Matt Kibbe, Students For Liberty, and Free The People's "The Day The GOP Died"

Libertarian activists' take on Don McLean classic.

Libertarian activist Matt Kibbe, whose Facebook feed is one of the marvels of the modern age, has helped put together a song that declares "The Day the GOP Died." Also involved: Students for Liberty and Free The People.

Take a listen by clicking above.

Comments

[Trump's Penis Logo, Jr.]

It has to be 73 minutes long and totally boring or it's not an authentic parody of American Pie.

[SugarFree]

I had an old guy who worked as a DJ for decades tell me that the radio popularity of "American Pie" was in the fact that it was a long enough play length for the DJs to go take a dump.

[Hugh Akston]

Coincidentally, listening to that song is like having a DJ take a dump on you.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It certainly gets the bowels regular.

[Agile Cyborg]

Delightful warbling. Wish the big beer room creative would have strung a sentence or two tightly round the pappy burrito neck of my goddamn fluffhead governor.

[Ken Shultz]

If the GOP is dying, it's because the Republicans are being overrun with a demographic that has traditionally been the bread and butter of the Democratic Party.

If the GOP life raft is overflowing with rats, it may be because they're all fleeing the USS Democrat as it's sinking.

If you disagree, you can get up to date on why you're so wrong quickly starting in this thread here:

http://tinyurl.com/zhcb2ym

[Calidissident]

Ken,

I didn't get a chance to read your final replies to this morning, so I suppose I'll respond here.

It seems that you shifted the goalposts from "Trump supporters are mostly Democrats" to "Trump supporters mostly belong to a demographic that was traditionally Democratic." Which is a pretty big difference. Thus, you don't have to prove that Trump supporters are actually Democrats, or that they've been Democrats recently, just that they belong to a demographic that used to be the a core Democratic group. It would help if you were clear about this from the start. I'll note here that analysis has shown that Trump supporters are far from all being blue-collar and working-class (they're median income is essentially the same as those of Cruz supporters, higher than Clinton and Sanders voters, as well as the national median for non-Hispanic whites. In addition, a higher percentage have college degrees than the national average for non-Hispanic whites), but that isn't the core point of this debate.

To reiterate what I said yesterday, working-class whites have not been the core of the Democratic base for decades. They've consistently voted Republican (and more than college-educated whites) for a while now. This isn't any sort of new trend where everyone in this group is abandoning the Democratic Party, it's mostly already happened.

[Ken Shultz]

"It seems that you shifted the goalposts from "Trump supporters are mostly Democrats" to "Trump supporters mostly belong to a demographic that was traditionally Democratic."

That isn't a goalpost shift.

And this is the second time you've accused me of shifting the goal posts. The last time was when you accused me of shifting the goal posts between Reagan Democrats and blue collar workers--as if those were two different things.

Honestly, I doubt you understand what you're objecting to or why anymore.

[Calidissident]

How is that not a goalpost shift? There is a difference between someone being a Democrat in 2016 and having been a Democrat 30 or 40 years ago. And an even bigger difference between someone being a Democrat and being a lifelong Republican who belongs to a demographic that mostly voted Democrat in the past. That's like saying Clinton's primary supporters were Republicans because most black people supported her and black people used to vote Republican.

The conflation I was talking about was "white blue-collar workers" and "unions." Most blue-collar whites these days aren't in unions, and a large portion of union workers aren't white. You tried to argue that because labor unions are still an important Democratic constituency, that blue-collar whites were still the Democratic base.

[Calidissident]

And then you further argued that blue-collar whites = Reagan Democrats. Maybe that was true in 1980, but the vast majority of Reagan Democrats are dead or senior citizens. They're not the base of the Democratic Party and haven't been for a while.

[Ken Shultz]

"There is a difference between someone being a Democrat in 2016 and having been a Democrat 30 or 40 years ago."

SIEU, UAW, Teamsers, AFL-CIO, that isn't a blue collar core constituency for Democrats from 30 or 40 years ago.

That's still a Democrat core constituency today.

The extremely well organized may still mostly vote for Democrats; it's the white, blue collar, middle class that couldn't get into one of those unions that drops their support for the Democrats first--and that's exactly what's happening.

That's why Trump's anti-free trade position suddenly resonates. He's attracting that traditional Democrat core support. Chippin' away at the stone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpUMsK6h0-I

[Calidissident]

So now the argument isn't that Democrats are voting Trump, or even people who were Democrats 30-40 years, but now that people who would have been Democratic-voting SIEU members 30-40 years ago are voting Trump? Ken you are contorting yourself all over the place just to make your narrative stick.

And again, this is not new!!! Bush won blue-collar whites handily twice. Even McCain did as he got crushed nationally. And Romney won them by a huge margin and still lost convincingly. Why? Because blue-collar whites are not as important a part of the Democratic base as they were half a century ago!!! How many times do I have to repeat that, and how many times are you going to ignore it?

[Ken Shultz]

Are you Tulpa?

[Calidissident]

Electoral realignments like this aren't super rare. Southern whites used to be a core part of the Democratic base, and now they're a core part of the Republican base. Blacks used to be a reliably Republican group, and now they're a core part of the Democratic base. Republicans used to get a good chunk of support from liberal Northern Protestants, enough to make them competitive almost anywhere in the northeast, something that doesn't happen today. The Democratic base today isn't working-class whites, and hasn't been for a while. Their base consists of liberal whites (who, compared to the rest of the white population, tend to be college-educated, less religious, younger, more female, and more likely to be unmarried) and minorities (blacks and increasingly Hispanics and Asians, along with some non-racial minority groups). They are perfectly capable of winning elections with these groups and a decent showing among swing voters. They don't need to win the working-class white vote like they needed to 50 or 100 years ago.

[Adans smith]

I'm sick of hearing how the republican party is dead.They suck ,yeah,but,look at the dems ,led by Hillary Clinton.. BTW,the R's are doing well on the state level and congress.

[Hyperion's Post Brexit Moment]

I've seen things that were dying for a long time. But the FluffPo, along with various other leftwing loon rags, have been saying the GOP is dead for decades now. And then the supposedly dead party wrecks the Dems in another election cycle. Wash, rinse, repeat.

[Fist of Etiquette]

They were dead after the 2006 midterms, too. Just like the Democrats were dead when they failed to elect Kerry in 2004.

[arbitrary wavefunction]

My favorite aspect is "the Republican Party is dying because it's just a bunch of white people and the country is no longer white."

1) That's not entirely accurate.
2) Why would the left or right take advice from the other side?
3) At the heart of this is the notion that the right isn't SJW-enough to survive. It's one of the most cult-like aspects of the SJW movement - the religious belief that anybody not willing to get onboard is just a relic of the past that history will soon forget.

[Ken Shultz]

Hillary Clinton has been holding steady with positive approval ratings of 40% and negative approval ratings of 55% since January.

If the Republican Party is dead, why do they control both houses of more state legislatures now than they have since the 1920s? Why do they hold so many governor's mansions? If the Republican Party gets any "deader", they'll soon have enough state legislatures to call a convention to propose Constitutional amendments.

[Dennis, Constitutional Peasant]

If the Republican Party is dead, why do they control both houses of more state legislatures now than they have since the 1920s? Why do they hold so many governor's mansions? If the Republican Party gets any "deader", they'll soon have enough state legislatures to call a convention to propose Constitutional amendments.

And why did they have 8 candidates running for president, while the Dems couldn't even muster up a pretend-foil to hillary who *wasn't* a babbling socialist?

[Ken Shultz]

Meanwhile, Trump only won 50% of the states with closed primaries.

Of the 16 states with open primaries, Trump won 13 of them--and two of the three he lost were to native sons: Kasich in Ohio and Cruz in Texas.

You know why Trump did so much better in states with open primaries? Because he benefited so much from Democrats voting for him.

http://tinyurl.com/j29tytk

If Democrats flooding in to vote for a Republican is indicative of the Republican Party dying, then if the rest of the Democrats abandoned the Democratic Party, would that mean the Democratic Party was supreme?

[Calidissident]

"You know why Trump did so much better in states with open primaries? Because he benefited so much from Democrats voting for him."

Or because the open primaries were almost all in the South and the Northeast, where Trump had his greatest appeal even if you just limit to Republicans, while many of the closed contests were in rural Midwestern or Western states where he wasn't as strong? And many were caucuses, where Cruz's superior ground game paid dividends? But no, it's got to be the Democrats theory.

[Ken Shultz]

That Trump won primaries in the South with the support of Democrats--over his more traditional Republican opponents--is indicative of what, exactly?

That his support among Democrats doesn't make any difference?

P.S. At the time that chart was made, Trump had already won Michigan.

Other states with open primaries that Trump later won include Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

Why wouldn't Trump kick ass with his anti-free trade rhetoric in the rust belt? Pennsylvania doesn't have open primaries, but Trump won there, too.

[Calidissident]

"That Trump won primaries in the South with the support of Democrats--over his more traditional
Republican opponents--is indicative of what, exactly?"

You are jumping ahead in your argument. You haven't proven that Democrats are why Trump won those states.

Let's take Alabama for example. Trump got 46% of the Republican vote, double his closest competitor. Democrats were 4% of the electorate.

http://www.cnn.com/election/primaries/polls/AL/Rep

Go ahead and change the state selector to look at the open primary states. Democrats are consistently a small portion of the electorate (usually around 5%, maybe slightly lower or higher - pretty similar numbers to the % of Democratic primary voters who were Republicans), and in the states he won, Trump had sizeable leads among Republican voters (and in the states where the Republican vote was close, so was the state as a whole). Your reasoning is that Trump did better in open primary states, therefore it must have been due to Democrats voting for him, but you're ignoring the fact that primary candidates don't have equal support all around the country, and different geographic regions differ in their tendencies to have open or closed contests.

[Ken Shultz]

"You are jumping ahead in your argument. You haven't proven that Democrats are why Trump won those states."

What do you mean "prove"?

You want a signed affidavit from every Trump voter as to why they voted for Trump?

Again, you keep making this division between registered Republicans and registered Democrats. Yeah, registered Democrats helped Trump in open primary states. That's a sign post--a wind sock screaming which way the wind is blowing. They may be the vanguard--it's not like Hillary Clinton and the SJWs are wildly popular with average people.

Meanwhile, the traditional Democrat core constituency of white, blue collar, middle class voters helped Trump in just about every state--whether they were registered as Democrats or Republicans. My point is that twe have to ignore that the traditional core Democrat constituency is drifting to Trump (and the Republican Party) in order to believe that the Republican Party is dying.

Trump's success is not the result of decreased interest in a Republican candidate because he's a Republican. Trump won the nomination because he drew support from a demographic that is traditionally Democrat. That should not be indicative of weakness in the Republican Party. To the contrary, if the Republican constituency is being overrun by a socioeconomic group that is being chased out of the Democratic Party by progressives, then Republicans #winning!

[Calidissident]

"You want a signed affidavit from every Trump voter as to why they voted for Trump?"

No, just any sort of evidence beyond "Trump did well in open primaries." Which you have not provided.

"Again, you keep making this division between registered Republicans and registered Democrats."

Maybe because you keep switching back and forth between talking about "Democrats supporting Trump" and "people belonging to a demographic that was usually Democratic supporting Trump" depending on whatever boosts your argument.

Regarding the last two paragraphs - I don't agree with the notion that the GOP is dead or dying, I think that's liberal wishful thinking. I just think your reasoning is off base. This transition you're talking about has pretty much already happened, decades ago. Blue-collar whites were the Democratic base 50 years ago. They aren't today. You never seem to actually address that point no matter how many times I make it. You just keep talking about the past and how things used to be, and ignore anything since the 1980s.

One reason why the blue-collar white shift doesn't hurt the Dems as much today as it did 30 years ago is that they're a much smaller portion of the electorate. They've gone from about 2/3rds of voters to 1/3rd as more white people go to college and the country becomes less white. Republicans can't just rely on them alone to win elections.

[Calidissident]

And while Republicans have maintained their advantage with blue-collar whites this century, Asians and Hispanics have continued moving towards the Democrats (HW Bush won the Asian vote convincingly in 1992 - today they vote Democrat as much as Latinos do. GWB made progress with Latinos, but that's been reversed the last 10 years). Particularly of note is that Cubans in Florida had become much more Democratic in that span, which hurts the GOP particularly bad due to the electoral college. Even black voters have become even more Democratic than they already were. Trump's polling with college-educated whites and white women has been poor compared to other recent GOP nominees. If that all continues, it's not going to mean much if he kills her among blue-collar white men.

[Calidissident]

Also, Trump didn't win Wisconsin. He lost to Cruz by double digits in a month where he won every other contest.

[Ken Shultz]

Yeah, I misread the map on Wisconsin.

[Robert]

Never mind that, what about when Don Mclean died in that ballooning accident?

[Dennis, Constitutional Peasant]

I confess - i am continually confused by people who say that there's no necessary overlap between the GOP and libertarians, and yet obsess themselves over the GOP's "life or death" as though its somehow relevant to the future of libertarianism.

another way of saying it = for people so adamant to insist they are DEFINITELY NOT REPUBLICANS!!!, they have a strange interest in the health of the Republican brand.

It sort of reminds me of the kids in Dazed & Confused who sneer and mock all the other people who drive around looking for keg parties, while they drive around looking for the keg party.

[Hugh Akston]

Reason also covers Democrats and their struggle brand identity during and after the Obama Administration.

[Dennis, Constitutional Peasant]

You're like a B52 bomber with a full-payload of incendiary-boring.

[Hugh Akston]

And you're like Slim Pickens riding it all the way down the thread.

[Dennis, Constitutional Peasant]

uh huh

[Knarf the Yenrab]

Libertarian philosophers and conservative philosophers are the same. Jonah Goldberg may be a neocon, but he knows and can talk about Hayek. Most libertarians have at least a passing knowledge and affinity for Kirk. There's a real overlap between right-libertarian values and traditional conservative values.

If the GOP dies, it won't be replaced by a shining GJ-led libertarian party; it'll be replaced by a resurgent far-right nationalist party that makes Trump's wall and immigrant talk look leftist by comparison. That's what we're seeing in Europe right now, and it's what will occur in the US if we continue to circle the SJW drain for much longer.

[Vampire]

WTF is the problem with Single Jewish Women!!!!????? Sheesh

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

Stayed tuned next week.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I was about to opine the opposite(?) the oblique(?) and write "Q: How can you tell if someone is a libertarian? A: They don't give a flying fuck about all this shit."

[Pay up, Palin's Buttplug!]

The Democrats and the Republicans are the dominate parties, so it's natural to discuss them.

[Dennis, Constitutional Peasant]

BUT THATS WHATYM SAYIN

[Heroic Mulatto]

The question to ask is in what way will the recent ideological shift of the GOP affect one's daily life as a libertarian. If the answer is "none to little", then I don't get all the hand-wringing.

[Dennis, Constitutional Peasant]

If the answer is "none to little", then I don't get all the hand-wringing.

ATS WHATIMSAYIN!!

Who @()#&$@ cares if the GOP dies, is reborn, dies again, and then returns in the form of the Stay-Puft-Marshmallow man?

I'm more concerned with the "whither Rand Paul" question; if people want *more* libertarian leaning major-party candidates, it might actually make sense if the few that exist were given more airtime/love by this rag. Instead, he seems to have been mostly pissed on, then kicked to the curb by Reason and other libertarianish pubs.

(maybe that's an exaggeration - but i still think it was absurd how little coverage he got in the middle of 2015, while trumpmania was just getting started)

[arbitrary wavefunction]

Rand Paul didn't really like gay marriage and said something about restricting immigration temporarily.

[Dennis, Constitutional Peasant]

WELL FUCK THAT GUY THEN

JESUS WHAT A HORRIBLE CONSERVA...

"While I disagree with Supreme Court's redefinition of marriage, I believe that all Americans have the right to contract," the Kentucky senator wrote in the op-ed, published Sunday night.

The government should not prevent people from doing so, Paul said, adding that "does not mean that the government must confer a special imprimatur upon a new definition of marriage."

Perhaps the time has come to examine whether or not governmental recognition of marriage is a good idea, for either party, Paul said.

Yeah, i can totally see how libertarians should hate the guy.

[arbitrary wavefunction]

Yeah, my point being, Reason's coverage of Obergefell was strongly favorable. Rand's was against the decision.

Rand Paul is just not *their* style of libertarian.

[Trshmnstr, terror of the trash]

It's almost like libertarians aren't entirely immune to kultur war, despite reports to the contrary.

[Knarf the Yenrab]

The GOP has 31 governors. It controls 70 of 99 state legislatures. It owns the gov, house, and senate in 23 states.

The GOP is doing just fine, thanks. Red State America's problem is the same the US has had for a long time: the local is being overwhelmed by the general, particularly the executive and hizzer army of bureaucrats.

[Agile Cyborg]

One can pass into misty oblivion perched behind an altar beaming dreams to millions, KY.

Power is contained in a single pie baked by the loveliest grandma in the deepest greenest valley...

[Knarf the Yenrab]

Always appreciate your heroic efforts, AC.

[Agile Cyborg]

... burnt all the hair off my masculine button punchers to tangle with your realizations, bro. Had to tuck and roll and dodge flaming fonts burning with passion, zeal, and meat sandwiches.

[Trshmnstr, terror of the trash]

burnt all the hair off my masculine button punchers

Does that mean you lasered your pubes away, AC? I'm typically pretty good at understanding your lingo, but this one threw me for a loop.

[buybuydandavis]

The GOP has 31 governors. It controls 70 of 99 state legislatures. It owns the gov, house, and senate in 23 states.

Repubs have all the power that doesn't matter.

Progressivism has transferred power to the courts and the federal bureaucracy. They own the political aspects of universities and the media.

If you can't compete with Dems on the electoral map, they get the presidency, therefore the courts, and both unleash the federal apparatchiks on the land.

if Hillary wins, she imports and amnesties her way to a permanent electoral majority for Big Government. Game over.

[John]

That might be the lamest thing I have ever seen. Forget the larger issue it raises. That is just lame.

[Agile Cyborg]

Your amusement park is also full of goths, dead swallows, and crying children. Doesn't mean odd people don't show up for tickets.

[Trump's Penis Logo, Jr.]

The syllables weren't very well timed, and it sounded like the singer was four feet away from the mic.

[Tman]

"Bye Bye Re-pub-lican-part-eee"

Delete your account.

[0x90]

Almost worse than Nikki.

[Heroic Mulatto]

This guy is so happy to be talking to a woman.

[Agile Cyborg]

...sure, but he is lovely, Hero. A polish violin plays gypsy music on a swift river laughing through thick mottled rocks glistening under a winking moon framed by sublime limbs grown from the skulls of the dreaming sliding under the blankets of stars and forever.

[Heroic Mulatto]

How about just gypsy jazz?

[Agile Cyborg]

Punches tones like elephant hoof on moss. However, I read you to Nick Cave, Hero.

[Ken Shultz]

And riddle me this . . .

After the progressives spent the last four years demonizing white people for being racist, Catholics for being homophobes, blue collar workers for being stupid, and the middle class for being selfish and unwilling to fight climate change, why is it so hard for people to imagine that whites, Christians, blue collar workers, and the middle class might flee the Democratic Party to vote for an anti-PC lightening rod like Trump?

I'm not sure how the Democrats imagine they're going to win those people back either--are they going to hate on them even harder? The beatings will continue until morale improves!

Denouncing your own core support for being racist might work for an election cycle or two when you're dealing with baby-boomer voters and your Presidential candidate is black, but the shelf life on that strategy may soon expire. And gay marriage ain't the wedge issue it used to be either.

I'm not sure you can persuade Catholics to hate themselves for being Catholic, and I doubt the Latino and Asian middle class can be driven to hate themselves for being middle class for very long either. To cop a phrase from Thatcher, the problem with progressives is that they eventually run out of other people to hate.

[arbitrary wavefunction]

whites, Christians, blue collar workers, and the middle class

The fact that the Democrat Party is now entirely obsessed with SJW ideology and absolutely nothing else makes them believe that not only are demographics shifting, but that they already have shifted - when they have not. That list of demographics, if united, is still absolutely dominant. You just wouldn't know it from pop culture.

Team D would be dead tomorrow if, for example, 30% of blacks suddenly started voting Team R. But they abuse their constituent blue collar/middle class whites with reckless abandon. It's part of the SJW mindset - nothing is above the cause, no matter how nebulous and bizarre the cause is. If they start losing elections, it's irrelevant to them because they believe their ideology is unstoppable and everyone will come to recognize their truth. It really is a religion.

[Ken Shultz]

They have to lose before it becomes real. It's like calling plays in football--the play callers won't stop calling a play that works until it stops working.

The same sort of thing happened at the end of the '70s.

"Reagan Democrats" no longer saw the Democratic party as champions of their working class aspirations, but instead saw them as working primarily for the benefit of others: the very poor, feminists, the unemployed, African Americans, Latinos, and other groups."

http://tinyurl.com/h3nqrwj

That could have been written about "Trump Democrats" today, and if Trump wins, "Trump Democrats" is exactly what we'll be calling them.

[Trshmnstr, terror of the trash]

t's part of the SJW mindset - nothing is above the cause, no matter how nebulous and bizarre the cause is. If they start losing elections, it's irrelevant to them because they believe their ideology is unstoppable and everyone will come to recognize their truth. It really is a religion.

They're proceeding with the knowledge that they have the education apparatus locked up from pre-K through grad school, the media apparatus with few exceptions, and the legal apparatus.

[Tak Kak]

I remember the Daily Show declaring the Democrat Party "dead" during the Bush admin... not sure which is less entertaining.

[Agile Cyborg]

Death is memory glue.

[Knarf the Yenrab]

Funny how a party led by Reid or McConnell is dead, whereas one led by BHO or Reagan is vibrant and full of life.

[Agile Cyborg]

You do understand, Trump world, that if you hire a letter wizard and this letter wizard decides to copy paste shit other people produced in the blazing lime lights of those worlds you fucks ply your trades within it takes almost 12 seconds to figure this out and if those that figure this out are boring retards with dinkel wheat for cognitions attached to strange apparatuses that sound echoes from warriors outside your camp these crimpled drunch fucks (SO FUCKING TIRED OF GOOGLE BEING RETARDED WITH ESOTERIC WORDS_ FUCK YOU GOOGLE PIMPS) WILL get smarmy and wiggly and high school on yo azzes.

Write some fucking shit passing gas, fucking, cumming, high, nosing a table of space fleets, or FUCKING at the very goddamn least prick a needle of jesus jizz in your imagination- and if shit unintentionally STILL lines up as words often do...

Who gives a goddamn fuck. Make America better, bitches. i guess.... or whatever

[Vampire]

Much love to u AC!

V""V

[buybuydandavis]

Wah!

The ruling class lost the GOP Party this year!

Wah!

[lukashik]

We can even create playlists of them so it will be very easy to find our videos which we like. We can also download those videos and can watch them offline. Showbox for pc