HARD RIGHT TURN: How The GOP Destroyed Its Moderates

[LadyGunSlinger]

Can you explain why universal healthcare is also offered by every conservative government in the developed world?

My guess is that you can't.

Can you explain why the conservative parties of a dozen developed countries all assure their voters that climate change is real?

My guess is that you can't.

Universal healthcare is NOT a far left policy, and neither is climate change policy.

List all of these so called Conservative Governments who assure their populace of climate change, with the data and statements to back up what you're saying.. Also, list all of the CONSERVATIVE governments which offer or enacted government mandated health care .. Thanks!

ALGORE is not a far left policy kook??? ROFL!!

You're amusing.

I suggest you start with the UK conservative party, then go on and check out Germany, France, New Zealand and the various Scandinavian parties.

Here is the UK one to get you started:

The Government believes that climate change is one of the gravest threats we face, and that urgent action at home and abroad is required. We need to use a wide range of levers to cut carbon emissions, decarbonise the economy and support the creation of new green jobs and technologies. We will implement a full programme of measures to fulfil our joint ambitions for a low carbon and eco-friendly economy.

The Conservative Party | Policy | Where we stand | Climate Change and Energy


The same countries all also provide universal healthcare - UK, France, Germany, New Zealand and all of Scandinavia, Australia, Switzerland, Austria etc etc.

I don't need to start with anything. I'm not the one who made the ridiculous claim nor is it my responsbility to find and prove your asinine theory. That's not how debate works liberal. The Conservative Party hasn't been in power since John Major. David Cameron is as liberal as they come. Regardless, I'm waiting for the links to Conservative leaders WORLDWIDE as you exaggerated pushing GLOBAL Hoax Warming as well as Government mandated healthcare? Surely being there are soo many WORLDWIDE, you'll have no trouble in naming them with links and information backing up your PROPAGANDA.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

THE MODERATES, either in exile or in a state of permanent denial, believe that their day will eventually come. Ultimately, they are probably right about this. The GOP cannot keep moving rightward indefinitely. As the economist Herbert Stein put it, any trend that can’t go on forever, won’t. Stein himself was a paradigmatic Republican moderate, one of the sole figures in his party of any standing openly to oppose the GOP’s embrace of supply-side economics and other forms of magical thinking. He died in 1999 an almost totally marginal figure within the party, so his famous maxim may offer limited comfort.

It is indeed difficult to imagine a time soon when rational thought and an understanding of responsible governance returns to the GOP.

And eventually is a very long time. By the time the rightward migration of the party has finally halted, the definition of Republican “moderate” will likely have corroded beyond all recognition. Already the extremism of the party has advanced to such a point that its most fervent elements are identified less by their ideology—which is nearly impossible to distinguish any more from that of the mainstream—than by the degree to which their detachment from reality departs from paranoia as a mere figure of speech and approaches actual, clinical paranoia. “Radical” Republicans believe that Obama has created death panels, may have been secretly born overseas, and is plotting a United Nations invasion. The “mainstream” Republicans believe in goldbuggery and a massive plot by climate scientists, and deny the dramatic rise in income inequality in America.

One would think Romney’s loss this November would act as a wake-up call to the right, that the American people reject their radical agenda; but that won’t be the case, if anything Romney’s loss will only further radicalize the right as they stick their heads deeper into the sand of denial and conspiracy theories.

 

[Dot Com]

This is prolly why only @ 28% +/- ID themselves as being Repubs It aint your father's Repub party, it's been hijacked by the Fundies & Randians
Party Affiliation

 

[LadyGunSlinger]

Yes, we should take input from a Party that has run up annual trillion deficits, taken God out of their party, got us downgraded and can't wait to take orders from Putin.

Thaaaaaaaaank you

The Republicans have taken God out of their party? Maybe they looked into Putin's eyes and saw his soul.

^^^^^^^This is an example of the kindergarten mindset of a LEFTIST. When you have ZERO facts to stand on, you turn the truth on your opponent and charge them with the very thing you're guilty of. The problem is, with each and every day you KOOK far leftists look even more foolish and are being seen exactly for who and what you are. LIARS and PROPAGANDISTS. You hijacked the Democrat Party when your messiah who is as left as you zombies are, came in to office thinking FOOLISHLY that you had any kind of a mandate. Instead , you've had your liberal azzes handed to in a mid-term election and are about to lose control of both houses and the Presidency.. FOR GOOD REASON, Less than 10% of this nation is a FAR LEFT KOOK.

 

[LadyGunSlinger]

This is prolly why only @ 28% +/- ID themselves as being Repubs It aint youe father's Repub party, it's been hijacked by the Fundies & Randians
Party Affiliation

LIAR..as usual, LIBERAL liars who can't EVER stand on the truth..

Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S.

Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S.
Overall, the nation has grown more polarized over the past decade
by Lydia Saad
PRINCETON, NJ -- Political ideology in the U.S. held steady in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This marks the third straight year that conservatives have outnumbered moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservatives.


SHOW THE ENTIRE POLL NEXT TIME LIB. Conservatives are republicans on Election Day.

FROM GALLUP

 

[dblack]

I hear libertarians labelled as far left (usually by social conservatives), as far right (usually by progressives), and as moderates

Agreed on that I'm always called a Republican/Conservative by the left and a liberal by the social right. The fiscal right do recognize I'm a libertarian. Though I am not called nor do I see other libertarian's called moderate, and I hope I never do. Moderate simply means without conviction. I am clearly socially liberal, I am clearly fiscally conservative, I clearly want our military used only for direct defense of the US. I'm consistently anti-government, I'm moderate on nothing.

I don't think the leadership of either major party is 'hard' anything. They agree on most of the essentials and are dominated by a corporatist/authoritarian philosophy of government.

I agree with this on the Republican side, and that's no compliment. They support nothing but winning elections. But wow, seriously, you don't see Pelosi/Reid/Obama as extreme? What would it take?

They're certainly not "hard left". They're not socialists. I might agree that they're extreme statists, but I'd say the same of the neo-cons.

 

[Dot Com]

This is prolly why only @ 28% +/- ID themselves as being Repubs It aint youe father's Repub party, it's been hijacked by the Fundies & Randians
Party Affiliation

LIAR..as usual, LIBERAL liars who can't EVER stand on the truth..

Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S.

Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S.
Overall, the nation has grown more polarized over the past decade
by Lydia Saad
PRINCETON, NJ -- Political ideology in the U.S. held steady in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This marks the third straight year that conservatives have outnumbered moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservatives.


SHOW THE ENTIRE POLL NEXT TIME LIB. Conservatives are republicans on Election Day.

FROM GALLUP

no shit but they don't ID as Repubs. Just because someone says they're conservative does NOT automatically mean they join the Repub party. Why does it NOT surprise me that my post went over your head?

 

[Oddball]

I hear libertarians labelled as far left (usually by social conservatives), as far right (usually by progressives), and as moderates

Agreed on that I'm always called a Republican/Conservative by the left and a liberal by the social right. The fiscal right do recognize I'm a libertarian. Though I am not called nor do I see other libertarian's called moderate, and I hope I never do. Moderate simply means without conviction. I am clearly socially liberal, I am clearly fiscally conservative, I clearly want our military used only for direct defense of the US. I'm consistently anti-government, I'm moderate on nothing.

I don't think the leadership of either major party is 'hard' anything. They agree on most of the essentials and are dominated by a corporatist/authoritarian philosophy of government.

I agree with this on the Republican side, and that's no compliment. They support nothing but winning elections. But wow, seriously, you don't see Pelosi/Reid/Obama as extreme? What would it take?

They're certainly not "hard left". They're not socialists. I might agree that they're extreme statists, but I'd say the same of the neo-cons.

The neocons are hard left.

They agree with, or at the very least tolerate, leftist welfare/warfare/nanny state programs and attitudes, they merely claim to be better managers of the authoritarian central control.

Less great...Tastes filling....Same old despotic brew.

 

[LadyGunSlinger]

This is prolly why only @ 28% +/- ID themselves as being Repubs It aint youe father's Repub party, it's been hijacked by the Fundies & Randians
Party Affiliation

LIAR..as usual, LIBERAL liars who can't EVER stand on the truth..

Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S.

Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S.
Overall, the nation has grown more polarized over the past decade
by Lydia Saad
PRINCETON, NJ -- Political ideology in the U.S. held steady in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This marks the third straight year that conservatives have outnumbered moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservDon'tatives.


SHOW THE ENTIRE POLL NEXT TIME LIB. Conservatives are republicans on Election Day.

FROM GALLUP

no shit but they don't ID as Repubs. Just because someone says they're conservative does NOT automatically mean they join the Repub party. Why does it NOT surprise me that my post went over your head?

The only person impressed with your STUPIDITY is you. Nothing you say goes over anyone's head. The country breaks down in Gallup in to :

Conservative, Indpendent or Moderate, Liberal

That's it.. Party affiliation is just that which MEANS zero in the sum total of how this country leans and perceives thing. Only disingenuous people like yourself push a marginal line to create the facade that somehow less than 30% of the country is conservative which is a LIE.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I totally agree.

Some of ours posters here rally are so extremist in their attitudes than many Conservatives look like Marxists to them. That is fine - but I do think we should all recognise where our bias lies and be able to be honest and objective about where we sit on the political spectrum.

Far leftist fish don't know they're wet.

Hate to break the news to you but Obama is a moderate. I should know, I'm a Progressive

doesnt matter......he is a piss poor leader....

 

[Harry Dresden]

Let's add.....In actions, not words.

I want to hear this one.

I'm surprised you can't answer it yourself.

1) By becoming addicted to tax cuts as the basis for all economic policy - a far cry from conservative governments of earlier eras.

2) By constantly wanting to over-fund the military - something not a given even going back to the 1950's.

3) By basically ignoring all scientific evidence of climate change - in the past conservatives have often triumphed scientific thinking.

4) By opposing and diminishing development aid, whereas earlier conservatives often felt development aid was a Christian act.

5) By opposing immigration and immigrants - whereas earlier conservatives often felt the economy benefitted from incoming cheap labour.

Shall I go on?

5) By opposing immigration and immigrants
try ILLEGAL Immigration......

 

[Bfgrn]

As someone who has been around since Harry Truman was in the White House, I can say unequivocally that you don't have a clue what you are talking about.

The biggest critics of the Republican party's shift to the right are Goldwater Republicans who first shifted it to the right. Now, even they say it has gone too far

It's hilarious how a liberal who mentions Harry Truman, who would be aghast at how far leftward into socialism the Democratic party has gone could talk about the Republican's moving to "the right" without that occurring to them. I mean wow. In fact, the Republicans have been moving to the left, just not as fast as the Democrats. In fact that is the only way they are moving "right." The gap between the parties is growing.

But OK, for a moment I'll play your little game with you. Name one thing Republicans have moved to the right on.

Harry Truman? You mean THIS Harry S. Truman???

"Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage--the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They approve of social security benefits-so much so that they took them away from almost a million people. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford them. They believe in international trade--so much so that they crippled our reciprocal trade program, and killed our International Wheat Agreement. They favor the admission of displaced persons--but only within shameful racial and religious limitations.They consider electrical power a great blessing--but only when the private power companies get their rake-off. They say TVA is wonderful--but we ought never to try it again. They condemn "cruelly high prices"--but fight to the death every effort to bring them down. They think American standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it."
President Harry S. Truman

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You really don't know what you're talking about. Look up Rockefeller Republicans. Or NY Senator Jacob Javits, who LBJ and J Edgar Hoover said was too liberal to serve on the Warren Commission (Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren was a liberal Republican)

Rocky's Ghost

A specter is haunting the GOP--the specter of Nelson Rockefeller.

It's a curious paradox. The Republican party is more captive to its wingnuts than at any time since 1964. Yet three of the party's four most important figures right now--Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Mitch McConnell--began life as Rockefeller Republicans. (The fourth, House Speaker John Boehner, was always a wingnut.)

Nelson Rockefeller, you will recall, was vice-president under Gerald Ford and governor of New York from 1959 to 1973. But his significance in national politics was that he led the liberal wing of the Republican party throughout the 1960s. Sometime during the 1970s liberal Republicans became mostly extinct and the few Republicans who weren't conservative got rechristened "moderate" Republicans, a species that today is mostly extinct, too.

Romney is the son of George Romney, a liberal, Rockefeller-style Republican and Michigan governor who in 1968 posed a serious threat to Richard Nixon's quest for the Republican presidential nomination until Romney famously said that the reason he'd initially supported the war in Vietnam (by then he opposed it) was that he'd allowed American generals to "brainwash" him.

Gingrich began his political career as a Rockefeller Republican, and even as he moved rightward he maintained enough moderate positions to draw suspicion from his fellow conservatives. McConnell also started out a moderate Republican in the Rockefeller mold, though in his case no ideological trace of that period in his life remains. There are no Rockefeller Republicans in captivity today, except maybe Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Maine's two Republican senators. (Even Rockefeller wasn't really a Rockefeller Republican by the time he got to the White House, because the political spectrum had already shifted rightward.)

more

 

[Oddball]

Yeah...The same Harry Truman who sent over 36,000 American boys to their deaths in the idiotic Korean conflict.

The same Truman who fanned the flames of the Red Scare to feed the military-industrial complex beast.

Loser.

 

[kaz]

I agree with this on the Republican side, and that's no compliment. They support nothing but winning elections. But wow, seriously, you don't see Pelosi/Reid/Obama as extreme? What would it take?

They're certainly not "hard left". They're not socialists. I might agree that they're extreme statists, but I'd say the same of the neo-cons.

Obama's beyond socialist, he's a Marxist. With Reid and Pelosi you're going to have to give me some examples because I've seen them advocate nothing but socialism. What have either supported that is not socialist?

 

[kaz]

Harry Truman? You mean THIS Harry S. Truman???

"Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage--the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They approve of social security benefits-so much so that they took them away from almost a million people. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford them. They believe in international trade--so much so that they crippled our reciprocal trade program, and killed our International Wheat Agreement. They favor the admission of displaced persons--but only within shameful racial and religious limitations.They consider electrical power a great blessing--but only when the private power companies get their rake-off. They say TVA is wonderful--but we ought never to try it again. They condemn "cruelly high prices"--but fight to the death every effort to bring them down. They think American standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it."
President Harry S. Truman

You quoted a speech, you didn't quote actual policies. Yeah, the left always eat up that crap and he said it like any of them. But he wasn't like today's left.

 

[kaz]

It's a curious paradox. The Republican party is more captive to its wingnuts than at any time since 1964

Yet I'm not seeing you quote policies that show that. You only repeat the claim.

The left on the other hand are implementing national health care and they have massively nationalized the financial services, energy and automotive industries. They just blankly attack capitalism and they are engaged in completely unchecked class warfare. Two liberals have won the Nobel Peace Prize for hating America. The left is supporting the overthrow of governments by radical Muslim extremists. The left is moving to the left faster then the right, which you call the right moving right. You're sitting in your car on the highway and you think the bicyclists going your way are moving quickly away from ... you ... as you drive past them ...

 

[kaz]

My mind kept ranting after I'd hit click. Democrats flew to Iraq and stated they stand with freaking Saddam Hussein, state the US is the greatest threat in the World, call tax cuts government "spending." Even FDR opposed government unions, yet today the left just say if you're anti-government union, you're anti-union. The left say if you're against illegal immigration you're anti-immigrant, if you oppose government funded contraception you hate women, if you don't think the bar should be lowered for blacks you're a racist, if you think gays should be left alone and not giving perks of other people's money to be in relationship you're a homophobe. The left would rather force people to be unemployed then let them work for what they are worth, advertise to get people to apply for food stamps and have removed all stigma attached to living on someone else's dime for not working.

As for the military, the left were arm and arm with Bush on Iraq and Afghanistan then after running on an anti-Bush in Iraq campaign decided that his timeline and policies were the right way to go as well as expanding Afghanistan and attacking Libya.

But it's the right who have issues with extremism...

 

[Toro]

I would agree that the Republican Party has made it more difficult for moderates. Moderates are often targeted by right wing special interest groups in the primaries. There is even a name for moderates - RINO. I don't recall such derision for moderates in the Democrat Party.

I think this is a problem for the Republican Party. The more they cede the center, the more likely they are to end up as a rump, opposition party, like they are in California.

 

[Oddball]

My mind kept ranting after I'd hit click. Democrats flew to Iraq and stated they stand with freaking Saddam Hussein, state the US is the greatest threat in the World, call tax cuts government "spending." Even FDR opposed government unions, yet today the left just say if you're anti-government union, you're anti-union. The left say if you're against illegal immigration you're anti-immigrant, if you oppose government funded contraception you hate women, if you don't think the bar should be lowered for blacks you're a racist, if you think gays should be left alone and not giving perks of other people's money to be in relationship you're a homophobe. The left would rather force people to be unemployed then let them work for what they are worth, advertise to get people to apply for food stamps and have removed all stigma attached to living on someone else's dime for not working.

As for the military, the left were arm and arm with Bush on Iraq and Afghanistan then after running on an anti-Bush in Iraq campaign decided that his timeline and policies were the right way to go as well as expanding Afghanistan and attacking Libya.

But it's the right who have issues with extremism...

Never mind the fact the Bubba Clintoon kept in place the unilaterally imposed sanctions and "no fly zones" on Iraq, which were the policy of Poppy Bush....Subsequently using them to lob cruise missiles at Baghdad when he needed to get his zipper off the front pages of the newspapers.

The interventions in Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, ad nauseum, all without so much as a peep from the democrat hierarchy.

But international warmongering is strictly a "far right" thing.

 

[Oddball]

I would agree that the Republican Party has made it more difficult for moderates. Moderates are often targeted by right wing special interest groups in the primaries. There is even a name for moderates - RINO. I don't recall such derision for moderates in the Democrat Party.

I think this is a problem for the Republican Party. The more they cede the center, the more likely they are to end up as a rump, opposition party, like they are in California.

The only thing that RINOs cede are their (claimed) principles, when they campaign like libertarians then govern like the leftist progressives they claim to oppose....Only to then turn around and make the chickenshit cop-out claim that "we went to change Washington and Washington changed us".

Besides that, there are far more potential voters amongst the ranks of those who either have never voted or dropped out altogether, than there are amongst the squishy, unprincipled, knock-them-over-with-a-feather "moderates".