Here's a familiar headline from the Washington Post:
New class of combative MAGA candidates poised to roil House GOP
This happens every decade or so. In 1980 it was the Reaganauts. In 1994 it was Newt's New Model Army. In 2010 it was the tea party. This year it's MAGA.
It's the same story over and over and over. The Republican Party keeps getting pushed farther to the right by the latest crop of true believers, and every time the rest of us wonder if there's any farther it can go.
So far, the answer has always been yes.
That's why I've never bought the whole "hope the fever eventually breaks" thing. Why wouldn't they push further into extremism? They've paid no lasting price for it! They got blasted in 2008, but came storming back in 2010. They got hammered in 2018 and 2020, but they're probably going to retake at least the House and more at the state level in 2022.
I remember someone arguing once that the Republican Party had essentially "solved" US politics at the national level. If you lose, then just 1)do everything you can to sabotage the governance of the party in power, since they'll take the blame for it by ill-informed voters, 2)do what you can as soon as you're back in power. Rinse and repeat.
"Combative" = antidemocratic, willfully stupid, explosively angry, and mean.
But, sure, combative is a nice word.
Rather blase hot take on an imminent danger to the USA. Instead of saying this is always what happens, perhaps you should taking head that the rooshing sound you are hearing is the waterfall we're about to tumble over.
really good couple of episodes on The Ezra Klein Podcast discussing this, yesterday and last Friday.
Every one of these movements is the same movement. Rich people financing ignorant, hateful bigots because their policy choices are not popular.
The political press invariably gives them fawning treatment, covering up the racism & religious bigotry, using euphemisms like heartland, values voters, economic anxious, etc.
The biggest difference is that they have upgraded the tech from Richard Viguerie's mailing lists to social media.
Good catch! I have yet to hear an interview with, or characterization of, Democrats in the popular media. It's always the trek back into Darkest Angrywhitemanistan to breathlessly listen to the layabouts at the "diner."
If Dems are mentioned at all, it's Why haven't they DONE something about this latest Republican atrocity? Why haven't they PASSED any legislation even though not one Republican will vote with them just because?
And if it isn't totally ignoring, blaming and shaming, it's the both-siderism. A thousand right wing attacks on Dems, but a liberal shot at Steve Scalise! See! Both sides do it!
"Every one of these movements is the same movement."
The previous iterations still regarded the constitution and democracy and foundations. This one doesn't. That is a huge difference, because if this iterations wins there will be no free elections, and therefor no way back.
I'm not so sure. The constitution, democracy, and foundations weren't standing in their way.
At this point, a significant fraction of the True Believers would abandon the Republican party if it swore off violence. We'd see Donnie Boy leading the Truth Party at rallies held in paramilitary camps.
I expect that last part to happen anyway if he lives long enough. This will not end without significant violence. Whether it tips the US over into a full fascist state or not is the open question.
I am a broken record on this, but Trump , MAGA and the Big Lie are not just pushing us further right, they could pushing us over an edge we can't easily get
back up from. I can push my pencil further away from the center of my desk but it's not hard to push it back until at some point it falls off the edge. These MAGAites are ready to go over that edge, gleefully, and they'll take us all with them. I'm with Hokie Annie, this is not something to be blase about.
Over an edge... yes, much like global warming. But, incredibly, the right wing eagerly looks forward to both apocolypti: one results in a literal war, fought guerilla fashion probably, among the liberals and the righteous; the other is the End of the World and Return of The King. And no, I don't mean Aragorn.
And of course, all this is the fault, 100%, of Democrats for not "doing something."
It’s really not that big a deal. I’ve looked into this. On average, democracies only spend 30 to 40 years under dictatorship, until democratic norms are restored.
To further expand jamespowell's point, a good portion of the democracy/system of governance is bought in some fashion. The Press has largely been monetized and therefore must return to shareholders. Slowly, monetization has occurred with Speech™ and its representation in DC. Elections/campaigns are measured in dollars. Our economy has been stratified into stark groups - in the most elementary form, haves and have nots. Have a say, have purchasing power, have choices, have escape routes, have leisure, or not.
If anything is to be done, let's start there.
Sounds like "continuous revolution". Did the parents of the Reaganauts/New Model Army/tea party/MAGAt's read to them out of Mao's little red book when they were young?
It does highlight the difficulties of building a cohesive movement based on antisocial behavior.
The original neocons probably were read to from Mao
s little red book. They were Trotskyites who moved on step farther to the left and found themselves on the extreme right.
They won't change until something truly catastrophic happens to make them change.
Uh, they won't ever change. It's up to the rest of society to neuter them.
The whole problem with this claim is that the maggots are less right wing than the republican party under Regan to GWBush. Much of their policies are straight from Dick Gephardt. Trumptards are not conservatives. They are populists and extremists.
These people are explicitly anti-election, anti-democratic. The greatest compliment their god-emperor can give any one of them is that they’re a “strong elections denier.” This is new, and very dangerous.