"The GOP Is Voting Against Its Base."

[Nevilledog]

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EJ Dionne
@EJDionne
“The GOP Is Voting Against Its Base.”
Very good piece from ⁦@RonBrownstein⁩. A lot of Biden’s spending would help people in small cities and rural areas. Will material benefits to Trump voters cut GOP margins the party’s strongholds? A big test.

The GOP Is Voting Against Its Base
Republicans are making a risky bet by opposing Biden’s infrastructure plan.
theatlantic.com
8:22 AM · Apr 10, 2021

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/04/bidens-infrastructure-bill-would-help-gop-base/618549/

With their opposition to President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, Republicans are doubling down on a core bet they’ve made for his presidency: that the GOP can maintain support among its key constituencies while fighting programs that would provide those voters with tangible economic assistance.

Last month, every House and Senate Republican opposed Biden’s massive $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, even though it delivered significant benefits to working-class white voters, the GOP’s foundational voting bloc, including increased health-care subsidies and expanded tax credits for families with children. That pattern is repeating with the infrastructure plan, even though it directs billions of dollars to rural communities, which are indispensable to Republican political fortunes.

That resistance represents a political gamble, because the proposed benefits—including $1,400 stimulus checks, and rural broadband in the infrastructure plan—are large enough and visible enough that voters may be more likely to feel them in their daily life than most legislative actions. Republicans “are going to have to explain how they are voting against the interests of their base, because I think there [would] be meaningful impacts” on their voters from the plans’ provisions, says Jeff Link, a Democratic consultant who led a research project last year that tried to improve his party’s performance among rural voters.

For now, at least, the GOP appears utterly undeterred. Republican consultants I’ve spoken with express confidence that, despite the two plans’ benefits, they can discredit them—either by focusing on elements of the plans that may be unpopular with conservative audiences, or by changing the subject to culture-war confrontations, such as the surge of undocumented minors at the border.

*snip*

[kimbutgar]

1. I just wonder if propaganda and lies will win out in the end?

I worry the cult is so strong that people no longer can discern fact from fiction/lies. Hopefully the neurolinguistic programming can be overcome.

The don’t believe what you see with your lying eyes or hear with your lying ears is appalling.

[TheRealNorth]

2. I already know the answer

The cult won't care. They will laugh at the Democrats as a bunch of cucks who thought they could be bought off.

Why do we still think the rise of Trump had anything to do with economic anxieties when studies have shown that his most ardent supporters are better off than average?

[jimfields33]

4. The bill is going to be voted on in the summer

A long time to see what will happen.

[Clash City Rocker]

3. Yeah, that's normal

[Midnight Writer]

5. I know a lot of comfortable farmers who wouldn't have a pot to piss in if not for subsidies.

They always vote Republican, and always brag about living off the land, being self made men, not needing handouts like those "in the city".

[PortTack]

6. Red welfare