An Emboldened Extremist Wing Flexes Its Power in a Leaderless G.O.P.

[brooklynite]

New York Times

WASHINGTON — Knute Buehler, who led Oregon’s Republican ticket as the candidate for governor in 2018, watched with growing alarm in recent weeks as Republicans around the nation challenged the reliability of the presidential election results.

Then he watched the Jan. 6 siege at the United States Capitol in horror. And then, to his astonishment, Republican Party officials in his own state embraced the conspiracy theory that the attack was actually a left-wing “false flag” plot to frame Trump supporters.

The night after his party’s leadership passed a formal resolution promoting the false flag theory, Mr. Buehler cracked open a local microbrew and filed to change his registration from Republican to independent. “It was very painful,” he said.

His unhappy exit highlighted one facet of the upheaval now underway in the G.O.P.: It has become a leaderless party, with veterans like Mr. Buehler stepping away, luminaries like Senator Rob Portman of Ohio retiring, far-right extremists like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia building a brand on a web of dangerous conspiracy theories, and pro-Trump Republicans at war with other conservatives who want to look beyond the former president to the future.

[Hortensis]

1. Notably, the GOP increasingly became far right and antidemocratic

since the 1990s, so today's determinedly destructive far-right extremism is continuation of that evolution along the same antidemocracy trajectory.

By this point, experts in how far-right movements destroy nations must be about as surprised as they would be when a glass that rolled off a table hit the floor. Appalled that it was really to this point here, of course.

All actions cause reactions. Hopefully these people are part of a really big one away from the abyss.

[SlogginThroughIt]

2. I would argue

I would argue it has been that way since Reagan and the Christian Coalition. Religion has no use for democracy and even Goldwater knew that.

[LAS14]

3. Please, stop with the stereotyping. Every Democratic president and presidential..

...candidate since Carter has been religious. Some profoundly so.

[SlogginThroughIt]

4. Who am I stereotyping?

Please stop with the admonishing.

Exactly who did I stereotype?

[LAS14]

6. Religious people. "Religion has no use for democracy." nt

[SlogginThroughIt]

7. No. You have that wrong.

I didn’t say religious people. I said religion. Do you not understand that separation of church and state is a cornerstone to our democracy?

[LAS14]

8. OK, if that's what you were trying to say. But I think the sentence needs re-working. nt

[SlogginThroughIt]

10. I think your reading needs reworking

Nowhere did I stereotype anyone.

You read it wrong and are refusing to acknowledge that.

[Hortensis]

12. Some religions reconcile their doctrine with democracy,

and we've had many generations of religious politicians earnestly applying secular authority in our nation. It was a big thing when John Kennedy was able to convince a majority of the electorate that he intended to serve their secular authority, not that of the Vatican.

But of course others are inherently rejecting of any authority but their deity's, which in a democracy is inherently extremist. They've grown in numbers and vehemence, but the cost of religious extremism is that membership in Christian denominations has been dropping. Our nation's traditions are of church and state coexisting, each with their own domains.

So, the good guys are the majority and currently winning this one also.

[SlogginThroughIt]

14. I am not talking about relugious individuals.

In my text I didn’t talk about religious individuals. I talked about religion. Of course our founding fathers understood the need or desire for people to be religious. They also understood the danger of allowing religion to creep into government.

You are talking about something different from what I am talking about.

[Hortensis]

15. Well, I think I started with what I saw as a vast overgeneralization

that "religion has no use for democracy." Proven false by those denominations in many religions that do. Religion can be and often is liberal, you know, and government of, by and the people can serve the earthly goals of liberal doctrines quite well.

As for whatever else is different from what you were talking about, okay. I apologize for misunderstanding.

[SlogginThroughIt]

16. You keep missing the point.

There is a reason that we have separation of church (religion) and state. Religion is hierarchal by nature. Everyone answers to God. Perfectly fine for individuals to be religious. We cannot have a democracy if we involve religion in it because instead of answering to the people, it would always above all else have to answer to God.

This isn’t very difficult to understand and frankly I am blown away that this is a discussion point at all. The comment was in that Reagan got the GOP involved with the Christian Coalition which has been slowly leading to the downfall of the party and leaving us to deal with what it has become.

Nowhere did I say anything about individual religious people. But it seems that folks want to keep trying to make it seem that way for arguments sake.

Odd.

[Hortensis]

17. It was never raised as a "discussion point" for me.

Nor by anyone else here. You're the one who misunderstands. We're the separation of church and state people. We INVENTED it.

Have a nice evening.

[SlogginThroughIt]

19. I am not misunderstanding anything.

You are taking something I said and saying that I said something different to have a discussion about it. Nowhere did I refer to religious people. Or say that people can’t be religious and be involved in a government.

Why not just admit that? Put down the pitchfork and stop to read what people write. I swear sometimes people come on to message boards looking for an argument.

So to sum up, We all agree that religion doesn’t have a place in a democratic government right? Let’s all nod our heads. And that the christian coalition has done a lot of damage to politics and in many ways our government as a whole. And that Reagan was the one who helped seal the deal on that partnership yes?

[Hortensis]

9. Yes. The continuum started them. I didn't put it then

only because Repubs weren't behaving extremist yet, only being moved farther right. We could still argue politics around the campfire; and yes, looking back in the 1980s there was a heightened aggression and hostility brought out (that circle weighted more conservative), but the worst our conservative friends called me in the 1980s was "naive."

We could still talk, and they were still arguing the old need to do away with social programs that encouraged fecklessness. The religious right had started its "family values" attacks, rebranding the left as godless and extreme, but it hadn't taken over the people we knew. Yet.

And, above all, this was also before the rising anti-regulation, anti-tax "have to get off the backs of business" mantra, which they all chanted and voted for like lemmings, empowered the cannibalizing of their and their children's wellbeing by big business.

That loss of security and wellbeing, and pride in work as a valued contribution, of course lead to the fear and anger fueling both RW and LW extremism.

At least, that's the way it played out in our lives.

[SlogginThroughIt]

11. Yep you got that right.

We could still talk back then. The issue was policy instead of dehumanization. Now their own ranks have been the target of their own dehumanization efforts.

[Hortensis]

13. :) Yes, the attack dogs they became attacking each other. nt

[LAS14]

5. I posted here months ago that it all goes back to Newt Gingrich. I was "glad" (not the right word).

..to see that Fareed Zakaria, whom I respect a lot, had a special yesterday based on just that idea.

Speaking of Zakaria, I had to chuckle when he said, at the beginning of an interview of Sanjay Gupta, "And this will show people that we are not the same person." It did take me a little while to get them straight back in the day.

[maxsolomon]

18. McCarthy IS the GOP Leadership

and he is also in the "Extremist Wing".

What the article needs to say is that the inmates have taken over the asylum. The old guard is very very very old and has no clue how to control the crazies that Trump empowered.