I wonder what it's like to be a Republican

[BainsBane]

and know that you support a party of hypocrites and liars? Barrasso from UT was on Meet the Press coming up with pathetic excuses for why the RGB situation is different from Merrick Garland and claiming that the GOP's insistence on rushing a nominee through confirmation is "completely consistent."

If Republicans aren't flagrantly displaying their absolute hypocrisy, they are lying--about Biden, about scientific fact, and about their own positions on the issues (eg. concealing their legal opposition to ACA). And their supporters do not care because they too believe in nothing. What must it be like to have no principles, to think nothing of doing a complete turnabout on not only the court but on virtually everything, like the GOP's now moribund support for what was once their religion of free trade? Anyone who believes in their traditional Republican values and policy positions are now Never Trumpers. No one with any integrity or decency can support Trump. While we Democrats have our problems with unity, those divisions are brought about by passionate commitment to policy and principle. We care about our intellectual and moral integrity; Republicans have none.

Because Republican lawmakers proudly display their lies and hypocrisy, because they are impervious to shaming, and because they believe in nothing but craven power, we must marshal our own power to fight them. Ads pointing out Republican hypocrisy won't have any effect because their voters already know that the party at its very core is dishonest. Instead, we need to show them what it means to lose that power, to fight those Senators in their home states, and make it as difficult as possible for them to move forward with confirmation. Flood their switchboards, overflow their email boxes, and go to their offices demanding that you as a constituent have a right to be heard. People much smarter than I will offer other solutions, but I know that we can only stop them by fighting power with power.

[Karadeniz]

1. They're being brainwashed. They really think we're the awful ones, enemies.

[BainsBane]

3. They choose the brian washing.

And they help their politicians create the lies that feed into it.
You can see by interviews on television that consistency of policy doesn't mean the first thing to them. There was a brilliant cartoon posted on DU this week that showed a Trump supporter's reactions to a Trump lie--first he denied it happened, then he said it was a joke, and after various other excuses the ultimate defense was that Trump was right. I wish I could find it because it characterized them perfectly.

There is one thing that Trump supporters do seem to care about: their hatred of America as currently constituted with a wide diversity of citizens.

[unblock]

2. It's not really hypocrisy.

As you say, they believe only in craven power.
The "hypocrisy" is really just them saying whatever helps extend their power at the time.

They don't believe any of it, ever, because there is never a moment when they believe shortchanging their own power for the sake of "principle". That concept is just an exploitable weakness democrats have, as far as they are concerned.

It's entirely consistent for them to refuse to confirm a justice nominated by a democrat and then to proceed with confirming one nominated by a republican.

And it's also consistent for them to say whatever to the media they feel helps them get away with it.

And they are laughing at how they keep getting away with it and will keep laughing until they get their noses bloodied electorally.

[BainsBane]

4. Excellent points

and you're right. It's a waste of time even thinking about why they don't have principles. That has never had any relationship to what they do.

[Doodley]

5. They do have principle. Many of them don't even realize what it is,

but they see in Trump a a man who shares their principles about race and gender. He speaks their language. He was the most racist Republican candidate in 2016, and he's the one they wanted and chose to run for president. He's the one they voted for because they saw in him somebody like them.

[BainsBane]

6. point taken

though the principles they don't have are the ones which Republicans not so long ago claimed to be their core values.