Buh-bye America

[Cyrano]

Yeah, we've been through hard times before. But through all of those hard times, we didn't have one of our two political parties go completely insane.

Trump may not win this time around. But If Bernie or Hillary wins, my guess is he/she will be a one-term president.

The insane party will bitch and moan about how that "bitch," or that "Brooklyn Jew" (in dog whistle's, of course) in the White House has destroyed the American dream and they'll probably end up sweeping the 2020 presidential election, along with the House and Senate.

And then, buh-bye America. There will be no more need for Republican propaganda. They will own all the levers of government. And they'll happily use them to put their agenda in motion.

And what's their agenda? Same as it's always been. Bury the poor and middle class and make sure that everything flows up to the 1%. But then, they'll own all the branches of government to enforce their "final solution."

Disagree with me? Okay, let's hear your scenario for the future. My crystal ball just broke down in tears.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. That seems a bit overly pessimistic IMHO

and four years is an eternity in politics. It's probably unrealistic to think that the Republican Party is finished. I thought that they would be dead after 2008. It's probably inevitable that the Republicans will win the WH again if they can find the right person who's conservative but not crazy (which will be a hard find IMHO) but he Republicans at the national level have been having a nervous breakdown ever since Obama was elected POTUS and, between the Tea Party and a boatload of awful national candidates, their party has disintegrated to the point where Donald Trump(!) is their LIKELY nominee for President. I can't even imagine where they will be in four more years. Yeah, they've put themselves in the position where they don't even need to win a majority of votes to maintain a stranglehold on the House and people aren't getting out to vote in midterms to vote for Democrats, so they keep winning those elections fairly easily and red states are still pretty red but I don't know how they will be able to keep seriously competing as well if they don't start finding a way to broaden their appeal to more demographics- and they never will as long as they keep courting the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus votes.

[Cyrano]

2. The Republican Party was declared dead in 1964

Last edited Mon May 2, 2016, 07:01 PM - Edit history (1)

the year that Johnson crushed Goldwater.

Yet a short four years later, we had a pig named President Nixon in the White House. Don't underestimate "stupid." It's a disease. And it never goes away.

[KamaAina]

3. 1964

We were in the midst of our long national Raygun nightmare in '84.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. I think that you meant 1964

and I agree, the "stupid" never quite goes away (see Tea Party for recent example). The country seems to be trending more progressive in general, however, and, demographically, the Republicans are going to increasingly struggle to remain relevant. In the meantime, however, they're busy tinkering with the electoral machinery in whatever ways they can to make it easier for their voters and harder for ours to vote- but even these mechanisms will eventually fail or be overcome by demographics and, unless they adapt, they will increasingly become irrelevant. It just won't happen overnight as there are lots of ways in which they can prolong their death spiral.

[Cyrano]

7. Yep. My bad. 1964

[1939]

13. It was declared dead again in 1974.

Somehow, LBJ and Jimmie Carter managed to bring it back to life both times.

[Wounded Bear]

9. You can edit the post you know...nt

[closeupready]

5. Rome fell, in part, because Romans stopped caring about ... Rome.

In the same way, very few Americans in public life are left who actually seem to care about America. Rather, they are interested in how they can exploit America and its institutions for their personal benefit, regardless of the consequences. Thus, I can't really argue with your post.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. That and those pesky tea-partying visigoths.

Cruz, Santorum, etc, would love to establish a taliban-authoritarian government.

[jwirr]

20. They are also more interested in Empire than the USA. And

like Rome we have over-reached and are spending all the money we need to keep the USA running like it should we are spending it to rule the world.

[hfojvt]

8. if I had a crystal ball

I would be using it to make stock picks, and I would be retired now.

It does seem tough though. Hillary is unpopular enough to make it tougher to re-take Congress. Even if congress does flip, that does not create 60, and the mood of the country, large parts of the country will not be any better. I find it to be kinda curious myself. Maybe it is age. When I was in my twenties and thirties I was unhappy and angry. Now, at 54, I am about as comfortable with my life as I have ever been.

Don't care much about my job. It is only halfway decent. Still making less money than I did in 1986 (when I had a much better job, I was a GS-7 potential 12) and I still do not have a love life, or seemingly any prospect of one, and the weather has sucked now for almost a week, but life is not that bad.

[1939]

14. Not to be mean

but how could you screw up a 7/9/11/12 setup?

I used to hire interns into 7/9/11 jobs and had pretty good luck with them. One out of twenty was a lemon. Some of my 1980s interns retired as SES and most got to at least 14.

[hfojvt]

19. I didn't screw it up

I was young and foolish and did not want to work for the military industrial complex.

So I quit.

I did not expect that would be the last good job I could get though.

Once you jump off the good job train, it can be hard to get back on. I also messed up by not going for a PhD or at least an MBA.

[1939]

24. If you don't mind my prying

which internship program was it?

I was heavily involved in the admin of the Reliability and Maintainability Engineering Intern Program and the OR/SA Intern Program.

We brought a lot of really good people on board with those programs.

Although it wasn't my main job, I used to help out the actual recruiters with on-campus visits and interviews when they got swamped.

[oldandhappy]

10. Hard for the repubs to navigate a primary to nominate a sane candidate.

Huntsman has not even been mentioned since he tried to run.
Suspect clinton will be primaried if she is the pres. O'Malley is a good candidate tho I did not get to know him very well since he dropped out early and my primary is late.
If the movement around Senator Sanders continues, it could have a strong effect on races at many levels including potentially a new candidate with more progressive credentials.
You make strong points.

I clicked because of your title. I am considering a move out of the country, smile. Especially if Trump is in the WH which I do not expect at this point.

[0rganism]

11. you're underestimating the damage Trump is doing to the Republicans

remember how, after 2012, the GOP had that whole focus group/research thing going on how to establish themselves as a party viable in national elections? and they came up with that whole white paper on minority outreach? yeah?

well, Trump has basically taken all that work, thrown it on the trash heap, and torched it.

Republicans are in a world of hurt. the ones who invest in the GOP for military contracts and tax breaks are looking at Hillary and thinking their moneys might be better spent with Democrats.

don't freak yourself out, sure everything looks kinda crazy now, but this is actually the beginning of a decade of Democratic dominance.

[AgadorSparticus]

12. Sorry, I just don't agree with your assessment. This isn't new.

We went to hell and a handbasket long ago. I thought for SURE the sky was gonna fall in 2000. Then in 2004, I thought it was TRULY over with yet another bullshit 4 years with dubya. But, here we are....it is not going to be the end. And CERTAINLY not with Hillary. She holds more progressive ideals than many want to believe for their own purposes.

[pnwmom]

15. Hopefully if s/he is a one term President then s/he will have three appointees to SCOTUS

as his or her most important legacy.

[WillowTree]

16. So you think that 4 years of either Hillary's policies or Bernie's.......

.......will turn the country entirely against the Left to the point that the Republicans will take over all branches of the government, presumably forever?

Wow! Not a point of view that I would have expected to see on DU. I mean........just.......Wow!

[Algernon Moncrieff]

17. Statistics would suggest whoever gets elected here will be a one termer.

Barack Obama is 9 months away from doing something that has not been done since the early 19th century -- not since Jefferson/Madison/Monroe have three consecutive presidents each completed two full terms.

Many factors are different. Since JFK, the nation takes protecting the President very seriously. Attempts were made on Ford, Reagan, and Clinton -- none succeeded. The health of the President is also closely monitored and guarded. Reagan's cancer was the last big Presidential health scare -- before that there was Ike's heart attack. His Alzheimer's was covered up (as were JFK's many health issues, Wilson's stroke, and how bad FDRs health was in '44). Obviously only Nixon has ever resigned.

However, with only one one-term President since 1980 (Bush 1), we've had a period of Presidential stability unseen since the founding of the Republic. What happened after that? Decades of Presidential instability. Congress drove the bus through much of the 19th Century, and I think that's what's coming.

[Volaris]

18. With that Executive stability has come the existence of the Imperial Presidency..

And Congress has largely abdicated a lot of its responsibility over to that Executive Office. I think Congress won't get it back without a rather nasty constitutional fight...The EO won't want to give up that power.
If you're correct, it couldn't be a bad thing if it's the right Congress...but the idea of a bunch of TeaParty loons setting legislative policy and a weakened Yesman of a Presidency/EO Isn't my idea of a functional government..at least not a modern one in which the Executive Branch and it's subordinate regulatory agencies get anything useful done.

[sofa king]

21. I am strangely optimistic.

For me, America died in 2000. For eight years after that it was just a continuation of the Nixon Administration, only they got away with everything. I've had to sit around and watch everyone I care about lose their jobs and savings and homes. It seems nobody is better off than they were then, while the wealthy grew more bold and powerful--and spiteful.

But the march of time has been ruthless in killing off of the hateful and the ignorant first, sending an entire generation of Reagan Republicans to early graves. It's their own fear and hatred that killed them, selling off their own safety net in the name of false security. Now even control of the voting machines and state legislatures and careful gerrymandering cannot save them in general election years such as these. Soon, it won't save them in off-year elections, either.

I've seen two overwhelming demographic victories in 2008 and 2012. This youngest generation of voters is absolutely amazing--ethical, informed, so willing to learn and with so many different ways to do it. Nobody is ever going to tell them what to think. And they know exactly who stole their future.

The oligarchs who think they still have control over this country have invested twenty-five years of smearing against the Democratic party, and yet we are on the verge of overwhelmingly electing one of their primary targets, Mrs. Clinton. They won't be able to buy us off anytime soon. It will mean that not only did all of their hateful work come to naught, it produced the exact result that they tried to prevent.

I'll never get what I want: justice. But at least I am pretty sure that I'll get to see my country move past the evil old political bloc that so shamefully dictated this nation's fate for so long. If we're really lucky, they'll take their money and leave forever, and America will move on to become more of what we've always pretended to be: free, open, tolerant and good.

Maybe.

[question everything]

22. You know, these days I just flip through the newspaper that we get every morning

- we are old, are used to have one with our coffee..

And I half listen to the network new and even just glance at LBN here.

But I cannot help observing: with all the misery that happens all over the world, not just refugees and wars, the drought and the floods and the "local" terrorist organizations like Boko Haram - how can so many here find only faults with our country?

Things can always get better and, frankly, we have to start at the local level. Go out and vote for members of city council and county and state. Perhaps even run for office yourself. In 2014 we lost so many at the local level that the Republicans really could taste the victory of controlling of all branches of government.

So, take a step back, use a wider perspective and start at the local level with a lot of optimism and, yes, hope.

[usedtobedemgurl]

23. They have to really fight some heavy odds.....

First of all, their propaganda machine is breaking down. Limbaugh is losing listeners and sponsors. Clearwater/iHeart is in big trouble.

Secondly, going back to losing listeners - their base (angry old white men) are dying. And you know what is happening in its place? A new America is emerging right now. One that is filled with such diversity and color. It is truly beautiful. I heard on MSNBC (I think it was), this morning, that if the GOP does not get it this time they will be in big trouble because the numbers are changing quickly. These are groups that used to be minorities but they will not be any more. These are the people who have been hated and repressed by the GOP. They are not going to easily forgive or forget.

It is up to us to make sure they know these wonderful folks are included with us and accepted. We will fight for them and make America an amazing new butterfly from the cocoon we are now in. The talks of walls and other such things will be their downfall. Republicans have clung to their hate and just like an old B movie, that will be their downfall. A new America is coming and it is one where the dinosaurs will be relics and looked at with pity.