The Grand Old Meltdown party

He doesn't know, or he won't say? I think it's the latter.

I didn't know he'd had a stroke. I wonder if that's why we aren't hearing about his focus groups or if there is another reason like he doesn't support this administration?

We don't hear from Karl Rove either and GW Bush is not going to speak at the GOP Convention.

I think Brendan Buck had the most salient point of this article. I can’t find a coherent answer to the question myself. What does it mean to be a Republican right now? I really don’t think it has an answer that would stay consistent enough under scrutiny for my taste, except for Brendan Buck’s owning the libs and pissing off the media answer.

MaeZe said:

He doesn't know, or he won't say? I think it's the latter.

I didn't know he'd had a stroke. I wonder if that's why we aren't hearing about his focus groups or if there is another reason like he doesn't support this administration?

We don't hear from Karl Rove either and GW Bush is not going to speak at the GOP Convention.

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I can't think of a time when former POTUS's in good health (and not resigned in disgrace, like Nixon) didn't speak at their party's convention. Is this a first? And GW is the only living former Republican POTUS since his father died.

darkprincealain said:

I think Brendan Buck had the most salient point of this article. I can’t find a coherent answer to the question myself. What does it mean to be a Republican right now? I really don’t think it has an answer that would stay consistent enough under scrutiny for my taste, except for Brendan Buck’s owning the libs and pissing off the media answer.

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I think being a Republican means one supports traditional power hierarchies. This drives their other stances, including their positions on abortion, the environment, rights of LGBTQ people, civil rights, feminism, the social safety net, financial reform, tax reform, the punitive approach to criminal justice, access to health care and so on. Even their position on gun control, since guns are a sort of security blanket for people who fear those who aren't just like them (yes, guns serve other purposes, but marksmen, ranchers, and hunters don't need to stockpile military style weapons or to carry weapons around with them in public when they aren't hunting or on their way to a shooting range).

I also think a new central value has emerged: regarding government as a sport or competition, or even a war, because they regard it as a zero sum game--us versus them, insiders versus outsiders. And therefore, being a Republican is about hurting those they define as liberals (or the other) in every way they can, from petty little jabs (such as always calling the Democratic party the Democrat party) to the catastrophic (such as stripping people of health care in the middle of a pandemic). They are willing to suffer personally in order to do this. This also explains the "no compromises" approach that has become normal for them now. Football teams don't win games by compromising.

That is why Trump's base loves him, even when his policies hurt them. He makes the liberals angry and/or sad with his stupid tweets and his cruel executive orders and his deplorable court picks.

MaeZe said:

He doesn't know, or he won't say? I think it's the latter

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As a former conservative who voted GOP for my first few elections, I could trot out the old standbys of enabling opportunity to act on innovation and initiative, merit-based consideration of ideas and achievement, and ingenuity unfettered by being told how it "should" be done by people who aren't doing it themselves, but I can't even follow the interior logic I used to base my vote on with what I'm seeing now. Oh, I can follow this history as I see it: GW Bush surrounding himself with ambitious zealots, the abandonment of the white working class (and formerly union, dem-voting blue collar workers) by the Democrats, and the knee-jerk "gotta get ours" reaction to Clinton and Obama of Trump's 2016 voters, but even then the party looks nothing like the one I used to support. I totally understand Luntz's confusion and disillusion.

Does religion figure heavily in the division? Or does it just seem that way from the outside?

mccardey said:

Does religion figure heavily in the division? Or does it just seem that way from the outside?

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Well, there is a history of religion being co-opted for political purposes dating back to the New Deal (at least).

The current cult mentality that the TeaOP has adopted has certain fundamentalist roots as well.

mccardey said:

Does religion figure heavily in the division? Or does it just seem that way from the outside?

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Tough question, because there is a ton of nuance and inconsistency. Of course my understanding of it is right, and all others are just plain wrong

For the most part, the "Christian left" is not very vocal, and might take some looking around to find particularly away from the coasts or various liberal hot spots. Here in the Washington, DC area, many churches welcome LGBTQIA (my church is a Reconciling in Christ community), have female clergy (as mine does), have Black Lives Matter signs out front (yep), and have active social justice ministries aimed at the homeless, immigrants, etc. (yep again). But for most of the country, "American Christianity" is right-leaning, conservative, and more inwardly focused on personal salvation than on community outreach (not totally true--rich, conservative churches give tons of money to certain charities--but a general trend).

The progressive churches devote their efforts to advocacy for human rights, legal representation for marginalized groups, and public service focused on feeding the hungry, housing, etc. This fits a liberal political view, that the community bears a responsibility for ensuring the rights of all and meeting their basic needs. Conservative churches devote their efforts to personal spiritual conversion (either of themselves through prayer and scriptural study or of others through evangelization), education (lots and lots of money goes to schools at home and around the world), and charity usually in the form of money for further evangelization or education. This fits a conservative political view, in that the individual bears a responsibility for meeting their needs and for growing. I sometimes say conservative churches are the "faith," and liberal churches are the "works," but this isn't really true because both engage in both, and both recognize both as being essential. But it's not surprising that attendees of a church tend to vote similarly because their Sunday morning choices fit their greater world views.

mccardey said:

Does religion figure heavily in the division? Or does it just seem that way from the outside?

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I think it's been used to recruit a group of people. There's a whole thing about that, where it was used to get White, Southern evangelicals to become Republicans once the Democrats embraced civil rights. But that style of religion has been all about reinforcing traditional power hierarchies too, though more on the social than economic front.

Except the whole gospel of prosperity got involved.

And then there's that link between racism and certain kinds of White Protestantism in the US.

But I don't think the GOP can claim to be the party of the faithful anymore. Not when their Beloved Leader is a pussy grabbing hedonist who lies, cheats and wears his corruption on his sleeve like a badge of honor.

I think that's why it's hard for people to parse what the GOP is really about anymore, because they hold so many evidently self-contradictory positions. They say they want small government, but they also want to control women's wombs, and they want to give huge bail outs and tax breaks to corporations. They say they're about state rights, but then they step in and challenge the rights of "Blue" states to pass environmental laws or gun control laws.

I think the common thread is restoring and maintaining traditional power hierarchies, and religion is an effective tool to this end. Their true focus is about allowing the wealthiest to become even more wealthy, but there's a parallel working-class White movement that focuses on the so-called culture wars and maintaining the social control of white, Christian, straight males. This is useful to the ultra wealthy, though, because it distracts people from what is being done to them economically and diverts attention from who is really to blame for the shrinking middle class.

And it's easy to get people to think life is a zero sum game where the rising fortunes of one group mean their own group will have less. From there it's really easy to get White men (and many White women too, those who are invested in the status quo) who aren't doing too well in the new economy to think it's "liberal" things like affirmative action, political correctness, feminism and so on are to blame for their losing out.

I've seen one of my own relatives get sucked into this. The people who are easiest to recruit into the new right are those who feel they've been cheated of something they took for granted. They feel the rules have been changed mid game and there are all these interlopers--immigrants, feminists, LGBTQ people, people of color--they never even thought of as competition who are suddenly getting things they assumed would be theirs alone.

Elsewhere. Keep in mind DeWine is also Republican (and on board with denying women their bodily autonomy)

Articles of Impeachment Drafted Against Gov. DeWine By the Worst Conservative Ohio Lawmakers

RedRajah said:

Elsewhere. Keep in mind DeWine is also Republican (and on board with denying women their bodily autonomy)

Articles of Impeachment Drafted Against Gov. DeWine By the Worst Conservative Ohio Lawmakers

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So they are impeaching him for requiring people to wear masks?

So the GOP wants to tear themselves apart over things like that...

Roxxsmom said:

So they are impeaching him for requiring people to wear masks?

So the GOP wants to tear themselves apart over things like that...

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The idea that every bridge is one to die on, that every conflict, no matter how small, deserves full mobilization, and that the stakes of any defeat are too great to risk is one of the ways I no longer recognize the GOP. There is no strategy, and they are acting like they are so angry they will pick any fight just to prove something, no matter how trivial. I don't see how they can sustain such outrage 24/7.

Roxxsmom said:

So the GOP wants to tear themselves apart over things like that...

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To quote Newt Gingrich - "Because we can".

-cb

Well, their 2020 platform is essentially "whatever Donald wants."

This is from conservative columnist, Jeff Jacoby (no Trump fan):

In a resolution adopted Sunday, the Republican National Committee said there would be no new platform because coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions made it too difficult to bring delegates together to draft one. If only the party had left it at that.

But the resolution didn’t stop there. It went on to dismiss platforms as cynical documents that shouldn’t be taken seriously anyway. “Parties abide by their policy priorities,” the resolution declared, “rather than their political rhetoric.” Yet rather than list even a few of the GOP’s 2020 policy priorities, party leaders summarized their outlook in a single principle:

“The RNC enthusiastically supports President Trump. . . . The Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda . . . [and] calls on the media to engage in accurate and unbiased reporting, especially as it relates to the strong support of the RNC for President Trump and his Administration.”

This is a remarkable and disturbing document.


The transformation of the Republican Party into a vehicle propelled above all by loyalty to Donald Trump has been obvious since the 2016 election. But for a party to eschew the adoption of a platform in order to proclaim its fealty to one man is something new in American politics. The RNC resolution is an official declaration that the Republican Party’s singular purpose is Trump’s reelection — period. There are no core values or philosophical convictions that matter more. What Republicans stand for is whatever Trump stands for. And since Trump himself can’t articulate what he stands for, what use has the GOP for a formal platform?

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Jacoby was sounding the alarm about Trump in 2016, but he also toed the Republican line and painted Hillary a equally bad. So he's partly why we're here. But I'm glad some Republican voices are speaking up.

More than two dozen former Republican lawmakers endorse Joe Biden on first day of GOP convention

Along with Flake and Dent, former Sens. Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire and John Warner of Virginia added their support, as did the following former members of Congress:Texas Rep. Steve Bartlett
Pennsylvania Rep. Bill Clinger
Missouri Rep. Tom Coleman
Hawaii Rep. Charles Djou
Oklahoma Rep. Mickey Edwards
Maryland Rep. Wayne Gilchrest
Pennsylvania Rep. Jim Greenwood
South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis
Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe
California Rep. Steve Kuykendall
Illinois Rep. Ray LaHood
Iowa Rep. Jim Leach
New York Rep. Susan Molinari
Maryland Rep. Connie Morella
Mississippi Rep. Mike Parker
New York Rep. Jack Quinn
Rhode Island Rep. Claudine Schneider
Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays
Vermont Rep. Peter Smith
Texas Rep. Alan Steelman
New York Rep. Jim Walsh
Virginia Rep. Bill Whitehurst
New Jersey Rep. Dick Zimmer

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Roxxsmom said:

So they are impeaching him for requiring people to wear masks?

So the GOP wants to tear themselves apart over things like that...

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Outrage unites: it's all about This Thing! OMG, This Thing will end civilization and unleash the Devil! Down with This Thing! Your opponents love This Thing, and also eat babies!

Outrage exhausts: everyone's energy goes to defending or denigrating This Thing, all media focuses on the debate over The Thing (both-sidesing it to death), with little to no energy left for anything else.

Outrage distracts from everything but the current focal point of the outrage: so long as This Thing is the focus, nobody's paying attention to backroom deals and regulations/deregulations and crony creep and erosion of rights...

Outrage may tear countries apart, but it works out great for those in power who can keep dangling The Thing, The Next Thing, and The Other Thing in front of the public and media...

(See also: how abortion was transformed into The Thing for so many evangelicals, worth literally any sacrifice and twist of logic.)

That's something that bugs me most about this situation. The Left is getting angrier and angrier too, and for good reason. How can anyone see what happened to George Floyd and not be furious? But that at least is an example of a situation where people are demanding change, and a course of action from the government that isn't about taking someone else's rights away (unless you are a murdering cop, I suppose).

So much of what the Right wants is about denying other people rights. But they frame their own denial of rights in terms of rights, which is rather clever, actually. So denying someone the right to marry, or the right to be served in places of business or by health care providers, becomes religious freedom; denying a woman bodily autonomy becomes the right of the unborn.

And of course the Left and the Right have different things they respond to viscerally. Much is made of differences between the Right being more prone to fear and horror and disgust than the Left, which is supposedly the reason why they hate things like abortion. The argument is they are more squeamish or easily grossed out by the concept of it. But this ignores the fact that abortion wasn't always a partisan issue, nor uniformly opposed by conservatives, not even by White, southern evangelicals. And it ignores the fact that for many on the left, being pro choice is based on visceral horror and fear responses too. I certainly was disgusted by the images of [trigger warning] dead women on hotel room floors lying in pools of their own blood, but the horror came from my empathy for the woman.

And there are other visceral issues that horrify and terrify me, and also elicit moral outrage: images of wildlife killed by plastic or other pollution; people starving and displaced by floods, droughts, storms, fires likely made worse by climate change; women being groped, even raped, by their bosses, coworkers, fellow students and having no recourse; Rows of people on ventilators in hospitals, dying of Covid-19; People murdered by police or by white nationalists or by mobs of angry haters; people of any race flaunting weapons in public spaces.

So in my opinion it's not that people on the Left less capable of disgust, fear, or moral outrage. It's that different images and concepts engender them in us, and different people or entities elicit our empathy. It's also true that the Left and Right cling to different things to allay our fears. For the Right, guns make them feel more empowered, less afraid of the things they regard as threats. For the Left, not so much (though it gets complex when it comes to guns as a means of protecting Black lives from White violence). The Left is more likely to think strong laws, education, and infrastructure are our best protections.

These are gaps I don't know how to bridge.

How can we fix this? Because even if we win the election, these angry people who hate us aren't going anywhere.

You know, I was listening to some old music tonight, and I couldn't help thinking that the lyrics to the Pink Floyd song "Pigs, Three Different Ones" remind me of our current situation.

My question now is okay, the GOP is melting down, how do we pull the young and confused over to the left? I have a brother who is nineteen, and it seems that leftist ideas are pretty common among his peers, but younger than that, from an optics perspective, how do we get them over to the left? Broad question, I know. For my money, I think it starts with a deconstruction of the "mythos" of the economy thriving under capitalism. I think when you're young (and this is just conjecture on my part), you don't want to be told what to think, but rather you want to feel that you are "peeling" back the grand illusion, so I think it's good place to start to show wages aren't rising with productivity. Then, from there, use that pulling on the thread to unravel the "mythos" of conservative values on issues that are entangled. How to communicate that to young people? I honestly don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas. Feel free to disagree with me. I think Bernie did a phenomenal job bringing over young people, but the man is getting old. Maybe AOC can fill in the role, but for us non-politicians we need to think of some optics strategies.

I think young people in general are more aware of the ways capitalism isn't working for them--high college debts, uncertain labor market, ridiculously high rents and home prices, plus the whole issue with climate change being driven by short-term, profit-motivated thinking. My understanding is that they tend to be more progressive overall.

But there are plenty of young people who swing the other way and decide, along with many older conservatives, that doing capitalism harder is the best answer. Maybe it's like an extinction burst when someone pushes the elevator button a bunch of extra times before finally taking the stairs. But so far, people are remarkably attached the idea of capitalism as we've known it for so long. It's probably because it's been so conflated in people's minds with democracy, even though it's very possible to have a fairly socialist economic system paired with a democratic system of government (note I am using democratic in the broad sense, as in liberal democracy, not referring to an all-direct-vote system of government). The word socialism is too steeped in Soviet Era evil in many American's minds, and also the sense of the virtues of standing alone is part of our cultural DNA. And the whole post-Reagan era thing too.

It is really hard to get a bunch of people going in the same direction at the same time without a fairly top down approach, which might be why leaders like Trump get the traction they do from the disaffected.

And the alt right relies on a tactic of attracting and finding individuals, especially young ones, with a beef about something and feeding them a pack of horseshit lies about who and what is to blame, whether it be women, socialism, affirmative action, environmentalism, modern science, or liberal college professors.

Getting a sweeping movement is harder for the left, because the left is (by definition) pretty diverse and is about embracing diversity and most liberals care passionately about many issues, and may even have trouble prioritizing them. For this reason, elements of the left are often at odds with one another, or at least disagreeing about what the most pressing priorities are. The left gets this circular firing squad on many issues (like at my college campus where we all agree that we want to see more success by students from underrepresented backgrounds, but we disagree about how best to achieve this, and certain elements on campus have decided those who don't agree with their ideas on how to achieve this are racist obstacles who should be removed).

Contrast this with the Right, and most people having the same 1-2 priorities right now 1. The economy (and the idea that Trump is great at handling this), 2. Crime and a desire to crack down on "unruly mobs" by any and all means. That the Right is the darling of White nationalists and other really awful people right now doesn't matter to these folks. They're convinced Trump is the one who can achieve their goals.

Anyway, this series of videos is a time investment to watch, but I've found it to be illuminating. He talks about how the alt right turns and recruits people in some of them. In my experience, the people who are most vulnerable are those who feel cheated in some way, people whose reality doesn't square with their expectations. Many (though certainly not all) of these folks are white males, of course, which is why you see an over-representation of white males in extreme right-wing groups and circles.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ&app=desktop

I have no kids, but I was raised to be a lefty socialist, and I suspect that you have to start when the children are little, and make it a slow drip of information, rather than speeches when they're teenagers.
Pick whatever part of the Left that you're interested in, and explain it when it comes up.

If you're going on a march, take the kids, and explain why you feel it's important. If you're donating to someone or something, explain what you're giving and why.
If something on the news is making you crazy, explain your issue to the children.

I knew the point of the song 'Pie in the Sky When You Die' (labour song) before I understood capitalism.
When my Dad's union went on strike, he explained why. Not just "We want this, and they're not giving it to us', but that work could be weaponized (not in those words - he was more 'they want us to work, and we're not going to until they listen to us), and, in this case, we weren't striking for us, but for other people, in another town, who weren't big enough to stand against the bosses on their own. We stand together and help each other out.

If you work for a company that likes to sponsor stuff, ask what your children would have wanted to spend the money on, if it had been given to the employees, rather than what the company thought would look good.

If there's something relevant and political on the news, explain it (do not rant, just explain why).
If you're into ecology or the environment, explain how everyone can help in little ways. If it's your kind of thing, go to clean-up events, or protests or whatever, but explain why - don't let your children think it's just some random activity.

Your kids may rebel against your beliefs, but at least make sure they know what they're rebelling against.

Roxxsmom said:

Anyway, this series of videos is a time investment to watch, but I've found it to be illuminating. He talks about how the alt right turns and recruits people in some of them. In my experience, the people who are most vulnerable are those who feel cheated in some way, people whose reality doesn't square with their expectations. Many (though certainly not all) of these folks are white males, of course, which is why you see an over-representation of white males in extreme right-wing groups and circles.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ&app=desktop

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InnuendoStudios is excellent, very comprehensive breakdowns and gets into the "mindset" of people who turn to the right

Good points, Richard, and any claim the Right ever made to ideological purity was pretty seriously debunked even before Trump. The party of small government, except when it comes to women's reproductive organs and the rights of people to have the kinds of family structure and gender identity they wish; the party of fiscal responsibility, except when deficits derive from tax cuts for the ultra rich; the party of not depending on the government, except when it's red states and counties being subsidized by blue; the party of law and order except when the murder victims are black and the murderers are cops or armed vigilantes.

Now, their platform is support for their glorious leader. It's pretty alarming and is yet another indication that a fringe has taken over the Right in this country and they are well on their way to embracing fascism--the ultimate in identity politics.

darkprincealain said:

What does it mean to be a Republican right now?

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It's a hell of a question. Perhaps it's easier to answer by rephrasing it as, "why will people vote Republican in this upcoming election?"

The people who do will have many of the same priorities, but in different orders. Such as, and as referenced below, some will vote republican because owning assault rifles is the most important thing to them while others believe the second amendment is no longer applicable.

I used to think Roe v Wade was the essential line that defined most of the electorate. I have since come to believe that the primary reason most people vote republican is because they want the government to play a lesser role in the regulation of business and their individual lives. Trump did, and will, force many of them to make compromises on free market principles such as immigration, free trade, etc.

I think it's fair to say that the loudest and most enthusiastic Trump supporters do not define the beliefs and convictions of half the country that will vote for him.

If I continue this post I'll just be rambling. I like this thread.