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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNicole Wallace Just asked Steve Schmidt "How did the whole party break bad"?
She went on to ask how an entire political party became corrupt. Schmidt dodged the question giving a diatribe about the evil Trump. I suspect they both believe that Trump had hijacked the pure, pristine, conservative Republican Party that they worked for for years as highly paid operatives.
Really Nicole. Really Steve.
Donald Trump is a Republican. Republicans are Trump. Trump is the manifestation of the ultimate leader of the modern day Republican Party. Founded on the philosophy of Ronald Reagan that "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem" and before that the Southern racists who abandon the Southern Democratic Party in opposition to the Civil and Voting Rights Act to form the "modern" day Republican Party.
Really Nicole. Really Steve. You did not see this coming. Republicans embracing the overthrow of our government and white supremacist's taking over. Too many good pay checks and fun parties paid for by the oligarchs and foreign enemies set on destroying our Democracy.
Really Nicole. Really Steve.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)If these two are looking for absolution, they need a priest. Theyre not getting absolution from me for the damage that they have caused.
-Laelth
napi21
(45,806 posts)for years.
tanyev
(42,553 posts)about the culpability of the GOP for several decades now.
klook
(12,154 posts)He is frank and honest about the fact that he was part of a corrupt scheme. He doesn't long for a return to the "glory" of Ronald Reagan or the "kinder, gentler" presidency of G.H.W. Bush like some of the others.
AleksS
(1,665 posts)to the southern democrats leaving the party because of their racism:
"Come on over! They're not racist enough for ya? Well, you're welcome here!" was the minute the party proved itself devoid of morals, character, and goodness.
If you want to be good guys, then when a racist says to you: "Are you gonna support my racism?" you say NO.
erronis
(15,241 posts)cilla4progress
(24,728 posts)I think this was the birth of the "modern" R party ... sick, tainted, corrupt, racist, craven.
Response to AleksS (Reply #4)
wnylib This message was self-deleted by its author.
Grasswire2
(13,569 posts)She was part of what we hated during those years.
Sucha NastyWoman
(2,748 posts)That the Deplorables were a much smaller segment of the part than they actually are.
melman
(7,681 posts)but that is sure as hell the message they - and all so-called "Never Trumpers" - are trying to sell.
That's the whole point of the Lincoln Project...well, that and stuffing their pockets.
That message needs to be rejected and it's really too bad MSNBC provides such a comfortable home for it.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)One day, you may even provide us with objective analysis to support it as such.
"really too bad" indeed.
melman
(7,681 posts)melman
(7,681 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)....was wonderful, doesn't that mean they think he wasn't wonderful?
melman
(7,681 posts)You totally got me there.
George II
(67,782 posts)People from the far left, through the left, through the center, through the right, through the far right despise trump.
It's a non-partisan hatred for trump. Don't you despise trump?
theaocp
(4,236 posts)Tis the season for stuffing.
George II
(67,782 posts)...expenditures here:
https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00725820/
Have at it!
melman
(7,681 posts)They are stuffing their pockets.
George II
(67,782 posts)tblue37
(65,340 posts)Last edited Wed Nov 18, 2020, 10:16 PM - Edit history (1)
procon
(15,805 posts)at least read the scripts he was given.
tblue37
(65,340 posts)been just 8 years old in 1980, and Steve would have been just 10.
But Steve is the person who chose Sarah Palin for the VP slot on the 2008 GOP ticket, and Nicolle is the person who was responsible for getting her ready for the debates and for otherwise handling her during the campaign.
Sure, Nicolle says she didn't vote that year because of Palin, but we were stuck with having Palin shoved in front of us for years afterward.
cilla4progress
(24,728 posts)to Palin. That she - I believe his words in his memoir are - "unleashed the dark spirits."
I agree. I'll never forget coming down off that incredible high of his nomination to her VOMITING all over it.
That's how it felt to me. Stunning. WTF was wrong with McCain and those others. How blind can you be????
Seems like it's just about power and winning with that group. No morals. No values other than raw power for its own sake.
JHB
(37,160 posts)...calling Democrats "the enemy of normal Americans" with no pushback from his own party (including both of you) as a warning sign they were heading toward going straight over a cliff.
kskiska
(27,045 posts)He let the holy rollers into the party.
Gore1FL
(21,130 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)katmondoo
(6,457 posts)based on Evangelical ideas and on and on. I hated him.
Greybnk48
(10,168 posts)He started it for sure. Remember his bit about the welfare queen that he repeated scores of times during his first campaign. The Chicago welfare queen who wore a fur coat, drives a cadillac, and buys t-bone steaks with food stamps. The implication was she was black and a single parent several times over.
Oddly, welfare recipients have historically been overwhelmingly white single women. I'm not sure where it is in today's Republican hell-hole economy. My guess is most people need assistance in today's America.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/josh-levin-the-queen-book-review/
Mr.Bill
(24,284 posts)but the US Government has not printed enough money to pay me to groom an imbecile like Sarah Palin to be one heartbeat away from the presidency of my country. And yet that's what they did.
MiniMe
(21,714 posts)OnDoutside
(19,956 posts)what the other party wanted to hear.
flibbitygiblets
(7,220 posts)Back when he was a "Democrat" he said if he ran for office, he'd run as a Republican. Anyone with half a brain can read between those lines.
OnDoutside
(19,956 posts)post is, at best, highly selective. I would recommend the podcast interview John Heilemann did with Wallace two weeks ago, and interviews Al Franken did with Schmidt and separately with Stuart Stevens, for a balanced view.
George II
(67,782 posts)cilla4progress
(24,728 posts)in?
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,500 posts)vote and whatever resources they wanna spend to torpedo their own death cult. But they can keep their ideas otherwise.
Gilbert Moore
(218 posts)Let's not forget before his stellar work at Lincoln Project, Steve got hired on to work with the former CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz. Another multi millionaire who wanted to be President. Ol' Steve had no problem sticking Schultz bucks into his pockets encouraging a 3rd party candidate who could / would have drained Dem votes and handed Trumpellini the roses.
Steve Schmidt: Thumbs down !
George II
(67,782 posts)That's one of the main reasons that they left the republican party.
What exactly are you driving at with this OP?
TryLogic
(1,723 posts)They gave us Trump. They protected Trump. They have defended and excused Trump.
They approved all of Trumps cabinet of crooks.
They gave us Moscow Mitch "Im the grim reaper" McConnell.
They gave us Louie "you lied" Gohmert.
They gave us Brett Kavanaugh.
They gave us Samuel money is free speech Alito.
They include Rush Limbaugh.
They include Sean Hannity.
They include FOX News.
They gave us the Tea Party Republicans who refused any kind of common sense compromise
regarding immigration.
They gave us certain governors who urge that grandparents be sacrificed to help the economy.
They gave us Dick Cheney, George W Bush, their group of war mongers, and the invasion of Iraq.
They gave us the Great Recession of 2008-2009.
They have given us world class liars.
They have given us the dumbest most self serving politicians in congress.
They started the attack on worker's unions beginning with an actor president named Ronald
government is the problem Reagan
Heck, they gave our ancestors President Hoover who helped facilitate the Great Depression of
the 1930s.
Republicans are the plague!
Leith
(7,809 posts)While Ronnie Ray-gun was a smiley face on a turd pile, I learned to dislike rethugs. I learned that they were horrendously awful and dangerous when Senate rethugs in the 1990s committed their most obvious hypocrisies. They made Larry Flynt look downright noble when he printed that magazine. It takes a special kind of monster to be that bad and they've metastasized into every governmental office in the country.
4Q2u2
(1,406 posts)The moral majority
Crack
Leverage buy outs destroying companies
Stealing of pensions
TWO banking scandals
dajoki
(10,678 posts)the Lincoln project or the never trumpers, they are just trying to rehabilitate the repub party. It can't be done, they caused this mess and must be held accountable for their actions. They have been on this path for over half a century and must be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)SleeplessinSoCal
(9,112 posts)An Alabama Democratic governor that was so dangerous to their plans of a complete takeover of the government, that Karl Rove thought putting him prison for doing what Republicans do on a regular basis was a priority to the White House. How do they get away with that?
I recall the 2004 win was a signal from the GOcP that we as a country wanted a one party government. And that was only accomplished with some highly paid smears of John Kerry's military service and dubious actions in Ohio's election.
Democrats need to defend DEMOCRACY with a loud voice and expose the cynical negative ads as the only way to a win. Our Rep. was defeated by a very corrupt, wannabe McConnell, Michelle Steel. She would not debate, but she put out fake ballot boxes and put up dozens of signs lying about Harley Ronda. It worked.
And we need to reach out to BLM and get them to understand how destructive "Defund the Police" was to the election.
Sorry I'm all over the place, but we are in very interesting times.
4Q2u2
(1,406 posts)A disabled Vet for that hoi poloi Saxby Chambliss
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Republican Party. He is drunken on his own self love in the raging orgy that is the Republican Party. He is Satans joke of sending the most incompetent, repulsive, self aggrandizing, corrupt individual to use fools to destroy the country.
hibbing
(10,098 posts)BobTheSubgenius
(11,563 posts)I had some hope for Steve, but this belief is disheartening, in that regard.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,326 posts)... how we got here?
Lincoln Project indeed.
orwell
(7,771 posts)...he basically thinks that the two wings of the Republican party, the reasonable principled conservatism of Eisenhower and the toxic conservatism of McCarthy have always cohabitated within the party. Unfortunately, the venal McCarthy wing has slowly taken power.
When you combine that with a party that lies like it is the truth and is completely devoid of reality as far as facts are concerned, you get the malevolence of Don the Con Drumpf. Now it is too late to put the genie back in the bottle.
What you are witnessing is the destruction of one of the two dominant parties. In it's death throes it is thrashing about, willing to foment a coup against the newly elected government. As Mr. Stevens would say, the circle of deception and avoidance of reality is fundamentally destroying the party. The oncoming demographic wave will finish it off for a generation. He recently said that the rest of the nation will slowly follow the California model where the Con party has been reduced to irrelevancy.
He admits to being part of the deception and has since renounced the party he was instrumental in building. It was the party's choice of the uniquely odious Donald Trump that tipped him over the edge.
The opening words to his book are "Blame me." It is about time that other "Never Trumpers" look in the mirror and say the same thing.
President Biden is right. This is a battle for the soul of the nation. Unfortunately for us during this grave health and economic crisis, one side already sold their soul to the devil...
cilla4progress
(24,728 posts)and becomes decapitated and forever weakened and disempowered by this internecine division.
Do you subscribe to this? Does Stevens?
Thanks!
orwell
(7,771 posts)...at least for a generation. I don't think he sees them splitting and it's hard for me to see as well. they are too "command and control" authoritarian in nature to split.
He thinks it is far more likely that as Democrats rise in power that two wings will develop - a left wing, the AOC wing and center wing - the Biden/Pelosi wing. He thinks the energy is on the left so they will likely end up taking control the same way the far right took control of the Cons. That's when he thinks a center right party may form out of the ashes of the Republican party.
Who knows. The more conditionals you have in predictions the less likely your forecasts are correct.
We do know that the last gasps of the RepubliCons will be both desperate and dangerous. You are seeing the beginnings of that now.
zentrum
(9,865 posts)Pepsidog
(6,254 posts)Yavin4
(35,438 posts)The winks and the nods just weren't good enough any more. Especially after a Black man was president for 8 years.
Azathoth
(4,608 posts)until you fracture society beyond repair.
Three decades of radicalization by conservative entertainment has moved the entire Republican Party into an Aryan Nations compound.
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)cilla4progress
(24,728 posts)I mean - I enjoy them; I think they are both geniuses in their way.
But I wouldn't trust them not to return to their old trix, if a R came along they felt they could serve.
Warpy
(111,255 posts)Reagan brought in the faith healers and other religious con men.
Anyone who is surprised by what this toxic stew of a party has produced is not just a fool, he's a willing participant.
Roy Rolling
(6,917 posts)They were once Republicans. In your view, they should be forever made to wear a Scarlett letter and made to wear that shame.
I havent considered whether to agree or disagree. But one thing thats apparent, what good will that do? Is demonizing them high on the list of priorities of the Democratic Party?
If hating Republicans is the best idea we have, Democrats are gonna look a lot like Republicans in the future. Were the party of ideas and enlightened solutions, not just anti-Republican.
tavernier
(12,388 posts)I have total respect for a convert because it takes a curious and open mind, and a sense of duty to country beyond tribalism.
randr
(12,412 posts)he chose to be Christian. He knew he would have to wear the label in order to rule those he found to be susceptible to false gods and authoritarian control.
Reps and Evangelicals were ripe for the picking.
TNNurse
(6,926 posts)Were they not paying attention???
You cannot put all the blame on Trump.