When history is written, the first few months of Trump 2.0 will go down as the most craven and prostrate in the history of the Republican Party. We are living in a country ruled by fantastic conspiracy theories and personal revenge, and not a single Republican is willing to stand against it. Not one.
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This is what the Republican Party has wanted since at least Reagan. Why would they stand against it?
Exactly.
Right-wing white “Christian” nationalist authoritarianism is all they’ve ever wanted.
Not only do they have no reason to stand in its way, they laid the groundwork for it and are happily cheering it on.
Since FDR, judging by everything being unwound.
The New Deal has been the bete noir of the right since FDR.
Exactly indeed. This is the fever dream of the Republican. Gut environmental regulation and indeed almost all regulation. End legitimation of organized labor. Gut government as a career executive department itself. Get total party control over what remains. And with those tax cuts on their way.
If they must shroud it in racist threats out of the turn of the last century, regrettable perhaps for those who fear loss of dignity or of a gentleman's control of the nation, but tempting and understandable. And Trump has done it all beyond the expectations of even liberals and lefties.
Republicans, push comes to shove, don't believe in democracy. It's just mob rule.
"B-b-b-b-b-but reasonable Republicans must exist, they must! If they don't, my radical centrism would be foolish and in vain!"
Having been a Republican since Reagan, no this is not what they've wanted. I know that's comforting for people to believe but it's simply not true. There used to a principled conservative movement but the party got taken over by the Buchanan wing in the 2000's and never looked back.
Yes, but the principle was ‘destroy labor unions and weaken government so that there is no countervailing power to big business and the wealthy’. That’s the program of oligarchs. Unfortunately, Putin and Orbán have demonstrated how the appearance of democracy can be maintained in autocratic or oligarchic systems.
This is what the Republican Party has wanted since at least Reagan.
It's an ugly metaphor, but the nation has essentially been groomed for what it's going through now.
You're right that the roots of the GOP's depravity and cravenness go back a long time. (Really, well before Reagan; anybody remember Tricky Dick?).
But the whole thing has been just gradual enough to avoid setting off sufficiently loud alarm bells. And so here were, being raped as a country.
+1. Love the word "grooming" in this context.
It’s true that Reagan really inflamed the “government is the problem” issue but I seriously doubt that even the majority of MAGA cultists thought that meant letting a bunch of young tech bros have access to their SS number and all their financial info (make that legitimate info). I suspect that explains these results from the recent YouGov/Economist poll:
“ GOP support for Musk influence with Trump falls dramatically”
“In the Economist/YouGov poll taken in the days after the November 2024 election, 47 percent of surveyed Republicans said they wanted Musk to have “a lot” of influence in the Trump administration…..
Today, however, the share of Republicans who say they want Musk to have “a lot” of influence has fallen substantially to 26 percent.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5129353-gop-support-for-musk-influence-with-trump-falls-dramatically-poll/
That same poll shows support for Musk’s involvement among Independents and Democrats in in the single digits.
Too bad the media is ignoring these results. One thing Trump fears is losing the support of his own base.
Add in Musk’s new genius idea of basing transportation dollars on birth rates which will be bad for states with older populations — West Virginia, Florida, Arizona, South Carolina, Maine…..
Like playing an away game where the home team owns the Refs, Announcer, Police, and local voters are just fine with that.
I’m reminded, once again, of the comment about Kurt Waldheim — you don’t need a spine if you have an exoskeleton.
What surprises me is not the lack of integrity or the dishonesty, it's the complete and utter absence of shame. It's a party of Stepford sociopaths.
Best description - Stepford Sociopaths. You ought to Trademark that.
Recently I heard Katty Kay on television talking sympathetically about how afraid Republicans are not only of the threat of being primaried but of violence against them and their families if they oppose Trump in any way. Not one person on that show pointed out that Democrats have gotten untold numbers of serious threats of death, rape, and harm to their families. Nancy Pelosi’s husband was viciously attacked with a hammer in her own home but that didn’t stop her vehemently opposing Trump. Ilhan Omar has had extremely serious debt threats, one which led to a prison sentence. Just last week she was in front of the Capitol with a large group of Democrats giving a speech about the harm Trump is doing to our democracy. These two women and all the other Democrats in Congress who are speaking out have more courage in their little fingers than there is in the entire manly man worshipping Republican Party.
Always follow the money. Tax cuts. That's it. They care about nothing else and as long as Trump delivers the tax cuts, they don't care what else he does. Everything else is just a smoke screen.
And in today's episode of Leopards Eating People's Faces:
https://wapo.st/4aUkVNV
I'm trying really hard to feel sorry for these people, but I just can't.
I'm not sure this is true any more. This was certainly the case for a long time, but it seems different now.
It doesn't appear any longer that there is any larger purpose to the leader worship and tribal warfare with perceived and imaginary enemies. Leader worship, grabbing more power and crushing other tribes are the only real goals. These are no longer means to an end.
I think we can divide Republicans into three groups:
Tax jihadists: All they care about is lower taxes, and they'll put up with anything Trump does in order to get them.
Power cravers: They're willing to ride the Trump train because they see an electoral advantage.
Hard core MAGA: They're nuts. 'Nuff said.
It's a mistake to lump all of them together. For the first two groups, Trump is a useful idiot. The third group are idiots.
You left out the social conservatives, they are a powerful block in that they will show up for even the smallest election if the candidate opposes gays and abortion.
Neither of those issues are ballot box winners on their own, they have to partner with one of the other groups. In short, they are a tool.
I didn't leave them out...I'd lump them into the last group because they have many of the same characteristics. You could just as easily call them the "true believers" or culture warriors. It also includes the racists, sexists, etc. etc.
The first group just doesn't really exist anymore. They have left the party, lost their primary, been purged....maybe a few are taking up space at the back of the room, but they aren't really a defined group anymore.
Tax cuts will still happen, but like we saw when the GOP refused to vote for tax cuts when Biden and Obama were in office......it just isn't the goal anymore.
Read the room. Times have changed.
You left out "ending government regulation." All those pesky OSHA rules that interfere with business, like requiring bathroom facilities for field workers, so they don't need to do it on your arugula.Those terribly expensive building codes.Etc.
There is no Republican Party.
There is only MAGA.
Yeah, they never cared about limited government, freedom, integrity, personal honor or any of that other bullshit they claimed to stand for. It was always just about biding time until the right dictator came along to cut taxes and smite their political enemies. Snivelling wormtongues, the lot of them.
Actually, they have always been about limited government, in the service of leaving their donors, big business and investors, as the dominant powers
If the American experiment fails to survive, there will in the future be no one allowed to practice the art of writing history. Cultist propagandists will define the story for all.
OK let’s not go that far. There’s a corollary to Main Character Syndrome that I like to call Main Country Syndrome, in which America is the only country that matters and all other countries are populated by non player characters. (North Korea has another example of this from the perspective of people inside North Korea.)
It is true that Americans might stop recording history truthfully or at all (as has North Korea). It does not follow that nobody else in another country will stop following and recording American history accurately (as lots of countries have done with events in North Korea since the Korean War). There are entire American History departments in universities all around the world. Whatever they write might be kept from American eyes in the future - similar to how China keeps anything related to Tiananmen Square out of view from Chinese internet sites and NK keeps virtually everything over the last 75 years off of their own intranet sites. But it’s highly doubtful that nobody in the rest of the world will have access to or themselves add to accurate American history accounts… unless the US literally conquers all of them.
That assumes that there are no historians outside the US. Perhaps there will be no one IN THE US allowed to practice the art of writing history. Despite Trump's imperialist pretensions, the world outside the US will do just fine, and The Decline and Fall of the American Empire can be expected to be a best seller.
It's important now to identify the true enemies. Propaganda created for profit. "Religious" zealots who crave power and the ability to tell others how to live their lives.
They (congress Republicans) are some of the biggest losesr from Trump's presidency, because as long as Trump is president congress people have much less power (and hence grift much less money). They would get rid of him in a moment if they thought they could do it without suffering serious damage from MAGA violence.
On the contrary, they have much more power now than they had when Biden was President and there were Democratic majorities in both houses.
For the sentate that is plain false, the minority has large effect as long as they are more than 40.
For the house it is less clear, but they still have more effect than they do now. With trump, all the money questions are decided by Trump, not the congress, so they have no effect. When they were minority under Biden, they had small effect, and where they were majority they had large effect.
A minority in the Senate has one tool: blocking legislation. They can use that tool to get some of what they want, but they have no control of the agenda. A minority in the House has even less power. If you asked them, I'd bet the farm that all or nearly all would rather be where they are now than where they were 4 years ago.
Based on what.
My argument is that they are powerless, because Trump makes all the decisions. You think otherwise? give a reason.
The reason is that Trump's decisions align with what they want (mostly). Under Biden they got a whole lot of legislation that they didn't want (until they went back home and campaigned on the things they voted against). Here's the test: How many of them would rather be where they were 4 years ago?
": How many of them would rather be where they were 4 years ago?"
Almost all, except the absolute idiots (e.g. the one from Alabama) which is not obvious how they think (if at all).
"The reason is that Trump's decisions align with what they want. "
No.
What they (congress people) want is power and money. Nothing of what Trump is doing help them in this respect.
You think they want something else?
I disagree. They could remove him by impeachment. How many Republican votes would that get?
Disagree with what?
Impeachment will get them some votes from sane conservatives, and lose all of MAGA.
In addition, they will have their houses burning on the same day by the MAGA. They don't like this part of it.
If you want to say it is not only the violence, als the MAGA votes, you have a point. But without MAGA response, yes, they would prefer a democrat preseindet to Trump (because it gives them more power).
“…the minority has large effect as long as they are more than 40.”
Yes. The filibuster will somehow survive forever intact, despite being altered/diminished several times in the recent past, and even as classified records are stolen, laws are broken, court rulings are ignored and treasuries are looted. Because Norms and Traditions and Gentlemen’s Rules of Order!!!!
My comment was specifically about the non-Trump situation, i which case the filibuster does have a chance to survive.
Congress hasn’t been about exercising power for decades; they had ceded too much to the Executive even before 47; and allowed the Supreme Court to seize powers from them as well. They were too eager to duck responsibility while enjoying the perks. Most members are wealthy, living off investments that will benefit from the crippling of the regulatory agencies — less money spent on pollution control, or decarbonization, or equity measures, means more money for dividends and/or stock buybacks.
But look--he's doing something!!!!
Yeah!!!
I'm wondering whether or not this was part of the calculus when you claimed Democracy was safe. And if it was, then it seems like there's no point to bitching about it...the courts will save us, the third co-equal branch of government, right?
What's two against one, after all...
We are only 21 days into his 2nd Reich, so be patient, the worst is yet to come. Can't even watch the Superbowl today with the Fox Sports TV cameras likely panning the audience to show his fat orange face more often zooming to show Taylor's face.
Forget about the courts, the Democrats, the MAGA Congress, the news media, or the US voters to come to our rescue this time.
The only possible payback would be a massive hurricane hitting Mar-a-Lago, with Il Duce, Herr Musk, Vance, the Cabinet, and the sniveling MAGA Congress (plus Faux News sycophants) in attendance. After NOAA is defunded/dismantled, and it can't pay for, or have staff available for hurricane tracking, they may not know it's coming until its too late. I can dream, can't I?
Yeah, that's a dream. The DOD will still monitor the weather and will save them.
Apropos of nothing, I'm just waiting for Big Mike Johnson to come up with a budget bill that consists mostly of "$4 trillion: President's discretionary fund -- no constraints."
Conservatives don't believe there is such a thing as public health, or, for that matter, society at all, outside the four or five people they actually know.
If you're looking for spineless politicians, look no further than the Democratic Party. As others have pointed out, the gop are getting what they've wanted since FDR. It's the Democrats who are hunkered down sucking their thumbs trying to look invisible..
Not any more. Check out the more recent news.
The disappointing thing is that Americans are doing this to themselves. No army is attacking us. It is the our own stupidity and greed and racism and shortsightedness and biases that are eating us from the inside out. The Russians and Chinese are doing all they can to help, but bad on us for believing them.
That’s what really struck me about the last election. Kamala offered sanity, better health care, a good economy, protection of SS and Medicare and more. Instead a slight majority of voters said, no, give me the crazy guy, and millions of others couldn’t be bothered to get out and vote.
And I wonder about all those Palestinian supporters who were so upset about what Biden was doing (or not doing) so the stayed home or voted for Jill or Donald. Now they are getting Trump saying he wants to clear all Palestinians from Palestine. How dumb is that?
True, too true. On the other hand, the supporters of Palestinian rights also see that all the rest of us Americans are going to be suffering under Trump, too. Not just them and their friends and families back home.
1.Because it was just too much trouble for the Democratic Party to have thrown a bone and allowed a pro-Palestinian speaker at the DNC Convention.
2. Because Kamala was too timid / too loyal to Joe / too afraid of being branded an "anti-semite!!" to put any daylight, any at all, between what her new policies would be and Joe Biden's boundless support for ethnic cleansing/genocide. by Israel.
3. Because what makes you think all the in-bedded trumpites in red state governments ran "free and fair elections"? What makes you think that all eligible voters were given the opportunity to vote, and had their votes accurately counted?
You know, there are no first class tickets to the camps, right? Like, successfully relitigating the last election and second guessing every move Dems made in it isn’t going to earn you a cookie from anyone. But I don’t kink shame… keep doing it if it feels pleasurable to you, I guess.
Well no, it doesn't and I don't do it often (really!), and I can fully identify with your being tired of hearing it. Sadly, I'm still working at not getting "triggered" when folks whap on supporters of Palestine as being responsible for the current situation.
Sure, tthey probably had an impact. But we Dems would be smarter to consider it a wake up call than a lynching opportunity.
There is no universe in which the US government is not going to give support to Israel. The only question is how far that support goes. You may not like it but that is the reality you have to deal with. Joe Bided did NOT give "boundless support [to] ethnic cleaning/genocide" and saying that just makes you seem more like an angry sloganeer than someone who wants to actually engage with reality.
At the end of the day, in politics, you can't do jack shit if you don't win. Every action seen as supporting the Palestinians by Biden or Harris has to be seen as an action that can cause loss of support among the many many many more Americans who want to support Israel. They were treading a very narrow line. It was obvious to any rational human being that you were going to get a LOT more sympathy for the Palestinians from Harris than from Trump.
With Trump you are going to get 100% of what Bibi wants and then some. I mean even Bibi would not have spoken openly about ethnically cleansing Gaza. So to all of those Arab Americans who thought they were voting their conscience or being strategically clever and voted against Harris, well this is what you bought. Enjoy it.
This^. Democrats have always worked diplomatically for a two-state solution, but cutting support for Israel to force concessions was never a winner politically. You want that to change, you have to convince millions of Americans to put their votes and political donations behind change.
From Fred Clark, over at Slacktivist on Patheos:
"We’re on track for another spike in Satanic Panic hysteria, primed for another conservative-tide peak like we experienced during the Reagan ’80s and with Q-Anon fever in the first Trump term. The language of this — “panic,” “hysteria” — suggests it’s driven by some genuine fear, but the primary driver of this panic is not fear, but guilt. The need to invent and obsess over a superlatively evil Other People comes from the troubled conscience of knowing — semi-consciously, perhaps, but still knowing — that you are complicit in and supportive of cruel injustice and indefensible behavior."
I wish Kevin all the best regarding his health, but if he keeps projecting like this then I’ll keep calling it out:
“When history is written, the first few months of Trump 2.0 will go down as the most craven and prostrate in the history of the Republican Party.”
Indeed, it’s fair to say that ONE of the reasons why we’re in our current mess is because the Republican Party doesn’t stand up to the bullies, ideologues, and extremists in its midst.
But ANOTHER reason why we’re in this current mess is because the DEMOCRAT Party refuses to stand up to the bullies, ideologues, and extremists in its midst.
The response to the anti-racists demanding illegal and unconstitutional racial mandates throughout society should have been NO. Instead, the Dem Party under Biden/Harris shamelessly turned the federal government into a DEI propagation machine to institutionalize sex and race based discrimination.
When the CA Community College system trampled all over the free speech rights of its faculty by demanding that they promote antiracism or lose tenure, where was the Dem Governor of CA? He was out there on national TV pandering to fanatics by mocking anyone who criticized DEI! It finally took a judge (at least one that I know of) to allow lawsuits to proceed against the CA Community College administrators based on the most obvious free speech violations imaginable.
Where was the ostensibly sane Liberal/Left of our society when our once trusted media outlets (like the NYT, the WP, and NPR) tossed objectivity (and their credibility) to the winds by publishing mission pages announcing they were going to root out systemic racism (a concept that they should in fact have been analyzing - not proselytizing)?
I could go on like this all day. I could call out our universities, publishing houses, and countless other institutions which all inexplicably caved under pressure, seemingly because they were terrified that a Leftist extremist might tweet something mean about them.
I could also, of course, ask where all the Liberal free speech defenders vanished to when their champions like JK Rowling were castigated for years at a time for explicitly stating nothing more than a belief in biological sex.
But the basic point is that the Dems ceded such massive ground to lefty extremists that they convinced the country that Trump was the more moderate choice! It was a failure of the Dem/Liberal establishment like we have rarely if ever seen in this country’s history. We have seen more professors fired for wrong-thought in the last ten years than in the McCarthy Red Scare! And all that the Dems and Libs could do was cower and capitulate. I do not think I will ever understand it, but I will always be disgusted by it. A lot of the rest of the country seems to feel the same way. And THAT’s what history is going to be talking about!
Troll alert
You could have saved yourself a hell of a lot of time by just writing "False equivelancy". "I could go on like this all day..." You do. All those words, same dead horse.
> We have seen more professors fired for wrong-thought in the last ten years than in the McCarthy Red Scare!
Name them! Name three of them!
More faculty and university admin have been fired thanks to right wing pressure than anything to do with "the left".
And remember, the operative word is "fired", not "made to feel uncomfortable because the student body and/or their peers disagree with them".
TLDR, and why would I anyway? Consider the source.
I stopped after “Democrat Party”.
lol
You have logorrhea. Get help.
When you say "Democrat" party, you immediately reveal yourself as a ignorant fool and nobody will pay attention to you beyond that point. Do you not realize that the words Fox uses are not the words in common use?
When you're willing to stand up to the bullies and extremists in your midst, then you will have standing to criticize others. Until then, well, better to be silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
In a nutshell . . .
* Please note that the following may be disturbing to more sensitive readers . . . *
In a nutshell, Trump has said to all of the Republican Senators, "Here is a bowl of shit and a spoon. Eat it all and then kiss your wife or husband. Then maybe I won't decide to have you primaried."
But Susan Collins is Concerned. Doesn't that count?