Does the GOP even have an alternative to Trumpism?

JayMysteri0 said:
I'm still going to go with 'No'.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1361528431113084928/
Click to expand...

That's because you have not abandoned morality, the Constitution, rule of law, the idea of premised logic...

The Senate came up short 10 Republican votes when considering whether to convict Trump of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol. It would have taken 67 to convict but the vote for conviction ran to 50 Dems and 7 Republicans, and the 43 other Republicans voted to let Trump off the hook. Or let's say they tried to keep themselves off the hook at the polls, hoping to retain future votes of their own constituents.

So does that Pennsylvania state official figure that the 43 Republican U.S. Senators who voted to acquit Trump were "doing the right thing" or "voting their conscience" --a process he disparaged-- or were they, like Lindsey Graham, pretty much figuring if not advertising that a vote to acquit was about "being in it to win"?

Because those were the options. Absolutely no one thinks a vote to acquit was about Trump having done "the right thing" -- and that much quite a few Senators rushed to make clear AFTER they voted to acquit.​
​
It's no more than Republican Party propaganda that anyone voted to acquit because of the so called "constitutional" technicality on which many of the 43 pegged their reluctance to convict Trump.​
​
And why is that? Because impeachment is by design a Congressional rather than judicial process: the Senate has sole power to try impeachments and can make up its own rules. It had already voted on whether the Senate's trial of Trump --as a former president impeached for actions while president-- was constitutional, and that vote, in an amply bipartisan majority, was that such a trial would be constitutional and so would proceed.​
​
And of course no Senator was likely to cop blatantly ahead of time to the idea that he should vote as his constituents might desire on a matter as grave as trying an impeachment. A primary reason for the Senate's existence was to provide restraint against possibly misguided and "hotheaded" populist influences, eh? The Senate does not pay mere lip service to that principle: House members are not even permitted to enter the Senate chamber except for impeachment trials and other special situations as the Senate itself may determine.

So for some GOP state officials now to be peeling the veneer off all that loftiness must strike some in the Senate as pretty unseemly. I'm sure McConnell and many of the other 42 Republicans who voted to acquit would have preferred that Trump's acquittal be taken as a satisfactory outcome of a dicey situation.

It's not just Joe Biden who'd like to move on, although the GOP has its own reasons for wanting to do that too. For the latter at the national level it's about getting back to coping with facts on the ground, which most certainly include Democrats now holding power in the White House, House and Senate until 2022.

So the GOP state guys saying "but his base..." might want to consider what that means at this moment. Trump and his remaining base are responsible for the loss of power in two branches of government in four years, not to mention an unseemly demonstration of what it means to bring weak cases to a judiciary that even when stacked with ideologues appears still to have a grasp of the Constitution.


Thomas Veil said:
“You vill support de party line und you vill like it!”
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the message of some of the state party officials, particularly but not exclusively when the vote was to convict but the Senator who went there was one of the seven Republicans.

I suppose those state officials will not consider it illogical that where Senators did vote to acquit Trump, some of those Senators took very gratefully (if perhaps not literally) McConnell's pre-vote (and public) assessment that the vote would be "a matter of conscience" AND that he would vote to acquit.

That pre-vote statement by McConnell was not to be taken as a whip effort, of course... just that whoever felt he or she needed to save themselves from retaliation at the polls could figure they were doing the right thing to acquit Trump. After all, it possibly meant they could win in 2022, or at least escape the trouble that the rebel seven Senators are now undergoing at hands of their GOP state legislatures hastening to censure them for actually "doing the right thing" and so voting to convict Trump.

It remains true that to adhere to the party line of this version of the GOP, you need not just a scorecard but an assortment of alternate dictionaries related to rule of law, depending on day of the week and situation.
 
lizkat said:
That's because you have not abandoned morality, the Constitution, rule of law, the idea of premised logic...

The Senate came up short 10 Republican votes when considering whether to convict Trump of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol. It would have taken 67 to convict but the vote for conviction ran to 50 Dems and 7 Republicans, and the 43 other Republicans voted to let Trump off the hook. Or let's say they tried to keep themselves off the hook at the polls, hoping to retain future votes of their own constituents.

So does that Pennsylvania state official figure that the 43 Republican U.S. Senators who voted to acquit Trump were "doing the right thing" or "voting their conscience" --a process he disparaged-- or were they, like Lindsey Graham, pretty much figuring if not advertising that a vote to acquit was about "being in it to win"?

Because those were the options. Absolutely no one thinks a vote to acquit was about Trump having done "the right thing" -- and that much quite a few Senators rushed to make clear AFTER they voted to acquit.​
​
It's no more than Republican Party propaganda that anyone voted to acquit because of the so called "constitutional" technicality on which many of the 43 pegged their reluctance to convict Trump.​
​
And why is that? Because impeachment is by design a Congressional rather than judicial process: the Senate has sole power to try impeachments and can make up its own rules. It had already voted on whether the Senate's trial of Trump --as a former president impeached for actions while president-- was constitutional, and that vote, in an amply bipartisan majority, was that such a trial would be constitutional and so would proceed.​
​
And of course no Senator was likely to cop blatantly ahead of time to the idea that he should vote as his constituents might desire on a matter as grave as trying an impeachment. A primary reason for the Senate's existence was to provide restraint against possibly misguided and "hotheaded" populist influences, eh? The Senate does not pay mere lip service to that principle: House members are not even permitted to enter the Senate chamber except for impeachment trials and other special situations as the Senate itself may determine.

So for some GOP state officials now to be peeling the veneer off all that loftiness must strike some in the Senate as pretty unseemly. I'm sure McConnell and many of the other 42 Republicans who voted to acquit would have preferred that Trump's acquittal be taken as a satisfactory outcome of a dicey situation.

It's not just Joe Biden who'd like to move on, although the GOP has its own reasons for wanting to do that too. For the latter at the national level it's about getting back to coping with facts on the ground, which most certainly include Democrats now holding power in the White House, House and Senate until 2022.

So the GOP state guys saying "but his base..." might want to consider what that means at this moment. Trump and his remaining base are responsible for the loss of power in two branches of government in four years, not to mention an unseemly demonstration of what it means to bring weak cases to a judiciary that even when stacked with ideologues appears still to have a grasp of the Constitution.




Yeah, that's the message of some of the state party officials, particularly but not exclusively when the vote was to convict but the Senator who went there was one of the seven Republicans.

I suppose those state officials will not consider it illogical that where Senators did vote to acquit Trump, some of those Senators took very gratefully (if perhaps not literally) McConnell's pre-vote (and public) assessment that the vote would be "a matter of conscience" AND that he would vote to acquit.

That pre-vote statement by McConnell was not to be taken as a whip effort, of course... just that whoever felt he or she needed to save themselves from retaliation at the polls could figure they were doing the right thing to acquit Trump. After all, it possibly meant they could win in 2022, or at least escape the trouble that the rebel seven Senators are now undergoing at hands of their GOP state legislatures hastening to censure them for actually "doing the right thing" and so voting to convict Trump.

It remains true that to adhere to the party line of this version of the GOP, you need not just a scorecard but an assortment of alternate dictionaries related to rule of law, depending on day of the week and situation.
Click to expand...
Considering that in the nearly 80 years of his life, nobody has ever spotted anything resembling a conscience from Mitch, I’d say he was consistent in his vote and his statement.
 
SuperMatt said:
Considering that in the nearly 80 years of his life, nobody has ever spotted anything resembling a conscience from Mitch, I’d say he was consistent in his vote and his statement.
Click to expand...

Mitch as master of the long view for his party finally comes up short if you ask me. The GOP deserves to die with leadership eyeballs still registering the optics of Trump flags being waved during the incursion into our Capitol on 1/6/21.

It was McConnell's duty after the impeachment trial to do more than sorta signal to the RNC that in their winter meeting they might have backed a wrong horse by recommitting to letting Trump carry the GOP's banner.

That was not actually a Republican Party banner being waved around in the rotunda on January 6th. There were Trump flags and Confederate flags. And the people carrying them? They meant what they carried, and have said they are willing to destroy the GOP if it doesn't continue to support Donald Trump and what they believe he stands for: white supremacy and a scofflaw approach to inconvenient norms, rules, laws.

For McConnell and the RNC not to read that fringe of the party out immediately and officially with one voice is shocking. I'm sure is one of the reasons more than a hundred thousand Republicans have dropped their party registrations in the past month.

It wasn't enough for Ronna McDaniel to say of course the GOP does not condone violence. It wasn't enough for McConnell and McCarthy to reinforce that idea. It took Trump five hours to tell the insurrectionists to go home and that he loves them. And we're still waiting for McDaniel, McConnell and McCarthy to say they don't love Trump for having shown his true colors on that day. He's still the nominal head of the GOP.
 
Looks like the Republicans may not need and alternative.

thehill.com

Almost half of Republicans would join Trump party: poll

Nearly half of Republicans say they would abandon the party as it is currently structured and join a new party if former President Trump was its leader, according to a new poll released Sunday…
thehill.com thehill.com

46% of Rs are prepared to abandon the Party in favor of the Agent Orange Party, to support the guy who “fights hard for us every day”, with only 27% avowing loyalty to the R Party. That is some serious cognitive disconnect.

(Note that the Gallup poll currently ranks declared Republican Party affiliation at 25%, which is not hugely less than Democratic Party affiliation. That amounts to less than 12% of Americans.)
 
I saw that story. If all the nuts leave the Republican party and follow a Trump party, then the GOP's dual personality problem is over.

The Trumpers even have a ready-made slogan.

im_with_stupid_funny_shirt-r3fe2bf30400e4eed8b3af7de0799809f_k2gpy_704.jpg
 
Yoused said:
Looks like the Republicans may not need and alternative.

thehill.com

Almost half of Republicans would join Trump party: poll

Nearly half of Republicans say they would abandon the party as it is currently structured and join a new party if former President Trump was its leader, according to a new poll released Sunday…
thehill.com thehill.com

46% of Rs are prepared to abandon the Party in favor of the Agent Orange Party, to support the guy who “fights hard for us every day”, with only 27% avowing loyalty to the R Party. That is some serious cognitive disconnect.

(Note that the Gallup poll currently ranks declared Republican Party affiliation at 25%, which is not hugely less than Democratic Party affiliation. That amounts to less than 12% of Americans.)
Click to expand...
Omg please let it happen. Split the GOP vote and let the democrats pass legislation allowing America to join the rest of the civilized world with things like universal healthcare, a living wage, reasonable gun restrictions, a climate change policy, etc….
 
SuperMatt said:
Omg please let it happen. Split the GOP vote and let the democrats pass legislation allowing America to join the rest of the civilized world with things like universal healthcare, a living wage, reasonable gun restrictions, a climate change policy, etc….
Click to expand...

Along with some basic rights for women: Maternity leave, birth control, terminations, equal pay......
 
I’m sure it would be advantageous for the Democrats if the party split, but I’m not sure it would be that advantageous. Both conservative parties may still spend a lot of time voting against the Democrats, just because it’s reflex.

However, if the party is going to split, this is the perfect time—just after an election. It gives them time to register as a new party in all states, and also time for a “grand realignment” where all conservatives decide whether to stay with the original party or go with the new USA Party (Unprincipled Seditionists and Assholes).
 
I'm going to stay with no, as various associates are still entertained as having some kind of value.

Such as this fine person who can share about law enforcement & crime, until one gets a pardon from someone even more crooked.

Which experience are they sharing?

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1363708171680940033/

www.nbcnews.com

Trump pardons Bernard Kerik: Why the former N.Y. police commissioner spent time in prison

Kerik was sentenced to four years in prison in 2010 after pleading guilty to eight felony charges for offenses including failure to pay taxes.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
Click to expand...
 
P_X said:
I think most of us would get it right if we had to guess which of the three has books too.
Click to expand...
Junior and crazygunwoman have coasters and doorstops with lots of pages in them. Pages that make them heavy and thick and also serve some other mysterious purpose that those two cannot comprehend. To stop bullets, maybe?
 
Thomas Veil said:
I’m sure it would be advantageous for the Democrats if the party split, but I’m not sure it would be that advantageous. Both conservative parties may still spend a lot of time voting against the Democrats, just because it’s reflex.

However, if the party is going to split, this is the perfect time—just after an election. It gives them time to register as a new party in all states, and also time for a “grand realignment” where all conservatives decide whether to stay with the original party or go with the new USA Party (Unprincipled Seditionists and Assholes).
Click to expand...

If a rational Republican voter thinks for a moment, he or she might have to ask why the party still officially rolls with Trump after their losses of the White House, House and Senate in just one term with him "at the helm". Add to that consideration the Trump-incited incursion into the Capitol on January 6th, and the astounding decision by so many Senators to decide to acquit the former president of that incitement.

And so... a lot of Republicans leaving the GOP are registering as independents at the moment, since it's unclear where the party itself is headed. Taking just one of the key states as an example, over 18k Rs have departed the Pennsylvania registry of Republican voters since January 6th.

www.inquirer.com

Almost 19,000 Pa. voters have left the Republican Party since the Capitol attack

There are signs of a broader political shift under way, one that raises the prospect of a Republican primary electorate even friendlier to Donald Trump and Trump-allied candidates.
www.inquirer.com www.inquirer.com

Biden won over Trump in PA in the 2020 presidential election by about 80k votes in the final count. Only about 10 out of 67 counties ran higher counts for Trump in 2020 than in 2016.

www.thedp.com

Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes, according to final count

Pennsylvanian suburbs shifted toward Biden to deliver his victory, including Allegheny County, which is home to Pittsburgh and its suburbs.
www.thedp.com www.thedp.com

The problem for the Republicans is that if the drain to independent registry continues, left behind at the farther right are the voters who supported Trump and may still support him, regardless of whether he attempts to form a third party (and so far the RNC still backs him, hoping he will not split the party formally.

But the point is that the smaller GOP is already (post-election and post-Jan-6th) more Trumpy than ever, which means for the 2022 primary season there's the prospect once again that Republican incumbents will be primaried from their right, more extreme "Republicans" will win the nomination and then prove unable to win in the general election, thanks to Democrats and indie voters not being willing to entertain candidates at the extreme right of the spectrum.

So the Dems for the moment just hang back and watch to see what happens. Meanwhile the Washington Post ran a piece countering the idea that the GOP was collapsing, noting that the tendency of voters on both sides of the aisle most recently has been to join the ranks of independents anyway.

 
No.

They collectively don't want an alternative, that's what we have to begin to accept.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1364577957914681347/

I'm calling it now. Get your shit straight to weather the next presidency. R's will pull out everything short of only ONE / OUR type of person is allowed to vote laws to insure we get incompetency that makes the last president look like he was incredibly lucky at the job.
 
JayMysteri0 said:
No.

They collectively don't want an alternative, that's what we have to begin to accept.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1364577957914681347/

I'm calling it now. Get your shit straight to weather the next presidency. R's will pull out everything short of only ONE / OUR type of person is allowed to vote laws to insure we get incompetency that makes the last president look like he was incredibly lucky at the job.
Click to expand...
The SCOTUS will allow laws that only allow white people in rural districts to vote. If you like the idea of white rural voters being able to vote by text message while black urban voters are forced to wait in line for 3 days, you MIGHT be a Republican.
 
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