2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumSomber Republicans in sack cloth and ashes on my TV this morning
They wonder if this primary voter problem they have is treatable or terminal. How clueless. It took decades for their base to deteriorate like this.
Look to their shock jocks and Fox who taught them to hate the government. They taught them to blame others for all their problems. From the poor to African Americans to Immigrants to Mexicans to Muslims to Women -All are blamed for taking a piece of their fantasy ownership of Everything American.
The whole idea of a "rigged" election places blame for failure on Others.
Remember that quaint concept of "personal responsibility"? Gone. They used to sneer about how the unsuccessful should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
I think we need two parties. I worry about what happens when the gop fractures. But I can't find any pity in my heart for them.
They aren't even really trying now-
?@donnabrazile
2 weeks out from Election Day, Pence will be in normally solidly red Utah & Trump will be in solid blue DC at the opening of his new hotel.
Two weeks
gordianot
(15,237 posts)May his brand be so beyond repair that his entitled progeny have to find jobs.
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)By all accounts, it's in trouble.
I've walked by that hotel and although it's beautiful (the historic old Post Office building) it looks almost deserted. Rooms are deeply discounted--a prelude to failure if that keeps up.
gordianot
(15,237 posts)Hoping it gets snapped up pennies on the dollar.
We don't need two parties every single moment of every single day. I want the GOP to fracture into two fighting fragments: Trumpers vs. the rest. Let the Democratic party blossom and dominate for a generation. By then the younger folk should have made the entire country more liberal. Then the Democratic party can be an authentically leftist force while the other party can moderate here and there.
barbtries
(28,788 posts)except in my better world, the republican party disintegrates and the democratic party occupies the right, while a viable and true left party rises. that's when i'll switch parties
Enoki33
(1,587 posts)Republican Party to to be politically smashed and the bacteria excised before being rebuilt by balanced people. In that sense he said Trump was a useful idiot. Little did he know that Trump would prove himself to also be a useful idiot to the tyrant Putin. Today I watched an old movie on TCM entitled "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" and once again was reminded of how cherished our democracy is - my ballot was resting on top of the nearby fireplace - and how much Trump is a malignant cancerous threat to it. He is not a sane person. He has to be rejected and then ignored, but not before being filed away as a reminder never to let it happen again.
WiffenPoof
(2,404 posts)Well stated. I truly believe he is not mentally well balanced.
Cha
(297,160 posts)handmade34
(22,756 posts)anamandujano
(7,004 posts)Tanuki
(14,918 posts)which urged meaningful outreach to women, minorities, and young people, and recommended that they become champions of comprehensive immigration reform? They seem instead to have doubled down on everything the report identified as the source of their defeat and self destruction. But I'm glad they are really that stupid. Good riddance.
Rose Siding
(32,623 posts)Say, in the throws of birtherism, a joint presser -McConnell, Ryan, Boehner, McCain, along with ANY more right leaners they could bribe- denouncing the whole conspiracy as anti-American, even racist.
Or what if they'd recruited some cops -and publicized the hell out of it- to plan community policing policies that were genuinely community friendly?
Neither of those issues could have been construed as anti-conservative.
I'm glad they were too stupid, too.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,000 posts)Cha
(297,160 posts)2 weeks
rpannier
(24,329 posts)HRC won't either
But, the trend is toward the McMullin (?) fellow
Not a big deal for Clinton, but a real slash across the chest for the Republicans if he can beat the official republikkan nominee
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,851 posts)but on FiveThirtyEight he is still polling behind Clinton, who herself is polling behind Trump. What am I missing here?
rpannier
(24,329 posts)Real clear politics:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ut/utah_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein_vs_mcmullin-6154.html
fox news
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/17/utah-poll-independent-evan-mcmullin-ties-trump.html
salt lake tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/news/4485415-155/evan-mcmullin-takes-the-lead-in
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,851 posts)shows him with a narrow lead, and my first question is: Just how reliable is that poll?
My guess is, Not very.
vlyons
(10,252 posts)As a Buddhist I feel compassion for all sentient beings - yes even republicans. But I confess that it does take mental effort to do so. I am not content to take pleasure in watching their party deteriorate. The real problem is one of ethics. Republicans suffer from the 3 poisons of greed, ignorance, and anger/hatred. Both greed and hatred spring out of ignorance. Greed has made Republicans game the tax code to benefit their corporations, refused to pay their fair share of taxes, cut and not enforced regulations, trash the environment, ship jobs overseas, destroy the unions, cut funding for education, gerrymander the districts, and suppress the vote. Anger has been the response of those left without jobs and a good education. And ignorance that we are all of us connected to one another, and that we all do better, when we all do better. Ignorance that the causes of our suffering, the disatisfation with the status quo doesm't lie "out there" somewhere or with "those people" over there, but within ourselves. The hate and fear-mongering that goes on from every quarter just holds ignorance in place and prevents addressing the real problem, which is indifference to adding value for the benefit of others.
Indifference to the plight of laid off workers, discrimination against minorities, plundering of natural resources, dismantling the safety net, endless wars, and so many other ills, are all failures in the practice of ethics and the golden rule of Do Unto Others. Ahimsa - Do No Harm.
Basically, the Republican party, as symbolized by Donald Trump has lost its moral compass. But taking pleasure in watching them crash and burn is not answer either. I would like to see more leaders to step forward and really run campaigns that focused on how hatred makes people stupid, how greed destroys the economy and natural resources for everyone. An ethical code that values people higher than the acquisition of money is what is missing. Bother Bernie Sanders and HRC addressed this problem of misplaced ethics.
I don't know if they can ever heal the wounds left by this election. But I do know that if republicans don't wake up and start working for the benefit of all Americans, rather than just their own selfish selves, not likely that they will get the white house any time soon.
Beartracks
(12,809 posts)Akamai
(1,779 posts)You wrote:
"Basically, the Republican party, as symbolized by Donald Trump has lost its moral compass. But taking pleasure in watching them crash and burn is not answer either. I would like to see more leaders to step forward and really run campaigns that focused on how hatred makes people stupid, how greed destroys the economy and natural resources for everyone. An ethical code that values people higher than the acquisition of money is what is missing. Bother Bernie Sanders and HRC addressed this problem of misplaced ethics. "
They have been rotten to their very core for decades, concerned only in enriching the rich, siphoning off money from the average person, and eviscerating every major good social program.
They are venomous liars and I don't know any good hearts among them -- Which of them called out the Birtherism lies? Which of them is concerned about providing health care to the people? or addressing the crisis of global warming? etc., etc.
They are evil root and branch and should never speak in public about important matters unless and until they truly repent of their foul lies.
justgamma
(3,665 posts)They also programmed their followers into believing that the news has a liberal bias. They can't put that genie back into the bottle. It's gotten so bad that their rabid followers thin Fox is too liberal. The Don has them convinced that Breitbart is the only legit news source.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)they were never the Party of Personal Responsibility - Reagan blamed the government, minorities and Democrats while he was popularizing the phrase. It was just another code word to justify racism, sexism and homophobia.
Rose Siding
(32,623 posts)There was, once upon a time, a belief among Repubs that family took care of family, and govt help was shameful. My 87 year old dad is only now releasing himself from the hold of that conviction.
The party leadership just never took into account how society changed. Kids moved away, the population grew and split to a point to where tenant wasn't feasible any more, if it ever was.
tledford
(917 posts)Twenty years before Murdoch started Fox News, Ronald Reagan ran against President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination for President and began the whole "fear and hate the government" lie. It wasn't until January 21st, 1981, however, that he finally succeeded in fatally poisoning America. It just took 20 years for America to die.
If it hadn't been for Reagan, there never would have BEEN a Fox News.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Civil rights and voting rights act. Johnson predicted it all. Only it lasted longer than the 2 generations he predicted
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)The picture of Reagan. That is when it all started. The GOP thought they had the American people by the throats when Reagan was elected. The GOP got old and their ability to continue that chokehold has diminished greatly. They did it to themselves.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Codeine
(25,586 posts)vlyons
(10,252 posts)Ayn Rand, who preached the virtue of selfishness and that government was a bunch of moochers and ne'er do well parasites.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)Drumpf will be excoriated for being a closet liberal. Hannity will roast his nuts in time I bet.
Just think of the monstrous racist fascist POS the alt-right will run next time!
The main street republicans are dead. They let the radical snakes in the door, the religious right theocrats and the alt-right fascists.
Now the GOP will be pushed out all together with no place to go...some rump libertarian perennial loser party perhaps?
BainsBane
(53,031 posts)stopbush
(24,396 posts)TonyPDX
(962 posts)I won't forget the families in my community that lost their homes, or couldn't afford to fill much-needed prescriptions, or parents sometimes skipping meals so their children can have a full serving. I don't care if it's a character flaw for me to remember the suffering those greedy bastards caused innocent people. Sometimes only the disgust and commitment to DO SOMETHING got me through the day. A year ago I became a precinct committee person for the Democratic party in my county, and the recent canvassing I've done broadened my understanding. While circumstances in recent months may have improved for some of us, half of the people I spoke with volunteered that they were still struggling. One shared that she prays for Hillary multiple times every day.
Pardon me if I reserve my tears for innocent folks who still worry about losing everything, and for those who lost their "everything" long ago and somehow hang on. The privileged few are due for a stiff reckoning and it can't happen soon enough for me.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)they can not even own up to the fact of the existence of all the Bigots and Hate Mongers that find safe harbor in the GOP.
Amonester
(11,541 posts)But they can't gerrymander presidential elections.
They will, however, continue to forget their previous lessons (2008, 2012 & 2016).
They will obstruct nominations to SCOTUS.
ailsagirl
(22,896 posts)Post bookmarked for later
Coventina
(27,107 posts)No sympathy here.