Remember Trump didn't build the current Republican Party

[Trumpocalypse]

He is a symptom not a cause.

Nor was it built by Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham or by Mitt Romney or John McCain. It wasn’t built by George W. Bush.

The current Republican Party was built by Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch and Charles Koch. And regardless of what happens in this election, they ain’t going anywhere.

[snowybirdie]

1. One thing you're forgetting

Limbaugh has terminal cancer, Murdoch is pushing 90 and Koch is in his 80s. Mother Nature just might help us all.

[Martin Eden]

9. That was my first thought about the last sentence of the OP

But Fox News will continue as long as there is a TV market for those who've been brainwashed.

Same goes for RW radio hosts, and certainly for fat cats like Koch seeking to purchase our government for themselves.

Others will take their place for as long as there is a toxic swamp where these creatures can thrive.

[BComplex]

37. Activists need to get together and make those hate radio stations STOP putting those assholes

on. Boycotts. Tweet storms. The whole enchilada needs to be thrown at them to stop that shit. They need to be called out for trying to destroy the country, and split it right down the middle.

[Martin Eden]

43. Ultimately, a better educated public is needed

Hate radio and propaganda networks can't survive if people simply tune them out.

[live love laugh]

10. Clones. They clone themselves. Don't underestimate that.

I once worked for awful people who I anxiously watched leave their posts for various reasons. I was dismayed to find that they had replacements who perpetuated the culture of their predecessors. 😐

[True Blue American]

13. Murdock said in Australia

That Biden will win by a landslide. Ooooh!

[Illumination]

25. Music to my ears! Plus the republican party is no more. It's the party of trumpsters &

knuckleheads!...

[overleft]

2. The seeds were sown in the seventies, and came to fruitition under reagan.

[LittleGirl]

16. Welcome to DU!

You’re spot on. It started in the 70s.

[misanthrope]

40. I'd say it started with the passage of the Civil Rights Act

That's when LBJ noted the Democratic Party had lost the South and they proved by gravitating to Goldwater in fall of 1964. That's what opened the door on the Southern Strategy which set the next layer in the structure the GOP has become.

[Mister Ed]

3. Excellent point. What to do about their ilk?

Restoring the Fairness Doctrine for public airwaves might be a good measure against right-wing hate radio. A constitutional amendment to counter Citizens United would help to reduce the ability of people like the Koch's to purchase power.

The Murdoch media empire is another story. They can't, and mustn't, be censored in any way. Freedom of the press is the absolute, inviolable cornerstone of our democracy. Perhaps the best approach is to diminish the Murdoch empire's profitability by not doing business with their advertisers.

[BComplex]

38. But we are free to call them out every day for being a propaganda source, NOT NEWS, and make

sure the other, legitimate news organizations start calling them out too. No, we can't censor them, but we should definitely censure them. Publicly, and constantly. We should make them a laughing stock, and call them out at every turn for the lies, brainwashing, and propaganda.

[Mister Ed]

42. Aye, we can and we must. n/t.

[JI7]

4. Democratic Party support for Civil Rights and Nixon's Southern Strategy

[3825-87867]

24. Great Point

When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act more than a "few" Racist Southern Democrats (Dixiecrats - Democrats for Reagan) turned tail of the Democratic party and ideals and sucked up the Republican BS (and money).
The Republicans took notice and full advantage of these humanity quislings and that set the impetus for ST.Ronnie and the jihad of Ultra Conservatism that followed that ultimately led to the Corporate Greed we have today.

[misanthrope]

41. Yep

They proved it in fall 1964 when Goldwater won five Deep South states in the formerly "Solid South," including 87 percent of the Mississippi vote.

[Mike Nelson]

5. Yes!

... GWB, Sarah Palin, and the "tea party" are sign posts.

[live love laugh]

7. 💯

[bluecollar2]

20. Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich

Deserve mentioning...

[Rebl2]

26. Most certainly deserve

to be mentioned. As far as I am concerned that is where it started.

[live love laugh]

6. Never forget this 👆🏽. It's why I don't embrace the Lincoln Project. nt

[beastie boy]

11. How true!

They are trying to cover up the ugly symptom, not the underlying disease. Even with trump gone, the GOP will remain sick and rotten to its core.

[live love laugh]

14. They're trying to distance themselves as if they're different.

They aren’t.

That they use Lincoln—a man who was just unlike them—as their symbol is an insult.

[Lonestarblue]

8. I would go back even further to Brown v. Board of Education.

That 1954 SC decision incensed a lot of white people and set the stage for the civil rights fights to come. It opened the floodgates of hatred toward black people and threatened the white privilege that had been the accepted norm. No longer would white parents be able to keep their children in lily white schools where they need never come in contact with a black child.

Today’s racism found its home decades ago in the Republican Party. I’ve always believed that racism was at the heart of Kennedy’s assassination because he had sent troops to protect black children and to enforce integration and he was pushing for civil rights laws. Someone thought he had to be stopped. I wonder if the investigators pursued any possible links to the KKK. I think that some classified documents relating to the assassination are still being withheld.

So now we have a major political party whose focus may have shifted somewhat to include extreme religious beliefs but whose main focus is to preserve white privilege in a multiracial society. And if that requires the destruction of a democratic form of government, that’s okay with them. Their preferred form of government is whatever gives very rich white people the money and the power to do whatever they want with no repercussions from a legal system. Donald Trump is a perfect exemplar, but there are many others ready to take his place.

[OnDoutside]

12. I like to think of him as an empty vessel, who took on the cloak of

the Republican Party, and showed himself as a mirror of who they are.

[Trumpocalypse]

17. I just realized Trump's path of redemption

After he loses the election, he claims that he is a life long Democrat and everything he did was to expose the corruption and hypocrisy of the Republican party. LOL

[OnDoutside]

33. All options will be on the table !!!

[shelshaw]

15. Trump didn't build it... he attracted the flies

[dalton99a]

18. Donald Trump is not an aberration - he is the glorious apex of their natural evolution

Never forget that the Republican Party nominated him to be president without even asking to see his tax returns, enabled him, protected him, and refused to remove him from office.

[yardwork]

19. The millions of Americans who agree with Trump are our problem.

I think the problem goes back to our beginnings. Our country was built on slavery and genocide, and the myths and lies that white people invented to justify what we did. We haven't confronted those myths and lies yet. Until we do, people like Trump will rise again and again.

[imanamerican63]

21. Grover Norquist was in that pool too!

[paleotn]

22. Yes, they are....

And I would add Adelson to the list. They're all very old and will be either dead or debilitated within the next 8 years. Limbaugh is worm food before any of them. And there's really no one to take their place. In my mind, we're seeing the ebb tide of this brand of American fascism. That's why there's such a rush to pack the federal courts. It's the only way they can hang on to at least a modicum of political power and influence. McConnell sees the demographic tsunami as well as the rest of us.

[Alpeduez21]

23. Wholeheartedly agree

The lazy lying steaming pile Hump is a symptom of the disease that is republican.

[yaesu]

27. Reagan started the festering mess known as the modern day republican party

with the help of many criminal minds in the background.

[jb5150]

28. You really need to add Strom Thurmond to that list ...

......

[JHB]

29. Don't leave out Newt Gingrich, Rush's tag-team partner...

...and who is always crawling out from under a rock somewhere.

[erronis]

30. From Paul Krugman: Charles Koch is reportedly investing millions trying to get Barrett confirmed

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/opinion/election-trump-republicans.html

First of all, while Trump has very little chance of winning the popular vote, he might still eke out an Electoral College victory. If he does, it could be the end of American democracy.

A more likely outcome is that Trump loses but Republicans hold the Senate. In that case, we know exactly what will happen: fiscal sabotage on a grand scale. That is, the G.O.P., which has been completely indifferent to budget deficits under Trump, will suddenly rediscover the evils of government debt and block every effort by a Biden administration to sustain the economy and living standards in the face of a pandemic.

And even if Democrats take both the Senate and the White House, they’re now almost certain to face a 6-3 Supreme Court — that is, a court dominated by appointees of an increasingly extremist party that has only won the popular vote for president once in the past three decades.

In the hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, Democrats have, rightly and understandably, hammered on the possibility that such a court would use transparently spurious arguments to overturn the Affordable Care Act, causing tens of millions of Americans to lose health insurance coverage. Roe v. Wade is also in obvious danger.

But I’d argue that the biggest threat this court will pose is to environmental policy.
Paul Krugman’s Newsletter: Get a better understanding of the economy — and an even deeper look at what’s on Paul’s mind.
Put it this way: Charles Koch is reportedly investing millions trying to get Barrett confirmed. That’s not because he’s passionately opposed to abortion rights, or, probably, even because he wants the A.C.A. overturned. What he’s looking for, surely, is a court that will block government regulation of business — and above all a court that will hamstring a Biden administration’s efforts to take action against climate change.

[dalton99a]

31. +1

[OnDoutside]

35. That last sentence is it. Anti abortion was only ever a means to an

end, and WHEN Barrett is confirmed, there will only be one Biden option, and that is to fundamentally restructure the SC , updating it to the 21st century and raising the number of SC judges to 19 or 21, providing a pool of talent. Let's remember that the Republican Party has got to the point of 6 to 3 by committing political suicide. The Dems can profoundly reshape America, IF they have the courage to do so.

[BComplex]

39. We also need to start limiting the years a judge can serve.

And we also need to take the unprecedented step of withdrawing Barrett's confirmation. We need to reverse it. Let the republicans freak out all over themselves. But it's illegitimate to put her in, and the republicans KNOW that. So does the rest of the country.

[Ziggysmom]

32. Money built it.

Spending billions on this presidential campaign seems ludicrous. It could provide so much benefit elsewhere. Will we ever see effective campaign finance reform?

[Turin_C3PO]

34. True but the thing is

as demographics change, minorities increasing in population and younger, more liberal people start to vote more and more, the Republican Party will either have to moderate or consign themselves as a regional party of the Deep South and parts of the Midwest.

[BComplex]

36. Best. Post. Ever.

You nailed it, Trumpocalypse.