Former attorney general William Barr illustrates a big problem for Democrats:
Asked by NBC News' Lester Holt whether he considered Trump "responsible" for the violence at the Capitol, Barr said: "I do think he was responsible in the broad sense of that word, in that it appears that part of the plan was to send this group up to the Hill. I think the whole idea was to intimidate Congress. And I think that that was wrong."
....But asked if he would vote for Trump if he wins the party nomination in 2024, Barr suggested he would. “Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party, it’s inconceivable to me that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee,” he said.
Barr has spent the past couple of decades swirling down the rabbit hole of conservative paranoia, but he's still emblematic of a real problem: Republicans who are genuinely disgusted by Trump but aren't willing to do the one meaningful thing that would weaken his hold on the Republican Party. They aren't willing to vote against him.
I've come across this often enough that it strikes me as a genuinely widespread phenomenon.¹ The upshot is that it's not enough to go after Trump. Plenty of center-righties already understand perfectly well that the man is a disaster in human skin. The problem is that many (most?) of them don't feel like they have any reasonable alternative. This is partly because of Fox News & Co. and partly because of the leftward migration of the Democratic Party.
But whatever the cause, it's a problem. And fair or not, we need to do something about it.
¹If there's some kind of survey data that says otherwise, let me know.
But do what?
Kevin, you're confusing something. Bill Barr is a religious extremist. Democrats don't need to change the minds of the Bill Barrs of the world. They need to change the minds of the vast masses of voters who are entirely disengaged from the news but still feel compelled to go out and vote. Many of them actually have no idea about all the mad stuff trump has done. They are just barely aware of current events, and make political decisions based on which talking points they've heard most often. Was it "witch hunt"? Or was it "Sleepy Joe"?
Those are the people that decide elections, not former Attorneys General who happen to believe that Joe Biden is an Enemy of God. And those are the people that need to be convinced that (a) trump is not only evil but also an incompetent fool; and (b) Republicans running for Congress are cowards who are devoted to kissing trump's butt; and (c) putting Republicans in charge of Congress will ensure that nothing useful will ever get done.
+1
This is partly because of Fox News & Co. and partly because of the leftward migration of the Democratic Party.
And sadly, like so very very much MSM commentary, not a peep about the much greater rightward migration of the Republican Party.
Compare, I don't know, Biden or Obama to Clinton or Carter. And then compare Trump to, hell, Reagan, much less Ford or GW Bush. And tell me the Dems have "migrat[ed] leftward" more than, or even as much as, the Republicans have gone completely off the right side of the boat.
Bah.
+1
+ another 1
Yes. Not only shifted rightward, but narrowed to a lockstep extremism that can’t even tolerate a Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger or Anthony Gonzalez.
Kevin has written about this several times. There’s no question the left has moved further left than the right has moved right during the last several years. Just a few years ago almost every dem was against gay marriage and securing our borders and stopping illegal immigration was part of the official party platform. Now if you suggest enforcing our borders you’d be called a racist and if your against gay marriage you’re homophobic.
Lol. Really. Please to name one leading Democrat -- sorry, not a random poster on Daily Kos, nor a few words cherry-picked from a columnist or a stump speech -- who is against "securing our borders."
The fact of the matter is, "securing our borders" has become a racist trope on the Right, because it's a dog-whistle, it's of a piece with "immigrants stealing our jobs" (yes, because so many US citizens want jobs as migrant farmworkers or in slaughterhouses) or "immigrants clogging our healthcare system" (despite copious data showing the opposite) or "immigrants voting illegally" (which occurs so seldom that it's hard to find specific examples, as opposed to examples of Republicans -- like Mark Meadows -- committing actual election fraud).
And yes, if you're against gay marriage -- marriage, please recall, is a civil institution, not a religious one -- then indeed you are a bigot, and your bigotry is very likely caused largely by homophobia. In case you haven't noticed, most civilized countries -- including very Catholic ones like Spain, France and Ireland -- have legalized gay marriage, and surprise! Civilization has not crumbled.
Meanwhile, of course, the Right -- including every leading Republican except for the tiny handful who have been openly censured by the party --support an open, violent, armed attack on the Capitol with the specific purpose of disrupting the peaceful transfer of power in accordance with the Constitution.
If you actually believe what you're writing, you need to research "epistemic closure."
And just as an anecdotal cherry on the sundae, consider that the Republican Party has censured Liz Cheney for her apostasy in not showing sufficient loyalty to the Führer -- sorry, the True President -- and for calling the insurrection an insurrection, and then tell me the Republican Party as a whole hasn't gone off the deep end.
Feh.
If all these Dems are still in support of enforcing immigration laws why was any mention of it purposely removed from the party’s platform? You don’t think if they added it back in now the leftists would scream “racism”?
And there’s plenty of republicans that dislike Trump and very much support Cheney and Romney. I’m one of them.
And, so Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and pretty much every other democrat was homophobic a few years ago when they repeatedly said marriage is between a man and woman? Or is it no one was homophobic then?
Naw, the Democratic Party has not "migrated left." It only looks that way because the Republican Party has been speeding to the reactionary, fascist right so fast you can see the red shift.
In actual fact, it's wrong to even think a "center" exists between the parties. The Dems haven't changed much, except to become less liberal. They now hold what used to be called the "centrist" position. The Republicans have left the rails.
Exactly. The GOP is now the party of right-wing extremists. The Democratic party is the party of conservatives. There is no significant liberal party.
The Democratic Party is the party of what we used to call "Rockefeller Republicans."
Republicans hate America and want a global plutocracy. Then you admit Hitler was a leftist like all were called up until ww1. You really need to read up on the Hegelian era. The Left Hegelian were the fathers of socialism and Fascism. 2 different ways of viewing the commons. One egalitarian, the other hierarchical(traditionalism). Frankly, no communal thinking is absolute. Most people believed in both.
I wouldn't say Democrats are conservative in any large measure -- there are no Garys Condit, Heaths Shuler, Jims Trafficant, Joes Liebermann, or Sams Nunn* walking thru that door -- but they are certainly not racing to the Brexits as quickly as the only (sort of) heirs to that watered-down Georgewallacian legacy are. By that, of course, I mean the American Independent spirit award winners at the Jacobin & intercept** who revelled in their Lord & Savior Bernie Sanders drawing his strongest support in the 2016 Democrat primary from white-centered union guys in Michigan & Wisconsin, et. al.
*You know who should really be pissed at Brad Raffensperger & Brian Kemp for allowing vote fraud to flourish in Georgia? Not El Jefe Maximo de Maralago, but Michelle Nunn & Matt Liebermann, who had to endure the population of the Empire State of the South taking a massive dump on their dads's white empowerment legacy.
**The Jacobins & the interceptionists love to buy into the GQP myth of partisan immutability, that the Q Party is still the antiracist Lincoln Brigade while the Democrat Party is Jim Crow segregationists selling a plantation mentality. That being said, how come those sane archprogressives at Bhaskar Sunkara's & Jem Scahill's shops never seem to want their Brand New Congress electoral favorites to run under the GQP flag, like foundational progs Theodore Roosevelt & Robert Lafollette? I mean, if the parties -- which are the same, per Ralph Nader -- have not changed in over 150 years, why are contemporary progs not Republicans? Shouldn't Always On Camera be leading a Latino takeover of the GQP with George Prescott Bush instead of trying to win a hopeless war with DemoKKKrat apartheidists?
"The Dems haven't changed much, except to become less liberal."
Y'know, as somebody who is actually kinda proud of how much the Dems have come to the left on racial and gender and orientation issues, I would disagree.
Ditto.
I am grateful that Lester Maddox Democrats like KKKlay Travis no longer feel at home in the Democrat Party, & likewise his supposed opposites at the Jacobin, who can't cotton to #idpol neither.
As well, I like that modern bluedogs look more like Tammy Duckworth & Sharice Davids & less like Zell Miller & Gary Condit.
& say what you will about Joe Manchin, but compared to Droopy Dog Liebermann, West Virginny Joe looks like Pol Pot.
I agree these are welcome shifts in mainstream Democratic stance, it’s unfortunate that these are considered ‘left’ positions; equal rights ought to be supported across the political spectrum.
On economic issues, Democrats have moved leftward as well - how many were talking about child allowances twenty or thirty years ago, or tuition-free post-secondary education?
But it is the ‘cultural’ issues that Republicans are trying to scare voters with, not the economic ones that actually are left/liberal.
Nobody cares about those things. Not left either. You need a finger snap.
It's true. The left doesn't care about #idpol.
Just a few years ago almost every Democrat was against gay marriage.
It must have been the end of a long day, because I cannot believe Kevin actually wrote the words " leftward migration of the Democratic Party."
Was this actually written by Kevin or was it some sort of hack.
Oh sure, that's what Fox says. Right now in liberal LA, we have a bunch of people lining up to run for police commish -- ALL of them want to increase funding and the number of cops. ALL OF THEM.
In what world has the Democratic Party NOT moves to the left? Are there any Dems speaking about protecting our borders and stopping illegal immigration? That was part of the party platform until very recently. And just a few years against almost every Democrat was against gay marriage.
Heh. I know _exactly_ what to do about the problem of righties who will never, ever vote for the Democrat. Get more of our people out to vote.
This!
Yup.
And another thing. Barr is an example of the hardest-core authoritarian Right within the Republican Party, effectively none of whom would ever consider voting for a Democrat. He's an Opus Dei dominionist FFS. And Trump is a Fascist in all but formal name. If this is a "big problem for Democrats," then the Republicans could nominate the genetically altered love-child of Hitler and Stalin and it would be a "big problem for Democrats."
Trump ain't a fascist and your Hitler analogy doesn't work.
Democrats are reform liberals. Libertarians classical liberals. Republicans are neo-monarchist, on a global scale.
Trump is a wannabe facist. Not his fault he's not up to being the real deal.
Trump is a lazy man. Perchance the laziest in New York County. Which puts him in the running for laziest worldwide.
Bill Barr is also a very unhealthy-looking septuagenarian. If folks like him are a "big problem for Democrats," we can at least rest easy that they won't be for long.
Democrats pr spin has been liberal(left, please, there are no leftists left existing). Mainly because of misreading the tea leaves. Notice the Biden speech has a 2000's zing to it.
Trump is finished in America. Irrelevant. A globalist con man who wants a globalist plutocracy. I suspect in 2 years, a nursing home will be his destination after the trial in 22-23.
Why did Trump win out over more conventional Republican candidates, many of whom are actually more conservative economically than he is? Of course his "populist" promises, such as raising taxes on the rich and providing a real national health-care plan were completely phony, but he has never taken a real conservative economic line - his appeal over other Republicans has been almost entirely based on racism. He supports religious extremism although is own religious faith is obviously phony, but other Republicans have been just as determined to put the Federalist Society's choices into judgeships.
Lower-income white Trump supporters are not afraid of leftward drift or "Marxism" of Democrats, they are afraid of losing their white racial privilege. Economically, mainline Democrats are still well to the right of where they were in the Johnson administration. Republican voters may talk about how they hate and fear Democrats on economic grounds, but the kind of partisanship that their leaders - going back to Reagan and even Goldwater - have been able to arouse is the kind of thing that comes from basic instincts - in particular racism. This powerful motivation makes Trump's followers ignore his defects and believe his nonsensical claims. The "liberal" media, which are actually on the rightist side economically, have assisted Republicans in disguising the racist motivation as economic.
Based on racism??? Nope, Midwestern single issue voters. Try harder bub.
Obama must have used racism as well to get all those white voters to vote for him.
Skep, maybe a couple of finger snaps will educate you: Sherrod Brown won reelection in a state 6.5% Trump won by 8.
Enough of the racism line dude. Dems promised a bunch during the 06/08 cycle. Did not live up to it. Paid a price. Midwestern voters are the last voters who can still flip. The Northeast, southeast, West coast and intermountain areas have become pig headed. Midwestern single issue voters are about the only one you can move.
Eh, Spadey? You are replying to yourself. You don't really want to come off as one of those persons on the subway having a verbal discussion with themselves, do you? Relax, concentrate, and just write a single response saying whatever it is you want to say.
That 'phone' you see him with on the subway? That's a Fischer-Price phone.
What is the Midwestern single issue? For a lot of voters, it's race.
Trump is a jew boy as well. I got DNA to prove it. Classic Ashkenazi descent. Only a quarter, "pure".
Kevin,
I'm all in favor of hearing opinions from all sides and by and large I just ignore trolls but it's long past time that we ban this guy spewing a toxic mixture of nonsense and hateful bs.
I've pretty much given up on this blog because of Kevin's tolerance of rank antisemitism. Normally, I'm an "all sides" sort of person, but there have to be limits.
Does WordPress have the ability to do that?
Put me down as another vote to ban "Fifty shades of gray". I generally enjoy the intelligent discussions here.
He'll be back in three minutes with another account.
Don't feed him.
"...and partly because of the leftward migration of the Democratic Party."
The Dems are always portrayed as too far to the left by the MSM. It is rare [never?] that the R's are portrayed as becoming too Fascist. Perhaps the word is too confusing, you know, like socialism.
Recreational use of meth is consistent with libertarianism? Who knew?
I knew that. Complete repeal of drug prohibition is a natural libertarian position.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think the events in Ukraine have destroyed any electoral future for Trump. He could get nominated again but as long as he bows and scrapes to Putin, he's toast on a national level.
One of Trump's talents -- if you can call it that -- is whirling and pivoting away from some position he held only five minutes ago, while making it appear that that was always his position. He was always a right-wing Republican Christian, for example, despite the fact that he was never those things until 10 seconds before he decided to run for president on the Republican ticket because Obama called out his small dick. So sure, he spent four years as Putin's cock holster, but that won't matter to his base as soon as he pivots and claims he was always Putin's worst enemy. And of course the MSM will nod along with him...
If the economy turns really bad, almost anyone on the Republican side could win in 2024. And up to now, no one stands a chance against Trump in Republican primaries. Unless Putin goes on to attack more countries his swallowing of Ukraine will be off the front page by then and no longer an issue in US politics.
Barr is a guy who wants to get another job in a Republican administration. He would never say anything else.
That said, I would be happy to settle for some of them staying home or forgetting to cast a vote for president, which appears to have happened in 2020.
Important to realize that Democrats are to blame, after all they:
Enacted the GOP health care reforms from the late 90s and early 00s.
Voted for tax levels that were first pushed by the GOP in the 80s and 90s.
And on and on and on....
Both Sidesisms!
I'm so sorry but my hands are tied. He's your problem.
Signed,
Every Registered Republican
Shorter Kevin Drum: the silencing of Emma Camp is why William Barr & I will be voting for Donald Trump in 2024.
Even worse, by her own account, she was forced into self-silencing!
Really, UVA is worse than any concentration camp! Nobody censored their speech there!
All just a bunch of Yahoos... I mean, Wahoos.
😉
No Kevin. Just no. If you've " spent the past couple of decades swirling down the rabbit hole of conservative paranoia" then you are not emblematic of anyone we should care about. You will never vote for a Democrat. They are not who we should worry about.
BTW, Barr is engaging in a pathetic effort to reclaim some sort of respectability .
But consider that he :
1) Says there was no evidence of voter fraud. None.
2) Doesn't know if Trump believes there was or not but it doesn't matter because Trump is such a psychotic narcissist he can't even consider that he lost.
3) Trump is probably broadly responsible for a violent attack on the Capital .
4) But he'd still vote for Trump over any Democrat because ... what ... they favor higher taxes on the rich? increasing the minimum wage ? extending child tax credits ? investing in green energy ?
This is insanely stupid thinking. Please let's ignore this lying gasbag pile of manure.
Shorter Barr: "Of course I'm looking for a dedicated Führer to lead America to its destiny as the Fourth Reich, but just not as big a jackass as Trump. But he'll do in the interim."
Bill Barr and his ilk are dangerous, dangerous fucking assholes. Trump is a moron. Barr is the real shit. The real fucking fascist shit. God help us if he ever gets near a federal office again.
Yes. Exactly.
+1
Got nothing to add cept I know several people like that and I’ve never been able to figure them out. Liberals are a greater threat to the u.s. than overthrowing democracy. The guys i know won’t even consider another more “normal” Republican.
Almost forty years of non-stop propaganda. Limbaugh to Fox, it's been the water these folks swim in, the oxygen they breathe.
+1
I think William Barr just wants access to the corridors of power, and for him that means the Republicans. He reminds me of James Baker, who detests Trump as a person and hates the isolationist course he navigates, but nonetheless will vote for Trump or any other yahoo the Republicans nominate. There is absolutely nothing the Democrats can do to bring them into the fold. If trying to destroy 250 years of democracy isn't enough of a danger to change Barr's mind, nothing will.
I do believe the Dems have a problem with mainstream voters, and it has a lot to do with the LGBTQ agenda, particularly where transgender activists are trying to deny the validity of biological sex. This is deeply offensive (not to mention insane) to many people, which is why the Steve Bannons of the world can defend Putin's crimes by saying that at least the Russian people know which bathrooms to use. Then there is the insistent focus on racism and patriarchy as the root of all evil, which has the effect of driving white people---white males especially---away from the party that demonizes them. Many of these issues are rhetorical hysteria drummed up by the right-wing propaganda machine, but they tend to elicit powerful responses, as compared to boring policy issues like infrastructure reform. Biden and the Dems could use a Sister Souljah moment to reassure nervous swing voters that they won't be ruled by the fringe members of the lefty coalition. So if the Republicans keep on nominating their own lunatics, enough of these sensible centrists can swallow their pride and vote Democrat as the lesser of two evils.
Failing that, a healthy Libertarian party might be the best way to siphon off conservative voters disgusted by the likes of Trump et al.
But in the end, the likes of Barr will vote Republican regardless.
The right bathrooms?
Are men's toilets different from women's toilets? (& yes, I know, urinals exist.)
& no one of consequence is saying physical genitalia are a figment of the imagination. Rather, the contention is that, in rare cases, the physical manifestation of sex is not in alignment with how one intuits one's sex.
That's irrelevant to what he's saying.
Why is ‘biological sex’ [sic; more correctly, gender identity] defined by genitalia alone? Is the brain not a part of one’s biological self?
Meant to be a reply to Utek
My comment has more to do with the problems of voter perception. I do think all people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. However, biological sex is not determined by genitalia or the brain, it's determined by chromosomes, and nothing changes that.
Happy birthday, Trisomy G. Palin.
You've more or less defined the issue. In the case where the way one intuits one's own sex is incongruent with one's anatomy, the question arises as to which takes primacy. I like to think I'm fairly progressive, but I can see your anatomy while I can't see inside your mind. Therefore, to my perception your anatomy takes primacy over your self-perception. If you have a penis and the other associated secondary sexual characteristics, I see you as male; if you have a vagina and other associated secondary sexual characteristics, I see you as female.
To my mind, "trans male" should be a person who has male anatomy but a female self-image.
Lefty? Nope. You need to fix that error first. Leftists have traditionally hated these people. Understand history first. Bannon doesn't know what bathroom to be in?? Sure, he is a fag.
You know, I have a daughter that is a trans woman. You are framing me as "denying the existence of biological sex".
I ... am not happy about that.
The condition of my daughter, and many like her is that her brain tells her she's female, in contradiction to other parts of her body. This probably stems from something unusual happening during the second fetal testosterone surge. And yeah, the idea that this can even happen takes some getting used to. However, there is a ton of evidence that it does happen, and people such as my daughter are despondent and often suicidal until they decide and learn to present themselves in the gender their brain holds, rather than the one other body parts tells them.
Nobody who has experience with this is contending "biological sex has no meaning". Meanwhile the governor and AG of the State of Texas want to report and prosecute parents of underage trans children for child abuse when they seek treatment for a condition that leaves their children depressed and despondent.
I ask that you educate yourself, and exercise the compassion that is a hallmark of the political faction you claim to be a part of.
Again, he's not arguing your perspective. He's arguing how the narrative is being perceived and acted upon by folks who see things differently, and who vote on those perceptions. Acknowledging this does not demean or invalidate your experience.
So, you're another Vibes Guy.
Go back to Axel's POLITICO shop; you're not welcome here.
Going off on deliberately irrelevant tangents in response to something no one ever said is the tell.
FOAD, troll.
My comment has more to do with voter perception, but to your point, my nephew is a teenaged trans male, and like the rest of us, he is one of God's children just trying to survive. I feel for his plight and hope he finds happiness. The Texas law criminalizing transgenderism is a barbarism on par with their law offering bounties on people seeking abortion counseling. People of all stripes deserve compassion and respect.
But when the transgender swimmer Lia Thomas is lapping the field because she insists on participating as a female, it isn't just unfair to all the other athletes who were born biologically female, it becomes a flashpoint of controversy that alienates millions of Americans who might side with Democrats on policy issues but are offended when they are told by people like Lia Thomas and her defenders that biological sex is a construct that has no meaning, and the mere fact of pointing out sex differences brands you as a bigoted pariah, like JK Rowling. The challenge for progressives is to acknowledge the psychological reality of the transgender situation with empathy and understanding, yet still setting limits on the lengths to which that definition can be applied.
Many of these issues are rhetorical hysteria drummed up by the right-wing propaganda machine, but they tend to elicit powerful responses...
Because there's a grain of truth to them. That "grain," of course, being the 1% of Democrats who account for (say) 40% of the messaging that goes viral and gets talked about. Now, sure, the latter substantially occurs because Rupert Murdoch and others like him want that stuff focused on. But your typical professional Democrat (academic, activist, internet traffic builder, single-issue specialist, digital provocateur, etc) is a college-educated progressive who is not only to the left of the median voter, but is to the left of the median Democrat!
Matt Yglesias recommends that every Democrat in a professional political or communications role tape a note to their laptop that says: "The median Democratic voter is a mid 50s non-college educated person living in the suburbs of an unfashionable city."
It's a tall task, to be sure, but if the party wants to take back power, it needs to exercise more discipline when it comes to messaging.
Matt Yglesias is baffled by the shape of Poland.
I don't think we should listen to him.
I get that you're not a fan of Yglesias (I generally like a lot of his takes, though not enough to shell out 80 bucks a year), but, he's hardly the only one saying this. I personally don't see how such claims can be wrong. People who do left-of-center and Democratic Party communications and advocacy for a living are overwhelmingly college-educated people (younger people in particular as we continue to transition into digital media) living in big liberal cities. They're to the left of your typical Democrat, and they're considerably to the left (at least on cultural stuff) of the median up-for-grabs voter.
Swing voters in the exurbs of Grand Rapids and Scranton aren't worried about pronouns, aren't worried about naming schools after Civil War heroes, aren't worried about excessively funded police departments. And so on. If the voter cohorts Democrats depend on for political support were distributed more efficiently, this stuff would matter a lot less. But that's very much not the constitution under which we operate.
A man who speaks to peoples' weaknesses, those things in their lives they've given up any hope of changing, does not need to offer them anything.
Quite frankly I don’t know how much more “moderate” we can go to be “acceptable” to Republicans over Trump. We voted for Biden because we wanted to win, and we did. He was, in fact, the moderate not too far left choice. The only way to appeal to a guy like Barr is to be him, and I’d rather be dead.
And, I think 2024 could give us DeSantis rather than Trump in any case. And DeSantis is just as bad as Trump. Kind of out of the fire, in to the other fire.
Desantis is a loser colored boy.
As Black as George Herman Ruth.
> Quite frankly I don’t know how much more “moderate”
> we can go to be “acceptable” to Republicans over Trump.
I would start by very strongly criticizing anybody that supports
"Defund the police".
I would start by very strongly criticizing anybody that calls a mob attack on the Capitol police a ‘peaceful political demonstration’.
While this is clearly correct to do such attacking,, it will not convince any republican, which was expicitly the question that what I was responding.
Do you think this will convince republicans?
Complete and utter moral depravity....
Trump is not a isolationist either. Why you u believe his con blows me away. He is the definition as a con man idiot. American capitalism would collapse as debt markets liquidate. The afamed white working class would be starving within months. Waves and waves of defaults. Food production collapsing.....gangs seizing supply. States defaulting.
Lets note on Barr himself, he is a Zionist dominionist. I will call it that over "Christian" as a nod to what it really is. Liberals call that " right wing" extremism, but in a very Semitic way. I'm think by the end of the 2000's, they realized they will never have the country and prefer disbandment. The problem is, this scares mainstream voters who don't necessarily "agree" and aren't party affiliated. This is the true path to fascism: turning people against Barr/Bannon Republicans as anti-American globalism who want a Zionist dictatorship, turns LTBG as " bourgeoisie in their most decedent phase". Hint at Republican powder parties and real they are the real fags. With Karl Rove, we heard a lot of this in the 2000's. Bannon can talk about bathrooms and Russia, but remember he is telling a story. A story that can be turned on his own past.
The Democratic Party has NOT been moving leftward. Kevin, like me is old enough to remember LBJ. The Democratic Party has been drifting slowly to the right ever since he left office. In the meantime, the Republicans have been moving even faster to the right, so the gap between them has increased, but that gap is definitely due to leftward drift.
Make that end clause "but that gap is definitely not due to leftward drift". This commenting setup badly needs a correction function.
How does Trump become the Republican Nominee if the Republicans think he is a disgusting human being? Nominating a disgusting human being to insult the office of the presidency and to underline disrespect for women and minorities is a feature, not a bug, of the Republican party.
Yes - exactly. I'm not interested in their votes. If that's what they want, have at it.
Trump is also anti-honesty, anti-demcracy, anti-genrousity,
anti-compassion, anti-cooperation and so on. Some of the
republicans like these, rather than his anti-women
and anti-minorities.
Owning the libs and getting revenge is the primary goal and the entirety of the republican governing agenda. There is nothing democrats can do to change their minds. "Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party."
Fair enough. I'm content to set aside this "progressive agenda". It's not like we're going to see anything else passed from Congress except increased military spending anyway. If Manchin and that nasty woman cinema killed it, vladimir putin cremated it. There is nothing left of this agenda but some ashes, bone, and teeth.
The best thing democrats can do now is sit down and be quiet. It's over. News of war and deprivation caused by war are going to dominate from here on out.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/carmakers-face-soaring-metal-costs-with-russian-supplies-risk-2022-03-08/
It's over.
For Putin. His time is over
White democrats are typically atheist, agnostic, or non-Christian. Even those of us who are Christian are probably culturally Christian and do not share the tenets of 'everlasting life' and 'salvation' with many Christians faiths. So that's a no-go for many, many, Christians along a wide range of zealotry and even conservatism. Because these folks have known smarmy ass white liberals who have mocked their religious beliefs (I confess), and who are Democrats, the right wing media's portrayal rings true.
"I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party"
This is obvious nonsense, but millions agree because they've bought into a notion of a liberal straw-man created by Newt Gingrich and built up by Fox and Repub pols ever since.
This is the problem, *not* any supposed "leftward migration of the Democratic Party". They demonize Eisenhower Republicans as if they were Chairman Mao.
As a former professor drummed out of academia for practicing intellectual heterogeneity, Newton Leroy Gingrich knows what Emma Camp is going thru.
& like David Brooks, Matt Gaetz, & Glemm Greemwald, he wouldn't mind going thru her.