Trumplicans?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by wegs, Jun 9, 2019.

  1. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Sometimes, I watch ''The View,'' and recently, the hosts of the show were discussing, how many Republicans don't identify with Trump. They specifically call Trump's supporters, ''Trumplicans'' and not traditional Republicans. Do you believe that Trump's Presidency has distorted or accurately represents the ideology of the Republican party?
     
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  3. mathman Valued Senior Member

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    Ideology aside, Trump seems to have the support of most Republicans.
     
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  5. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    The Trump Anomaly has distorted everything about American and international politics and is well on its way to toppling the economic dominoes.
    The Republican party wasn't change by Trump. It had been changing, mutating, imploding in slow motion or whatever this nightmarish process is, since Nixon (some of the same villains, in their blacks ops outfits, are still moving scenery) and intensified during the Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney axis and got another nudge toward the Cauldron of Evil under The Shrub. The hard core systematically ousted anyone with brains, integrity, judgment or good will during that period. It devolved to the point of making Trump possible. But by then, they'd got the ankle-chains on all the members so tight, none of them dares step out of line.
     
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  7. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Both to a degree. There are plenty of diehard Trump supporters out there, and there's also a large contingent of republicans who claim to not like Trump (he's too odious for them) but will still support him. Also, there are a lot of republicans out there who aren't really for anything; they are against things. They will always vote for Trump not because they support him but because they are against any democrat, period - and it's more important to them to hurt democrats than it is to elect a competent president. This isn't true just for Trump; they do this on a great many topics. They don't have any alternative theories to propose to counter climate change, they just hate Al Gore and want him to "lose" in the court of public opinion. They don't really think the Earth was created 6000 years ago, but again they want the evil godless secularists like Dawkins to "lose." For many republicans, it's more about hurting people they don't like than supporting people they like.

    Keep in mind that there are plenty of deplorables out there, though, who support Trump BECAUSE he's a sexist, a sexual predator and a white nationalist. Those are pluses for them, not minuses - whether they admit it or not.
     
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  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The Republican Party has had - essentially - no actual ideology since Reagan. Fascism does not have an "ideology" per se - whatever works for seizing power and beating up on its opposition at the moment is what it espouses and promotes.

    The working "ideology" of the Republican Party - its media pitch to its base, whatever got them in line - was so well represented by Rush Limbaugh in the early 1990s that he was given an official and public award by the newly elected Republican Congress for his services. He was talking like Trump, on the radio, back then. Almost exactly like Trump - not quite as mentally defective.

    Newt Gingrich, another power and media guy responsible for the "ideology" of the Republican Party, was acting like Trump and organizing other Republicans to act like Trump back then. He would have fit right in with Trump's administration - and he was the single most powerful figure in the leadership of the Republican Party back then.

    Talking, acting, behaving, believing - that was the culmination of the Nixon-launched rise of the modern Republican Party, more than twenty five years ago now. It hasn't changed since.

    That is: The Republican Party did not suddenly become a shitpile of fundies, bigots, and imbeciles, in the summer of 2016. It didn't change at all. It's exactly what it was when it voted for W in 2004 - with the war gone to hell and the lies exposed, the photos from Gitmo and Abu Ghraib right in front of them, and Ted Haggard's close relationship with W (and Air Force evangelism in Colorado Springs) making him probably the most influential religious leader in America:
    The lefties and liberals in the US have been trying for forty years or more - with increasing urgency - to warn their fellow Americans that if something wasn't done about the Republican Party and its media wing the country was headed for outright fascist government, a continuation of W&Cheney, even a demagogue of the kind Americans associate with third world kleptocracies and comedy scenes in movies.

    Nothing was done about the Republican Party or its media support. Here it is. Here he is. There is no mystery about it - only amnesia.
     
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  9. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    I have the same opinion, which I repeat often:

    I am less concerned about Trump. The world is full of self-serving, sexist, ignorant liars. Many of them even get to power. But they're just individuals. And this will be gone in months - or years.

    What I am greatly concerned about is the 50 million-odd citizens who looked at that - and are still looking at it - and saying "Yes please. I'd like me some of that."

    That mentality will still be around after six months or four more years have passed.

    That kind of terrifies me.
     
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  10. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed ^^

    Just a thought though - maybe some Republicans voted for him as they viewed Trump as ''better than'' voting for Clinton. They didn't want to ''not vote,'' as that would be tantamount to casting one's vote for Clinton. I've heard this among a few of my Republican friends, and coworkers. (They strongly dislike Trump, but felt compelled to vote Republican)

    What is interesting so far, is seeing the Democratic party rally together, and the broad spectrum that it represents. So many potential candidates, all with a slightly different message from one another.

    I've heard something curious today - that the term ''leftist'' was coined by the Republican party to sever the idea that any Democrat could ever be moderate. Biden seems like a moderate Democrat, which could be why he is in the lead, right now. A ''moderate'' Democrat could beat Trump.
     
  11. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    haha I read this post right after posting mine. I should've read through the thread, first. Yes, agree...many Republicans would simply vote for any candidate, even if a more competent Democratic candidate was in the running. I'm not so sure Clinton was the right choice, though. There were Democrats who voted for Trump, remember, and felt that Clinton wasn't the right person to run the country. As for me? I'd love it if an Independent would rise up to become a contender. We need more than a change of bodies, we need a change of ideology.
     
  12. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    That sounds good in theory but the two party structure is too established for that to happen. Trump was the "3rd party" candidate in effect. He wasn't a traditional Republican. He had been a Democrat in the past. He just hijacked the Republican Party (and they fell into line).

    This "Independent" candidate that we all hope for would probably have to do the same thing that Trump did, except though the Democratic Party.
     
  13. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Sanders was attempting that. Lacks the machinery and chicanery.
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Alexandria O' Cortez is a moderate Democrat. That's what moderation looks like, in the real world.

    Biden is a solidly rightwing authoritarian, a tool of the credit card industry and the health insurance industry and the Wall Street interests in general, well to the right of center as measured by the political beliefs of the American citizenry.

    The cowardice and confusion of trying to pander to the mythical reasonable Republican voter,

    especially by running a rightwing Democrat who will further betray basic principles of governance as some kind of deluded attempt at compromise with fascism,

    is what got Gore, Kerry, and H Clinton beat. It also handed Congress and many State governments to the Republicans, and rendered Obama's presidency largely ineffective at resurrecting sound governance from the vandalism of W&Cheney.

    Democrats do not do well by relying on lame and obvious attempts at appeasing Republican voters, mush mouthing and weasel wording and avoiding confrontation. They do better by demonstrating courage and competence, and exhibiting clear principles of ideology and governance.

    Part of the reason for that is the fact that the average American citizen is in general agreement on most issues with the Democratic Party as it was before Reagan cowed its "leadership" - what we now regard as "Progressive" or "leftwing extreme" Democrats. As Molly Ivins put it in 2006, when warning against a Presidential run by Hillary Clinton back then: "This is the center, you fools. What are you afraid of?"

    AOC is the center.
    He ran as a standard Reagan Republican, in the same line as Reagan, Bush, and W. He talked like Rush Limbaugh, acted like Newt Gingrich, and adopted the policy approach of Reagan - the mainstream exemplars of what a Republican is, acknowledged as representing the longstanding center and core of the Republican Party. It has been the norm long enough now - 40+ years - to be the "tradition". There is no Republican Party other than Trump and Trump voters, who are the same people with the same bs justifications as W&Cheney voters, McCain&Palin voters, etc.

    Look at Trump and Pence. Remember W&Cheney. That's what the Republican Party decided to become in 1980, and did become by 1994. There is no other Republican Party.
     
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  15. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    one thing i was hoping for was for him to instigate some infrastructure works to give Americans jobs and start rebuilding the dilapidated citizen killing infrastructure the likes of exploding gas lines and such like.

    he should redeem himself by building a hydro-electric dam the likes of which the world has never seen before.
    it would be a fantastic legacy.
    though i doubt it would get approval
    maybe a string of smaller ones
    maybe a massive solar farm...

    he appears to have the republican business behind him to a point which would be possible to engage the work, however, the anti employment stance that seems to run in the republican party is strong.
    they dont want to create jobs, just squeeze the little people to extract more profit by taking food and health care off them.
     
  16. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting. One of the hosts of The View is a republican, but she calls herself an ''old fashioned republican.'' And by this, she believes that the Republican party stands for free trade, welcoming immigrants, equal rights for everyone and respect for life.

    Re: AOC - I'd vote for her, if she was eligible to run. Interestingly, her name came up on a recent episode and supposedly many Repubs see her as ''very far leaning left.'' But, she really isn't. The Democratic party seems to have changed a bit too, so much so, that moderate Democratic views are seen as ''radical.''
     
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  17. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    That'll be the blond spokes-bot they always shove in front of the cameras. Before you vote for her, check what "respect for life" actually means in her parlance - abolish the death penalty, or abolish reproductive choice? Better look into what she means by "free trade", as well: whether it's equitable trade or crushing smaller nation's public water, energy and news services.
     
  18. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Not McCain's daughter, but Ana Navarro - she is a guest host, not a regular. But, she's the one who made the comments recently, about being more of a traditional/old-fashioned Repub. She doesn't like Trump or support him, really. It was interesting to see her views, and it goes to show how easily we make assumptions about people's political views, simply because they are affiliated with a designated party.
     
  19. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    By their deeds shalt though judge them. It does no good to say you're against Trump's policies if you continue to support them out of party solidarity - and that's exactly what most of them have been doing, to the detriment - doom, probably - of the whole political process.
     
  20. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Yep. That's the only way I can rationalize this.

    I suspect that a lot of Americans really really distrust the good ol boys Washington that has been in power for decades - Hillary being one of them - and really wanted to see a change. They saw Trump as a disrupter.
    And he was. He really did drain the swamp (not necessarily of only bad people, but at least it broke up the status quo).
     
  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It doesn't, of course.
    Hasn't for more than forty years. Not even close.

    But it has produced a boatload of people who talk like Navarro, who populate all of the US news and discussion media with their vision of a Republican Party that is not at all the shitpile of bigots, fundies, and imbeciles who elected W&Cheney and fully, loudly, publicly, intemperately, and violently, supported every horrible thing that administration did

    right up until it publicly botched Katrina and crashed the entire economy and was suddenly found to have not only lied the country into a botched War but mistreated the veterans - overseen Veteran's hospitals that had rats and filth and mold,

    at which point the media chorus turned on a dime, declared that they had never really liked W or supported him in what he did, that W wasn't a real Republican, that all along they had conflicting "views" about W's administration, and that the traditional Republican Party or Tea Party or something would now rise up and clean house and restore Republican principles.

    That little dance was performed ten, twenty years ago - and it was old news then. For Ann Navarro's entire adult political life the Republican Party's central and defining ideological basis has been Rush Limbaugh's radio show and Newt Gingrich's political strategies. It's been ugly, and it's never been anything like Navarro's "views" describe.

    So you have a couple of choices:
    1) she is deluded, in the extreme, and knows nothing about the Republican Party. She believes her own line.
    2) She is lying from a script she was hired to lie from, like almost everyone else on camera with her.
    3) She is bullshitting on her own, with a personal agenda of some kind (the wingnut welfare trough is rich and bountiful - nobody willing to shill for the Republican Party and able to sell their pitch to an audience has to worry about the rent).

    These choices are not mutually exclusive. In particular, #1 is worth careful consideration: as the saying goes, it is very difficult to get someone to understand something if their livelihood depends on their not understanding it. There are a lot of public intellectuals and media folks who looked directly at Trump's rallies and did not see the Republican Party - any more than they saw it in W's enthusiastic War and torture prison supporters, or the people who emptied the retail shelves of ammunition when Obama won in '08 - because their jobs depended on not seeing it.

    What in hell they thought they were seeing we might be able to filter from the bs that came out of their mouths and keyboards, but it hardly matters - and neither does anything Ann Navarro says.
    Her affiliation with the Republican Party does inform us about her views, because it shows what she is willing to be affiliated with in fact - in actual behavior. So we can see, right in front of us, that she is willing to be affiliated with, to ally herself with, complete and solid support of Donald Trump in all his glory and everything he does, Mitch McConnell likewise, etc. She's on board that ship. The Dems have actual factions, the Reps don't.

    What she tries to build as a private lifeboat, by having "views" about icebergs or whatever, can be credited to her intelligence or foresight or maybe ambition, but should be burned on moral and ethical grounds. Trump=Republican, Republican=Trump. She can put up, or shut up.
     
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  22. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    team America world police meets America's got talent version of blade runner ... as a poorly scripted sarcastic high school musical
     
  23. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    Baby McCain ?
    privileged self entitlists
    preaching fairness for all as long as they can sit on the top of the shit pile.

    they are whom created the anti propaganda term of entitlist seeing their own position of elitist self entitlement and then trying to label the liberal left as being their own alter ego.
    the fem bots preached it so the dirty old sexist pigs would preach it from their choir.
    echo chamber of the dirty old sexist pigs to the fem bot self entitlist narcissistic victim female.

    they demand an equal voice at the table that no one else is allowed to sit at because they are not part of the elite.
    its a sad slow race to the bottom but they seem to enjoy it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2019

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