The Republicans' Three-Way Rift

Who Trump, Cruz, and Rubio represent

Daniel McCarthy has a pithy summary of the state of the Republican race:

The GOP is split not two ways, but three: between populists who mix right-wing and moderate positions, in defiance both of political correctness and conservative orthodoxy; and conservative activists who want a reliable ideologue—Cruz—regardless of his lack of charm; and finally a narrow elite of suburban Republicans, high-dollar donors and conservative verbalists who pride themselves on their own sophistication. Trump is the candidate of the populists, Cruz that of the conservative activists, and Rubio that of an embarrassed elite that wishes to be both right-wing and progressive at the same time.

Comments

[MSimon]

Republicans in a three way?

Say it isn't so.

[BearOdinson]

I know right?

The fucked up thing is that there are plenty of regular folks who tend to vote Republican who are just as kinky as anyone else. Just like there are plenty of libertarians who are straight laced and good and moral people. The ones that yell about those of us who have a libertine streak in them.

And I get that folks like Cruz, and other socons have to try to get the evangelical (and conservative Catholic types) vote. But if he could just say stuff like:
"I personally am against the porn industry, and the rampant sex in our entertainment. But, as much as I try to educate and persuade my fellow Americans about the negative effects, I will NOT use the force of government to coerce people I disagree with." I am not asking them not to be socons. I am asking them to restrain the force of government.

But hey, wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up first.

[MSimon]

Hey the Founding Fathers? believed libertinism was incompatible wit liberty.

The answer to that is. B. Franklin.

[commodious spittoon]

The fucked up thing is that there are plenty of regular folks who tend to vote Republican who are just as kinky as anyone else.

They're all cucks!

[Robert]

You mean you use a wish & shit as bait? I can't imagine people wanting to put things into a palm with shit in it, so, wunjo for the win, yo.

[Heroic Mulatto]

You mean a 'big tent' political party is going to be composed of various factions with diverse, and at times, opposing viewpoints?

[Hyperion]

Well, according to the leftist media, this means that the GOP is 'cracking up, imploding, falling apart, blah blah blah'. Any type of diversity or individual thought will kill the borg. Is that a Twisted Sister pin on your uniform, comrade?

[Doctor Whom]

One of the two political parties is going to implode any day now. This has been the case since at least the seventies.

[Hyperion]

Yeah, and which one will implode is oddly tied to which sycophant team asshole is telling the story.

[Rasilio]

I'm sorry but no it hasn't

You have to be a total moron to not be able to see that we are entering a period of political realignment that has not been seen in American since at least the 60's when the NeoCons abandoned the Democrat Party for the Republicans and the Democrat party was co-opted by in essence Socialists.

This does not mean that either major party is going anywhere (although they might) but it does mean that at a minimum there is going to be some heavy shuffling of the components of the coalitions that make up each party

[Robert]

The 1870s?

[CampingInYourPark]

Hello, my name is Jesse Walker and I can count the number of GOP primary contenders that have won delegates.

[Jesse Walker]

Were you under the impression that only three GOP primary contenders have won delegates?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Reverse Lizard People* disinformation campaigns.

*Lizard skin on the outside, warm-blo0ded mammalian structure on the inside.

[CampingInYourPark]

I'm under the impression that if you have less than 50 delegates at this point, you're probably not a contender

[Jesse Walker]

I'm under the impression that if you have less than 50 delegates at this point, you're probably not a contender

I'm under the impression that if you're going to do the smugly-state-an-obvious-fact and pretend-it's-the-point-of-the-post routine, you should get the fact right.

[Citizen X]

DANG SON YOU JUST GOT WALKERED.

[SugarFree]

DAY-UM!

[Florida Man]

*rips shirt off, holds hand up for high five*

[Citizen X]

TAKING YOUR SHIRT OFF MAKES EVERY SITUATION MORE INTENSE

[Heroic Mulatto]

I filmed Jesse with my cellphone while he composed that response.

[Florida Man]

Outstanding!

[Citizen X]

I like how homie appears to be spitting fire at that toddler.

[Citizen X]

Since HM hasn't bothered to do it...

[Heroic Mulatto]

I've taken to out-sourcing nowadays.

[Tom Bombadil]

Who is that guy?

That's Jesse Walker, Texas Ranger.

[Warty]

PWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND

[CampingInYourPark]

Hell, I didn't even get that you didn't write anything but the headline, why'd you expect more than that

[An Innocent Man]

Now who's camping in who's park!?

[Robert]

whose

[Loki]

Would you like some aloe? 'Cause you just got burned.

[Lee G]

One of those three ways is occupied by a lot of disaffected white middle class Democrats.

[Ken Shultz]

+1

The Democrats are living in denial.

They don't even see that freight train coming.

The Donald is as much about Democrats abandoning white, blue collar, middle-class Democrats as it is about anything happening in the Republican party. Those people might stay Republican--much like the white South did after the Democrats abandoned them.

But this is their core support the Democrats are leaving for dead. And they don't even realize they're doing it. The Democrat establishment has become so thoroughly convinced they're the party of illegal immigrants, welfare queens, minorities, and gays that they haven't stopped to think--that's not much of a coalition.

The progressives have gone out of their way to demonize the white, non-college graduate, blue-collar, middle class--because they think of them as being rural Republicans. Don't they realize that's their own core constituency they're denigrating?

[Lee G]

They're too busy staking out positions on the latest outrage over privilege to notice.

I believe this is a case of the media driving the conversation. So much coverage and attention has been given to privilege and other grievance study nonsense that the major Democrat players feel that they cannot ignore it. However, by focusing on those issues because it drives headlines, they are alienating their base.

[Hyperion]

This, absolutely this. All of the PC bullshit, the divide everyone up by race, gender, etc etc, calling everyone racist and bigot who doesn't agree with all their bullshit, is going to explode right in their shocked faces.

[Doctor Whom]

But don't you see? Those stupid rednecks are too stupid to understand their own interests and to see how the modern progressive movement perfectly supports those interests. It's almost as though they (and you) never listened to NPR.

[Hyperion]

The punch line is that those stupid rednecks can and will vote.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The progressives have gone out of their way to demonize the white, non-college graduate, blue-collar, middle class--because they think of them as being rural Republicans. Don't they realize that's their own core constituency they're denigrating?

And more importantly..."When are they going to take them back?" Jesus. It's been worse than Massholes moving up here to NH.

[Drake]

Jim Webb seemed like their perfect candidate and got zero attention in Iowa. I think the blue-collar white guys are already officially out of the party - now it's official.

[Idle Hands]

If it's a threeway, Rubio is getting Eiffel Towered, and I don't know where kasich is.

[Adans smith]

He's the fluffer.

[SugarFree]

He's running the camera.

[Tom Bombadil]

Boom Mic, a la Philip Seymour Hoffman.

[sarcasmic]

And here I was expecting a porno starring Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Megyn Kelly.

[MSimon]

Uh. What you got against man love?

Well it isn't one of my interests either.

NTTIAWWT

[MSimon]

The problem with the "Abortion is Murder" crowd is that you would need a police State to enforce it.

Alcohol Prohibition died because of he police state it engendered. Despite seeming like a very good idea at the time. Drug Prohibition is dying for the same reason.

BTW did CPAC cover Prohibition (the Drug War)?

[MSimon]

Wait a minute. What thread is this?

[Social Contractor]

That's pretty ridiculous.

[MSimon]

Well the Alcohol Prohibitionists thought that the arguments against their policy on practical grounds was pretty ridiculous too. Until it wasn't.

[Social Contractor]

Abortion has been illegal before here and elsewhere there wasn't a dystopia of bathtub abortions and police raiding houses and searching vaginas. There's a world of difference between alcohol or drugs and abortions.

It could've just as well argued that making the murder of homosexuals, or blacks illegal required a police state.

[Rasilio]

It was illegal but laws against it were rarely enforced and it was a VERY different time back then.

To say that if it became illegal again things would be the same as they were in the 60's and earlier is being optimistic at best.

The point attempting to enforce laws against abortion does in fact require a VERY intrusive police state as it literally means that every single miscarriage needs to be investigated as a potential murder to determine if anyone did anything whether intentionally or even accidentally to trigger that miscarriage.

The problem with that is somewhere around 20% of known pregnancies (that is the woman discovers that she is pregnant) end in miscarriage and in almost all of those cases she will need medical care or face the possibility of life threatening infections. That is roughly 1 million women a year whose uteruses will become a crime scene until investigative medical detectives can clear them and rule the miscarriage natural.

[R C Dean]

The problem with that is somewhere around 20% of known pregnancies (that is the woman discovers that she is pregnant) end in miscarriage and in almost all of those cases she will need medical care or face the possibility of life threatening infections. That is roughly 1 million women a year whose uteruses will become a crime scene until investigative medical detectives can clear them and rule the miscarriage natural.

Miscarriages occur by definition early in pregnancy (before the 20th week, with most happening before the 12th week). Stillbirth is the term for miscarriages after the 20th week. Many miscarriages don't have any significant complications, although some do. Generally, complications scale to the term of the pregnancy.

The notion that police will investigate every miscarriage is a fable, a fantasy. They won't even know about most-to-all of them, unless we require doctors to report every miscarriage. Good luck with that.

Second, most

[Rational Exuberance]

Miscarriages occur by definition early in pregnancy

And what do you know, the same is true for nearly all abortions.

[Rational Exuberance]

Abortion has been illegal before here and elsewhere there wasn't a dystopia of bathtub abortions and police raiding houses and searching vaginas.

Oh yes, there was.

It could've just as well argued that making the murder of homosexuals, or blacks illegal required a police state.

No, you couldn't have, because the analogy doesn't work. Homosexuals and blacks are actually persons, with all the social and legal connections that implies; a fetus is not a person.

If there were large numbers of anonymous legal non-persons living in people's basements, unknown to anyone but one other person, then ensuring that those non-persons didn't get murdered would indeed require a police state.

[R C Dean]

Alcohol Prohibition died because of he police state it engendered.

It died because during the Depression the states were starving for tax revenue. That's why the repeal of Prohibition specifically delegated authority to the states to regulate alcohol.

[MSimon]

Well OK. In these straightened times what city could afford to increase its homicide section by 10X?

I know. Put the former Drug Warriors on it.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

I hear cannibus cures abortion. There's another 7% of medical industrial complex spending.

Hey, how's that polywell kickstarter going? Got neutrons yet?

[MSimon]

No funding. So far. I'm doing other things in the mean time.

[Fist of Etiquette]

What if they threw a war for the heart of the GOP and no libertarians came?

[Lee G]

*crickets*

[straffinrun]

If they threw a war? Both the GOP and the Dems would cum. Just on different parts of the map.

[commodious spittoon]

Throwing a war is like tossing salad?

[Domestic Dissident]

It's comforting though to know that the republican party establishment is finished, quite likely permanently. Dubya, Cheney, Rove, Cantor, Boehner, Ryan etcetera destroyed it, and amazingly they're so detached they don't even realize it while everyone else does.

[Princess Trigger]

Never underestimate the power of institutional survivability. They have resources, power and the killer instinct of a cockroach.
They will adapt.

[Harun]

Let's wait until its actually destroyed before saying that.

If Trump wins both primary and general, the establishment who is transactional goes to him.

I also think he will be very moderate to liberal - the establishment will love that.

Oh, the deals they will make!

[toolkien]

There's two - the career Republican Pols trying to keep the gravy flowing for themselves and their cronies, and everybody else.

[Jerryskids]

Who is David Brat endorsing?

[Harun]

This doesn't appear to be official, but its the only google link that appears relevant:

http://thebullelephant.com/con.....-ted-cruz/

[Rational Exuberance]

That is supposed to be news? Republicans are about equally split between "Enterprisers", "Social Conservatives", and "Pro-Government Conservatives". Independents yield three more groups, again, same size: "Upbeats", "Disaffected", and "Bystanders".

This is what happens in a two party system; it's generally a good thing.

Incidentally, "The divisions between voting blocs are known as cleavage." Apparently, some people just don't like deep cleavage.

[commodious spittoon]

The A.M. links delved into it a bit.