Lincoln? Of course, the Republican party has changed dramatically since then.
Trumplicans?
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Lincoln? Of course, the Republican party has changed dramatically since then.
Agreed. But we were talking about Trump supporters, not GOP supporters.
I thought George Bush I was pretty good.
True, but the two sort of get interchanged in these discussions. lol
Good to know.
In observing how the Democratic party doesn't seem to have a strong frontrunner yet, I can't help but wonder if it's because they're (Democrats in general) too focused on Trump, and not on defending and supporting their views. Sure, it's important to know who you're up against, but there is an almost near-obsession with Trump, on the part of Democrats, and this could be why they don't have a solid frontrunner. ''We need to get Trump out of the white house,'' has become somewhat of an echoed (empty) mantra that most of the Democratic candidates have been touting in their campaigns.
It's looking more and more like Biden, which is seriously depressing. Preferring Biden seems inherently cynical to me--as though the thinking goes, "Well, this guy's creepy and racist enough to maybe turn some Trump voters." That Biden is even a Democrat is absurd.
That said, while I'm obviously not a Republican, I've never voted for a Democrat either; fortunately, my vote has never been essential in any of the places I've lived. So I've opted out. That I've wanted to do a write-in vote for Ted Kaczinski, Charles Manson, or Jim Jones is also kinda cynical, I suppose. Perhaps Baby Yoda would be a slightly less cynical vote.
Yesss, my sentiments exactly!
I'm neither a Republican nor Democrat, but I'm concerned about not voting at all, like should I feel ''bad'' about that, if I weren't to vote this election?
I'm down for Baby Yoda.
Yesss, my sentiments exactly!
I'm neither a Republican nor Democrat, but I'm concerned about not voting at all, like should I feel ''bad'' about that, if I weren't to vote this election?
I'm down for Baby Yoda.
If I lived somewhere where my vote might be of real consequence, I would vote for Biden. I would not feel good about it--at all, but would do so nonetheless. And I'd feel fine voting for Warren, Sanders, or Buttigieg, say.
The modern Republican party benefits only the very few, highly privileged persons, to the extreme detriment of everyone else. Personally, I think that when intelligent people refuse to concede that one party is just plain rotten, it's simply because it seems an impossible proposition--especially, say, in an era in which voting is not solely a privilege of propertied white men. But there are plenty of historical antecedents where the seemingly impossible was going on right under everyone's noses.
On the seemingly impossible, there's this:
Dude, when you're patting yourself on the back for not shooting one another... It's like the mgtow who avoids women, because he might rape them.
How is this even real?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/thousands-rally-gun-rights-virginia-141809941.html
Dude, when you're patting yourself on the back for not shooting one another... It's like the mgtow who avoids women, because he might rape them.
How is this even real?
I don't believe you.
Sorry, Yazata, stories like yours are not uncommon, but then the evidence emerges. Here's an example: A story broke last year about antifa attacking people in NYC for no reason. It got some coverage, again, later, when the assailants in the incident were charged and convicted; it wasn't antifa, but Proud Boys.
This was pretty much a recurring phenomenon in Portland, Oregon, last year, such as stories about antifa chasing and attacking a man and his twelve year-old daughter, but it turned out to be people fending off right-wingers, namely a known provocateur named John Turano and his adult daughter Bianca, who rightists have repeatedly claimed is a young girl victimized by antifa. And it really is that stupid: Provocateur and his adult daughter pick a fight, people film them running away, say antifa is attacking a little girl; you'll find there just isn't much of a both-sides issue between rightists and antifa.
There was an occasion when scandalmonger Andy Ngo was assaulted, but everything about it is complicated. To wit, what emerges later is that not only had Andy Ngo explicit knowledge of conspiracy to violence, he was assaulted during a weird period when it wasn't open public knowledge, but word of Ngo's participation was likely leaking, since police already had access to the evidence, and journalists were about to get it. That is, he was, at the time, known to some for helping conceal plotted violence. So as much as we might tsk and cluck that violence is wrong, it is not entirely accurate to say a journalist was assaulted for his politics; violence is wrong, but Ngo was also already widely accused of fomenting violence, and there are questions about his role in a Nazi "kill list". Ngo isn't really a reporter; he's an activist, provocateur, and even participant in rightist violence.
So, yes, there is a reason I disbelieve certain typal stories when I hear them; to the other, that I should have such practice in the first place is itself problematic, but this is America, these are right-wingers, and history reminds we are fools to expect better from them.
And Portland is significant for certain reasons. We don't have the same kind of controversies up in the Seattle area. There is much back and forth between rightists and pretty much everyone else, including antifascists, but it just doesn't go the same way. Even more, Seattle is home to a notorious police department that has, variously over the years, been caught committing racist crimes, and on at least one occasion argued through their union that cops can't do their jobs without breaking the law; still, Seattle isn't Portland, the place where the White Aryan Resistance was defeated. And if you've ever wondered how James Dean's lone wolf became a term associated with terrorism, the answer is time and tide, and the White Aryan Resistance. After they were broken in Portland, leader Tom Metzger advocated lone wolves, the unorganized, ideologically linked individuals doing whatever they needed to protect the white race, such as the bomb threat against a video rental store in 1994, in Rhode Island. And if it looks like the lone wolves have come out to play, in Portland, sure, why not. They've been there the whole time; the breaking of the White Aryan Resistance is fundamental history in understanding why Portland makes a nearly perfect example compared to your story, Yazata. There were even rumors that the cops were helping antifa, and what the evidence revealed was that the Portland Police Bureau was in deep, aiding and abetting rightists.
And it goes like that. Claims arose that some antifa attacked a woman, blindsided her, and knocked her unconscious. That one didn't get far, as I recall, before the video emerged, and when a man marching with Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer was arrested for the attack, both groups quickly disavowed not only him, but any participants in the Cider Riot incident, as not current members.
Oh, and by the way, that attack is apparently part of what Ngo had knowledge of.
Using Portland as a comparative example to wherever you're describing, we see examples of why such typal claims as you have posted meet such skepticism. People have been through versions of this before.
And if there is a general trend some people perceive wherein conservative and rightist rhetoric against liberals and leftists turns out to describe what conservatives and rightists are actually doing, the mess in Portland, last year, was actually a frenetic demonstration.
For instance, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA23) delivered remarks in opposition to impeachment wherein he condemned Democratic behavior, but if we go check the history, we find that he is describing the Issa/Gowdy Benghazi hearings, and even his own conduct in boasting about Congressional investigations to harm political opponents. And it's also true people have been calling out President Trump's apparent ego-defense projection of himself, his administration, and political party, onto his opponents, throughout, and while a lot of that discussion focuses on his rubber-glue responses, there are also more subtle themes. To some degree, there is a generally human aspect about it, but with American conservatives, the behavior seems to occur in extraordinary concentration with outstanding frequency and diverse identifiable patterns, and in dealing with neurotic behavior we must remember that the components need not make sense in relation to each other, but merely unto themselves. The trend seemed sharpened, as such, in Trump's orbit, to be certain. But Portland?
Rightist histrionics in Portland really are an extraordinary iteration. But there is a recurring pattern of hearing horror stories like yours that just don't pan out. And, honestly, if I say, where in these United States does such leftist tyranny as you describe actually happen, it is in part because even in the informational circles I follow, the rightist reaction just isn't pressing the case. They're all busy challenging other bits and pieces, and an actual leftist equivalent or reasonable comparison to, say, Portland rightists, last year, is the sort of thing I would expect them to go out of their way to make a point of. The idea of these (ahem!) "no-go zones" sounds spectacular, but they keep not being real.
No. That's your priority. And, in truth, it's something conservatives have long had difficulty understanding. What you're describing is if arbitrary opposition otherwise acted just like what they oppose. What you're describing—the very terms, "moral superiority", and, "eliminate"—more closely reflects contemporary rightism.
People's senses of morality are not actually arbitrary. But it is also true that some outcomes are much harder to justify within pretenses of morality. The reason for this is that facts, subject to what pretenses of morality describe as right or wrong, will sometimes clearly describe right and wrong, according to basic functional logic. Try looking at human rights, for instance, not as some modern innovation, but, rather, an inevitable result, because everything else is just ritualization of last-standing. You and I are equal before the law not because some hoity-toity liberal insists, but because it is a logical outcome; humanity doesn't go to the moon, or cure disease, if we spend all our time cutting each other's throats. We are a socially-inclined species for a functional reason, and we do not require gods to make that point, nor describe morality.
People have their reasons for appreciating their own morality; they tend to think there are reasons why they have such morals.
To the other, there is a point at which I get what you mean; perhaps it is illustrative. While conservatives and conservative religionists tend toward considerations of superiority that often includes elimination of enemies, it's not quite true of all religion, and it's not quite true of all politics, and it's not quite true of all people.
There is a concept called omni syndrome, and it refers to people trying to fit a common image. For the deprived, there is an upward aspiration. For the corrupt on high, there is an appeal to commonness. More practically, workers want to do better than hand to mouth, while politicians appeal to humble birth or working-class roots in hopes of whitewashing their bourgeois customs and ambitions.
Adapted for your proposition, some assertions of what remains just the same, despite human diversity, would hope to raise certain outcomes to become average, as such, while others would, at least in any functional context, be diminished in order to accommodate equivocation with dysfunction. More directly, what morality looks better, by that imposed sameness, than it actually is? What morality is justified by asserting that assumptions of one's own moral superiority and the desire to eliminate anyone who is different remains just the same?
It's a functional question. What happens when a given assertion of morality is empowered?
So, no, it does not remain just the same.
In the absence of any evidence that such a thing has ever happened, they always go with "it's probably gonna happen." They're (probably) gonna take your guns. They're gonna impose Sharia law. They--the "transgenders"--are gonna molest your kids in the public restrooms.
They're pretty reliable in that respect.
And this is really rich:
Like this:
Or this:
Or this:
And, finally, this:
This is repulsive--especially seeing as it's your guy who has advocated violence against dissenters, advocated for torture, expressed his love for brutal dictators, described murderers as "fine people" and committed dozens of sexual assaults, and your mates who've committed virtually every act of domestic terrorism in recent years.
I'm not sure anyone's objecting to free speech so much as to just plain lies and bullshit.
Like this:
When? Where?
Or this:
When? Where?
Or this:
Again, when? Where?
And, finally, this:
Whose rights have been violated? When? Where?
This is repulsive--especially seeing as it's your guy who has advocated violence against dissenters, advocated for torture, expressed his love for brutal dictators, described murderers as "fine people" and committed dozens of sexual assaults, and your mates who've committed virtually every act of domestic terrorism in recent years.
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Beaconator
Valued Senior Member
I am a man who likes women. No amount of drugs is going to change that.
But ill give you the benefit of the doubt. Yes it is true male prostitutes consume less drugs than male pornstars.
And a president who doesn't drink on a couch is not a president.
Trump = Republican, Republican = Trump.
There was no such thing as "Limbaughism", either.
Trump is the center of the Republican Party. There is no other Republican Party. Trump supporters are GOP supporters, and vice versa, essentially by definition. The entire Party, voters and leadership and rising stars (here's looking at you, Sasse) has gone in up to their combovers, at the polls and in Congress and on the Bench, and that happened with or before Limbaugh, the Party-honored "Majority Maker" of 1994. That's old news.
He would have a book of his quotes in the humor section of the bookstore - like Reagan - if he had not chosen his VP carefully.
He was a lousy President, who doubled down on Reaganomics and launched war in oil country and attempted to roll back the New Deal just as Reagan had, and every Republican has since. The slide visible in every meaningful economic statistic since the early 80s continued right through his tenure.
Apparently his wife was his strength - he probably would have been a weak, as well as bad, President but for her influence. Another Republican stereotype, btw - from Nancy Reagan to Elaine Chao. (Projection of that seems to have been much of what fueled Hillary Hate - from the very beginning of Clinton's national run, if you are old enough to remember. Most Republican attack is projection).
I know of many people for whom that is not true.
Probably.
And appointed a liberal Supreme Court justice. And avoided war with the USSR; holding them at arm's length led to their eventual collapse, which was about the best outcome from the cold war you could have hoped for. More importantly he was not a charismatic president - such presidents get us into wars.
Same. Not sure why some feel that this is an objective truth? lol It's a popular narrative, though.
It's simpler and easier to think about. All conservatives support Trump and are just fine with sexual assault. All liberals are hypocrites and vandalize cities just like Occupy Wall Street. Everyone wants to be the hero in their own story - and by stereotyping people who disagree with them as a homogenous group of dimwitted, immoral pikers, it's easier to believe in such a story.
No, you don't.
It is a physical, political fact. The truth of it does not vary by viewpoint.
Ever since the divorced and starlet-remarried Reagan tripled the US debt and financed the terroristic nun-raping cocaine dealers of CA with money from selling US missiles to the Iranians,
(a deal Reagan made for Iranian help in trashing his election opponent - military aid in return for campaign favors; sound familiar?)
and got re-elected without serious Republican opposition anyway,
what Republicans say when they talk has been more or less beside the point.
Big talk around the water cooler stopped meaning anything when W was re-elected in 2004 - with the Abu Ghraib photos and WMD lies and overwhelming corruption of Cheney's War right there on the table.
W&Cheney didn't even have primary challengers with any Republican Party backing. Neither does Trump.
Of course Trump embarrasses intelligent people, even Republican ones, and they would want to disavow personal approval or association with him, but by this time - forty years after the embarrassment of Reagan didn't wake them up, seventeen years after W&Cheney trashed whatever integrity or coherent ideology remained in the Republican Party - talk is not even cheap: it's negative, lifeboat building while the ship sinks. It's from rats who don't want to go down with their ship.
In short:n
If they are Republican still, giving money to Republican politicians, voting for Republican candidates, they are supporting Trump's Party and Trump's politics and Trump's policies. That's a fact of US political reality.
If they act (not just talk) in opposition to Trump's policies, behaviors, etc, (by deed and vote, not word) they are acting against the policies and political doings of the Republican Party itself - its leadership, its financial and corporate support, and its entire voting base. Another fact of US political reality.
There is no other Republican Party. There is only one Republican Party, and it is unified under Trump as it was under W and has been since Limbaugh and Gingrich. There is no functioning internal opposition, nobody with opposing candidates and opposing agenda and opposing political power acting to oppose Trump within the Party.
For pity's sake: There aren't even four reliable Republican Senate votes available to call witnesses and admit evidence to a formal trial in which they have sworn impartiality.
Republican=Trump; Trump=Republican.
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He didn't. He appointed a conservative Supreme Court justice. That was incompetence on his part, yet another mistake - like most of what he gets "credit" for in hindsight. He (like his advisors) thought Souter was a reliable conservative and partisan Republican vote (which he was, at first). He screwed up.
The next time around, he took no chances - Clarence Thomas.
And ever since the error of Souter, the Republican vetting of Supreme Court nominees has tightened up - https://slate.com/news-and-politics...tor-of-republican-supreme-court-justices.html
No more Souters. Not from Trump's Party. (And notice how O'Connor - the key Justice in the Florida 2000 election travesty, and a solid rightwing conservative by almost any measure - is somehow presented as a "liberal" disappointment to Republicans. She wasn't Trump enough, apparently)
You apparently cannot argue your point, so you slander by innuendo. That is typical of Republican apologists, btw - visible here on every page of these threads.
Just to point to the obvious, for starters: the discussion was of Republicans, not conservatives. Did you honestly miss that, or are you operating on stereotype autopilot?
(There are many, many, conservative Democrats, and even a few genuinely independent conservatives (not nearly as many as claim that status). Republicans are often radical, as is the Party overall - there's nothing "conservative" about Trump's economic policies, or the pressure to deregulate Wall Street, or threatening foreign governments with military assault over trade deals, or militarizing the police, or gold plated plumbing fixtures and autocrat's children appointed to high office without qualifications for that matter.
C'mon - you don't have to fit every single stereotype of the Republican life-boat builder, Tea Party bullshitter, Never-Trump will-o-the-wisp. There are legitimate arguments to be made.
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If you're talking voters and ordinary citizens, sure--but prominent politicians? There is simply no evidence that this is not the case. Romney, Jeff Flake, Joe "I'm gonna git my musket!" Walsh, et al, like to talk out of their asses, but when it comes to actions... they're as pro-Trump as the rest.
Nope.
Trump got the entire voting Republican base - still has it, 80+ approval rating. He can count on it in November -
Republican=Trump; Trump=Republican. Nothing anyone else says to them will change that.
In an ordinary negotiation or persuasion, with someone who has made a mistake but is otherwise in good faith, arranging an out is a good tactic. They are looking for a way to save face and justify their change of mind, not cornering them allows that. It's a courtesy, as well as a manipulation - we all make mistakes, and such diplomacy prevents such mistakes from destroying agreements and compromises.
The Trump voters, aka the Republican voting base (all of it; the entire Republican Party), are not in good faith. They will not agree or compromise under any circumstances. They will take any out they are given, and use it to attack whomever Trump designates as the enemy. They are tools without self awareness, without any base of historical or political fact, incapable of resisting fascist propaganda. Their entire world view is framed and bounded and established by the assertions of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and Facebook trolls and the like - the purveyors of the media feeds from the propaganda wing of the Republican Party (the "think tanks" and consultant firms and so forth. The sources of the otherwise inexplicable "experts" that keep showing up on the corporate media talk shows. The wingnut welfare providers who finance the careers, books, appearances, reviews, etc, of the disgraced during their time outs from public life.).
They did this to their country. They did it several times, over a time period encompassing their entire adult political lives. They had full warning, they had their eyes open, they live in one of the few countries on this planet that allows them nearly unhindered access to information of all kinds and great freedom of expression for their own views, they have no excuse.
And they have learned nothing. How do we know? Because they have not apologized to the people they injured, because they have not atoned in any way, because they still deal in the stereotypes and slanders they used to injure the people who were dealing in good faith and - it turned out - were right. They have grudgingly admitted to having been wrong in certain minor and forgivable ways, but they have never acknowledged that those people they slandered and injured were right.
And they still refuse to listen to those people. They haven't learned a damn thing.
If they get to slide on Trump it as they slid on Reagan, H, and W, they will do it again.
Burn the lifeboats.
So you just admitted that ~13 million Republicans don't support Trump.
I rest my case.