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?

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

Odd, I had always heard that he was one of the few reasonable Fox personalities

Already departed Shep Smith was another

Compared to the whack jobs on that channel, Wallace was reasonable. However, he was still very careful with his questions in interviews with Republicans compared to his famous interview with Clinton.

He wasn't impartial by any means because he knows who butters his bread.

 

[Optimus Prime]

guess this can go here
=======================

After a string of tornadoes decimated large swaths of Kentucky, Rand Paul leaped into action.

"As the sun comes up this morning we will begin to understand the true scope of the devastation, but we already know of loss of life and severe property damage," the Kentucky Republican Senator wrote to President Joe Biden. "The Governor of the Commonwealth has requested federal assistance this morning, and certainly further requests will be coming as the situation is assessed. I fully support those requests and ask that you move expeditiously to approve the appropriate resources for our state."

Which makes sense. Disaster relief is a place where the federal government can make a real difference -- particularly in the early stages of the aftermath as residents (and even state government) may be struggling to get back on its feet.

The problem? Well, Paul has made something of a career out of opposing disaster relief in places other than Kentucky.

In 2013, he opposed a disaster relief measure for the Northeast following the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy. "I would have given them 9 billion and I would've taken the 9 billion from somewhere else," Paul explained at the time, citing the price tag for the measure. "I would have taken it from foreign aid and said, 'You know what, we don't have money for Egypt or Pakistan this year because we have to help the Northeast."

Four years later, Paul voted against relief funds for the victims of Hurricane Harvey, which struck Louisiana and Texas. The Senate voted against an amendment offered by Paul that would have funded the Harvey relief efforts with money previously allocated for foreign aid.

As you might have noticed, Paul's request for federal assistance from Biden over the weekend did not come with a stipulation that any federal dollars allocated to the state would have to come from an equal offset in another part of the federal budget. He just wanted help -- and understandably so.........

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

How his father hasn't disowned him is neyond me...

 

[SamAndreas]

How his father hasn't disowned him is neyond me...

Ron Paul - 2012
FREE BANANAS

 

[Optimus Prime]

Article on religion and the GOP
==========
New polling data highlight the extent to which Americans are continuing to abandon organized religious institutions. That’s ominous news for the far right, which overwhelming relies on White evangelicals for political power.


The Pew Research Center reported on Tuesday that a “survey of the religious composition of the United States finds the religiously unaffiliated share of the public is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago.”


Perhaps most significantly, “Christians continue to make up a majority of the U.S. populace, but their share of the adult population is 12 points lower in 2021 than it was in 2011.”

In particular, the group that is the core of the GOP base is in steep decline: “Today, 24% of U.S. adults describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Protestants, down 6 percentage points since 2007.”

Meanwhile, the religious group that leans heavily to the left is growing: “Currently, about three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) are religious ‘nones’ — people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or ‘nothing in particular’ when asked about their religious identity.”……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/15/pew-poll-declining-religion/

 

[Taurus]

Article on religion and the GOP
==========
New polling data highlight the extent to which Americans are continuing to abandon organized religious institutions. That’s ominous news for the far right, which overwhelming relies on White evangelicals for political power.


The Pew Research Center reported on Tuesday that a “survey of the religious composition of the United States finds the religiously unaffiliated share of the public is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago.”


Perhaps most significantly, “Christians continue to make up a majority of the U.S. populace, but their share of the adult population is 12 points lower in 2021 than it was in 2011.”

In particular, the group that is the core of the GOP base is in steep decline: “Today, 24% of U.S. adults describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Protestants, down 6 percentage points since 2007.”

Meanwhile, the religious group that leans heavily to the left is growing: “Currently, about three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) are religious ‘nones’ — people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or ‘nothing in particular’ when asked about their religious identity.”……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/15/pew-poll-declining-religion/

Man, I can't wait until candidates start pandering to us.

The institution of Secular Law will be a great day, praise the FSM (PBUH)!

 

[MT15]

I get a newsletter (well, several) as part of my digital subscription to The Atlantic. This one is from Tom Nichols, titled Why Are Republicans Siding with Russia?

‘There’s been a lot of anger this week over Fox News’s born-again populist, Tucker Carlson, going all in on attacking NATO and siding with Russia at the very moment that Russian President Vladimir Putin is massing a gigantic military force on Ukraine’s border. But Carlson, this century’s Vladimir Pozner, has long been a Putin apologist. He’s just throwing off any last pretenses of whose side he’s on in the ongoing global contest between democracy and authoritarianism. (Spoiler: It’s not democracy.)

More important is that you can now find other Republicans and conservative pundits who feel the same way about Russia, part of a Putinphilia that began among white-nationalist GOP primitives but has now spread (like white nationalism itself) to the rest of the party. As a former Republican and unapologetic Cold Warrior—who then argued for closer relations with Russia until Putin made cooperation impossible—I think this is among the most grievous and disgusting changes in a party that, whatever its other sins, was once steadfast in asserting America’s place as the leader of the democratic nations of the world.’

If anyone is interested in reading the rest I will post it. Since it’s an email I cannot link.

 

[SamAndreas]

I get a newsletter (well, several) as part of my digital subscription to The Atlantic. This one is from Tom Nichols, titled Why Are Republicans Siding with Russia?

‘There’s been a lot of anger this week over Fox News’s born-again populist, Tucker Carlson, going all in on attacking NATO and siding with Russia at the very moment that Russian President Vladimir Putin is massing a gigantic military force on Ukraine’s border. But Carlson, this century’s Vladimir Pozner, has long been a Putin apologist. He’s just throwing off any last pretenses of whose side he’s on in the ongoing global contest between democracy and authoritarianism. (Spoiler: It’s not democracy.)

More important is that you can now find other Republicans and conservative pundits who feel the same way about Russia, part of a Putinphilia that began among white-nationalist GOP primitives but has now spread (like white nationalism itself) to the rest of the party. As a former Republican and unapologetic Cold Warrior—who then argued for closer relations with Russia until Putin made cooperation impossible—I think this is among the most grievous and disgusting changes in a party that, whatever its other sins, was once steadfast in asserting America’s place as the leader of the democratic nations of the world.’

If anyone is interested in reading the rest I will post it. Since it’s an email I cannot link.

I was going to say something on topic, I quoted your post and saw within it three links to emails at the Atlantic. I got interested in that after you had said "since it's an email I cannot link," and in that I forgot what I was going to say.

I think the board software embedded those links from that email when you copied and pasted some text from it. Those links are to the source of the information in that email.

One of those links is to a 2013 Atlantic article:

Vladimir Putin, Conservative Icon

The Russian president is positioning himself as the world's leading defender of traditional values.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[MT15]

Okay, here is the rest. I should warn, however, that there are few people so critical of this current Trumpy R party as former Rs. So trigger warning if you are still a staunch R, and it’s not a short read, lol:

‘Why did it happen?

Some of it, I suppose, we could dismiss as uninformed rubes merely aping Donald Trump’s reverence of the Russian president. Trump, as we’ve all cringed at seeing, has a creepy, man-crush attraction to authoritarian rulers, and so his cult follows suit. (In case you think I’m exaggerating, Trump is still going on about his “love letters” from Kim Jong Un. Imagine, just for a moment, the pictures Republicans would paint if Joe Biden said he was exchanging love letters with, say, the current leader of Iran. Better yet, put it out of your mind immediately.)

But that’s not enough to explain the attachment to Putin among both GOP elites and the kind of local guys who wear “I’d rather be a Russian than a Democrat” T-shirts at Trump rallies.

There are some obvious clues: The Republicans have functionally become a xenophobic, white-nationalist, nominally Christian party, and Putin—a xenophobic, Russian-nationalist, nominally Christian dictator—looks like a perfect model for the future. There will be no gay singers with beards and evening gowns touring Russia on Putin’s watch, by God, and if a Russian-style dictatorship is what it takes to protect Nebraska and New Hampshire from the vegan, Muslim, drag-queen, race-theorist onslaught, then so be it.

Also, the GOP knows that in its current incarnation, its goose is cooked as a true majority party. Putin and other autocrats offer blueprints for oligarchic rule of big, fractious countries. (Bonus: They show you can do this while still letting small coteries of men get insanely rich. Guys like Carlson have to love that.) Putin has proved that nationalist appeals, combined with electoral fraud and selective use of the prison system, can keep a tight cabal in power for a long time.

But I think it’s more than that.

Yes, Putin is the model of modern authoritarian, a Mafia boss who has built an empire on money and murder. But his story, for the Republicans, is inspiring in another way.

Putin, even more than Trump, was a loser who became a winner. Here was this homely mediocrity, a drab and hangdog figure who never rose to a significant rank even in his own country, a man of no account who nonetheless today, 20 years after being handed the Russian presidency, is one of the richest and most powerful people in the world. His jowls and rubbery cheeks have somehow firmed up, he’s ditched his wife, and he’s allegedly taken up with a younger girlfriend. He rides around shirtless on horses, scores hockey goals against professionals, and probably wrestles bears in front of his cabinet just to prove he can do it.

He is every loser’s image of a winner. And that, for a party that has now almost explicitly branded itself as the party of angry losers, is an irresistible story.

Of course, this whole shtick, the Caddyshack plot of the slobs getting even with the snobs, was supposed to be Trump’s selling point, too. Hopeful fans painted Trump’s head onto Rocky’s body and waited for him to burn the castles of those snotty elites and their “urban” (read: Black) allies.

Except that Trump turned out to be a loser. A whiny, pouty loser, a nincompoop who botched a coup, lost the House and the Senate and the White House, and then turned his fire on his own guys out of sheer spite. The Trump cult sticks with him because it has to, but it’s been difficult to keep thinking of Trump as the hero-warrior who will restore the lost dignity to the manly men of Real America when all he does is crash weddings and hold court as the Drama Queen in Chief.

A lost and insecure party needs a hero. Putin, a nemesis to American Democrats and small-d democrats everywhere, is perfect.

I realize it sounds strange, as we struggle with the GOP for the future of American democracy, to describe the Republicans as a party of losers looking for a new Big Daddy. After all, if Mike Pence hadn’t burped up some loyalty to the Constitution like a case of acid reflux at the last minute, we might now still be in the midst of a failed election. (That’s what it may look like the next time, as my Atlantic colleague George Packer warnedrecently.)

But who is the GOP today? The hearty yeomen and stout freeholders of Real America who see the future with clear eyes and courage? Not by a long shot. Today’s Republicans are people who care nothing about the future, or about deficits or taxes or national defense, but instead seem to be motivated mostly by an itching sense of inferiority, burdened by resentment and constantly afraid that someone might be looking down on them.

And that includes their leaders and pundit class. What’s left of American conservatism is rife with anxious mediocrities like Carlson (who was canned from other shows on CNN and MSNBC earlier in his career), along with a slew of people who know that their political and public careers could never have been willed into existence without Trump’s preexisting star power and media reach. (And Carlson is among the best of them; he’s practically Edward R. Murrow next to guys like Dan Bongino and Seb Gorka.)

Meanwhile, the national Republican Party no longer has “leaders” in any sense of the word. GOP elected officials are now largely cowards and weirdos. In theory, Kevin McCarthy is poised to become the speaker of the House, but he is terrified of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, a figure who would have been laughed out of politics even a decade ago. Sure, there are a few hapless stalwarts like Mitt Romney, a man who was once nominated by his party for the presidency and is now dodging hecklers in Utah. When Adam Kinzinger retires, Liz Cheney will be a House GOP caucus of one—if she’s not primaried out of Congress.

The truth is that when Greene says that she and people like her are “not the fringe, but the base” of the GOP, the problem isn’t that she’s wrong; it’s that she’s right.

This means that the Republicans, in a stunning turnabout from an earlier time, now define themselves from top to bottom as losers, an embattled minority in an endless cycle of cultural struggle. They have banded together not because of policies or beliefs or even a decline in their standard of living, but because they feel cheated out of the attention and deference that they feel is their due and that is not being paid to them by the rest of society. They’re a vacuous, mostly middle-class collection of people addicted to Fox News and the internet who can’t even explain why they’re so pissed off without resorting to conspiracies or relying on misinformation.

This, by the way, makes these American rightists much like their counterparts in places like Italy and the United Kingdom. As the British writer Simon Kuper noted in 2020, it is not the dispossessed poor but the “comfortably off populist voter” who is the main force behind Trump, Brexit, and Italy’s Lega, movements led by immensely rich men who claim to be acting on behalf of the common folk.

There is a terrible shamefulness to all of this, and that, I think, is why some Republicans and their aligned pundits are now looking for a strongman, a political father figure whom they can admire and whose decisiveness and macho heroics will quell their fears and self-doubt. These Putin-admiring right-wingers want to see themselves as the Warriors, and they want you to see them that way, too. But when they look in the mirror, all they see are the Orphans. And that smarts.

It’s too long a story for a newsletter to explain how a party once characterized by Ronald Reagan’s almost otherworldly optimism became a mob without ideas and without leaders. A big part of it is about racism and demographic change. A study of the January 6 rioters, for example, found that the most common predictor of those arrested was not job status or education, but whether they came from an area that had experienced a decline in white population.

There are a lot of other factors at work here, but in any case the net effect of this sea change in the party is that the GOP, despite holding a majority of national offices as recently as five years ago, is now a group defined by its own sense of weakness and a proud attachment to its self-image as defiant underdogs.

That’s why Putin is catnip to them: The institutional GOP is a claque of terrified weaklings “leading” a party of elected cretins who are surfing on the support of resentful and insecure voters, and Putin is an obvious role model. As for GOP voters, Putin is a winner, unlike the boob they bet on in 2016 and 2020. Sure, he’s an avowed enemy of the United States and everything we once stood for, but he’s white, Christian, militaristic, and proud. For people whose identity is now bound up in grievance and fear, what’s not to love?

And if Putin doesn’t work out—if, say, he starts a world war—well, there’s always Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, the Putin-Lite who is the new darling of the American right.

Speaking of World War III, we’ll talk about that next week.

Sorry. I promise we’ll have some fun stuff, too.’

 

[SamAndreas]

The article is on point. The points it makes is visible in the culture which shows in their TV shows.

Eight or Ten years ago there was kind of a hippy thing happening for them in their film industry, then like a door slammed, the hippy period ended.

There are two movies if I can still find them that I will post in the Movies and TV Shows with Subtitles thread in the Everything Else forum that had that hippy time feel before they shifted to conservatism.

On edit I found the off beat movie Bite the Dust and posted it in the Everything Else forum. Here's the link >> Bite the Dust

 

[Optimus Prime]

How Trump saved Christmas
==================
Former President Donald Trump claimed on Thursday that Americans have him to thank for them still being able to say "Merry Christmas."

In a sit-down interview on Newsmax with Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, Trump said the greeting only came back because he fought for it.

Huckabee, who ran for president against Trump in 2016, suggested that for a "long period," people had "quit saying 'Merry Christmas.'"

"It was all 'Happy Holidays.' You deliberately changed that and openly said, 'Merry Christmas,' we're going to say it again," Huckabee said.

"That was part of my campaign. The country had started with this 'woke,' I guess, a little bit before that. And it was embarrassing for stores to say 'Merry Christmas,'" Trump replied. "You'd see these big chains, they want your money, but they don't want to say 'Merry Christmas.' And they'd use reds, and they'd use whites and snow, but they wouldn't say 'Christmas.'"

"When I started campaigning, I said: 'You're going to say Merry Christmas again.' And now people are saying it," Trump said...........

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[SamAndreas]

How Trump saved Christmas
==================
Former President Donald Trump claimed on Thursday that Americans have him to thank for them still being able to say "Merry Christmas."

In a sit-down interview on Newsmax with Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor, Trump said the greeting only came back because he fought for it.

Huckabee, who ran for president against Trump in 2016, suggested that for a "long period," people had "quit saying 'Merry Christmas.'"

"It was all 'Happy Holidays.' You deliberately changed that and openly said, 'Merry Christmas,' we're going to say it again," Huckabee said.

"That was part of my campaign. The country had started with this 'woke,' I guess, a little bit before that. And it was embarrassing for stores to say 'Merry Christmas,'" Trump replied. "You'd see these big chains, they want your money, but they don't want to say 'Merry Christmas.' And they'd use reds, and they'd use whites and snow, but they wouldn't say 'Christmas.'"

"When I started campaigning, I said: 'You're going to say Merry Christmas again.' And now people are saying it," Trump said...........

MSN

www.msn.com

I got a laugh out of that, the gall of that man. Thanks for showing it to me.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Midterms are going to be very interesting
================
They are just three little words, but they have become nearly impossible for many Republicans to say: “Joe Biden won.”

Eleven months after the Democrat’s inauguration, Republican lawmakers and candidates across the country are squirming and stumbling rather than acknowledging the fact of Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

In debates and interviews, they offer circular statements or vague answers when asked whether they believe Biden won.

Yes or no?

In Minnesota this week, five GOP candidates for governor came up with 1,400 other words when asked by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt for an answer.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas would only concede: “Joe Biden was sworn into office.”


The hazy statements are one measure of election denialism within the Republican Party. Former President Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen election have so taken hold among GOP voters that many of the party’s candidates either believe them or fear the political repercussions of refuting Trump.

That sets up a surreal dynamic for next year’s elections, where the toughest question posed to GOP candidates — particularly in primaries — may be one with a one-word answer that they’re reluctant to give……..

“It is an important question and needs to be framed, I think, as I did. I expect it will be often asked and answered (or not) of many candidates in the year ahead,” Hewitt tweeted after the Minnesota debate.

The answers demonstrate the pressure for Republican primary candidates to appeal to, or at least not offend, the vocal Trump wing of the party, strategists say.

“In today’s grim Republican Party, the was-the-election-legit question has become a litmus test for whether you are truly loyal to the Republican Trumpist tribe or not,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist and Trump critic……

Republicans resist saying 3 simple words: 'Joe Biden won'

They are just three little words, but they have become nearly impossible for many Republicans to say: “Joe Biden won.”

apnews.com

 

[SamAndreas]

The topic today in "what happens to the Republican Party now" is Marjorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene permanently suspended from Twitter

The decision comes just one year after former President Donald Trump was banned from the platform

www.salon.com

There's not a lot to add to that, so I'll have to bring in a professional wrestler to add the commentary for this, The Egg Sitting Horse:

 

[Optimus Prime]

The topic today in "what happens to the Republican Party now" is Marjorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene permanently suspended from Twitter

The decision comes just one year after former President Donald Trump was banned from the platform

www.salon.com

There's not a lot to add to that, so I'll have to bring in a professional wrestler to add the commentary for this, The Egg Sitting Horse:

More of that alt left cancel culture I’ve been hearing so much about?

 

[SamAndreas]

More of that alt left cancel culture I’ve been hearing so much about?

No, Oliver Lovin said she's a fish sittin' horse too.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Guess this goes here

Is this normal?

Has the RNC or DNC ever paid a former presidents personal legal expenses before?

And if it's not normal (and I suspect it isn't) this should be a bigger story

If it came out that the DNC paid one of Obama’s parking tickets Fox would lose its shirt
======================

The Republican Party has agreed to pay up to $1.6 million in legal bills for former president Donald Trump to help him fight investigations into his business practices in New York, according to Republican National Committee members and others briefed on the decision.


The party’s executive committee overwhelmingly approved the payments at a meeting this summer in Nashville, according to four members and others with knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting of the executive committee.


That means the GOP’s commitment to pay Trump’s personal legal expenses could be more than 10 times higher than previously known.


Last month, the GOP said in campaign-finance filings that it had paid Trump’s personal attorneys $121,670 in October. More payments have been made since then.

A party official said Thursday that the RNC paid $578,000 in November to attorneys known to be representing both Trump and his businesses.

The payments are expected to continue over the coming months, and the executive committee could approve amounts beyond $1.6 million if it chooses, the people familiar with the decision said.

The payments are meant to help Trump defend himself against two parallel investigations of his business: a civil probe by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and a criminal investigation by James and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D).

“The RNC’s Executive Committee approved paying for certain legal expenses that relate to politically motivated legal proceedings waged against President Trump,” said Emma Vaughn, a GOP spokeswoman, in a statement Thursday.

“As a leader of our party, defending President Trump and his record of achievement is critical to the GOP. It is entirely appropriate for the RNC to continue assisting in fighting back against the Democrats’ never ending witch hunt and attacks on him.”……….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republican-party-trump-legal-bills-new-york-probe/2021/12/16/08af4524-5c3f-11ec-9c0e-a955f8a009c1_story.html

 

[MT15]

It’s just part of the grift. Trump is a master conman.