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On August 07 2016 13:31 LegalLord wrote: Those candidates were legitimate by Republican standards. Cruz, Kasich, Bush, Walker, Rubio, etc., are all at least as shitty as Trump is, perhaps worse, but no one thinks that about them because they both aren't as bombastic and aren't as relevant as Trump was. If they were the frontrunners then the ugliness would come boiling up to the surface.
The Republican base is pretty fucked, yes. Though I think in a way it is telling that Trump can advocate positions that are antithetical to the party's views, to widespread cheer at the convention. While other speakers contradict him and also get lots of cheers, lol.
There's a huge disconnect between the party elite and a big chunk of their base that's been made apparent by the rise of Trump. The elite push some social issues to mollify the religious right and others, but their actual policy is designed to economically benefit the elite with precious little for the base.
Given this, it's not too surprising that their 2012 post mortem plan failed so miserably. The RNC operated under the assumption they could have their cake and eat it, and now its looking like they can't have either.
The Democrats aren't perfectly in sync either, but they're a lot closer than the Republicans at least.
Trump's tax plans are explicitly pro elite anti worker for anyone who cares to read them. He made no effort to balance his plans, or even explain exactly what they were, enabling him to claim he'd spend far more and tax far less simultaneously but his tax plans are one of the few areas where he gave us anything concrete and he's cutting taxes on the rich in a big, big way.
It's not the money side that Trump tapped into, it's the feeling that their country is changing in strange and unfamiliar ways and that a populist strongman will be able to return them to the more familiar and privileged position they remember. It's a direct response to things like gay marriage, minority culture getting less marginalized, minority issues getting more playtime in the public sphere, job security and pay eroding over time, shifting economic trends and so forth. A negro for President is perhaps the ultimate symbol of that and it's no coincidence that Trump was the head birther who was denouncing Obama as literally un-American, not just figuratively.
There are plenty of people within the Republican camp who I don't think meet that description but I think most of them aren't Trumpers.
Now I think the question is how and when can the GOP reclaim its natural position as a normal right wing party for sane right wing people.
The challenge goes way beyond Trump and the tea party lunatics :
1- It's a party that has to reconnect with facts. The GOP has become a party where no one seems to care about reality, only about what people feel. Violent crime is down? Doesn't matter, let's claim during the whole bloody convention it's up. That can work once, but you can't lie all the time at the age of independent digital media and fact checkers. On the same vein, I think the GOP has to somewhat disconnect itself with the obnoxious taste some american have for conspiracy theories.
2- Its relationship to science needs urgent fixing. I think a party that denies darwinism and global warming will have less and less chances to win an election. Because people aren't THAT stupid.
3- It has to stop relying on voodoo economics. Probably the hardest part. The dogma that helping billionaire to make more profit is a way to help the economy isn't only an ideological standpoint, it's also a strategy that goes together with massive fundings from a cast of donors, and the support of corporate media owned by Murdoch and other tycoons who have obvious interests there. Problem is that GOP economics makes so little sense that the average Joe starts to see through the whole Reverse Robin Hood hoax.
4- It has to get rid of its utter biggotry. Another big problem. Racial resentment has been the cornerstone of the GOP startegy for decades. That's not a winning strategy with the US diversifying. The tragedy is that on this very thread, we had a discussion a few dozen pages ago about whether blacks were inherently more violent that white. And anti-muslim crap is everywhere. Good luck to them not losing their biggoted voters while somewhat doing something about their overly racist message and their abysmal record with black and latino voters.
Those obstacles might be impossible to overcome. In that case, the GOP will lose one election after another. Of course they might win here and there, by accident, but they will be fighting one downhill battle after another.
It might also disappear and be replaced by the centre right party america needs. Difficult with the current system but not totally impossible.
On August 07 2016 13:31 LegalLord wrote: Those candidates were legitimate by Republican standards. Cruz, Kasich, Bush, Walker, Rubio, etc., are all at least as shitty as Trump is, perhaps worse, but no one thinks that about them because they both aren't as bombastic and aren't as relevant as Trump was. If they were the frontrunners then the ugliness would come boiling up to the surface.
The Republican base is pretty fucked, yes. Though I think in a way it is telling that Trump can advocate positions that are antithetical to the party's views, to widespread cheer at the convention. While other speakers contradict him and also get lots of cheers, lol.
nope their shittyness is not greater or equal than trumps, he is quite demonstrably singular in his total unfit temperament
i do not agree with the policy ideas of any of the 5 listed, but i am for instance certain, that jeb bush would be a reliable administrator in the job and would not fuck up foreign policy beyond recognition (as he seemed to have learned from his brother and has in general more restraint) like trump would.
in a position like the american presidency i would always prefer "tame and thoughtful" to "relentless and idiotic"
p.s. can we please stop calling something "Darwinism", it is a utterly missleading term and reminds me of scholasticism where it wasn't about the truth but who could recite aristotle or aquine in a more favourable context it is not about the person.evolution is on the one hand an observable fact and has on the other hand accompanying theories that explain its context, mechanism and make testable predictions
since those theories are all very very close, and only differ in minute and complicated technical details like the amount of influence of mutation, recombination and the mechanisms of gene repair/prevention of oxidative stresses impact on the genome, it is adequate to combine them for the general purpose as one theory of evolution
like it makes sense to combine all our current understandings of the results of the concepts of general relativity into the general theory of relativity itself. When Einstein Hilbert and others worked on the theory and found the field equations, this did not close the chapter, but it opened it, solutions would get found, predictions calculated, the implications for cosmology spawned a whole new field of inquiry, gravitational waves, cosmological redshift and many other pieces came together step after step.. and there are still many open questions, especially at the very high energy density end of the theory, and on the issue of causality/horizons/reversability of quantum processes
It makes no sense to call it "Einsteinism" as it trancends its outset by a lot, without contradicting the cornerstone idea
It makes no sense to call evolution "Darwinism" as it trancends its outset by a lot, without contradicting the cornerstone idea
i do not agree with the policy ideas of any of the 5 listed, but i am for instance certain, that jeb bush would be a reliable administrator in the job and would not fuck up foreign policy beyond recognition (as he seemed to have learned from his brother and has in general more restraint) like trump would.
Disagree. He actually could've been worse than Doubledumb Bush - zero balls for the most part (it picked up a tiny bit when his race ended). Fact is, they'd be all better than Trump. Except Cruz. In the same way Hillary is better than Trump. Not by being "amazing" but simply by "not being as shitty".
That doesn't make a good candidate.
In regards to Jeb: no, he most likely wouldn't start a war. The problem being, that he certainly wouldn't prevent them either. He's hesitant, and doesn't actually seem to have a vision. Except, obviously, the vision to tell by "looking" who's muslim/christian. He's simply not a leading type. Not once i thought "he's a good candidate". I'd take Kasich over him any day - purely because he's as planless, but at least more likable.
edit: that being said, the rest of the bunch for the most part is just a collection of your average religious and warmongering zealots. Especially carson and cruz are incredible trainwrecks to admire.
He was calling for a much bigger, and much more regressive tax cuts than anything his brother ever passed. He wanted to privatize Medicare. He was turning to the architects of the Iraq War (Paul Wolfowitz!) for foreign policy advice.
As for Kasich, he was probably the most sensible one, even though what he advocates economically would have in 2009 given us a full replay of the Great Depression. Dogmatic opposition to fiscal and monetary stimuli is not exactly what we need right now.
The truth is, the contenders were unprecedentedly horrible. You can't expect to win if all you can align are clueless idiots with personality disorder (Trum) or looking like stoners (Carson), notorious assholes (Cruz), unexperienced bots (Rubio) or absolute frauds such as Jeb.
I have no esteem whatsoever for Ryan, but I believe he would have been the strongest candidate the party had to offer. I very unfortunately expect him to be POTUS one day.
Kasich and Jeb are actually remarkably similar, particularly with reference to how they governed their respective states. Both are slash-and-burn administrators through and through.
On August 07 2016 13:31 LegalLord wrote: Those candidates were legitimate by Republican standards. Cruz, Kasich, Bush, Walker, Rubio, etc., are all at least as shitty as Trump is, perhaps worse, but no one thinks that about them because they both aren't as bombastic and aren't as relevant as Trump was. If they were the frontrunners then the ugliness would come boiling up to the surface.
The Republican base is pretty fucked, yes. Though I think in a way it is telling that Trump can advocate positions that are antithetical to the party's views, to widespread cheer at the convention. While other speakers contradict him and also get lots of cheers, lol.
There's a huge disconnect between the party elite and a big chunk of their base that's been made apparent by the rise of Trump. The elite push some social issues to mollify the religious right and others, but their actual policy is designed to economically benefit the elite with precious little for the base.
Given this, it's not too surprising that their 2012 post mortem plan failed so miserably. The RNC operated under the assumption they could have their cake and eat it, and now its looking like they can't have either.
The Democrats aren't perfectly in sync either, but they're a lot closer than the Republicans at least.
Trump's tax plans are explicitly pro elite anti worker for anyone who cares to read them. He made no effort to balance his plans, or even explain exactly what they were, enabling him to claim he'd spend far more and tax far less simultaneously but his tax plans are one of the few areas where he gave us anything concrete and he's cutting taxes on the rich in a big, big way.
It's not the money side that Trump tapped into, it's the feeling that their country is changing in strange and unfamiliar ways and that a populist strongman will be able to return them to the more familiar and privileged position they remember. It's a direct response to things like gay marriage, minority culture getting less marginalized, minority issues getting more playtime in the public sphere, job security and pay eroding over time, shifting economic trends and so forth. A negro for President is perhaps the ultimate symbol of that and it's no coincidence that Trump was the head birther who was denouncing Obama as literally un-American, not just figuratively.
There are plenty of people within the Republican camp who I don't think meet that description but I think most of them aren't Trumpers.
Reducing taxes - for the rich - associated with protectionnism is a kind of keynesian stimulus, it's just less efficient than budgetary stimuli due to saving (Haavelmo showed that more than sixty years ago), but it still works. That's what Reagan did actually ; some people believe his plan worked because of the laffer curve or trickle down economics (the "reaganomics") but it's bullcrap, he created growth and reduced unemployment thanks to the multiplicator. By the way, Bush qualified Reaganomics as "voodoo economics".
Imo in today's world, there are no clear and simple economic plan. The entire world, aside from a few countries, is in a place where all the "traditional" solutions showed their limits and we will, most likely, not get out of this except we change the way we see the state as an economic agent. To be clear, Trump tax reform might have good short term effect, and disastrous long term effect for inequalities, state budget, etc. Much like Reagan in fact.
If I were a Republican I would have voted Trump in the primaries. He may have a shitty temperament but all the other candidates have shitty policies and would be effective at making those into law. It's hard to see just how bad the others are when you aren't particularly inclined to care about them but they are all worse than Trump.
As for Ryan, he could potentially win a POTUS election but I'm not so sure. He lies a lot and isn't all that convincing at it, and he might just go down with the ship if the Republican Party reaches full crisis mode. He already gets a lot of flak for being in a leadership role at a difficult time.
On August 08 2016 00:18 LegalLord wrote: If I were a Republican I would have voted Trump in the primaries. He may have a shitty temperament but all the other candidates have shitty policies and would be effective at making those into law. It's hard to see just how bad the others are when you aren't particularly inclined to care about them but they are all worse than Trump.
As for Ryan, he could potentially win a POTUS election but I'm not so sure. He lies a lot and isn't all that convincing at it, and he might just go down with the ship if the Republican Party reaches full crisis mode. He already gets a lot of flak for being in a leadership role at a difficult time.
Nah, Ryan won't be president. I don't even think that he'd get the nomination. Even if Trump loses this election, he has mortally wounded the republican establishment and done the same things to the republican party that Barry Goldwater did in 1964. Trump has shown that a majority of republican voters is not ideologically conservative (or is at least willing to put traditional conservativism in the back seat). Future candidates will seize upon this. There is no going back.
Ryan is an empty suit, though he does a better job of hiding it than most. He casts himself as a policy wonk but actually reminds me of those conspiracy theorists who write a 10k word blog of elaborately constructed bullshit.
On August 08 2016 00:18 LegalLord wrote: If I were a Republican I would have voted Trump in the primaries. He may have a shitty temperament but all the other candidates have shitty policies and would be effective at making those into law. It's hard to see just how bad the others are when you aren't particularly inclined to care about them but they are all worse than Trump.
As for Ryan, he could potentially win a POTUS election but I'm not so sure. He lies a lot and isn't all that convincing at it, and he might just go down with the ship if the Republican Party reaches full crisis mode. He already gets a lot of flak for being in a leadership role at a difficult time.
Nah, Ryan won't be president. I don't even think that he'd get the nomination. Even if Trump loses this election, he has mortally wounded the republican establishment and done the same things to the republican party that Barry Goldwater did in 1964. Trump has shown that a majority of republican voters is not ideologically conservative (or is at least willing to put traditional conservativism in the back seat). Future candidates will seize upon this. There is no going back.
Either paul ryan or marco rubio. I don't see any other republican atm that would have a remote chance of winning the election. Or some wildcard who is a popular figure. Maybe chuck Norris lol. The old establishment dudes,kasich,romney,pence to some extend. I don't see them ever gain enough traction with the changing demographics and the slight turn to the left of American society.
@below: ya I agree, I did think of sanders so removed that remark.
It's pretty pathetic that people see empty suits as the potential future of the Republican Party. It just gives further credence to the idea that the party is just a con job that gets people to vote for policies that are bad for them.
On August 08 2016 00:18 LegalLord wrote: If I were a Republican I would have voted Trump in the primaries. He may have a shitty temperament but all the other candidates have shitty policies and would be effective at making those into law. It's hard to see just how bad the others are when you aren't particularly inclined to care about them but they are all worse than Trump.
As for Ryan, he could potentially win a POTUS election but I'm not so sure. He lies a lot and isn't all that convincing at it, and he might just go down with the ship if the Republican Party reaches full crisis mode. He already gets a lot of flak for being in a leadership role at a difficult time.
Nah, Ryan won't be president. I don't even think that he'd get the nomination. Even if Trump loses this election, he has mortally wounded the republican establishment and done the same things to the republican party that Barry Goldwater did in 1964. Trump has shown that a majority of republican voters is not ideologically conservative (or is at least willing to put traditional conservativism in the back seat). Future candidates will seize upon this. There is no going back.
Well, but then again in that case the GOP is fucked. Trump's populist platform or any avatar of his BS would be ok for a fringe party but won't ever win an election. At least I don't think so.
America has changed. It's a diverse country and you need to appeal to its diversity. Nobody will ever be elected POTUS again on a platform that is designed to exclusively appeal to white men without a degree. It's a shrinking demographic.
On August 08 2016 01:25 LegalLord wrote: It's pretty pathetic that people see empty suits as the potential future of the Republican Party. It just gives further credence to the idea that the party is just a con job that gets people to vote for policies that are bad for them.
On August 08 2016 01:25 LegalLord wrote: It's pretty pathetic that people see empty suits as the potential future of the Republican Party. It just gives further credence to the idea that the party is just a con job that gets people to vote for policies that are bad for them.
That's a bit the case, if I may...
Which is unfortunate because I think there is always room for a more, "principled" party in government to balance out progressives (who have a lot of good ideas but a lot of dangerous ones too). Too bad that party is just a shill for the wealthy.
EPT
