Just once I'd love a media discussion on this topic.

[Funtatlaguy]

What if the American people said…”ok, the Republicans have lost their minds, they are the crazy party right now. So, let’s do this. Let’s give the Democrats the keys to the car. All of the keys. The White House, a huge majority in the House and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. Let them run things with no interference and let’s see where our country is after four years of their governing”.

I’m so sick of hearing about how the GOP must be rebuilt.
First, they must be punished.
And that only happens with total Democratic control.

[Irish_Dem]

1. The problem is that quite a few Americans like the PutinGOP crime syndicate.

If they can get a white, racist, male minority rule forever, they will be happy.

[EYESORE 9001]

2. There's another contingent

who vote based on whether the candidate will bring harm to their perceived enemies. They’re even willing to endure some personal hardship if it means their enemies will fare worse.

[soldierant]

14. Sounds like the fable about the curmudgeon who eleased a genie

and was told that whatever he received his enemy would receive twie as much. So he wished to lose one eye.

There have always been peole like that.

[Irish_Dem]

26. Yes that is the point of the GOP demonizing various groups.

Creating hatred, anger, a need for revenge.
For made up reasons.

Straight out of the Nazi/KGB handbooks.

[Marcuse]

32. True dat

[Funtatlaguy]

3. True. But some Americans still love democracy.

[James48]

12. Only real Americans.

Not republicans.

Republicans prefer authoritarians and fascism.

[Irish_Dem]

27. Yes they do. "We The People" or power held by the people, is a basic human right.

[Boomerproud]

4. The opportunity for that scenario has always been there with free and fair elections.

It has not and will not happen in my lifetime.

[Whiskeytide]

5. Wasn't something along these lines what Susan Sarandon ...

… floated in 2016? I seem to recall that she posited that a Тяцмp presidency would be the beginning of the end of the Republican Party.

The problem with that proposal, of course, is that authoritarianism manages to entrench itself and become cancerous to a democracy, damaging it at multiple levels. Killing it while it is young is much easier that eradicating it once it is in power.

Plus, it seems like an awful lot of people would suffer greatly while we played out a political science experiment.

So I would vote no.

[hippywife]

6. Susan Sarandon is an idiot.

With this current slate of Dems, I'd have no qualms that they would create an authoritarian government, it's not in their nature.

And no one would "suffer greatly" except the other party for their corruption, as well as their billionaire backers, and I say, it would be about time.

More people are unhoused than every before and too many still living in poverty. I say give the Dems all of it because they're committed to helping the American people. The other party is definitively not.

[Whiskeytide]

24. I misread the OP in my haste. I thought it was suggesting ...

… that we allow “republicans” to have power and let them destroy democracy to rebuild it. My apologies.

And I agree. Sarandon is an idiot.

[barbtries]

7. I would like to see

the disintegration of the republican party and a viable second party to rise in its place. a pro-democracy, believing in the rule of law, party. True conservatives can go there, or become Democrats, and people like me can join the new more liberal party.

that is my dream. in all seriousness, there is no good reason for the republican party to continue. they don't govern.

[KS Toronado]

8. Believe to get and keep a majority rule for us

Is attack reQublicans as a group that can't be trusted to do the right things a Democracy requires. We have
lots of ammo, their ex-president whines he didn't lose an election and they circle their wagons around him
because he's one of them, over 130 voted not to certify the election to stay in power, screw the voters was
what they were really saying. Plus we have Jan 6th and stolen top secret documents and more.

Instead of dumping all our money into certain races and none into races some expert says we'll never win, I'd
love to see billboards in every state promoting Democrats as the party of & for the people and the repug
party as only looking after the rich. Lots of things we could put on billboards.

The money we spend on TV ads could send letters/postcards to every repug's household every week encouraging
them to vote to save Democracy.

[ShazzieB]

16. Love these ideas!

Especially the billboards. Bring them on, by the tens of thousands. Especially in red states.

[KS Toronado]

28. Thanks Shaz, meant to mention "Especially in red states."

It's the working poor in red States we need to encourage to vote Democratic for their own purse strings.

[Funtatlaguy]

20. Thank you KS...it's unfortunate that great ideas like yours

Are rarely use by Democratic Party strategists in campaigns. It’s just the same ole stuff every campaign cycle. Sigh

[KS Toronado]

29. In the 2022 election

Got over a dozen mailers from reQublicans, only one from Democrats and we're both registered Democrats. Do
our strategists take us for granted? Most important election ever coming up we need a successful strategy.

[Hamlette]

9. birthing person

so some federal agency under Biden was re-writing some rules or regulations or policy manual and replaced "mother" with "birthing person" throughout.

I think it was stupid, and apparently the idea/draft was killed. Whenever "the far left" comes up in my family or circle of friends (all liberals, some more radical than others but all VERY left) "birthing parent" is used as the example of when the left loses its mind.

If the liberals held all three branches for very long, someone is going back to "birthing parent". Let's say the Dems bring everyone health and prosperity but keeping doing shit like that and the backlash could be furious.

What we are seeing now is the tale end (I hope the end) of the backlash to the changes of the 60s and 70s. Brown v the Board of Education, Miranda, Roe v Wade, Furman v Georgia (death penalty) etc. The left had some great wins during that period and the right remains pissed.

[Effete Snob]

11. Link?

"so some federal agency under Biden was re-writing some rules or regulations or policy manual and replaced "mother" with "birthing person" throughout. "

Well, that sounds authoritative.

Can you identify which one? Specifically. And not some RW echo chamber noise with no specifics.

[Hamlette]

17. sorry

The White House's 2022 fiscal year budget replaced the word mothers with birthing people in a section about public health funding, prompting ridicule Monday from President Joe Biden's conservative critics.

The Biden administration's budget includes a public health section which addresses efforts to "reduce maternal mortality rates and end race-based disparities in maternal mortality." The budget specifically addresses racial disparities between Black, American Indian/Alaska Native and other women of color. But it is the replacement of the word mother with birthing people that drew the ire of conservative think tank leaders and right-wing media members Monday following the release of Biden's budget. https://www.newsweek.com/biden-admin-replaces-mothers-birthing-people-maternal-health-guidance-1598343

President Joe Biden’s federal budget proposal in a section on infant mortality rates officially calls mothers birthing people. As does the Harvard Medical School, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. Democrats use “birthing persons” but sometimes hedge their bets and also use “mothers.” The stress must hurt really bad. https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0621-katz-birthing-mothers-20210621-4lvc7jtpnrd37ci24oikwattc4-story.html

So, it wasn't some agency, it was Biden's budget proposal and it apparently was not withdrawn. Sorry. I was relying on what DH said who is reliable but I might not have listened that closely to his source when he first brought it up.

[Effete Snob]

19. So, here's the thing

There are people who provide surrogacy services for a mother and a father to whom the child is adopted upon birth. There are a variety of situations where the person giving birth is not a parent, which has legal implications.

Notice "As does the Harvard Medical School" in there? It is apparently the term that has been adopted in the relevant medical literature, and has nothing to do with some kind of "inclusiveness" initiative of the Biden administration.

Someone had to dig down into the budget to find this and them make a nontroversy out of it.

There was no "replacement of the word mother" unless you have some document in which the word "mother" appeared and someone replaced it with something else. It looks like a budget item using a term that is in use in the medical community.

[Hamlette]

22. what?

you said "There was no "replacement of the word mother"". The article says the document replaced the word "mother" with "birthing person".

In some of the other articles I read to provide you with a source, the reason given by some, like Rep Bush and the article from Harvard, for using the term is to be more inclusive of trans men and non-binary people who give birth, not because of adoption. Birth mom works great for adoption.

I hate to quote a republican but I tend to agree with Ann Romney who said she is not the birthing person of 5 boys, she is their mother.

Maybe in a few decades the term birthing person will take on the same meaning as mother but then what do we call the birthing person who is not the person who raised the child? The adopting person?

I'm just not there on the need for the change and some have made the argument that these kinds of changes dehumanize women.

It's probably old dog new tricks sort of deal with me and I'll come around.

I understand that the right picks BS crap to criticize. It appears that woke might not be working for them yet but you pile on a bunch of outrages and the "not really paying all that much attention to politics" people start to sour. One example for that is Hillary Clinton. We let the right destroy her over complete BS. Not sure what we could have done but it still burns me.

[Effete Snob]

23. No

The article uses the word "replaced" but it is not a reference to some document which originally had the word "mother" in it.

There are persons who give birth who are not "mothers". Assigning a parental word is a legal, not a medical term.

It would be particularly interesting to see the document in question, since if it was a funding grant of some kind, then it probably used the language of the institution which proposed whatever it was in the first place, and not something that was "replaced" in some original document by anyone in the administration.

Strange hill to die on.

[efhmc]

35. I prefer the term reproductive unit.

[NNadir]

10. I think we function best as a country when we have a healthy opposition. Unfortunately that is...

...not possible. The Republican Party is now a party of cowardly mad hatters.

I would hope that something like the demise of the Whigs in the mid-19th century, would take place, although that demise was the first indication that the worst war in US history was about to take place on our soil.

[lambchopp59]

13. Futile. Our side lacks messaging that reaches where it is worst needed.

I've got 7 weeks left of my job contract in a remote area of Arizona. Today was enough to make me want to get the F outta here.
I got in the truck to drive to the big Wally Supercenter shopping. I gave the FM dial a spin. I soon regretted it.
3 stations preaching RW "anti-woke" garbage. The one NPR station plays classical music all day. One idiotic "country" station. 2 pteach fire and brimstone.
Trump stickers on pickemuptrucks. The truckstop displays f'ng Fox News. The newsracks only have their RW crap at the markets.

There are areas of the country that don't hear, see or realize anything but how horrible us Dems are, all day long, everywhere.

[Wibly]

15. Ridiculous

Much as I agree about the GOP having lost their minds, it would be a huge mistake to give the other party carte blanche. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The founding fathers had good reason for insuring a plurality of voices and opinions in government. To do as this poster suggest would be a betrayal of democracy.
It is also a total generalization to suggest that all GOPers have gone mad. A very loud and obnoxious number of them have, but there are voices of reason over there. What Democrats should be doing is encouraging those voices, and working with those GOPers who hold the rule of law and constitution over and above party allegiance.

[grantcart]

21. Good points but it only works if there is a LOYAL opposition

and not if there is a seditious opposition.

California is an interesting example, reduced to a permanent minority they obstructed the budget process year in and year out creating a permanent fiscal albatross.

Once the Democrats got a super majority they passed a small tax increase with some budget cuts and instantly produced budget surpluses.

The Republicans should face massive electoral defeats until they are ready to act with comity and support the rule of law.

[wnylib]

36. Well, FDR was elected 4 times and had

a Democratic Congress for each of his terms.

That not only did not hurt democracy, but helped to save it at home and abroad.

[paleotn]

18. You're thinking 1977-78

First two years of the Carter admin. Dems owned the House and Senate by 60%+.

The current form of the right should be destroyed, thus my sig. However, we do need an honest, reasoned right to keep us on our toes and guard against hubris and the stupid ass ideas that flow from that.

[betsuni]

25. What burns my bacon: Democratic president and small majority in Congress for two years

(Clinton, Obama, Biden) and don't solve all the country's problems. As if they could have and just didn't want to. Blaming Democrats, saying both sides are the same or Democrats are worse or whatever. If after years and years and years of having the White House and huge majorities in Congress, FINE, say that. If not: You are stupid.

I read a segment from a recently released book about capitalism or something that blamed Obama for not magically solving everything, that "Democrats were in charge" and didn't fix everything. Which is exactly what Republicans always say:

"During the 2012 campaign, Republicans and their lackeys in the media liked to claim that Obama 'owned the Congress for two years. They did everything he wanted.' That was Mitch McConnell. Chris Wallace of Fox News put it this way: 'The first two years, he had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.' I think they kept using this talking point specifically to drive me insane. The truth is that we held a filibuster-proof majority from September 24, 2009 (when Paul Kirk was sworn in), until February 4, 2010 (when Scott Brown was sworn in) -- all of four months and ten days." -- Al Franken

[Ford_Prefect]

30. It has been said that the GOP today is incapable of governing by design. That they groom, recruit,

and elect only those who are willing to toe the party line in all circumstances and what is now the MAGA view at every opportunity. They are intentionally the party of hate and deliberate, abusive misrule as a means of controlling the lives of anyone not millionaire enough to ignore them.

IMO the Republican party needs to be burned to the ground and replaced with something else less hostile to humanity.

Differences between reasonable people is one thing. Dogmatic denial of the Constitution along with basic human and civil rights is entirely unacceptable in a democracy.

A theocratic fascist state is wholly Un-American. Ask the thousands of Israelis protesting Netanyahu's recent moves about it.

[live love laugh]

31. 4 years is just a trip to the store in the car.

We need to put that baby on the road.

[dlk]

33. The US oligarchs would never have it

They have worked too long and hard for our current situation.

[jaxexpat]

34. I literally thirst for the day when one could .....

find real news about some Democratic misstep because the Republicans hadn't been unspeakably horrible for a week.

[thucythucy]

37. As someone posted above, this is precisely what happened in 1932.

Twelve years of GOP control of the White House and both houses of Congress brought on the Great Depression which caused an economic collapse all around the world. It was also a disaster for our foreign policy--rejecting the League of Nations and pretty much all international engagement, helping to bring about the rise of facism.

And what did FDR and Democrats do with their new found power:

The New Deal
The TVA
Social Security
the GI Bill of Rights leading to:

the emergence of the American middle class.

Oh, and they also led us to victory in World War II.