Maybe Republicans Need a Policy Agenda After All?
The GOP has hit the dead end of Trump-style personality-cult populism. It's time to try having ideas.
One of the more illustrative post-election reactions on the political right came from Fox News' Jesse Watters on Wednesday afternoon—as it became apparent that conservatives' anticipated "red wave" had failed to materialize in the previous day's midterm elections.
"There's just not the hatred for Joe Biden that there is for Barack Obama and for the Clintons," Watters complained on the air. "There's not a 'hate Biden' vote that's out there…. People just don't feel the same passion."
It's true. President Joe Biden has many negative qualities. He's sleepy. He's a serial fabulist and a lifetime D.C. creature. He's blatantly overstepped his authority in several ways during the past two years. Despite all that, one thing he's not is hateable.
Indeed, exit polls show that midterm voters who held a negative opinion of Biden actually broke slightly toward Democrats.
That's not supposed to happen, and it may have sunk Republicans who had banked on anti-Biden sentiment to power their expected red wave. The election turned out to be a choice, not a referendum, and Republicans simply failed to give enough voters a sufficient reason to choose their side—probably in large part because of how they've been blinded in recent years by the politics of personality.
In fact, if you want to trace the roots of Tuesday's debacle for the GOP, a good place to start would be the 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's where the top officials in GOP politics decided to dispense with the traditional drafting of a platform—the document that outlines the ideals and policy goals for which the party stands—in favor of a statement pledging allegiance to then-President Donald Trump.
It was, in essence, a codification of the evolution that the party had undergone since Trump descended from a Fifth Avenue escalator to declare his candidacy five years earlier. Personality had fully triumphed over policy.
Even before Tuesday, there were clear signals about the limits of that approach. Trump was an unpopular president who'd lost both chambers of Congress during his one term in office. His chaotic response to losing the 2020 presidential election likely cost Republicans control of the Senate for the past two years.
After Tuesday, there can be no more debate about the diminishing returns of that approach. Even in places where Trump's favored candidates won—like in Ohio, where J.D. Vance was elected senator—they underperformed non-Trump candidates. Elsewhere, personality-first and policy-poor candidates in Trump's mold, like Arizona's Senate hopeful Blake Masters, flopped hard.
This transition within Republican politics has had consequences that go beyond the results of elections. As the GOP elevated Trump and his style of politics, the party turned its back on—or actively discarded—prominent figures who were more interested in crafting conservative policies than owning libs.
Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is probably the quintessential example of that changeover. Ryan was a GOP backbencher who quickly rose to prominence because of a laserlike focus on policy—specifically fiscal policy. Ryan's tenure as Speaker was an utter failure, but what's more telling than anything is his decision to simply walk away from it all at an age when most politicians are still getting going. Like Jeff Flake, Mark Sanford, Justin Amash, and other figures who'd played important roles in the GOP's small-government revolution of the early 2010s, Ryan saw where the GOP was headed and walked away.
On Wednesday, he popped up again. "I think Donald Trump gives us problems politically," Ryan told WISN-12 in Milwaukee. "I think we just have some Trump hangover. I think he's a drag on our offices and our races."
To be fair, there are some conservatives determined to flesh out the Trumpification of the GOP into something slightly less vapid. The emergence of the "New Right," as Reason's Stephanie Slade has explored in-depth, is based on a will-to-power conception of conservatism: the demand that Republicans use state coercion to reward their friends and punish their enemies. It is an attempt to turn Trump's brash, transactional understanding of politics (and blatant disregard for the rule of law) into something resembling official policy.
It is a platform of sorts but one that's barely a half-step removed from what the GOP adopted in 2020: Whatever our guy wants, that's the law.
If you dig a little below the surface, this New Right agenda usually collapses into something far less impressive than supporters make it sound. During the height of his tantrum about drag queen story hour in the spring of 2019, conservative columnist and leading New Right intellectual Sohrab Ahmari was asked what he'd like to see the government actually do about this supposed problem. His answer, as Reason's Peter Suderman wrote at the time, was to have Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) hold a congressional hearing "on what's happening in our libraries." C'mon.
That's not to diminish the potential threat of will-to-power conservatism on the political right—but it serves to highlight one reason why the movement is struggling to connect with voters. Trumpism without Trump is still an empty vessel, no matter how many half-baked us-vs.-them culture war tropes the Hawleys and Masters and Ahmaris of the world try to stuff into it.
After the midterms, Republicans have a choice to make. "We can govern in the people's interest or make a lot of pointless noise," Sen. Mitt Romney (R–Utah) wrote Friday in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, where he outlined some actual policies that Republicans could pursue—including reducing spending, expanding immigration, and cutting tariffs—to combat inflation, which voters said was their top priority. Those are good places to start.
Sometimes, having no ideas of your own can work as a campaign strategy, of course. Trump got elected largely because Hilary Clinton was a historically terrible candidate who people were excited to vote against. But Republicans seem to have spent the past six years misreading all those anti-Clinton votes as pro-Trump votes. They have pivoted their entire political movement around that misunderstanding. And this week, they got what they deserved for that mistake.
Watters, it turns out, is pretty much exactly right. Without a hateable foil to run against, Trumpism doesn't work as a campaign strategy. It's time for Republicans to rediscover the value of actually having ideas.
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Uhhhh ….
Trump did, and does, have ideas.
But I guess this explains TDS. All you wokidiots are so focused on mean tweets that you never noticed.
Trump only has one idea, and that’s that you’re too stupid to notice him steal everything that isn’t nailed down.
Like when the Clinton’s took the White House flatware?
Can you reference the conspiracy citation for this?
The Clintons did take all the “W” keys.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121980&page=1
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HERE====)> ???.????????.???
That’s not all:
“Clintons Began Taking White House Property a Year Ago”
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-10-mn-23723-story.html
That was pretty funny.
You’re pretty stupid, lefty shit.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121856&page=1
Former President Clinton and his wife, Sen.Hillary Rodham Clinton, have sent $28,000 worth of household goodsback to Washington after questions arose over whether the itemswere intended as personal gifts or donations to the White House.
Hey Moderation4ever, any further comment?
This;
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-clintons-whitehouse/false-headline-claim-the-clintons-admit-to-stealing-from-the-white-house-idUSKBN20Q2EG
So, literally an article verifying exactly what InsaneTrollLogic said? Good job, shreek. As usual, you either hope nobody will read your links or that you’re as stupid as you are and don’t understand them.
So, we are agreed that the Clintons did not steal anything?
No. About the only thing we agree on is that the Clinton’s gave back what they got caught stealing.
But the FBI did not have to seize anything taken like they did with Trump. Better to give it back when asked.
But the FBI did not have to seize anything taken like they did with Trump. Better to give it back when asked.
So shit the bed and rather than admitting it or shutting up, insisting on smearing it on the walls and floors too. Whom do you think you’re helping?
I get paid over 190$ per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I’d be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I’ve been doing..
HERE====)> ???.????????????.???
Huh. Did the FBI raid them over this? Because its my understanding that it is standard procedure for the FBI to raid you when there’s a question about whether or not the stuff you took was yours.
When you’ve been asked nicely (by “nicely”, I mean notified as part of a legal process), failed to comply three times, had your lawyers lie on a legal affidavit, tried to claim your office (which was open to numerous staff members without any security clearance, never mind the necessary clearances for compartmentalized information) was more secure than the Archives, and believe that the power to declassify things can happen solely in your head (and, apparently, after you have left the White House as a loser), there aren’t many other ways to get back the things that belong to the United States, not Donald Trump.
You’re pretty stupid, TDS-addles pile of lefty shit.
Ahhh yes, the Trump moron’s pathetic rejoinder. “CLINTON BAD, TRUMP GOOD”. They both suck assholes and neither is anything but a grifter thief.
Ahhh yes, the TDS-addled shitpile rejoinder: “TRUMP BAD BUT I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO PROVE IT”
Fuck off and die, TDS-addled pile of shit.
And it worked, people have sent him more and more money. None of which ever seem to get to Republican candidates.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/mypillow-guy-mike-lindell-punts-timeline-for-trump-retaking-power-as-august-conspiracy-theories-get-wackier
MyPillow Guy Punts Timeline for Trump Retaking Power as Conspiracy Theories Get Wackier
https://www.salon.com/2021/08/22/mike-lindell-still-in-trumps-good-graces-has-new-prediction-reinstatement-by-new-years/
The Lord Trump didn’t return to us as scheduled, but the Second Coming is now re-scheduled. You can TRUST us THIS time, for sure!
The Lord Trump DID return to us faithful ones, but He did it in an invisible way! Hold strong in your Faith in Him!
The Lord Trump didn’t return to us yet, this is true! It only did NOT happen because YOU were not faithful enough, and didn’t send Him enough donations!
The Lord Trump didn’t return to us yet, but He DID miraculously protect us all from the VERY worst forces of Evil, which is Der BidenFuhrer! Hold fast in your Faith… Lord Trump will come back VERY soon now! Especially if you send Him more money!
The Lord Trump moves in Mysterious Ways! All will be revealed SOON! Especially if you have Enough Faith to DONATE till it HURTS!
Can you reference the conspiracy citation for this?
Try this;
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3717613-cruz-calls-out-trump-for-not-spending-on-senate-candidates/
And then he uses these funds to enrich himself!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2022/06/26/trump-moved-more-than-1-million-from-his-political-groups-to-his-private-business-after-losing-the-election/?sh=59f6548b955c
BILLIONAIRES
DAILY COVER
Trump Moved More Than $1 Million From His Political Groups To His Private Business After Losing The Election
Umm, Biden, Bush, Obama and the Clintons all paid rent to themselves for campaign offices at their homes and property. It’s gross but legal, and they’ve all done it.
Explain why Trump doing it is different.
Sure, Trump is paying a lot of the money to his own properties. Like the overly high rates he charges to the Secret Services agents protecting him. It way for him to skim off the money to his own pockets.
We all heard sarcasmic the first time he posted it, shreek. What ML asked was how it was any different than the last 4 presidents who did the same thing. Did you have anything to say that would have actually addressed the post you replied to, or are you still trying to find a link you can post so you can claim it says literally the exact opposite of what it says and hope nobody checks?
Also, very smooth socking tonight. Coming back to corpse-fuck the thread a third time after you declared victory because nobody responded to you hours after the thread died just proves how you PWN the CONS with FACTS and LOGIC.
The secret service agents on security detail to former presidents are paid by the fed. If you need to prove that you are ignorant, stupid, and biased, just say so.
From your article:
“Cruz also accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of withholding critical political dollars from “pro-Trump” candidates, while funneling money into races where “moderates” and Trump critics are running.”
So Trump refused to fund NeverTrump GOPe senators and McConnell refused to fund Trump picks.
I don’t understand why you think that this is somehow wrong?
Because shrike is the dumbest motherfucker to post here?
Personally, the party can do whatever they want, but neither Trump nor McConnell should be deciding which candidates get financial support from the RNC, that should be up to whoever is in charge over there.
He did fund Trump picks. McConnell’s PAC funded Walker and Oz far more heavily than Trump’s PAC did. MAGAheads are just looking for someone, anyone, to blame for their failures who isn’t Trump.
Wow is this a dumb claim.
These people are too fucking stupid to realize they are the rubes/marks.
I don’t think anyone pays attention to Trump so much as the people who seem to hate him, personally. i.e. The Press.
They are the ones making it all about personality and, frankly, they’re just responding to an internet troll in real life. He baits ’em, they bite, now Trump is in the headlines and he shows you their vacuousness.
Thing is, his policy stuff absolutely was worthy of discussion. One of the reasons other than “he was not Hillary” to vote Trump was that he discussed the abuses of H1B visas and the distortion of labor markets, and had policy ideas. Another is that he worked hard to craft deals whereby parties in the middle east would talk to each other, a policy that offered a way to normalize Israel while retaining face for several Arab nations.
Does anyone remember the heavily edited video of Trump with Abe feeding the fish? They show the Japanese PM gently feeding the fish and Trump dumping the food, though if you see the whole video Trump and Abe both fed the fish gently, Abe dumped the remainder when he was done, then Trump dumped the remainder when he was done. Yet the edited video and screeds spread across media and the internet.
On the same trip, Trump was in Korea and delivered one of the most moving speeches about the benefits of freedom, democracy, capitalism, and private business contrasting the prosperity of South Korea to the repression and poverty of North Korea. It was beautiful and framed a policy of trade with trusted partners.
Completely fucking ignored.
This is from someone who dislikes Trump. But I don’t dislike the policies, at all. I like them much better than the ones that Biden and the D congress foisted upon us. And I’d much rather have nothing than the expensive, invasive, privacy nightmare, inflationary bullshit that we got.
Reason clearly feels they agree more with what Romney says vs what Trump actually did while in office. Expected behavior from the Nevertrumpers on the staff here.
“If you hate me, but you’re always watching me, you’re actually a fan of me.”
Really? I would be hard pressed to identify any ideas that the former President had. Some of that is message discipline because the idea that he espoused in the morning could well be gone by noon. Or you could watch Fox and Friends and take that for the idea of the day.
Trump was a confidence man, and his talent was to make you think he had an idea, not that he ever had any.
DE-REGULATING???????????
Oh sure, sure… That’s not an idea… That’s ‘big gov’… /s
The complete and utter BS you TDS POS spout is insane.
Except that he did not really deregulate that much. Study should limited deregulation occurred and mostly to help end of life cycle companies like coal mines.
You do realize that coal mines are used for more than just power generation. Coal is an important part of steel making.
See, Moderation4ever, it helps to know a little beyond your safe space, such as that coal is required to make steel because it sucks up the oxygen.
Look up solar panels too, and see if you can figure out why aluminum was out of reach until electricity happened.
Coal will still be important even if you somehow manage to get 100% of your power from magical fantasy unicorn farts like solar and wind.
The last coal fire power plant built was 2011. Most fossil fuel power plants now use NG.
You just can’t absorb the idea that coal is important outside of electrical power generation, can you.
This is the problem with midwits largely educated by CNN and the WaPo.
Maybe what you can’t catch is that that there was less deregulation that was suggested by the former President and that the deregulation that happened was selective to help cronies.
No TRUE
Scotsmanderegulation. You’re really bad at this shreek, maybe you should just not come back a day later and corpse-fuck threads where you’ve already been battered into a bloody pulp.You don’t suppose More, More, More Regulation played a part in that huh?
Oh that evil coal and oil so black-evil it put life-saving heat, transportation etc, etc, etc, etc, etc in everyone’s reach… What a nightmare for the horse and wagon and burned timber… Oh wait; oil saved tress? “The Green”? How can that be? Evil, evil oil… Thank goodness Solar with it’s tons of mining and energy creation makes 10% of the energy carbon fuels do for only 100x the cost.
Any UTOPIA that requires MORE Gov-GUNS isn’t a utopia at all but a tyrannical curse of elitists and oppression.
edit not working — “Oh wait; oil saved trees?” … “The Green”??
Yep; That it did. And never-mind plants require CO2 (carbon emissions).
“I would be hard pressed to identify any ideas that the former President had.”
Yep, like I said, you focus so much on the mean tweets that nothing else matters.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Maybe that is my point the former President should have focused his attention on policy (hard work) instead of spending his day tweeting.
But that wasn’t your point, shreek. You quite literally said something entirely different. And now that you look like a stupid fucking cunt as usual you wait until the next day to come back and corpse-fuck the thread hoping nobody will see it. But I’m always here, shreek. Always here to shove your bullshit right back up your faggot pedophile asshole where it came from.
Run away, little bitch, and keep your cockholster shut.
You were the one focused on the tweeting. Something that occupied Trump a few minutes a day had your rapt attention throughout his presidency.
Why would he do that? *YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION* to anything other than your hatred.
Nothing he could do would change your attitude towards him so why wouldn’t he write you off?
“Really? I would be hard pressed to identify any ideas that the former President had.”
Either you’re an idiot or you’re not trying. Like them or not, he definitely had a policy package.
1. Throughout his campaign he argued against war and warmongering. This lead to rapproachment talks with North Korea, the Abraham Accords, attempts to pull troops out of Germany and Afghanistan, the Serbia/Kosovo deal and he was the first president in forty years not to start a war.
2. Throughout his campaign he argued that trade deals, unrestricted immigration and globalization hurt American workers. He replaced NAFTA with the USMCA, instituted tarriffs, launched a massive deregulation campaign and tried to stem the tide of illegal immigration.
3. Throughout his campaign he spoke against the incarceration culture in the justice system. The First Step Act was the start of a policy shift.
I can do more if you want.
“Either you’re an idiot or you’re not trying.”
Why not both?
That’s because you were to dumb to pay attention and/or watched main stream media.
Maybe I should spend more time on conspiracy sites that tell the true picture?
Tell us again how the Mueller proved Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton, shreek.
You sure as fuck spend plenty of time knowing all about the lives and work habits and penis sizes of people who drive trucks, seems you may not want to mention conspiracies or the like.
This. One million times fucking this
Boehm’s premise for this article is literally a DNC talking point. What a surprise.
Yawn…another GOP bashing article, while the left drives into financial ruin.
This is getting embarrassing.
Reason’s headlines have more conservative bashing than my “legacy” local news, and I’m in Sacramento.
The Supreme Court flushing Roe vs Wade down the shitter was the final straw for this website’s writers and their feigned third party affiliations. They were all for Biden/Harris before, and their “haw haw haw no red wave bitches” is going to last all the way up to 2024 as they endorse Democrat single party control of congress and the White House.
But there was no “red wave”.
Do you understand that it is possible to believe that Team Red is awful without also supporting Team Blue?
This sophist can be ignored. It plays the faux-rational card, pretending to find fault w/ both parties, but spends 90+% of its time bashing conservative policy and thinking. If it had reasonable arguments that weren’t always based in bias, that didn’t always center on shifting positions pretending that it has not, it would be worth engaging.
isnt that the bill mahr method?
Additionally, there was a red wave but because of the map it didn’t translate into massive seats. 5% more Americans voted for Republicans than Democrats nationwide.
Wait, Rs got more votes but didn’t get similar representation in government? Wow, I’ll bet that has never happened before in the history of America.
You’re not making the point you think you are.
Did you have a point? Because I never implied anything other than they got more votes nationally. We don’t have national elections, because we’re a Republic. Duh, I didn’t state otherwise, imply it or complain about it. I simply stated the facts. Due to many factors, the large vote disparity didn’t result in major gains. That is not a condemnation of the system, simply a statement of how it stands. A lot of this is because Blue states lost house seats while red states gained. Thus, fewer purple districts to contest. That isn’t a conspiracy, nor is it a complaint, it’s just facts. The Republicans performed better than they did the last two cycles across almost every demographic, ran competitive races in districts that haven’t been competitive in a long time. It wasn’t enough to win those seats, but the narrative that because the Republicans didn’t win 30+ seats that the country rejected Republicans is a false one. There were far fewer competitive districts. That’s because political party preference has largely become geographically distributed. Despite that, even in urban areas, Republicans performed better than they have in decades. That means that the Democrats do not have a mandate. That the political realignment is continuing. That the data shows Gen X is now the most reliable voting block, and that they are also the most Republican. Republicans made huge gains in school boards, school choice had major victories in ballot initiatives, etc.
The pundits may be overthinking and overanalyzing the results, largely by focusing on major races and seats won, and ignoring the fundamentals of voting patterns. What the election shows, when you drill down into the data, is Trump cost the Republicans in a few high profile cases, but Trump also showed Republicans a path to a growing majority of voters. It’s fighting, but maybe not how Trump fought. It’s a message of personal responsibility and liberty. Deregulation and focusing on our own economy and people rather than foreign countries. It’s parental choice. It’s law and order (but reforming laws to focus on dangerous criminals). That America needs strong defense but that we need to end American Adventurism.
The GOP minority outreach is working. Trump hard core supporters may not realize that Trump isn’t the candidate to take us forward, but candidates like De Santis, Rand Paul and Tim Scott are, both of whom didn’t reject Trump’s policies. In the same breath, the growing insurrection against McConnell in the Republican Senate shows that the party is moving past McConnell and Romney, Cheney and Murkowski.
Yes, Republicans need to vocalize their policies better. Spell them out better and push back because the media and Democrats are going to misrepresent them, like you have and LyingJeffy have in the comments. Take abortion, the party is moving towards a standard of bans with exceptions after 15 weeks, and legal with few hurdles before this. This is actually even more permissive than even Europe. Yes some states had automatic bans that are decades old, or in some cases a century old. But if you look at what Republicans have proposed at the national level, and in the majority of cases at the state level (not automatic pre-existing bans) very few have called for outright bans, and many have called for the policy I mentioned above. But to the pro-choice crowd, the media (including Reason) you focus only on pre-existing bans and outlier cases to paint all Republicans as for strict bans (btw the polls show that the majority of Americans support the 15 week policy by a large disparity). Immigration is another one. I see LyingJeffy is on here trying to maintain that support for increased border security is the same as being anti-immigration and is rooted in racism. But the majority of even Hispanics support more border security. The Republican platform on this has remained little changed since W. Secure the border, streamline visa applications, reform work visas (not eliminate them, but end tying them to businesses thus making them a modern version of indentured servitude), and then we can discuss other issues, such as some pathway to legalization for illegals already in the country. Social Security is another one, the Republicans largely agree (and again this goes back to W, so isn’t new) not eliminating Social Security but reforming it to make it more fiscally stable. This includes giving younger people more control over there own accounts. This is drastically needed because SS and Welfare both are going to be insolvent in the next five to ten years (sooner if we don’t get inflation under control). More taxes aren’t enough to fix this. Structural reforms are needed. Republican energy policy is an all of the above, that even if we switch to all electric vehicles by 2035, that electric vehicles won’t become the majority of vehicles on the road till at least 2050 (by Biden’s DoT estimates, which many consider rosy as most vehicles sold are used vehicles, and electric vehicles have a shorter life currently than ICE vehicles, around five years, while almost half of vehicles on the road in average are ten+ years old). Additionally, Republicans correctly state that wind and solar are not currently dependable, stable energy producers (and that doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon, storage is always just a few years away and has been since Carter). So, we’re going to need some other form of base and surge electricity. For now that means fossil fuels, predominantly Natural Gas. Nuclear is probably the best bet going forward, therefore Republicans support easing restrictions and regulations that make nuclear cost prohibitive while doing little to nothing to improve safety or environmental impacts. Republicans also support reducing regulations that make us reliant on foreign powers for the rare earth and other materials we need if we’re going to change our electrical production, and reducing regulations that have hampered upgrading out drastically outdated power grid. But this is criticized and misrepresented as wanting to rape the environment and denying climate change. Yes, some Republicans do deny climate change, at least man made, but the majority don’t according to the polls. And it hasn’t been official policy to deny it since Bush was re-elected. As for ending gay marriage, again a few have proposed this but it’s not been official policy for years, and even the majority of Republicans oppose it. Republicans do support any form of sex education in early grade school without parental permission, but that is not “Don’t say Gay”. They do oppose equity, but support equality (the former is a collectivist construct that requires direct quotas to achieve it, while the latter is individualistic and mainly requires removing government barriers). War on drugs, Republicans are pretty evenly split, but slightly more in favor of ending marijuana laws. The Neo-cons have been mostly rendered inconsequential or have switched parties or been embraced by the left (Liz Cheney). Voting laws, Georgia voting law actually made voting easier than it was, not harder. Voter ID is not restrictive nor racist. Rather it’s racist to assume that minorities can’t get IDs. And the majority of minorities support voter ID laws. Renaming military posts, most Republicans didn’t care until the left made a big deal about it. I doubt most soldiers who trained at Ft. Benning or Bragg even knew who it was named after. As for renaming the USNS Charlottesville, that is just asinine to say it’s a celebration of a CSA victory, the US Navy has long named ships after US battles, even ones we lost and tragedies. We’ve had several ships named USS Bataan, USS Bunker Hill, USS Wake Island, etc. Those were all US defeats btw. I could go on but I doubt you’ll read even what I’ve already written, because you don’t care.
“Did you have a point?”
Only that when Republicans are outvoted by Democrats, conservatives shrug. When it’s the other way around, it has significance. Partisan bias is predictable, but should be called out anyway.
“There were far fewer competitive districts.”
Competitive races broke almost 2:1 for Ds. Rs lost in Washington’s 3rd and Lauren Boebert almost lost Colorado’s 3rd, both lean-red districts. Rs in deep red districts in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and (strangely) Missouri failed to reach 55%. And another in Texas just broke 55%. What do those states have in common (other than Missouri)? Ds didn’t lose any lean-blue districts.
Rs blew a prime Senate flip opportunity in Nevada. The runoff in Georgia won’t matter as much because the Ds will maintain control with 50 or 51 seats.
All of this with crushing levels of inflation (which won’t be around in 2 years), an unpopular president, an electoral map that favored Rs, and the long history of the party in the White House losing control in midterm elections.
If Rs don”t recognize that their culture war cost them the midterms (made worse by Trump’s toxicity), 2024 will be a bloodbath for them.
“It’s a message of personal responsibility and liberty.”
Like abortion? Oh. Wait. It was Rs that used government force to take personal responsibility and liberty away from people. And voters noticed.
“It’s parental choice.”
Parental choice? Like letting parents make medical decisions with their children, instead of the state? Parental choice is embraced by the Rs in very specific (and very biased) situations. Hypocrisy doesn’t sit well with voters.
“It”s law and order”
Criminal justice reform is a bi-partisan issue. Unquestioned belief in the honesty of the police is not. When you say “law and order”, people hear “don’t question cops”. That isn’t accepted by most people for obvious reasons.
“Deregulation and focusing on our own economy and people rather than foreign countries … That America needs strong defense but that we need to end American Adventurism.
I agree with you on all four of those issues, but people don’t seem to understand the inefficiencies that over-regulation causes and they definitely don’t vote on it. The economy was a major issue this election, but it didn’t cause voters to break red.
“but candidates like De Santis, Rand Paul and Tim Scott are”
Rand Paul and Tim Scott won in deep red states and most people probably don’t know who Tim Scott is, despite him being an impressive guy. DeSantis has dominated Florida but is upside down elsewhere, and often for the things cultural conservatives love.
“are going to misrepresent them, like you have”
What have I misrepresented? This is your go-to accusation, but it always ends up short on evidence. The best you’ve ever achieved is pointing out that I disagree with your foundational beliefs. Since I oppose cultural conservative authroitarianism, that’s a no-brainer.
“Take abortion, the party is moving towards a standard of bans with exceptions after 15 weeks, and legal with few hurdles before this. This is actually even more permissive than even Europe.”
So Europe is relevant to America now? That’s never been my position, but I thought conservatives agreed with me. I guess not. What other laws ahould we bring in from Europe?
“Yes some states had automatic bans that are decades old, or in some cases a century old.”
Indiana has an extreme ban that was signed into law since Dobbs. And they aren’t the only one with plans to push for zero abortions in America.
15 weeks isn’t moderate. Most people oppose 15 weeks. 6 weeks is obscenely irrational. Somewhere between 15 and 24 weeks (most who poll this specifically tip at about 20 weeks). So abortion is a loser for Rs as they are pushing it now. My prediction is that more laws pushing no restrictions, period, will be put forward because no one trusts anri-abortionists to accept a reasonable compromise like 20 weeks. The only way to close the debate is to make it 100% up to the woman and enshrine that in law.
“btw the polls show that the majority of Americans support the 15 week policy by a large disparity”
If you believe this, you are listening to the wrong people or paying attention to pollers like Rasmussen that have little credibility. Most Americans oppose 15 weeks and flip to support for bans starting at 20 weeks (halfway through a typical pregnancy and barely less than the earliest a fetus has ever survived). I am a 24-26 week guy, but could see 20 weeks as a good compromise.
“The Republican platform on [immigration] has remained little changed since W.
Not even a little. Trump obsessed about wasting money on a wall, when everyone who knows about shovels and ladders realizes it’s a waste of money. That money could be better used for systems and personnel to interdict illegal drugs where most of them come into the country (hint: not the border) and find and deport illegal immigrants, most who also don’t come across the border. Trump also wanted to decrease legal immigration and give preferential treatment to white collar workers (America has plenty of home-grown workers in this category) over migrant workers and other wage-earners (which employers are dying for). Feeding a glut and starving a need is asenine policy. Both of those policies were completely different than Bush 43, Bush 41, and Reagan. So the policies were radically different than every Republican President since 1980.
“not eliminating Social Security but reforming it to make it more fiscally stable.”
Republicans favor privitization of Social Security. Which seems great, until the market crashes and seniors on a fixed income can’t afford to live. A defined benefit program is the only way to make sure seniors aren’t victims of fluctuations in the market. If you actually want to make SS stable, reform the number of people who can draw on it before 65, remove the $90,000 cap and have means testing for benefits. That would literally solve the problem with the stroke of a pen. It would probably even allow a reduction in the SS tax. Social Security isn’t going anywhere, so tightening up on benefits and making contributions consistent for the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor.
“Nuclear is probably the best bet going forward”
I agree. Eliminate coal in electricity production as soon as is possible and reduce/remove unnecessary regulations that makes nuclear prohibitively expensive and takes a decade or more to online new plants.
“As for ending gay marriage, again a few have proposed this”
The GOP candidate for Governor in PA was openly against legal gay marriage. And that’s in a lean-blue state. Look at Mississippi, Alabama, or Louisiana and tell me again about how the GOP doesn’t oppose gay marriage. But I acknowledge that the energy of anger, hate, and bias from the right has been redirected into anti-trans rhetoric. Cultural conservatives never retreat, they just regroup.
“Republicans do [sic] support any form of sex education in early grade school without parental permission”
I assume you meant “don’t”. Sex education in K-3 (the real definition, teaching about sexual intercourse and the associated social, emotional, and medical issues involved) doesn’t happen, just like CRT isn’t part of any curriculum in America. Talking about trans and gay people isn’t sex education, any more than talking about heterosexual people is. It’s a manufactured issue, pushed for purely political reasons.
“War on drugs”
They fought marijuana until it was clearly a lost cause. They are fighting natural psychedelics, which Colorado just legalized. They will always fight against people’s right to do what they choose to their bodies. Rs believe there is a moral element to taking drugs, regardless of whether it is harmless to others or not.
“Voting laws”
If you believe that each citizen 18 and older should be able to make their voice heard, then you should support things like early voting, mail-in ballots, vote-anywhere (as in at any voting location, not just the one closest to your home), same-day registration, election day as a Federal holiday, and other things that make legal voting easier and maximize voter participation. If you only want the “right” people to vote, the Republican approach is the one you prefer.
“I doubt you’ll read even what I’ve already written, because you don’t care.”
I not only read your entire post, I have responded to the majority of your points with rebuttals.
As I mentioned a couple times in the past, you would probably be surprised how much we agree on fiscal policy.
One thing I like about conversing with you is that you are detailed, make points rather than ad hominem attacks, and aren’t afraid to put yourself out there and take the heat from your detractors. I disagree with you on cultural issues, but appreciate your willingness to engage.
“You bitch and complain about the GOP 16-18 hours a day, every day, 7 days a week, offer no criticism of Democrats, and pretend to be non-partisan”
Personally, I bitch and complain about the GOP’s (and cultural conservatives’) culture war policies. I bitch and complain about Dems fiscal policies. Each of those is bad for the country on a different way.
Morality police authoritarianism is a cancer. If you don’t like someone else’s moral choices, either establish the absolute truth of your foundational principles or stop trying to force everyone else to live by some arbitrary moral code.
If it’s a religious moral code, read the First Amendment and decide if you love the Constitution more than your particular flavor of religious beliefs. If you do, welcome to America, land of liberty and freedom. If not, find a theocracy to live in.
Rampant deficit spending, the lack of a balanced budget, and endless funding for ineffective social programs is just as cancerous. Fiscal responsibility has been ignored for decades, with a tiny blip during the Clinton administration providing the only relief.
The two parties each have destructive policies, just in different realms.
If only there was a political belief system that combined support for individual freedom and free markets with small government and fiscal responsibility. But who’s ever heard of something like that before? Someone should develop such a belief system and give it a name.
You sound like you haven’t been around for the last 20 years or so. The Democratic party is not for individual liberty in any regard, except perhaps the liberty to terminate someone’s life as long as they aren’t yet born.
The cultural rot being exhibited by the left and being indoctrinated by public schools is much worse than the moral scolds of the 80s and 90s. You need to update your map. Somehow I doubt that it bothers you though.
The Ds aren’t great on liberty, but the Rs are much worse. It isn’t a good vs. bad thing. It’s a bad vs. awful thing. And Republicans are awful on liberty, especially on individual choices, parental rights to make decisions for their children, and interpersonal relationships.
If there is a traditionalist moral objection to someone doing something that doesn’t impact anyone else, Republicans will bitch, moan, and denigrate the morality of everyone else. Because they are convinced of their own moral superiority to everyone else.
Not for you. Right comrade?
Then go away. Your state is growing and you might gain some Oregonians! Be proud, GOP watercarrier…be very, very proud.
Be suicidal democrat watercarrier. Be very, very suicidal.
Seriously, kill yourself.
The GOP _has_ a policy. Just the one. It’s that hatred of American values, and pissing on the graves of those who fought for freedom, is not only desirable, but a good way to gather roubles.
Hi Shrike! Is this your new sock? Trying the old Russiagate shit under a new name? It doesn’t work well, and it’s pretty fucking dumb.
“It’s that hatred of American values”
American values like castrating kids, late term abortion and infanticide, internet political censorship, incarcerating people without charges, purging the military, trying to stuff the court, fighting a proxy war with Russia, politicizing the FBI and DOJ, kangaroo court televised show trials, paying rich kids tuition, and the green new deal?
When idiocy hit you, it really hit you hard. My condolences.
OBL retired shreek, you can drop the Russia collusion sock.
Shreek, democrats are the ones that hate American values. Not Americans.
Unmarried women went for the Dems 68%. I think the pollsters missed that.
Most of them will stay unmarried.
Thats all right because unmarried woman tend to be happier.
I don’t think so.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-marriage-really-make-us-healthier-and-happier
I would counter with this;
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/25/women-happier-without-children-or-a-spouse-happiness-expert
Oh, an LSE “happiness expert” pushing his book versus a large body of literature to the contrary. I guess you really showed InsaneTrollLogic.
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2003/03/married-happy
It’s OK if you’re not married, hun.
“because unmarried woman tend to be happier.”
Oh wow.
Evidence states otherwise.
Do you people ever get anything right?
Hahahahahahahahaha
That comment will not age well.
I wonder what percentage of them are fat, ugly, man hating bitches?
Democrats are the party of low testosterone anxiety.
And yet, I somehow managed to call that immediately after the SC punted abortion back to the states.
Probably because, like most people, they realized that Dobbs took the choice away from individuals and put it in the hands of the government.
Amazing how people oppose the government taking their liberty from them, right? Who could have predicted that?
The RNC had TDS too. They thought that Trump endorsements and rhetoric alone would work, and didn’t realize he’d alienated so many independents.
Republicans are pathetic and inept and deserve to lose until they move on from Trump. But Koch-funded libertarian criticism of them is such predictable horseshit.
“Sen. Mitt Romney (R–Utah) wrote Friday in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, where he outlined some actual policies that Republicans could pursue—including reducing spending, expanding immigration, and cutting tariffs”
Oh look at that! Boehm might start liking Republicans if they promise to do things that will make his sugar daddy Mr. Koch richer! I stopped the parody thing partly because you hacks are so ridiculous there’s hardly any point.
How does expanding immigration benefit me?
Depends.
Are you running a business that benefits greatly from cheap labor? Because it sure does provide cheap labor to keep the bottom end of the market affordable for you.
This is how it works.
Expanding immigration is a specific, concrete policy. That means if you support it you’re a savvy voter who lives for the technical details. Pat yourself on the back, smart guy.
Reducing immigration, OTOH, is not a specific, concrete policy. It’s just white nationalism.
THIS IS WHAT KOCH-FUNDED LIBERTARIANS ACTUALLY BELIEVE
I’ve been a horrible racist since I was a child because of this dichotomy.
And I’m not anti-immigration.
My stance is nuanced, and changing with the years, but as a young man I saw the detrimental effects of illegal immigration on construction, farm work, restaurant work, and several other industries I had direct connection with. I also saw the horrific effects of creating an illegal undercaste ON THE IMMIGRANTS.
So I’m mostly against illegal immigration, don’t agree with open borders, and have genuinely believed that substantial penalties should be levied on any employer who uses illegal labor.
This makes me a racist. Fiona is currently on the beat to brand me so, with the full support of her seniors.
This was where the modern, woke, all white men are racist and evil trend began. Especially here in California. Nothing to do with the foundations of my occasionally railing against using illegal immigration to fill labor holes, or my worrying about Coyotes and the abuses they perpetrate on the poor bastards trying to get across the border. Just “you must hate Mexicans”.
And it worked. It’s working less, especially in places where Spanish speakers are not mostly Mexican, but for a generation Mexicans in California voted D because the democrats effectively branded anyone else as racist. And people ACTUALLY BELIEVE that folks like me are the xenophobes.
Man, I’m on a fucking screed today. I need to go watch the sunset and have a glass of wine or something,
as a young man I saw the detrimental effects of illegal immigration on construction, farm work, restaurant work, and several other industries I had direct connection with.
What were these detrimental effects in your view? Be specific.
I also saw the horrific effects of creating an illegal undercaste ON THE IMMIGRANTS.
You’re right, it is horrible. There shouldn’t be an undercaste of illegal immigrants.
And so your solution is…
So I’m mostly against illegal immigration, don’t agree with open borders, and have genuinely believed that substantial penalties should be levied on any employer who uses illegal labor.
You don’t think there ought to be an undercaste of illegal labor, so your solution is to take away their livelihood altogether and send them back to the even worse conditions they were fleeing.
You profess to have concern for the plight of illegal immigrants, but your proposed solution is to make their situation even worse. Do you not see that? Do you not see how others might take legitimate exception to that?
And no I don’t think that necessarily makes you a racist, but I do think that makes your concern for their plight rather conditional.
You know what would actually get rid of the undercaste of illegal labor without making their situation worse? Legalizing their status.
Like with work visas? Man if only someone had thought of that before….
Right. Because there are no immigrants that are engineers or doctors or the like.
All sorts of businesses are unable to fully serve the public because they can’t get enough people to work, but it’s much better to suffer shortages than to let a few more people legally immigrate.
Nobody is really concerned about legal immigration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAISE_Act
“The 2017 bill (in the 115th Congress) did not receive a vote in the Senate… a similar immigration bill… was defeated in 2018 on a 39–60 vote. In 2019… the bill did not advance.”
You sure proved him wrong, Jeffy.
Don’t conflate legal and illegal immigration. It’s a very bad habit of Team D.
The legal immigrants are simply the ones that Team Red hasn’t gotten around to demagoguing yet.
Jeffy, what the fuck are you even talking about? Hispanics have been moving in the GOP’s direction, if you haven’t noticed.
It’s revealing that whenever reality isn’t sufficient to justify an attack on the right he invents whatever he needs. By contrast he ignores everything the left does. When this path is necessary to reach a belief set then those beliefs are laughably wrong.
Well, that and basically assuming everyone who speaks Spanish is the same.
I grew up on the Mexican border, most here were Mexican when I was a kid. But not so Florida, or New York, or other places back then. These days, even here in Southern California, the Spanish speaking population coming across the border is increasingly South- and Central-Americans.
Mexican and a Cuban have about as much in common as a fish and a turtle. You have to be an arrogant, xenophobic prick not to know that, but my whole life political pundits have treated them as the same. Only now are they starting to realize.
“Mexican and a Cuban have about as much in common as a fish and a turtle. You have to be an arrogant, xenophobic prick not to know that”
“All rook arike”
Or profits from misery caused by all the illegals.
Expanding legal immigration is probably a reasonable plan, because it means we at least get to vet the people coming into the country. I just want it to be tied to a commensurate level of enforcement of the border to discourage illegal immigration.
how does letting in more canadians and brits help with people flooding over the southern border illegally?
The assumption seems to be that expanding legal immigration means giving all those illegally coming in down south a stamp of legality.
Expanding immigration isnt JUST for the illegal invasion… or am i missing something? Plus – how much would you have to expand it to solve the problem?? havent something like 4 million come across over the last 2 years?
According to the WSJ, the Koch’s are building a battery factory in Georgia with European partners thanks in large part to subsidies provided by Biden’s Inflation Act.
Any insect protein processing plants?
What a surprise.
Somehow either Reason, Mittens, or perhaps both are claiming that increased immigration will help alleviate inflation, if you read the article closely.
Looks like
ReasonKoch found his candidate for 2024, if Liz Cheney doesn’t pan out.“That’s not to diminish the potential threat of will-to-power conservatism on the political right” What in the name of the Consistory of Geneva could possibly go wrong with compelling school boards to give equal curricular time to every letter of the identity politics alphabet?
After leaving my previous job 12 months ago, i’ve had some good luck to learn about this website which was a life-saver for me.They offer jobs for which people can work online from their house. My latest paycheck after working for them for 4 months was for $4500.Amazing thing about is that the only thing required is simple typing skills and access to internet.
Read all about it here………>>> onlinecareer1
Big Ideas! What we want as libertarians are Big Ideas! BIG IDEAS!
Hey! What’s the Big Idea?!
You wanted Big Ideas, we’re givin’ you Big Ideas!
Interesting you feel the need to add the adjective, big, when Boehm didn’t use it. It’s always telling when one has to alter what someone said to find a way to mock it.
Fact check: needs context.
Context: There’s a clique of right-wing commenters here who signal group membership to each other every day by the ritual of bashing on Reason and its staff writers.
Remember how outraged Laursen was when people noted he works in concert with sarc, CJ, and others. That indicated the intellectual limitations of the observers. But any opponents who criticize them are “signaling group membership”. Similarly these opponents are “right wing” despite their self identification while the left wingers are apoplectic whenever anyone judges someone on the left outside of their self-identification.
This is how left wingers maintain their beliefs: standards are applied only to others. It’s interesting they all engage in exactly the behaviors they claim are illegitimate when applied to themselves. They hold no principles at all.
Reason deserves a lot of the shit they get. We’ve had how many fluff pieces about Jared Polis this year alone?
Just because you disagree, doesn’t make them right-wing.
You’re quite the expert on distorting other’s statements.
hasn’t trump and vance suggested firing 75% of federal workers … never would happen … nobody would notice if it did
that’s how you pander to libertarians
I would vote for someone I thought would actually do that.
Biden not hateable?
The mean old man who demonizes anyone who opposes him?
That Biden?
Seriously Hunter is more likeable than Joe.
At least Hunter knows how to party with hookers and blow.
And his underage niece.
“Hunter is more likeable than Joe.”
Can you seriously hate an old man who likes kids this much? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XqF4wA-dco
Now that’s affectionate.
Shouting TDS at anyone who disagrees with you isn’t a policy agenda?
Compulsively ditching on Trump without referencing any particular policy isn’t a policy agenda either. It’s chicken-pecking.
Of course not. Shouting TRUMPISTA INSURRECTIONIST at anyone who disagrees you is the REAL policy agenda of REAL libertarians, like you and your new bestie, the pedophile who got banned for posting dark web links to hardcore child pornography.
What Jesse Watters maybe failed to notice is that Hillary Clinton is a woman and Barrack Obama is black and that may have made selling hate easier. Joe Biden doesn’t start out with those disadvantages for the haters to build upon.
Yes Hillary Clinton hates men and Barack Obama hates whites, but not as much as his wife.
His mother was white, and a rabid communist.
typical diluted self-hatred he is half-white and a rabid socialist
Joe Biden is an asshole, though.
Christ, a double dose of Welchie Boy Junior, seriously? You guys are feeling especially sadistic today.
Don’t call it “reason” if you’re going to be this thick.
The DemonRats cheated almost as well as they did last time. No further explanation is needed.
(Did you see today’s bit on CNN, where the network called deSantis’ enforcement of laws against voter fraud “cheating”? That tells you just what a “fair” election in CNN’s opinion would be like.)
MORE, MORE, MORE ideas on how to use MORE Gov-GUNs ??? /s
You people make me sick sometimes.
I, for one, prefer the democrat campaign message: “republicans are so crazy our policies don’t even matter!”
Who can’t get behind that? Not I!
Plus, “vote for the dead guy, we’ll work it out later”.
Also: “vote for the brain-dead guy too, we’ll work it out later”.
Hers some forthcoming DNC party slogans……
Democrats: It’s ok when we do it!
Democrats: expanding American misery since 1828!
Democrats: our standards are so low we elect the senile and brain damaged!
Democrats: gay rights, tranny rights, Next up, pedophile rights!
I’m sure there are others that will be equally good.
The Rs laid out their plan called Commitment to America, with hat nod to Gingrinch. But there was very little talk about it and the media refused to mention it. Same as the media silence when the “Platinum Plan” came out 2 years ago. Did you ever the media mention either of these even once?
^this. For the last 8 years any Republican idea has simply been reported as the latest instance of white supremacism.
The media needs to be dismantled. It’s propaganda, not free speech anymore.
Is it this? Does it predate September 2022?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/gop-leaders-roll-out-commitment-to-america-midterm-election-agenda-but-challenges-remain
This looks like a statement from Kevin McCarthy and the House GOP, not the GOP in general. Isn’t Kevin McCarthy denigrated on a regular basis by Trump and the MAGAs?
The house minority leader sets the legislative agenda for the GOP, Episiarch. And your red herring about McCarthy being rightly denigrated as a big-state piece of shit doesn’t detract from the fact that he laid out a plan that you and this author tried to pretend doesn’t exist. Don’t try your middle school level sophism on anyone other than middle schoolers, it’ s just embarrassing.
Point me to even one example of a Republican candidate in this most recent race referencing the “Commitment to America”.
*applauds “episiarch”*
“There’s just not the hatred for Joe Biden that there is for Barack Obama and for the Clintons,”
I thought I was paying attention, but I missed the part where crowds chanted “Fuck Bill Clinton” so often and loudly that the press had to gaslight the public into believing it was a cheer for a NASCAR driver.
Bill is sleasy as hell, but also very charismatic. He comes across as likeable even if he’s a sleazy shitbag. His wife always comes across as fake, bitchy, and unlikable. Her crony corruption is too open to ignore. Obama is an asshole, but has tons of charisma and comes across as likeable. He was effective because he was good at spouting horrible bullshit without the reality of his words registering with most listeners. Biden used to be a sly politician, but has always been more of an asshole than those other politicians (and in some ways gives Trump a challenge to the king asshole throne.) On top of being a dick, Biden is also ridiculously corrupt and well down the path of dementia. There would be more hatred for him if he was competently and coherently making these shit decisions, but it’s obvious he isn’t running the show. He is the sacrificial lamb for democrats and is effective at scattering criticism because critics know he is at beat a puppet. Obama earned more hatred because he really did implement a radical shift in the size and scope of government. Biden isn’t doing the same degree of change in that way, but he is obviously doing the exact worst moves at every step and hurting Americans. His administration deserves more hate than it gets, but that hatred is diffused by people knowing the figurehead is brain dead.
Obama was a neoliberal/neocon in the succession that started with Bush I, Clinton, Bush II. Heck, even his signature health care bill was straight outta the Manhattan Institute and first launched by Mitt Romney.
Trump just combined some old school democrat protectionist ideas with Nixonian law and order politics, much like Joe Biden did for most of his career.
No, Trump didn’t really have any ideas of his own, but I can’t really think of a single politician in the past 30 years who has.
“Trump just combined some old school democrat protectionist ideas with Nixonian law and order politics, much like Joe Biden did for most of his career.”
You’re full of shit:
1) DeVos
2) Gorsuch
3) Kavanuagh
4) Ajit Pai, end net price fixing
5) Major reduction in the growth of regulations.
6) Dow +35%
7) Unemployment at 3.0% (!)
8) The US Manufacturing Index soared to a 33 year high
9) Got repeal of the national medical insurance mandate.
10) Withdrawal from Paris climate agreement.
11) Not sure about the tax reform; any “reform” that leaves me subsidizing Musk’s customers is not what I hoped for. Let Musk run a company for once. But cutting taxes is good.
12) Pulled support for the $13 billion Hudson Tunnel project.
13) More than 16,000 jobs have been cut from the federal leviathan
14) MIGHT have a deal to de-nuke NK.
15) Killed moonbeam’s choo-choo
16) Supported and signed First Step Act.
And finally:
17) Still making lefties steppin and fetchin like their pants is on fire and their asses are catchin’
I was talking about his political style. Policy-wise, yes, Trump did some good things and a lot less damage than who we have now, or his predecessor.
“I was talking about his political style…”
Which is exactly where TDS comes from. For pete’s sake, focus on results.
Which is really all that matters. As the saying goes, “talk is cheap”. Just look at Biden.
Maybe a lot more people than I realized know that, as horrific as Biden’s policies are, they weren’t actually his idea (he copied them) .
“Bill is sleasy as hell, but also very charismatic…”
He sold sleep-overs in the Lincoln bedroom to contributors, as, similarly HRC sold political access for donors to the re-election campaign, AKA “The Clinton Foundation”; he and his wife were walking out of the WH with the silverware (until they were caught), and the sleaze bag got a blow job in the oval office!
Imagine if Trump had been caught with one of those.
Had that happened p, at least Trump had hot chicks like Hope Hicks working for him.
Mr. Boehm, how in the Hell can you say Trump didn’t have any ideas? His enemies attacked his personality and tried to frame him, but that was just the easiest way to defeat his ideas.
“The GOP has hit the dead end of Trump-style personality-cult populism. It’s time to try having ideas.”
TDS-addled assholes have hit dead end in their adolescent focus on personality, Boehm, and missed the results of Trump’s policies:
1) DeVos
2) Gorsuch
3) Kavanuagh
4) Ajit Pai, end net price fixing
5) Major reduction in the growth of regulations.
6) Dow +35%
7) Unemployment at 3.0% (!)
8) The US Manufacturing Index soared to a 33 year high
9) Got repeal of the national medical insurance mandate.
10) Withdrawal from Paris climate agreement.
11) Not sure about the tax reform; any “reform” that leaves me subsidizing Musk’s customers is not what I hoped for. Let Musk run a company for once. But cutting taxes is good.
12) Pulled support for the $13 billion Hudson Tunnel project.
13) More than 16,000 jobs have been cut from the federal leviathan
14) MIGHT have a deal to de-nuke NK.
15) Killed moonbeam’s choo-choo
16) Supported and signed First Step Act.
And finally:
17) Still making lefties steppin and fetchin like their pants is on fire and their asses are catchin’
Please tell us the results of your focus on TDS; perhaps getting us droolin’ Joe?
The Republicans have plenty of ideas and have been repeating them consistently. The problem is at least half the American populace, as well as Reason, are apparently too damn stupid to understand any of them. But that’s because their policies tend not to involve handing out free sh!t and removing fundamental freedoms from people’s lives.
Policy doesn’t make for good soundbytes, shit-throwing, or Today show episodes about “the children!” It’s all about narrative and personality .
So there is nothing policy can accomplish?
Do you have a point other than ‘I have no idea what to do’?
What stating sound policies CANNOT accomplish is winning elections.
Hard to blame Team Red for following the very clear incentives that were presented to them.
They took careful notes when they noticed that Republicans won big in 2010 without needing any policy agenda at all. All that was needed was to scream “No Socialized Medicine” and “Get Your Government Hands Off My Medicare”. They saw, CORRECTLY, that the protestors who spontaneously showed up to town hall meetings to disrupt them in order to protest ObamaCare weren’t there because they were doctrinaire libertarians who wanted to abolish the welfare state. They were there because they were ANGRY. That’s all. And that was all that was needed to win. All that was needed was to stoke anger and rage. And so ever since then, Team Red has been trying to follow the same formula. Every election they would spin the Wheel Of Outrage and try to drum up as much emotional outrage as they could to drive their voters to the polls. It was either:
“If you vote for Democrats you will get socialized medicine rammed down your throat”
“If you vote for Democrats you will get an illegal alien INVASION pouring across the totally open border stealing your jobs and mooching on welfare and murdering cute blond coeds in Iowa”
“If you vote for Democrats you will get transgender perverts raping girls in public restrooms”
“If you vote for Democrats you will get public school teachers indoctrinating kindergartners into becoming gay”
“If you vote for Democrats you will get the FBI sending conservatives to the gulags in the dead of night”
The truth did not matter, all that mattered was how much fear and outrage and anger they could stoke, because the equation for Team Red was simple:
“The angrier the people, the more votes we get.”
Not coincidentally, 2010 was also about the time when Fox News really started to shift from “fair and balanced” to “propaganda mouthpiece of the Republican Party”. Because they too figured out that their viewers didn’t really want to see a debate between right-wing Hannity and left-wing Colmes. What they really wanted to see was right-wing Hannity alone drumming up as much fear and outrage as possible, without the possibility of being corrected or fact-checked. They got rich from the outrage machine and were a key part of keeping the cycle of outrage grift going.
And the Wheel Of Outrage was why so many of them kept up the lie of the “stolen 2020 election” for so long. They didn’t really think the election was stolen. After all, it was the very same electoral processes which elected THEM! But they DID know that “stolen election” was another wedge they could place on the Wheel Of Outrage when they needed to spin it again to drum up some more outrage.
“If you vote for Democrats, they will rig the election and your vote won’t matter anymore!”
So let us hope that the 2022 election spells the end for this electoral strategy. Because it is awful and corrosive to democracy, public discourse, and basic human decency.
The problem, however, is that Team Blue has decided to copy the Wheel Of Outrage strategy to serve their own ends:
“If you vote for Republicans, the planet will explode due to uncontrolled climate change!”
“If you vote for Republicans, they will end democracy and install TrumpHitler as Dictator For Life!”
“If you vote for Republicans, they will enslave and murder all the black and brown people!”
Etc., etc.
So Team Blue is probably going to take all the wrong lessons from this election, by thinking that because they did better than they were expected to, that the public really believes that Team Red is going to take away the vote and put Black people into chains (as a certain Democrat once said). So we are all probably going to have to endure yet more demagoguery until we get to a point where we have elections that are decided based on the strength of *policies* and *ideas*, rather than based on how angry and outraged people are.
Well said.
Copypasting shit from Democratic Underground is a sure way to get the Episiarch endorsement.
Sure, Tulpa.
Shut up Dee, you bitch!
“So Team Blue is probably going to take all the wrong lessons from this election…”
Boy, that final paragraph is pure Democratic taking points!
Multiple paragraphs defending the left, aside at the end to be neutral. All you lefties gave the same playbook.
“If you vote for Democrats you will get socialized medicine rammed down your throat”
“If you vote for Democrats you will get an illegal alien INVASION pouring across the totally open border stealing your jobs and mooching on welfare and murdering cute blond coeds in Iowa”
“If you vote for Democrats you will get transgender perverts raping girls in public restrooms”
“If you vote for Democrats you will get public school teachers indoctrinating kindergartners into becoming gay”
“If you vote for Democrats you will get the FBI sending conservatives to the gulags in the dead of night”
What do you mean, “if”? All of that actually happened.
Lol. Yeah, Democrats never resorted to demagoguery until those damn Republicans POUNCED!
Nothing demonstrates libertarianism better than insisting progress comes from government action instead of action by a free population.
But he really is a libertarian. Honestly.
So we are all probably going to have to endure yet more demagoguery
It’s insulting when people who champion demagoguery complain about demagoguery. It’s a statement that they think their position is so powerful people have to pretend to believe him.
And the Wheel Of Outrage was why so many of them kept up the lie of the “stolen 2020 election” for so long. They didn’t really think the election was stolen. After all, it was the very same electoral processes which elected THEM! But they DID know that “stolen election” was another wedge they could place on the Wheel Of Outrage when they needed to spin it again to drum up some more outrage.
It’s interesting he recognizes this but denies that Dems have been doing the same thing for decades. Further Dems have the full support of their institutions which makes their actions more pervasive, effective, and dangerous. But he waves that away because he likes the result.
“After all, it was the very same electoral processes which elected THEM!”
And this is just flat out denial of reality.
2020 and on has been a complete remaking of our electoral processes.
Here’s a good idea for republicans, cleanse the country of the left.
Or just UPHOLD the US Constitution and stop the leftard invasion conquering the USA for their [WE] mob RULES form of governing.
It’s interesting the same day Reason publishes an article criticizing people’s reliance on narrative they also publish the narrative.
Someone call the WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHMbulance!
The fuck are they talking about?
Do they think Musk’s job is to provide them with a business plan for a privately held company?
And excruciating? To whom is this torture being applied? Might suck if you lost your job, but that’s no worse than the rest of us in the tech industry who get canned pretty regularly when companies get sold. Hardly a matter of excruciation.
Hey, it’s almost impossible to get incompetent shits like Newsom fired, let alone saintly (fuck-up) teachers! Should be the same for woke tech-twits too.
Whoa. That was quite an article.
“…The new owner barreled in with ideas about how Twitter should operate, but with no comprehensive plan to execute them…”
Paywalled; assume this was written by someone with credentials resulting from running very successful businesses? Steve Jobs risen from the dead?
Or perhaps some lefty twit who knows nothing of running a business and has zero skin in the game?
Going with the latter.
https://twitter.com/rpetty/status/1591185650606551040?t=Sz6xtrGBLe_gzYGIs2SKUw&s=19
In the time it has taken California, Arizona and Nevada to count 70-80% of the votes from this election, Florida counted 100% of millions of votes, had a hurricane and already rebuilt a hurricane damaged highway.
Let that sink in.
https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1591258759397244928?t=Yf1nafC8aWt6Xw6cCQmEFg&s=19
Pretty wild stat: so far the 2022 midterms have seen one statewide incumbent lose — Republican challenger Joe Lombardo just beat the Democrat incumbent Steve Sisolak. That’s it. Not sure I have ever seen more incumbents win.
It’s a particularly wild result because 75% of voters said they think things are going awfully in the country.
You might have a bit more credibility if twitter weren’t your constant “source”
Hint: It ain’t a “source”, it’s where those who love gossip go.
LOL
Ok, sevo
Wow! A reply that, uh, pretty much confirms you have the mentality of a 13 year-old.
How (not) surprising!
Maybe one day you’ll grow up, but it’s looking extremely doubtful
Quoting Mitt Romney as a source of new ideas for Republicans is damn funny. Romney wouldn’t support his fellow senator, Mike Lee, who is the most staunch constitutionalist west of the Mississippi. Mike Lee has written books filled with ideas, but apparently not the kind that Reason likes.
Lee wants to restrain the government while Romney wants it expanded. Citing the man who was responsible for the Obamacare prototype, who supported the TARP and the bank bailouts, for his “idea” about cutting spending is ludicrous.
The difference between Obama and Romney could be measured in angstroms. The Republicans offered a “pale” imitation of Obama hoping to steal Obama supporters. The Republican idea of how to win an election is to clone their opponent. Could you ever imagine the Democrats running a Reagan clone? Or even a McCain clone?
The Republicans don’t offer ideas because they have nothing to challenge the Democrats who are riding a cultural wave that is irrational to its core. The left has conquered the culture and, therefore, the politics that lie downstream of it. The Republicans are drowning in that stream and have no capacity to swim against the current.
RINO’S everywhere!! Can’t argue that.
Specifically why Trumps Administration was so popular by patriots.
And specifically why Nazi’s(National Socialist)-Regime builders found him so threatening to their cause.
Romney is the kind of Republican they like because he’s really a Democrat.
His daddy was a Democrat.
He governed MA like a Democrat.
He supports big government over the Constitution, like a Democrat.
Most importantly, he hates Trump like Reason and their fellow Democrats.
Actually, Mitt’s dad George was a Republican but, just like Mitt, George refused to endorse Barry Goldwater back in 1964. Mitt is definitely a chip off the old block. George once said that getting a income tax in Michigan was among his proudest moments. Mitt, no doubt, feels the same way about Romneycare.
Although I agree with you on the cultural points, the problem is not cultural but, rather, pragmatic. The two-party election system guarantees that policy ideas will forever take a back seat to gaining and holding power which, in turn, guarantees that most voters will be forced into one of two opposing camps for each election, preventing third party positions from ever getting a starting point and growing by attracting more voters to their actions in government based on actual policy ideas. Third parties grow not just by ideas, but by attracting people with similar ideas in implementing them. Until we replace the two-party system with proportional representation, ideas have no chance.
But polities with more than two major political parties aren’t governed any better. One way or another, over the long run the mass of people will rule.
Yes, an agenda and policy would be a good idea. But even more importantly, the Republicans need to demonstrate that they have some ethics, decency, and concern for the American citizen. Thier current attempts to discriminate against and marginalize the LGBTQ population, their overt racism, and their voter suppression efforts have demonstrated clearly that this party has no moral compass and is concerned only with its own power. The Democrats are far from perfect, but at least they are respecting the citizens’ right to vote, choose their own sexuality, and be something besides white and rich. The Republicans’ first step should be to completely renounce Trump, who is the most immoral and criminal person to be President in our country’s history. Until the Republicans totally disassociate from him, they will have no legitimacy.
the Republicans need to demonstrate that they have some ethics, decency, and concern for the American citizen. Their current attempts to discriminate against and marginalize the LGBTQ population, their overt racism, and their voter suppression efforts have demonstrated clearly that this party has no moral compass and is concerned only with its own power.
Any specifics on these Republican flirtations with “overt racism” and violating the natural rights of LGBTQ or is asking for a principled argument expecting ethics, decency and concern? States set voting rules, which ones are applied to their citizens based on melanin, genitals or who a voter likes fucking?
A “moral compass” should have no place in a political party. Political parties should be all about government and law. Government and law should be based on protecting the rights of the people, not about steering – or forcing! – them to be moral, especially since everyone has a different set of morals they would like to impose on everyone else. Although I agree that people should be allowed to marry or have sex with whatever consenting adult they prefer, that is not based on any kind of moral compass. It is a fundamental principle of government that historically avoids the horrors of monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, anarchy and theocracy alternatives. The minimum government necessary to protect the equal rights of all the people is the only “compass” we need. Every other alternative leads to disaster.
But we may (and will) disagree even that the rights of all people are protected equally and best by having marriages with anyone they want legally recognized. People’s liberties are best protected by being treated legally as individuals, and this principle is only grudgingly compromised by the institution of family law.
“…But even more importantly, the Republicans need to demonstrate that they have some ethics, decency, and concern for the American citizen. Thier current attempts to discriminate against and marginalize the LGBTQ population, their overt racism, and their voter suppression efforts have demonstrated clearly that this party has no moral compass and is concerned only with its own power…”
Unsupported assertions by lefty shits =/= evidence or argument.
There’s only one way to combat inflation, and it’s the same around the world: to avoid another panic like CoVID-19 that makes bankers try to pump up a leaking balloon. Got nothing to do with anybody’s political agenda.
Republicans seem to have spent the past six years misreading all those anti-Clinton votes as pro-Trump votes. They have pivoted their entire political movement around that misunderstanding.
No. You apparently have no idea or recollection of the energy that Trump got out of the grass roots. It’s hilarious that you could point to a Romney as leading them out of difficulty when it was the revolt against the Romneys that got them out to begin with! What, like you’re going to convince the country (or enough of it), guess you were wrong, you should’ve paid attention to the adults in the room all along? The adults in the room who are perpetual losers and would rather go down to plaudits from the country club than to take a chance on winning?
Trump supporters were people who felt that they had been abandoned by BOTH parties. That’s not the same thing as having a positive agenda for moving forward after they had their brief, successful tantrum. The GOP is nothing if not opportunistic so the RNC held its collective nose and tried to capitalize on the trend. It didn’t work out for them, so the insider elite will, opportunistically, try to put the pieces back together again for the next two years. Meanwhile small government and limited government power have no effective champions and there is no grass roots energy for liberty.
No, I think there’s as much grass roots energy for liberty now as there’s been in the past 50 years, and that all that remains to champion it is for Trump and DeSantis not to do anything stupid. If DeSantis is as smart as I think he is, he’ll recognize that Trump is still the man to hold the baton for 2024, and that he, DeSantis will be set up excellently for subsequent elections. Trump has to recognize that DeSantis is a smart man and will play ball. So they should refrain from anything petty in the meantime. If they can stick together, they can push the old guard out, but it’s going to take time.
Radical libertarians need to understand that a larger political movement including them is always going to involve a lot of compromise, and that although we can aspire to more than the average amount of clout in the coalition, we may wind up with less than the average, depending on dependings-on. That’s normal politics, and the more savvy among us realize that. If our favorites wind up working alongside people who hold some views inimical to ours, remember that it’s just as uncomfortable for them, and the main thing is that we’ll all be more effective on net.
“So they should refrain from anything petty in the meantime.”
So they should twiddle their thumbs for 2 years? Petty is what they do. Without it, they are empty.
“a larger political movement including them is always going to involve a lot of compromise”
Not being part of a larger political movement is part of the point. The GOP is for government force used to impose minority cultural values on everyone. The Dems are for government force used to impose reckless spending.
If you want people to make their own decisions about their own lives you can’t support most Rs. If you want fiscal sanity and economic stability you can’t support most Ds.
Libertarians aren’t R-light voters who need to come back to the fold even if Rs don’t support personal liberty. If Rs want libertarian votes, they should try to appeal to them with more reasonable policies. Libertarians don’t owe them anything.
“…The GOP is for government force used to impose minority cultural values on everyone…”
Unsupported assertions from TDS-addled piles of lefty shit =/= evidence or argument.
Fuck off and die, asshole.
“…That’s not the same thing as having a positive agenda for moving forward after they had their brief, successful tantrum.”
Sure, TDS-addled twit, some “tantrum”:
1) DeVos
2) Gorsuch
3) Kavanuagh
4) Ajit Pai, end net price fixing
5) Major reduction in the growth of regulations.
6) Dow +35%
7) Unemployment at 3.0% (!)
8) The US Manufacturing Index soared to a 33 year high
9) Got repeal of the national medical insurance mandate.
10) Withdrawal from Paris climate agreement.
11) Not sure about the tax reform; any “reform” that leaves me subsidizing Musk’s customers is not what I hoped for. Let Musk run a company for once. But cutting taxes is good.
12) Pulled support for the $13 billion Hudson Tunnel project.
13) More than 16,000 jobs have been cut from the federal leviathan
14) MIGHT have a deal to de-nuke NK.
15) Killed moonbeam’s choo-choo
16) Supported and signed First Step Act.
17) Other appointed judges slapping down droolin’ Joes student handout and supporting A2
And finally:
18) Still making lefties steppin and fetchin like their pants is on fire and their asses are catchin’
Go peddle *your* TDS-fueled tantrum elsewhere,
A million dead Americans.
Truly a superlative president.
‘Dark Brandon’ will protect us, feed us, and demolish his enemies11!!111!!
My
The KGB tried to maintain control of the CCCP borders with one of the vilest, most powerful and extensive apparatus systems in history without success. What makes you think the GOP has any chance whatsoever of regaining control of our border? Making the elections trustworthy again depends on whom you’re trying to convince. What makes Republicans think the elections aren’t trustworthy and how do you know they could convince people? The difference between the DNC and the RNC is that they have implemented almost every plank of their socialist platform over the last hundred years and the GOP not only has not been able to implement ANY of the policies you mentioned when they had power, but they have not even managed to repeal ANY of the Democrat policies.
Where in what I wrote did I espouse approval of GOP policy?
“…but they have not even managed to repeal ANY of the Democrat policies.”
Uh:
Got repeal of the national medical insurance mandate.
Withdrawal from Paris climate agreement.
Pulled support for the $13 billion Hudson Tunnel project.
Killed moonbeam’s choo-choo
Not as much as we’d like, but a start in the right direction
D’s OTOH, push the other way.
Stuff your “both sides” bullshit.
BTW, pretty sure you can add to those the recent rulings by judges appointed by Trump in particular:
Strong A2 support
Blocking Biden’s student loan bullshit
“What ideas does the DNC have?”
“EVERYTHING IS SO TERRIBLE AND UNFAIR!!!!”(Tm)
If you wanna be a victim the dems are for you. They are, however, required to mine ever deeper for their victims to champion, hence the outsized focus on trannies and people who willingly signed for loans to go to school.
Perhaps people will tire of this pandering eventually. Or it will just splinter their base of victims. A lot of black and union people did not benefit from the student loan bailout, for example.
Give it time. They’ll shoot themselves in the foot at some point. Although if covid policy wasn’t enough to tell these assholes to fuck off, I don’t know what it will take.
I want to annihilate the democrat party and all the fellow travelers within it. Now, and for all time. I want to take the masses of committed leftists that have multiplied in this country like cancerous cells and permanently expatriate them. And just to safeguard the future, I want to se EO’s sage of a constitutional amendment that would criminalize the practice Marxism. Including execution for the most egregious incidents.
That’s what I want.
You want to go on a mass killing spree against almost 1/3 if the country because they are Democrats? Over 1/2 the country if you include everyone who voted against Republicans? You are not a Republican, you are a psychopath. Get help.
You’re a TDS-addled steaming pile of lefty shit. Please do NOT seek help; we can hope it is fatal, and yes, your death would make your family proud and make mankind better off.
Eat shit and die, asshole.
Keeping foreigners out and using Orwellian language to justify rigging elections are their policies? Sounds pretty fascist to me.
Typical leftard..
If you don’t support an invasion you’re a fascist… /s
The USA has more immigration than any other nation in the world.
And the mid-term post-mortems keep rolling in. Giving the Republicans good advice on how to avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory next time around may sound hip and knowledgeable to the pundits, but the “empty vessel” of the GOP goes much deeper than Trumpism without Trump. The Democrats have spent the last hundred years or more implementing their socialist democrat agenda plank by plank whenever they had control of the Congress and the White House. Over that same century the Republicans have never, ever repealed a single socialist program when they, in turn, had control of the Congress and the White House. When people say that the Republican Party is the right wing of the Democratic Socialist Party, that’s what they’re talking about. When your entire agenda is keeping your political career in office and winning elections and your only policies are “America First” and “Secure the Border” and “Fair Trade” and “Abolish Abortion and Gay Marriage” you are not going to accomplish much.
Asset forfeiture and laws against production and trade enforced by superstitious Republican thugs cause market crashes and economic depression. Only then do the appeals of looters sound better than Herbert Hooverville economics–basically religious prohibitionism. G Waffen Bush made trade a felony, and was SURPRISED when “markets quit working.”
“…Over that same century the Republicans have never, ever repealed a single socialist program when they, in turn, had control of the Congress and the White House…”
Bullshit; see above.
BTW, the L party, during its entire existence, has done nothing at all.
Care to tell us what you propose, other than bullshitting and whining?
Over that same century the Republicans have never, ever repealed a single socialist program when they, in turn, had control of the Congress and the White House.
Maybe that’s because they know that the overwhelming majority of voters don’t want that.
Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, and other social welfare programs that you would call “socialism” are less than what almost every other wealthy country in the world does. Add to that the fact that much of that is spending that goes toward those of more than adequate means as well as the poor, and the U.S. doesn’t seem all that “socialist.”
And then, socialism is more accurately defined according to workers owning the means of production. The Democratic Party is not “left” in that sense of the political left-right spectrum. It is would be generous to label it center-right rather than fully right, which the Republican Party is. In terms of support for capitalism, the Democratic Party differs from the Republican Party in only a few ways:
They support higher corporate taxes and higher tax rates on capital gains.
They support more regulation of business toward what they see as the public interest. (Environmental regulation, financial industry regulation to protect consumers, etc.)
They support labor unions.
They are a little more willing to engage in anti-trust regulation. (But they clearly still get too much campaign money to have any teeth in their actions there.)
They are more inclined to be skeptical of free trade, though Trump has lessened Republican support of free trade agreements and both parties have some protectionist tendancies now.
If you expand “socialism” to include social welfare spending (and other “wealth redistribution” policies, such as through progressive taxation, tax credits, subsidized student loans and tuition support, etc.), Democrats still don’t go as far as most other wealthy countries. Calling them “left” or “socialist” in either sense is inaccurate relative to rest of the developed world. They are center-right.
When Republicans and libertarians call Democrats “leftists” or “socialists,” they can only do so relative to their positions. It is just not true if you look at the full spectrum of political thought and action around the developed world. That essentially everyone is to their left on economic issues just goes to highlight that their political ideology is all the way at one end of the spectrum. It could even be considered extreme in the case of true ‘free market’ libertarians.
Be careful what you wish for. Their idea is freedom only for them. The Southern Democrats Reagan invited have taken over the party. Religious zealots convinced they’re doing the work of their god cannot be reasoned with. Goldwater warned about this.
One more TDS-addled pile of lefty shit heard from.
Eat shit and die, asshole.
100+ of Trumps supported candidates won and less than 20 lost….how many Libertarians did we manage to elect to federal office.
Maybe just maybe if we quit acting like democrats and flaming Trump and actually put our energy into our own candidates we would be better off?
The Nixon Fascist Subsidy law and looter State gerrymandering make libertarians unelectable. Besides, we want bad laws and nazis to go away. We’re not interested in their jobs or hand-in-till. We get what we want by making them LOSE unless they repeal looter laws. (https://bit.ly/3AunUfM) There in nobody so stupid as to not be able to understand what is clear to a mule. (https://bit.ly/3QpGuKk)
The problem is most of the amercian public supports leftish policy(Universal healthcare, higher minimum wage, strong union power, gay marriage etc). GOP would be destroyed if they actually talk about policy and not bring up petty discourse like CRT or trans teen athletics.
Good point, but the problem is that the GOP doesn’t even try to address the problems these things are attempting to solve. They just say “no” instead of offering free market solutions.
The plan:
You choose between, “Fuck you. Cut spending.” and “Cut spending or eat a bullet.” and I go along my merry way not caring if you think that constitutes a plan or not.
‘Trump-style personality-cult populism.’
https://shop.fctry.com/collections/action-figures
You were saying? I could add the comic books, ‘dark brandon’ attempt, every weak girlboss ‘documentary’ or op/ed passing as thinkpiece. Yes, the some on the right view trump as a leader capable of more than he is or was in the culture war. Given the rampant dishonesty from left-leaning sources, to include this article, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that his behaving like an ass appeals to a base of folks. If Boehm had addressed policies rather than engaged in the typical ad hominem, he might have had an argument. That wouldn’t fit w/ the reasonmag clickbait model, or the clear bias among the staff.
“If Boehm had addressed policies rather than engaged in the typical ad hominem, he might have had an argument.”
Trump’s policies are paper thin, little more than slogans: Lock her up! MAGA, Build that wall, Annex Greenland. None of this materialized, and hardly deserves to be called policies in any event. I think it’s safe to say that anything Trump’s supporters find praiseworthy arising during his administration came from congress or lobby groups, with Trump merely providing the rubber stamp of approval.
Huh? Republicans DO have a policy agenda: Bomb foreign villages, invade other countries, force females to squeeze out conscripts, ban everything except tobacco and ethanol (but poison the latter), confiscate assets, bait queers, ban birth control and shoot hippies, brownies and speecs over the wrong plant leaves. Has anything changed these past 50 years?
No hank. Nothing has changed in the last 50 years.
Not for you, anyway.
Hihn is dead. I’m hoping Hank isn’t far behind.
Republicans have made many mistakes in the past.
Humorously; Trump was a cure to a lot of those mistakes.
So yes; Things have changed.
But don’t let that get in the way of your Nazi(National Socialist)-Regime building propaganda.
The general thrust of what you’re saying is correct, but you completely discredit yourself when you implicitly approve of drag queen story hour. It’s disgusting. No taxpayer money should go towards it, period. If you want to fuck your own kids up, go for it, but that doesn’t mean people can’t use their free speech rights to tell you you’re a sick fuck. Should the government “do something” about it? Beyond not spending tax money on it, no, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. If you want to say it’s ginned up outrage porn and it doesn’t happen that often, that’s fine. But when it does happen it’s still fucked up and no money should go towards it.
The same is said for your bias and pretending like the right is the only one engaged in a culture war. The only culture war they’re engaged in is pushing back against the cultural pathogens pushed by the left.
Drag queen story hour is necessary if you want to produce people like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who can’t tell you what a woman is without asking an “expert”.
Destroying a child’s capacity to think and making them dependent upon “authorities” for answers is the perfect way to establish a totalitarian state.
Hence the current state of the electorate. It also helps when democrats intentionally removed any substantive study of civics in government schools. Much easier to get away with unconstitutional and illegal government action.
” No taxpayer money should go towards it, period. ”
Drag queens are paid by government to read in libraries? There’s an opportunity for government to get revenue here. I’m sure there a perfectly capable drag queens who’d be willing to pay for the chance to read stories to children, in libraries, or perhaps venues offering more privacy.
Do you know of even one drag queen who has ever molested a child? What a disgusting comment. I can name four Republican national political figures who molested children off the top of my head.
It was meant tongue in cheek, a Modest Proposal sort of thing, but seriously, are drag queens paid to read to children in libraries as sowell_man implies?
I haven’t the foggiest idea. The planet is undergoing an unchecked human-caused warming, we have the most prisoners in the world, and we haven’t even figured out universal healthcare. Anyone who gives a nanosecond’s thought to drag queens or libraries in the context of politics is a fucking moron of unfathomable ridiculousness.
“Anyone who gives a nanosecond’s thought to drag queens”
The impulse for parents to maintain the innocence of their children for as long as possible is natural and understandable. My parents kept the Santa Claus pretext alive until my sister, the youngest, was in the 8th grade. And if it’s an issue where sexuality is at stake, the impulse is all the stronger.
I warn these parents that trying to keep their children in ignorance of the world around them isn’t doing them any favors. And in any case, children know a lot more than they’re assumed to know, perhaps even more than their harried parents who’ve lost their curiosity and feel at sea in a world which is constantly and inexplicably changing.
All of these crusades are totally baffling to anyone who has explored the internet beyond their facebook feeds. Same with the similar Republican effort to ban books. Their children have seen worse than Heather Has Two Mommies.
Santa Claus is so interesting to me. He’s the paradigmatic example of a real belief that people are expected to give up. The disappointment children feel on learning the truth is a sort of freakish cultural ritual flagellation.
I then wonder why it’s so hard for people to give up regular God. He’s just Santa Claus except not exclusively marketed to children. He is magic, has a beard, and pays attention to who’s naughty or nice. Just make the connection!
Anyone complaining about Commie-Healthcare in a nation that strickly forbids communism is….
“is a fucking moron of unfathomable ridiculousness”
The general thrust of what you’re saying is correct, but you completely discredit yourself when you implicitly approve of drag queen story hour. It’s disgusting. No taxpayer money should go towards it, period.
What is it that is disgusting about “drag queen story hour?” Where is taxpayer money going toward it? I keep hearing about this, but I don’t ever see details.
Maybe this is the kind of thing you worry about?
This is the steaming pile of lefty shit who promotes murder to keep proles from putting feet on the desks of the high priests of lefty shit’s religion:
JasonT20
February.6.2022 at 6:02 pm
“How many officers were there to stop Ashlee Babbitt and the dozens of people behind her from getting into the legislative chamber to do who knows what?…”
Eat shit and die, slimy pile of shit.
One of the biggest movies of my youth was Mrs. Doubtfire. Suddenly drag is a big threat to children.
You people should learn to recognize when you’re being used like cheap sluts by politicians.
More from Jesse Watters:
“The fact that these youth voters are coming in so strong in an off-year is very concerning. It looks like they’ve been brainwashed. This new generation is totally brainwashed ‘cause a lot of these single women [who] vote 37 spreads for Democrats, are teaching all of our younger generation in these schools and they’re polluting their minds and then they grow up and they’re in their twenties and then they vote for leftists.”
You see, it isn’t that the Republican Party doesn’t have ideas, it is just that too many women had kids but didn’t have husbands to raise their kids right, and those single women are teaching in public schools filling their heads with leftist propaganda because they didn’t have husbands to keep them in line! Now those kids are adults and vote for Democrats!
No, Jesse. The problem is that the FoxNews viewers that listen to people like you have a median age eligible for Medicare. The Republican Party has tailored its message for decades to mostly appeal to older adults and retirees that just don’t worry that much about the long term future. So, things like climate change, student loans, upward mobility and the like aren’t nearly as interesting to them as are the returns on their retirement accounts, whether they can continue to buy cheap stuff, and how much they can despair at how much the culture is changing in ways they don’t like.
They don’t have friends their age that are LGBTQ+, they already have universal health insurance, and any reckoning on the viability of Social Security isn’t going to hurt them. (No politician of any party is likely to support cutting benefits for existing retirees. And the few Republicans that will openly talk about ‘reform’ for Social Security would be careful to make sure that any cuts would affect only those under 50.)
Maybe younger voters just aren’t buying what the GOP is selling, because they recognize that Republicans either don’t give a shit or actively oppose the things that they care about.
So keep whining about young people being brainwashed. You can ask Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney how well it works out when partisans portray voters that prefer their opponents negatively.
This is the steaming pile of lefty shit who promotes murder to keep proles from putting feet on the desks of the high priests of lefty shit’s religion:
JasonT20
February.6.2022 at 6:02 pm
“How many officers were there to stop Ashlee Babbitt and the dozens of people behind her from getting into the legislative chamber to do who knows what?…”
Eat shit and die, slimy pile of shit.
Republicans do not crave power for the sake of implementing an innovative, useful policy program to help Americans. Republicans crave power to steal public resources and give them to private interests.
Their policy proposals are: cut taxes on the rich, end Social Security and Medicare, and give as much money as they can get their government hands on to the oil industry and defense contractors or whichever evil cartel is funding them at the moment.
They know they can’t win elections with this crap. That’s why they leaned on fascist cults of personality and religious culture wars. None of this is complicated.
Unsupported assertions from TDS-addled steaming piles of lefty shit such as shit-bag offered here =/= evidence or argument.
Fuck off and die, shitbag
Oh, I’m sorry. Perhaps you can explain what the Republican policy agenda is then.
You are sorry shitbag, and there is no use wasting time explaining anything at all to a lefty ignoramus too stupid to tie shoelaces.
Fuck off and die, shitbag.
At the risk of giving free advice to Republicans, I think this is pretty straightforward. During the pandemic, they introduced the political position that old people are disposable. Everyone here regurgitated it. It’s on the table. There’s your social security and medicare campaign: kill grandma, because she kinda sucks anyway.
Biden disposed of more old people than Trump.
More people will have died from COVID under Biden than Trump
“It would seem that Mr. Biden has done no better than Donald Trump in defeating covid despite the benefit of vaccines, better therapies and more clinical experience,”
It actually fits in well with the Democratic Depopulation agenda.
So you think Biden should have locked the country back down and forced vaccines on everyone?
So insufficient communization of medical professionals was what gagged the MAGA? Not girl-bullying or shooting free-traders with plant leaves? The DNC should hire Tony as a consultant and the RNC needs Motha’s Regret on its platform committee. The LP could be fielding the subsidized “major candidates” the Nixon law taxes people to promote.
Grandma and old people are entitled to run around with Gov-GUNS STEALING a living!
Huh… I wonder how many other [WE] mobs they can *entitle* with Gov-GUNS??? Skin-Color, Sex-identity, Income Level, Health Status, Leftard Lobbying groups, etc, etc, etc…..
Why? Because that’s the foundation of leftard “democracy”… Whoever can collect the biggest [WE] gang wins the pool of legal GUNS to demand/take whatever they want.
That is the Democratic Party.. It’s what they stand for. Its what they preach over and over and over again. [WE] mob RULES! Gang-Land politics…
Remember when the USA was about Individual Liberty and Justice for all?
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GOP Policy:
Strong Military
Regulated borders and immigration
Fiscal responsibility
1st amendment rights
2nd amendment rights
Protecting critical industries like health, military and tech
Right to life (whether you agree with it or not)
Energy production
Deregulation
Lowering taxes for everyone
encouraging small business
Making NATO members pay their share
Building and repairing infrastructure, not political ploys as infrastructure.
Stopping divisive teaching in schools like CRT and Trans, getting back to basic education.
I could go on. And their polices are popular. What is wrong with populism? We have a representative form of government and populism is representing what the citizens want.
The only thing the Democrats have is Trump hate, which Reason tries to stir up every chance they get.
Fiscal responsibility?
You mean like adding 2 TRILLION dollars of debt in a booming economy? A full 10% of the deficit?
That kind of fiscal responsibility?
Fuck off and stop parroting obvious bullshit lies as a platform.
Way less than Biden.
Infrastructure? We had how many “infrastructure weeks” in Trump’s admin.
Who got it done? Biden, that’s who.
Fuck off with your lies.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders agreed on Tuesday to spend $2 trillion on U.S. roads, bridges, power grids, water and broadband infrastructure, while leaving the thorny details of how to pay for it all to another meeting in three weeks.
“We just had a very productive meeting with the president of the United States,” Pelosi told reporters at the White House after it concluded. “We did come to one agreement: That the agreement would be big and bold.”
Trump wants to speed up permit approvals to boost construction projects as part of any infrastructure plan, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said earlier on Tuesday. She warned Democrats not to try to include their ideas on combating climate change in any legislation.-Ruetuers
Of course Democrats in Congress never passed the bill, instead they focused on the fake impeachment for Russian collusion and climate change, just like their own bill. You have to understand, a President with a hostile Congress can get little done. So Fuck you too!
Strong military – high military spending isn’t synonymous with a strong military. Wasting money on systems that are not worth the cost or that aren’t as effective as perceived would be wasting money, period. Ike warned us, and we didn’t listen. So, Republicans, at least as much as Democrats, allowed defense contractors to spread out production to so many different states that wasteful programs are really hard to kill, bases are hard to close when not needed, etc.
Regulated borders and immigration – Millions of ‘illegal immigrants’ are employed in construction and agriculture alone, but where are the Republicans pushing for E-verify to be used in those industries? While Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott cruised to re-election sending migrants to blue states, they’ve done nothing to require employers in their states to hire only legal migrants.
Fiscal responsibility – This is laughable, given the last two Republican Presidents and their tax cuts not balanced by spending reductions. They talk a lot about fiscal responsibility when they are the opposition, but they don’t practice what they preach when they do get power.
1st Amendment rights – Republicans are “freedom for me but not for thee” on this. Ask Disney how great Republicans are about free speech. Ask businesses in Florida how great Republicans are about free speech if they actually believe in training their workers to be mindful of racial biases and prejudices. And religious freedom to them too often means being able to impose their religion on everyone else.
2nd Amendment rights – Well, at least this is a real position not based entirely on hypocrisy. But it wasn’t until the last few decades that an individual right that could get courts to nullify long-standing forms of gun control was read into the 2nd Amendment. I’m sure the near doubling of rate of firearm manufacturing over the last 10+ years had nothing to do with Heller or vice versa and is only about people waking up to their 2nd Amendment rights, yes?
Protecting critical industries like health, military and tech
What does that even mean? What in those industries needs “protection” and from what?
Right to life (whether you agree with it or not) – A fairly meaningless catchphrase given that it only seems to be the lives of fetuses and embryos and zygotes that need action here. The right to life certainly isn’t more important than alleged 2nd Amendment rights.
I could go on.
So could I. But really, how much of your list was prominent in Republican campaign ads and speeches? How much of it was in legislation elected Republicans championed and tried to get positive press for? Just how much time and effort have Republicans spent trying to lay out these policies in any kind of detail for voters to evaluate compared to rhetoric about stolen elections, CRT, “grooming”, and other garbage?
Morons. Trump HAD an agenda. The only people who claimed it was a cult of personality are the people who joined the ANTI-cult of personality, who personally hated Trump regardless of any of his policies. So they ignored his agenda entirely.
But he had won on having an agenda, and then governed trying to implement it. With not a bit of help from the Republican Congress.
God you people are fucking pathetic.
You can’t even tell us what the agenda was.
Eric Boehm,
The republicans do have an agenda and they do have ideas, however the corporate media’s narrative is that they don’t so all the media stooges repeat the narrative.
Just as the corporate media continue to keep Trump relevant, the corporate media continues to spin their narrative while suppressing and denigrating truth.
An honest journalist would stop talking about Trump and let him fade into history and not propagate obvious lies that Republicans don’t have any ideas or agenda.
I would have expected Reason to be more honest source that a simple shill for the corporate media and their false narratives.
Tell us, oh wise one, what ideas those are besides “triggering” libs?
They don’t run on ideas because they are either 1) unpopular or 2) they don’t have any.
Pick one.
The 2020 platform was “whatever trump wants.”
Who would guess that not having a policy except “upset libs” is not a winner? It should’ve been a cakewalk for them but they blew it.
I’m sure they’ll do even better as the overwhelming amount of millenial and gen-z voters come of age. Perhaps ignoring climate change, focusing on bullshit like LBGT, shoveling all wealth towards your rich friends in lieu of people having well paying jobs, keeping houses unaffordable, etc. will not be the saving grace they think it is.
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Trump was actually kind of entertaining at first. Then he got slobbered on by the Mob of Bigoted Televangelists, put Hitler Madschen on the Court and endorsed girl-bullying prohibitionist fanatics. Naturally women voters shattered his fat ass like a clay pidgeon. But I hear girl-bullying football players with guns are popular alluva sudden. So… maybe the GA runoffs with no popular libertarian to compete with can gag a MAGA?
Once again… Trump was Pro-Choice.
“Trump got elected largely because Hilary Clinton was a historically terrible candidate who people were excited to vote against. But Republicans seem to have spent the past six years misreading all those anti-Clinton votes as pro-Trump votes.”
This argument is weak since Trump lost the popular vote.