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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI feel sorry for the Never Trumpers and the marginalized/disconnected Republicans
I know many of you will disagree with me on this point and that's okay.
I have little in common with those people on matters of politics and policy but I believe they have a love of this country that is very similar to my own. I also think we NEED an opposition with whom we can engage, debate, and, yes, compromise. The Trump Party ain't that!
They are now out in the cold. Look at Richard Painter, just as an example. He got his clock cleaned by Tina Smith in an attempt to run as a Democrat in Minnesota. I'm sure he is an earnest guy who would be a good back bench Democratic senator. But the voters weren't buying. So there he is, like so many others, out in the cold. A man without a party.
I've heard sentiments about wanting some of these people in our party. And I get that. But the reality is, we have pretty fundamental philosophical differences with them on pretty everything.
I can absolutely imagine how they're feeling these days and I would not want to be where they are now. I have more than a few Republican friends who remain friends to this day. Those with whom I am closest also happen to be the Never Trump crowd. We find ourselves with a lot in common these days . . . . . until we talk about policy issues. We can still talk about all that civilly, passionately, and even teasingly, from both sides. But they remain who they are and i remain who I am.
I have a party. They do not.
Wev would be so much better off if they did, too.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)We form a temporary alliance with the moderate right until the danger has passed. Then we go back to originally scheduled battles. It's the only way.
Mister Ed
(5,934 posts)The Reasonable Republicans need to vote Democratic in the next two elections. Once Democracy is saved, they can and should rebuild the Republican party into some modern semblance of the GOP of my father's day.
Eko
(7,299 posts)Mister Ed
(5,934 posts)I like Ike, myself.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)friends. They used to work together to come up with what worked best for everyone. I've always seen Ike as one of the good guys in life.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)There were many who lived and voted that ideology in those days.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)seriously threatening the democracy of the US. Eisenhower and his ilk would be seriously shocked IMO.
dubyadiprecession
(5,711 posts)Of course it can be seriously shocking. Times have changed that much since Ike left the Whitehouse in 1961.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)warning about future problems with too much wealth and power concentrating among a few, of course, the military-industrial complex, but after WWII he had to also be extremely aware of the dangers posed by fascism and social conservatism getting power in American. All these forces are gathered against us on the Republican right now.
Wonder if he'd be surprised at Russia, though. Not for long. But in his day, of course, the John Birch Society represented many of what we're calling the Republican base now and were rabidly afraid of Russia. The extremists among them had taken control of the JBS and were accusing Ike himself of being a Russian agent.
Eko
(7,299 posts)Mister Ed
(5,934 posts)oasis
(49,387 posts)He was irritated by the Democratic Party's push for civil rights.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)They will need to vote with us for at least 20 years until the vile core of their party has been gutted, then they can go back in and restore sanity to the Republican Party.
Mister Ed
(5,934 posts)...until the present-day part of treason, graft, and insanity is no more.
I may have been overly optimistic to think it would take only two elections. But I have the feeling that, within the next four years, either the Republican party as we know it today will cease to exist, or U.S. democracy will cease to exist. It will be one or the other.
And in my heart, my head, and my gut, I'm betting on U.S. democracy to win this existential battle.
RainCaster
(10,874 posts)The GOP made it a plank in their platform to drop the sanctions against Russia. The party as a whole is involved in the collusion and they must pay the price for that.
Thus is the party that is complicit with every treasonous action the the Mango Molester has taken. Much of the GOP leadership cheers him on as he performs his despotic acts and for that the party must be held accountable. There is no Patriotism in the GOP, simply the desire to remain in power.
Yes, we all know people who espouse the conservative mindset, but their party is dying. They must create a new one from the ashes of the GOP.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)We are aligning with a subgroup willing to put country over party. A handful of people willing to put politics aside and vote Democratic even if it means losing control of Congress and setting back their own agenda.
world wide wally
(21,743 posts)Garrett78
(10,721 posts)...acknowledge that the pre-Trump Republican Party (going back 50+ years) made the rise of someone like Trump inevitable. They created this monster. When Trump is gone, Republicans and the media will be pushing the narrative that all is well again, that the pre-Trump and post-Trump Republican Party is a perfectly reasonable party that simply has a different view on the role of government, blah, blah, blah. There needs to be a preemptive pushback from Democrats. Our Senators and Representatives should already be talking about how these Never Trumpers made the rise of Trump possible.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)But their remain dangers ahead both for our part and our country. However I believe their will be a period of Democratic ascendancy for a generation. After that, someone worse that Trump will come along.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)It would drive a stake right into the heart of the Dumpists.
Stinky The Clown
(67,799 posts)The Democratic Party is healthy. No need siphon off members to support the homeless Republicans. While I feel sorry for them, I also hold them somewhat responsible for where we are now. They need to solve their own problems and we need to do what we do.
I have no problem with giving moral support in these trying times, but its their problem, not ours.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)Think of it like rebuilding Germany and Japan. We would control the agenda for YEARS.
The Dumpist party would wither and die.
2021 is when the United States takes a distinctive leftward turn.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)new conservative party to replace the top-to-bottom moral and intellectual corruption of the Republican Party.
I don't really feel sorry for these rational and decent conservatives these days. Aren't they the fortunate ones, in comparison to those who've stuffed themselves so completely with lies that they may never reconnect with some semblance of honest and principled thinking?
We have a college-educated 40ish friend here in the south. He's a top competitive fisherman and expert on fish who loves nature and always sees so much that I never knew was there. But now he can't watch any nature documentaries or read science and nature articles, not even about fish habitat, without being angered and upset by all the left-wing brainwashing they push. His big world has become very, very narrow and is constantly under attack by "lies." He of course can't watch any news, except Fox I imagine, and I wonder if that isn't conflicting also for an educated man. He appears trapped in a miasma of lies that he cannot examine, and every now and then we get glimpses of how unhappy it's making him. And angry.
Cary
(11,746 posts)They made their own bed. They pushed lies and smears, placing no value on truth or integrity. Go back to Jude Wanniski and The Two Santa Claus Theory. They knew they could not sell their ideology without lying.
Scruffy1
(3,256 posts)Whether it's denying science, overt and covert racism, the strange belief that the worst psssible people doing the worst possible things is good for society at large or the thousands and thousands left dead in their stupid wars they all had a part in the making of Trump. He's just the ultimate Trpublican. What they don't like is that he's out front with it. Republicans make up about 20% of the electorate and withot the backing of the media they would e dead which they really are, but no ones told them yet. Souless, gutless, selfish and greedy. Fuck them all. We don't need them.
pansypoo53219
(20,977 posts)fux gnewz sedition. they made their bed.
uponit7771
(90,339 posts)... mostly quiet.
I'm still leaning towards they don't like the .. WAY .. things are said and done vs that they're done at all.
Get Pence in there and they'll all fall back in line
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)The pre-Trump Republican Party was morally bankrupt and built on a foundation of racism and sexism, as well as greed.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)I don't know how they recover. There are individuals who will be fine. The ones with a spine...Flake, McCain, maybe Susan Collins. But the party they belong to won't be trusted for a long time, I think. We'll see.
certainot
(9,090 posts)ended the epic dumbass ignorance of talk radio
destroy the rw radio monopoly propaganda ops and trump is gone and the gop can go back to being a 'conservative' party
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)with their endless propaganda under the flag of entertainment. It's easy to see how Joseph Goebbels was so successful in Germany. It's also stunning how so many American have lost their capacity for critical thinking.
certainot
(9,090 posts)without talk radio pushing the to do the groundwork repetition lying
talk radio is a well protected monopoly and is the only medium that has no real challenger on the other side of the political spectrum - it sell lies wholesale, fox is a retail repeater.
if americans want to be rid of fox all we have to do is stop ignoring talk radio
fox has a few block heads and blonde perms on to regurgitate this kind of crap as a kind of cartoon cliff notes of talk radio. they can't sell it like the master, and they can't repeat it like the 300 other limbaugh wannabes on 1500 radio stations. they can't be as racist or as hateful, or lie as much and as often - liberals actually watch them and react back - talk radio gets a free speech free ride because it hurts our heads to listen to it and liberals have fallen for the rw talking points about it being free speech and a representation of market demand, etc.
fox cannot also be coordinated on the local level like talk radio stations working for the GOP and their think tanks can.
for eg, here are some cuts of a limbaugh show and this is total bullshit he repeats regularly now to a massive audience. he puts these transcripts out to guide republican media and politicians - basically anything goes, and it's all dems faults.
Aug 16, 2018
Limbo:
It really hit me this week how outrageous again this whole investigation is, how unjustified, how unwarranted, how totally misdirected it is. It is more than a hoax. It is something that is so destructive to whats going on in the country today, it is an out-and-out lie.
The entire meddling, the entire collusion, every bit of working with Russians to affect the outcome of the election in 2016 took place between the Democrat Party, the Democrat National Committee, the Hillary Clinton campaign, and her paid employees, including Fusion GPS and a bunch of corrupt people at the FBI.
Donald Trump and his family didnt collude with Russia at all. In fact, the Trump Tower meeting, I wouldnt be surprised, if when all of this comes out, that that thing was a whole Democrat Party setup, that the whole thing was a setup like planting the spies in the Trump campaign was a setup, not to find the Russian spying or Russian meddling, but to create some!
I think the Trump campaign was minding its own business, and they get this phone call, Hey, we got somebody from Russia, got some dirt on Hillary. Don Jr. says hell, yes, well take it. The whole thing was a setup.
Heres Robert Mueller, the supposed dean of honor and integrity in Washington. If that was true, he would have shut this down after the first month, and he would have changed his focus, and he would be investigating Hillary Clinton, and he would be investigating Fusion GPS. And he would be investigating Christopher Steele. He would be investigating Strzok. Hed be investigating Bruce and Nellie Ohr in the FBI. He would be investigating McCabe. Hed be investigating Brennan. Hed be investigating Clapper. Hed be investigating Comey.
If he really wanted to get to the criminal behavior and activity and the real efforts to upset a presidential election and stack the deck against a candidate, he would have been investigating the Obama DOJ. He would have been investigating the Obama FBI. The problem is, Mueller is part of that. And hes not gonna investigate himself.
And then you add to it Brennan finally having his security clearance taken away. This guy has been single-handedly working to overthrow a duly constituted presidential election. John Brennan may be among the leaders of this so-called silent coup to overturn the results of a presidential election! Theres no way the guy should have a security clearance! The guy poses a singular threat! Attempting to overthrow a duly constituted president, refusing to accept election outcomes.
The Clinton-Steele dossier who, by the way, you know what now? I dont even think Steele wrote it. You know who I think wrote the dossier? Nellie Ohr working for Fusion GPS and the FBI and her husband, Bruce Ohr. She is a Soviet apologist expert of many, many years. I think that dossier theyre sloughing it off on Steele, but I think that dossier may have actually been assembled and put together in the FBI. It wouldnt surprise me a bit.
But well go with Clinton-Steele just for the purposes, because she commissioned it, Fusion GPS hires Steele, they pay for it through that cutout law firm, Perkins Coie or Coie, whatever. The Clinton Steele dossier was what? It was dirt on Trump. And what was it for? It was to destroy Trump. Right? Now, before we knew that the Clinton campaign had anything to do with it, everybody believed that that dossier was the result of Russians either presenting factual or made-up dirt on Donald Trump. For what purpose? To take him down.
That means Vladimir Putin was trying to destroy Donald Trump.
Why in the world, if Trump was Putins puppet, would Putin want to destroy Trump?
We know that Putin bought off Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state. If Russians were helping with the dossier to take down Trump, Putin gave the green light, right? Why would Putin want to green-light something thats gonna destroy his puppet, somebody he owns? These people cant keep their stories straight.
Beyond all that, just the very nature of this investigation is such an abomination, its surreal. Its Alice in Wonderland kind of stuff. And dont doubt me on this. Many, many people in this country, the American people know this and think this exactly as Ive just laid it out. It doesnt make any sense. They know exactly whats going on here, which is why Trump has not been hurt by any of this. Cause nobody believes that this investigation is legit. Nobody believes its real, except deranged leftists who, once again, think the system is whats wrong when they lose elections.
Im just telling you what they told us, the people responsible for this, the James Comeys, the McCabes, the Clappers, the Brennans, all these clowns including Mueller and all these people in the FBI, and the media. They told us our election may not have been legit. The Russians may have tampered. The Russians may have meddled, the Russians might have info on Trump. Trump might be Putins puppet.
Look. If thats the case, why would Putins people create a dossier to destroy Trump? None of this holds up.
So Mueller puts his team together and its nothing but a bunch of Trump-hating Hillary donors, two of which have to get fired after its discovered that they are Hillary donors and lovers and Trump haters, and thats Strzok and Page.
In the process of this, while all this is taking place, we all learn and Mueller does, too, that the Hillary campaign wrote the dossier that Mueller is using to investigate Trump! This is a man of integrity. This is a man of honor (sarcastic). He didnt see anything problematic. He didnt see any meddling in the election by Hillary and the Democrats and the FBI. He didnt see any problem with the FBI planting spies in the Trump campaign. And he persists in investigating something that did not happen and now demands an interview with the president, who hasnt colluded with Russians on anything.
In fact, hes (Trump) the biggest enemy in the White House Putins had since George W. Bush and Ronaldus Magnus!
And how can a man with such honor and integrity look at all of the criminal activity thats gone on on the Democrat side, the DOJ, the FB, and ignore it, and not want to investigate it, not want to investigate Hillary Clinton and her illegal server and all the trafficking in classified data because we cant, of course, in the process ensnare President Obama.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)disaster.
MaryMagdaline
(6,854 posts)They destroyed this country with lies. They proudly wore bandaids mocking John Kerry. They worked feverishly to stifle African American votes. They pretended not to believe in climate change. They pushed anti-environmental measures (it was bush, not trump who allowed arsenic levels to increase in drinking water). They diliberately destroyed public education. They tought Trump everything he knows.
Id feel sorry for them but Im too busy trying to survive in the world they created.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,345 posts)as a Republican. Taking his "oh poor me" at face value and embracing him as a Democrat for federal office without any record of policymaking, party work or bridge building would have been ridiculous.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Last edited Sun Aug 19, 2018, 08:09 PM - Edit history (1)
Tell them that they brought their predicament on themselves. A monster was growing in their party for decades, a monster that call Americans that disagreed with it's politics unamerican and worse. And they did nothing but go along with that. The monster set out to take away a woman's right to make decisions about her body and career, and they did nothing but go along with it. The monster set upon Blacks and other minorities, and they did nothing but go along with it. Now the monster does not need their help, they are lucky that they were not eaten as they finally parted ways with it.
Hekate
(90,690 posts)0rganism
(23,954 posts)Republicans, leaders and followers, built this version of Frankenstein's monster painstakingly, over the course of several decades, so it could destroy American democracy and grant their leaders great wealth in the process. now that it's fulfilling its ultimate mission, those who have benefited so much for so long from the previous bunch of Sith lords they snuck into the White House suddenly tweet "mea culpa" and try to jump into the Democratic party leadership.
by my reckoning they're welcome to join the Democratic party, contribute to our candidates and platform, and stand for election in our primaries. i don't want to hear any whining if they don't start winning right away when they have to play by the rules.
indeed, let's look at Richard Painter. from what i've seen & heard, his politics haven't changed a whole lot since he WORKED FOR W'S BAND OF MERRY WAR CRIMINALS. Democrats do not owe this guy a job just because he doesn't like what Trump did to his former business. let him work his way up, find authenticity in local party politics if he continues to pursue careers in that field. maybe in a few years, he'll win an election. he lost a primary race against an established contender, it's not like someone took his child away when he was crossing a border.
Mr. Painter's own actions contributed to his situation. if he wants to switch sides and be a Democrat, fine it's (still) a free country. if he wants to stay in the Republican party and try like hell to fix it, even better. if he wants to move out on his own and start a new party of honest conservatives, i wish him the best of luck. he has plenty of choices, and as always we're all free to trust him or not as we see fit. it's not like someone grabbed him by the pussy.
in all fairness, Democrats have contributed plenty to the situation too, and the number one thing we bring to the table is a willingness to immediately forgive and forget the crimes of Republicans, while we bend over backwards to compromise on every issue. we have lost plenty already, and we're about to lose a whole lot more. personally, the people i want leading the party will have long memories, firm stances on issues, and not be afraid of their own success.
these people will arise naturally with the Democratic party over time, since there is currently a healthy and mostly-unoccupied niche, ready and waiting.
since they became allergic to the politics their brand now peddles, and they're apparently unwilling to adapt their philosophies to the 21st century, your Republican friends will need to do political work the old fashioned way to rebuild a political party that represents the policies of the century they prefer while playing by the rules of the nation.