Republican voters are seriously warped...

[MrScorpio]

Not for anything they've done in particular lately... Just in how they keep putting laughing stocks in office.

This is a direct outcome of gerrymandering and unmoderated Republican majorities. The more ridiculous people get the GOP voters' attention and those people are elected. For some deeply pathological reason, GOPr voters are drawn to crooks, kooks and charlatans first and foremost, drowning out Democrats and relatively sane and capable Republicans. Blame a steady diet of right wing media and attacks on our education system, we have a serious problem here.

There are Republican politicians all over the place who DON'T end up being laughing stocks. Hardly anyone knows what their names are. They're relatively sane and do their jobs without a lot of controversy and attention. Something tells me that these type of GOPr pols need bipartisan support in order to stay office.

Contrasting that with GOPrs who get elected by unbeatable margins, either by cheating or that's just how the numbers are, the unchallenged are simply free to lose their fucking minds.

And the reason these psychos get elected is because the craziest motherfuckers are the ones who appeal to Republican voters when Republican voters are the only people that they have to appeal to.

Given how they make up just about half the electorate, it goes to show that we have far too many warped people walking around. This, unfortunately, is a form of self-destruction, because we on the left cannot be completely divorced from right wing controlled America. The Republican Party is in a death spiral and it's taking us all down with it.

Given how both Gerrymandering and the fact that our political system is built upon granting the largest share of power to white, white rural voters rather than diverse and urban voters, it only demonstrates how big of a problem this is for everyone as a whole.

The mindset that repeatedly sends people into public office who have no intention to do their jobs and even go out of their way to disrupt the operation of government out of sheer contempt, incompetence, ignorance and spite represents an existential threat to Republic.

Imagine a Congress with 51 Ted Cruzes and 220 Lauren Boeberts and guess how long we'll have a republic. Not for long... And yet, half the electorate wouldn't see anything wrong with that. The country would fall apart from their own folly and all they'd do is scapegoat people who had nothing to do with it. Remember, these are people who blame "immigrants" for their own job losses.

If anything, we must always do whatever we can to stop Republicans from having their own way without a fight. If anything to stop the inevitable selection of RWNJs whenever we can't or won't fight.

[blm]

1. ✔️

[Lunabell]

2. Because tax breaks for corporations buys you a candidate.

So corporations pour their money into these increasingly whacked out right wing bullshit artists.

[Mike 03]

3. Outstanding post.

I go around and around in circles in my mind trying to figure out how we combat this.

Ezra Klein's book Why We're Polarized is one of a few books to attempts to make sense of what is happening. Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum have also approached this from different angles. Cult experts like Steven Hassan and psychiatrists have tried to deal with this too. It all helps contribute to some kind of understanding.

Trump voters, and many other Republicans, make decisions that appear irrational to us, but from their perspective, this behavior is rational and in their self-interest. That's something that is difficult for most people to comprehend.

The collective, or cumulative, radicalization of the supporters and the RW media is self-perpetuating, and people like Klein believe it can only increase in our current political environment. The immediate positive feedback they give to each other makes it self-reinforcing. They shut any information that conflicts with their world view out.

From the perspective of the radicalized politician: there is nothing to be gained by obeying norms or behaving ethically in the current climate.

There is that most important question you pose: What do we do as a party to counter what they are doing?

The trap they've sprung is a trap they laid several decades ago.

I'm bookmarking your post because it asks so many of the questions that need to be asked and answered.

[Mariana]

4. Gerrymandering does not affect statewide elections.

That includes the governors, the senators, and the Electoral College.

[MrScorpio]

5. I should have added voter suppression and apathy

Gerrymandering does affect state legislatures though.