of these tricks used to happen near the end of the session as the General Assembly pushed bills through as the legislature wound to a close.

Not anymore. Republicans now use these tricks from the first week of the session to the last.

Before the 2023 session, I even wrote a piece comparing the civics class explanation of how a bill becomes law in the Schoolhouse Rock cartoon “I’m Just a Bill” to what really goes on in Kentucky.

What I didn’t have is the statistics the League of Women Voters uncovered that show how bad and how undemocratic the process has become.

First, the league identified four “undemocratic” things the legislature does to hide what it’s doing from you.

• It holds floor readings of bills before they are acted on in committee, allowing the legislature to pass the legislation out of committee and on the floor on the same day – often after making major changes to the bill.
• It uses “committee substitutes,” which are rewritten bills, that are introduced in committee at the last moment. They can often make drastic changes in legislation without warning and then, if they’re voted on on the floor the same day, it keeps you from knowing what’s going on and blocks legislators from offering amendments.

• It chooses not to hold three floor readings of bills before voting on them, as is generally required in the state constitution.
• It negotiates and passes “free conference committee reports” with little public input and with little opportunity for even legislators to read them. Those reports are essentially rewritten bills that are adopted in ad hoc committees made up of both House and Senate members after the two chambers pass different versions of the same bill. They are often used to sneak in provisions that failed earlier in the session or were never even discussed publicly.

Everyone who has watched the legislature over the years knew this was going on more and more. It wasn’t until the League of Women Voters report that we found out how pervasive the problem has become.

The League studied bills passed in the 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 sessions of the General Assembly.


What it found was that in 1998, the last of those sessions when Democrats held both the House and the Senate, less than 5% of bills passed using one of those four undemocratic ploys.

The only undemocratic ploy used widely back then was the free conference committees – and those were mainly used in the final days of the session to hammer out differences in budgets and road plans and other major bills in which differences were likely to arise.

The statistics show that when Republicans took over the Senate, democracy took a hit.

By 2014, 29% of Senate bills that became law and 42% of House bills that became law benefitted from the undemocratic shenanigans. This was mainly because of the Senate Republicans, the League’s statistics show.

In 2022, it was 24% of Senate Bills and 32% of House bills.

It’s clearly the Republicans who are driving this..............

MSN

Gerth: 4 sneaky tricks Kentucky's GOP legislature uses to hide its actions from voters

Statistics from the Kentucky League of Women Voters expose Republican lawmakers' undemocratic shenanigans

www.courier-journal.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Question: Is there anything more absurd than red state governors rejecting federal programs that directly benefit their constituents?

Easy answer: Yes. It's the explanations they give to make their actions appear to be sober, responsible fiscal decisions.

The Republican governors of Iowa and Nebraska brought us the most recent examples of this phenomenon just before Christmas.

The issue in both states is a summer food program that provides $40 a month per child in June, July and August to families eligible for free or reduced-price school meals.

The program is known as the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program for Children, or Summer EBT. Its purpose is to give the eligible families a financial bridge during the months when their kids aren't in school.

The governors didn't see it that way. Here's how Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds justified her decision to reject the federal subsidy for low-income Iowans: “Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families."

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen's explanation was, "I don’t believe in welfare."

Both governors said their states already had programs in place to address food needs for low-income families, and that was enough.

It's worth noting that the explanations by both Reynolds and Pillen are fundamentally incoherent. What does Reynolds even mean by calling the program "not sustainable"? It would be sustained as long as Congress continues to fund it, which is almost certain as long as Republicans don't take control of both houses and kill it.

As for Pillen's crack about "welfare," he didn't bother to explain what he believes is wrong with "welfare" as such; he just uttered the term knowing that it's a dog whistle for conservative voters aimed at dehumanizing the program's beneficiaries.

What makes these governors' refusals so much more irresponsible is that the federal government is picking up 100% of the tab for the benefits; the states only have to agree to pay half the administrative costs. Their shares come to $2.2 million in Iowa and $300,000 in Nebraska, according to those states' estimates.

In return, 240,000 children in Iowa would receive a total of $28.8 million in benefits over the three summer months, and 150,000 Nebraskans would receive a total of $18 million. Sounds like a massively profitable investment in child health in those states.

The governors' defenses smack of the same strained plausibility of those statements made by banks, streaming networks and other commercial entities that explain that their price hikes and service reductions are "efforts to serve you better."

The politicians are asserting that they're doing their taxpayers a big favor by watching eagle-eyed over their state expenditures, without mentioning how much they're giving up to show themselves as budget hawks — or how many citizens will suffer in the process.

Reynolds' defense of her action was particularly fatuous. “An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,” she said.

Not only is there no evidence that family food purchases under this or any other federal program promote obesity, the truth is just the opposite. It's universally accepted among poverty and nutrition professionals that food insecurity, which is rampant among low-income families, increases obesity rates.

Iowa and Nebraska may not be the only red states turning down the summer food program. By the Jan. 1 deadline to accept the program, 30 states had done so, including at least nine red states. But the list published by the Department of Agriculture may not be complete as of this writing. Iowa and Nebraska, however, are the only two states that have announced their opposition publicly...............

MSN

 

[MT15]

This is the really scary part:

 

[MT15]

A substantial portion of the GOP wants a Christo-fascist state. Nobody will be safe from them.

 

[MT15]

I don’t think any one person is more responsible for the current state of the GOP than McConnell

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[MT15]

This is what Trump has done to the GOP. They’re all liars and grifters now, unencumbered by the truth.

 

[MT15]

Zero fiscal restraint or responsibility. MAGA is a cult.