CDZ The Reformation of the Republican Party

[Elvis Obama]

Paul Ryan, The Prezes Bush, and a host of other GOP bigs are preferring to stand on the sidelines, rather than participate in a Republican party which has morphed out of recognizability. What will this mean? John McCain is doing a desperate dance, trying to keep Trump at a distance while hedging his bets. What about the other down-ballot races? Will they all run from Trump, if their constituencies aren't fully behind him? What will Trump be able to do, should he get elected, if Ryan and everyone else in the power establishment resists the Trump re-branding of the Republican party? What can they do? They have the party titles, Trump has the voters.

Trump's made his position clear, come to me or get lost. A typically nuanced stance. He wins, of course. A party without constituents isn't worth much. So what's left for the Republican establishment? Can a Paul Ryan merely wait out the four or eight years of a Trump presidency (or best case scenario, a Trump loss) and attempt to reconstitute conservatism after that? To bring back the GOP from the grave? Or will Trump literally re-brand the the GOP as the Trump Party, and run Ivanka after his eight years are up?

 

[MisterBeale]

 

[Elvis Obama]

The most important political event that has occurred the lifetime of any living American, possibly the most significant development in the last 150 years of American political life, and no one wants to discuss it. No one has any thoughts about the reformation of the Republican party taking place before their eyes.

Pathetic. This place never fails to disappoint.

 

[320 Years of History]

Trump's made his position clear, come to me or get lost. A typically nuanced stance.

ROTFL !!!

 

[Picaro]

The most important political event that has occurred the lifetime of any living American, possibly the most significant development in the last 150 years of American political life, and no one wants to discuss it. No one has any thoughts about the reformation of the Republican party taking place before their eyes.

I don't think it's all that significant; check out the various wings of the GOP from the 1920's on, and you'll find many factions and splits. Trump's policies aren't radically different from many mainstream Republican factions from the 1960's and 1970's, when bi-partisanship was the SOP and co-sponsoring legislation was the norm.

The Reaganites were the freak show performers who broke all that up, followed by polarization and then outright astro-turfing cranks like the Tea Party and Lyin Ted could take advantage of the deadlocks to soapbox. The 'Libertarian' wings of both ends of the spectrum are useless, they're even bigger cranks, so now there is no where left to go for 'change' but back towards the center, and that is predictable. Even a candidacy like Trump is somewhat predictable; the Democrats had their versions of him, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, being on stage with the other candidates, and they're openly racist and corrupt hacks. the problem the GOP establishment has is the same one the media has: nobody believes a word they say and they have zero credibility any more. Paul Ryan even let a bill pass handing out10's of thousands of green cards recently, not something a 'leader' who is interested in representing the rank and file would do at this point in time; it's just his arrogance and sneering in the face of Americans. This is why in Ryan's case Trump doesn't need his endorsement or any other establishment hacks' support. Their 'support' would work against him, in fact.

The destruction of the Democratic Party by the air head neo-fascist brownshirts in 1968 was far more significant politically; the defeat of Hubert Humphrey shut down real liberalism in favor of the elitist brie and chardonnay 'neo-liberal' wing of the Party, which had far more in common with the wealthy than with most Americans, whom they detest. PC Nazism is a substitute for having no actual policies at all, other than serving their own elitist pseudo-intellectual fads and egos.

Trump's policies aren't all that 'unrecognizable' to anybody who was around and reading from 1960 onward.

Pathetic. This place never fails to disappoint.

Not may sites left that aren't overrun with astro-turfers and shills.

 

[Elvis Obama]

The most important political event that has occurred the lifetime of any living American, possibly the most significant development in the last 150 years of American political life, and no one wants to discuss it. No one has any thoughts about the reformation of the Republican party taking place before their eyes.

I don't think it's all that significant; check out the various wings of the GOP from the 1920's on, and you'll find many factions and splits. Trump's policies aren't radically different from many mainstream Republican factions from the 1960's and 1970's, when bi-partisanship was the SOP and co-sponsoring legislation was the norm.

The Reaganites were the freak show performers who broke all that up, followed by polarization and then outright astro-turfing cranks like the Tea Party and Lyin Ted could take advantage of the deadlocks to soapbox. The 'Libertarian' wings of both ends of the spectrum are useless, they're even bigger cranks, so now there is no where left to go for 'change' but back towards the center, and that is predictable. Even a candidacy like Trump is somewhat predictable; the Democrats had their versions of him, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, being on stage with the other candidates, and they're openly racist and corrupt hacks. the problem the GOP establishment has is the same one the media has: nobody believes a word they say and they have zero credibility any more. Paul Ryan even let a bill pass handing out10's of thousands of green cards recently, not something a 'leader' who is interested in representing the rank and file would do at this point in time; it's just his arrogance and sneering in the face of Americans. This is why in Ryan's case Trump doesn't need his endorsement or any other establishment hacks' support. Their 'support' would work against him, in fact.

The destruction of the Democratic Party by the air head neo-fascist brownshirts in 1968 was far more significant politically; the defeat of Hubert Humphrey shut down real liberalism in favor of the elitist brie and chardonnay 'neo-liberal' wing of the Party, which had far more in common with the wealthy than with most Americans, whom they detest. PC Nazism is a substitute for having no actual policies at all, other than serving their own elitist pseudo-intellectual fads and egos.

Trump's policies aren't all that 'unrecognizable' to anybody who was around and reading from 1960 onward.

Pathetic. This place never fails to disappoint.

Not may sites left that aren't overrun with astro-turfers and shills.

You are suggesting that there have been mainstream politicians who have advocated for banning 1.5 billion people from entering the US? You see, the problem is, that's unconstitutional. So, if you're a Republican politician, do you stand with the constitution, or with Trump, cause one has all the moral authority, all the intellectual value, and the other has all the voters.

The notion of expelling 11 million people from the US is impossible. It's irrelevant whether the principles involved are important or not. They are. It's simply impossible. The wall is a likewise a joke, and the rhetoric involved is hateful and divisive. Latinos are the single most important demographic for the Republican party to reach out to, according to their 2012 "autopsy". What should any Republican politician do, when confronted by the choice of embracing Trump, and likely defeat, or plan for a future past Trump (which may not be very far in the future)? Trump is toxic.

Conservatives have spent a fair amount of time and effort to build up the "conservative" brand. Trump is destroying that brand. How can conservatives retain any credibility and embrace Trump? How can they pull off what Sarah Palin has spent the weekend doing, trying to claim that Trump is the new face of conservatism, and that people like Paul Ryan have gotten it wrong all along? They've stolen the electorate, not because they've offered something better than the Republican establishment has offered. They've offered nothing but a bunch of empty, boasting, vulgar rhetoric. They stole the electorate because the Republicans had already lost them. People didn't say they felt betrayed by the Republicans because of Trump. They turned to Trump because they felt they had been betrayed by the powers that be. Which, of course, they had. There's no way that conservative punditry can go along with Trump as the new face of their philosophy. No way.

If Trump cannot reconcile his party, if he cannot unify it, what hope does he have of getting elected, or, if he could get elected (Hillary can always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory) how could he hope to achieve anything? There's a limit to how much you can steal. Some of it you've got to achieve through consensus and compromise. Confidence in Trump's ability to achieve that consensus or willingness to compromise is not high.

 

[GaryDog]

I don't think Trump's positions are decipherable, so if the GOP is dead, or "reforming", then I'm left asking......into what?

 

[TNHarley]

Thank goodness. Hopefully the corporate lefts party is next

 

[Elvis Obama]

I don't think Trump's positions are decipherable, so if the GOP is dead, or "reforming", then I'm left asking......into what?

The organizing principles seem to be:

1- The Xenophobia Party. We should be isolationist except in circumstances where we are afeered. Then we can wall up the Mexicans or obliterate ISIS. Prevent 1.5 billion people from coming to the US? Cool-o!

2- The Anti-PC party. Crudity Trumps diplomacy. The image we wish to present to the rest of the
world is an upraised middle finger.

Otherwise? Not much. No conservative principles that I can detect. Nothing for traditional Republican coalitions to glom onto. Nothing for Evangelicals, or Neo-Cons, or Libertarians. It's a new coalition. Hence the elephant in the box, dead.

 

[Picaro]

You are suggesting that there have been mainstream politicians who have advocated for banning 1.5 billion people from entering the US? You see, the problem is, that's unconstitutional. So, if you're a Republican politician, do you stand with the constitution, or with Trump, cause one has all the moral authority, all the intellectual value, and the other has all the voters.

Ah, I see you weren't really looking for a serious discussion, just another troll post wherein you assume some ersatz moral authority in order to hurl ad homs and yell 'rayssiss!!" or some other stuff at anybody who disagrees with your imaginary 'moral authority' ...

I didn't 'suggest' anything about banning or how to deal with criminal illegal immigration or the common sense of restricting the access to our country by a violent political cult, but do tell us which Amendment prohibits us from restricting such people and controlling our own borders. Of course, throwing out big giant numbers makes it look all 'outrageous n stuff', to the credulous anyway, but we wouldn't be restricting '1.5 billion people', we would just be restricting a few of those who want to come here, and just allow those who can actually be vetted to enter. Nothing at all outrageous or 'unconstitutional' about that.

The notion of expelling 11 million people from the US is impossible. It's irrelevant whether the principles involved are important or not. They are. It's simply impossible. The wall is a likewise a joke, and the rhetoric involved is hateful and divisive. Latinos are the single most important demographic for the Republican party to reach out to, according to their 2012 "autopsy". What should any Republican politician do, when confronted by the choice of embracing Trump, and likely defeat, or plan for a future past Trump (which may not be very far in the future)? Trump is toxic.

More nonsense. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the other labor racketeering cliques love to hear all that, for obvious reasons, but it's an easy problem to fix, by just enforcing laws already on the books and start arresting the employers and sending them to prison, prosecuting them under RICO statues, etc., and the majority of the problem goes away all by itself.

Nothing 'hateful or divisive' about a wall, either; Europe is currently building one, so obviously they think they work; theirs will almost as long as ours will be. Apparently you have the idea that 'Latinos' are all for criminal illegal immigration, they aren't and in fact American latinos have traditionally been the most opposed to it; nobody cares whether or not criminal illegal aliens and their employers are upset about the wall, except for Democrats who have some desire to recreate huge blocks of slum voters a la the 'Wonder Years' of Tammany Hall and the Democratic Machines of yore in Chicago, St. Louis, etc., etc. The latino vote isn't the Big Deal the DNC has been peddling as anyway; they are only demographically significant in a handful of states, five actually, and in two of the largest, Texas and Florida, Republicans dominate, while California is self-destructing under the weight of pandering to criminal illegal aliens, bankrupting itself. Even in those states, their turnouts are very low even among registered latino voters. But you can keep eating that Prozac and indulging in your hateful bigoted 'Kill Whitey!!!" fantasies the Democratic Party base has come to rely on and dream about if you want.

 

[Elvis Obama]

You are suggesting that there have been mainstream politicians who have advocated for banning 1.5 billion people from entering the US? You see, the problem is, that's unconstitutional. So, if you're a Republican politician, do you stand with the constitution, or with Trump, cause one has all the moral authority, all the intellectual value, and the other has all the voters.

Ah, I see you weren't really looking for a serious discussion, just another troll post wherein you assume some ersatz moral authority in order to hurl ad homs and yell 'rayssiss!!" or some other stuff at anybody who disagrees with your imaginary 'moral authority' ...

I didn't 'suggest' anything about banning or how to deal with criminal illegal immigration or the common sense of restricting the access to our country by a violent political cult, but do tell us which Amendment prohibits us from restricting such people and controlling our own borders. Of course, throwing out big giant numbers makes it look all 'outrageous n stuff', to the credulous anyway, but we wouldn't be restricting '1.5 billion people', we would just be restricting a few of those who want to come here, and just allow those who can actually be vetted to enter. Nothing at all outrageous or 'unconstitutional' about that.

The notion of expelling 11 million people from the US is impossible. It's irrelevant whether the principles involved are important or not. They are. It's simply impossible. The wall is a likewise a joke, and the rhetoric involved is hateful and divisive. Latinos are the single most important demographic for the Republican party to reach out to, according to their 2012 "autopsy". What should any Republican politician do, when confronted by the choice of embracing Trump, and likely defeat, or plan for a future past Trump (which may not be very far in the future)? Trump is toxic.

More nonsense. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the other labor racketeering cliques love to hear all that, for obvious reasons, but it's an easy problem to fix, by just enforcing laws already on the books and start arresting the employers and sending them to prison, prosecuting them under RICO statues, etc., and the majority of the problem goes away all by itself.

Nothing 'hateful or divisive' about a wall, either; Europe is currently building one, so obviously they think they work; theirs will almost as long as ours will be. Apparently you have the idea that 'Latinos' are all for criminal illegal immigration, they aren't and in fact American latinos have traditionally been the most opposed to it; nobody cares whether or not criminal illegal aliens and their employers are upset about the wall, except for Democrats who have some desire to recreate huge blocks of slum voters a la the 'Wonder Years' of Tammany Hall and the Democratic Machines of yore in Chicago, St. Louis, etc., etc. The latino vote isn't the Big Deal the DNC has been peddling as anyway; they are only demographically significant in a handful of states, five actually, and in two of the largest, Texas and Florida, Republicans dominate, while California is self-destructing under the weight of pandering to criminal illegal aliens, bankrupting itself. Even in those states, their turnouts are very low even among registered latino voters. But you can keep eating that Prozac and indulging in your hateful bigoted 'Kill Whitey!!!" fantasies the Democratic Party base has come to rely on and dream about if you want.

LOL You forgot sock puppet. You make some good points, but then spoil them with your poor reading comprehension skills. You completely misunderstood everything I wrote.

Ah, I see you weren't really looking for a serious discussion, just another troll post wherein you assume some ersatz moral authority in order to hurl ad homs and yell 'rayssiss!!" or some other stuff at anybody who disagrees with your imaginary 'moral authority' ...

The moral authority I referred to is the constitution, and I wasn't claiming it for myself, I was saying that Republican politicians, like Paul Ryan, are faced with the embarrassing conflict of either embracing Mr Trump or the constitution, but not both. What good will it do them to retain all the moral authority and conservative principles if Mr. Trump retains the voters?

I was claiming no moral authority for myself. I'm not even a Republican, let alone a member of the Republican establishment. The subject of this thread is the threat to Republican power and identity posed by Mr. Trump. I'm sure you must be aware of the response to Mr. Trump's proposal about banning Muslims, both within and without the party. Reince Preibus and William Kristol don't care what you think about it, and what I think about it is likewise irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is what the Republican powers that be thought about it. Just how far can they bend over backwards to kiss Trump's ass, and still retain any semblance of credibility? Christie, Perry, Jindal, have all proven that they'd rather embrace Trump than slip into oblivion, but Ryan is another matter. He's in power. He's got something to lose. Perry doesn't, nor Jindal nor Christie. None of them will ever hold elected office again.

I didn't 'suggest' anything about banning or how to deal with criminal illegal immigration or the common sense of restricting the access to our country by a violent political cult,

I never suggested that you did. Again, you are not a Republican establishment figure (AFAIK). You are not part of the equation.

but do tell us which Amendment prohibits us from restricting such people and controlling our own borders. Of course, throwing out big giant numbers makes it look all 'outrageous n stuff', to the credulous anyway, but we wouldn't be restricting '1.5 billion people', we would just be restricting a few of those who want to come here, and just allow those who can actually be vetted to enter. Nothing at all outrageous or 'unconstitutional' about that.

Banning all Muslims is unconstitutional, as well as insane and likely to cause a thousand times more harm than good. Throwing out 11 million illegals is simply logistically and morally impossible. Again, not in my opinion, but in the clearly stated opinions of the Republican establishment, who responded to Mr. Trump's proposals in exactly the manner I described. Get it? Not me, not you, but them. That's the subject of this thread, the threat to the Republican brand and power. Is it real or not? Thomas Friedman is of the opinion that if Trump brings down the Republican's house he will be doing God's work, but Mr. Friedman is not a conservative, is he?

More nonsense. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the other labor racketeering cliques love to hear all that, for obvious reasons, but it's an easy problem to fix, by just enforcing laws already on the books and start arresting the employers and sending them to prison, prosecuting them under RICO statues, etc., and the majority of the problem goes away all by itself.

Yeah? And are you so naive as to believe that this will become US policy? We, of course, have laws on the books against this kind of illegal hiring, but we don't enforce them, not Dems and not Reps. It's a matter of corruption, not ideology. You are correct that we could fix this problem, but we lack the will to face the blowback. Meanwhile, Trump is forcing the hand of the Party apparatchiks

I will ignore the rest as you were indulging in a typical hyper-partisan meltdown, completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. The subject at hand is the reformation of the Republican party. This is a subject that's difficult to avoid, except here, of course. In the lame-stream media they're all a twitter about it. Here, no one is interested. Perhaps it's a tempest in a teapot. Perhaps it will all go as smoothly as the most deranged Trump surrogate tells us it will. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that it will go that way, though.

 

[GaryDog]

Even if we could deport 11 million undocumented workers, why would we? They are VITAL to our economy, which would collapse without them.

Even if we could ban all Muslims from entering the U.S., why WOULD we? All it would do is alienate our best resource in the world for interdicting terrorism abroad (moderate muslims at home) and the terrorists would just adapt by sending "Muslim" terrorists who claim not to be Muslims anyway.

Not one thing Trump has ever said throughout this campaign was even given a minute's prior thought, much less the scrutiny and peer-review of policy decisions that have made our country great.

Trump and his supporters are merely a symptom of our unwillingness to adequately fund and value public education in this country. It's that simple to me.

 

[Picaro]

LOL You forgot sock puppet. You make some good points, but then spoil them with your poor reading comprehension skills. You completely misunderstood everything I wrote.

My reading skills are just fine. It's your bad writing and dissembling that is poor, actually; seguing into specific issues from a general premise and then making up semantic hubris isn't really that impressive, especially when trying to use length and introducing other issues without addressing what was said by people you're supposed to be quoting.

The moral authority I referred to is the constitution, and I wasn't claiming it for myself, I was saying that Republican politicians, like Paul Ryan, are faced with the embarrassing conflict of either embracing Mr Trump or the constitution, but not both. What good will it do them to retain all the moral authority and conservative principles if Mr. Trump retains the voters?

Ah, well, I didn't know you are a Supreme Court justice, and get to determine what is or isn't 'constitutional' all on your own. My bad.

I was claiming no moral authority for myself. I'm not even a Republican, let alone a member of the Republican establishment. The subject of this thread is the threat to Republican power and identity posed by Mr. Trump. I'm sure you must be aware of the response to Mr. Trump's proposal about banning Muslims, both within and without the party. Reince Preibus and William Kristol don't care what you think about it, and what I think about it is likewise irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is what the Republican powers that be thought about it.

Obviously a substantial segment of GOP voters disagree, and don't give a rat's ass about Ryan's or any other Establishment GOP hack thinks, either, which is why Trump is the likely nominee barring some late 'Gotcha Moment'; they certainly can't make any overt attempts at derailing his nomination with rules chicanery at this point, not without cratering their turnout in November. Trump matters far more than Ryan or the others, obviously, and they are already kissing his ass; they have little choice in the matter.

Just how far can they bend over backwards to kiss Trump's ass, and still retain any semblance of credibility? Christie, Perry, Jindal, have all proven that they'd rather embrace Trump than slip into oblivion, but Ryan is another matter. He's in power. He's got something to lose. Perry doesn't, nor Jindal nor Christie. None of them will ever hold elected office again.

They have no semblance of credibility now with most of their base, which is why Trump is winning the primaries in the first place, so the above is just pointless editorializing; the new voters Trump brings in are the 'new' base. Ryan isn't the big power any more, so why care much about his opinions? Same for the MSM and the other propaganda outlets; the more they bashed, the more votes he got.

It's hilarious, and being the delusional sociopaths they are, they still don't know what hit them, so convinced they are of their own importance and superiority. So, they just pronounce all the Trump voters as 'low information', 'racists', ad nauseam, when it's immediately obvious who the 'low information' types are, which is themselves, not Trump voters. They're getting the middle finger salute right along with the 'GOP 'establishment', from people who no longer assign any credibility to their rackets any more, and justifiably so.

I never suggested that you did. Again, you are not a Republican establishment figure (AFAIK). You are not part of the equation.

I'm not a Republican at all, I'm an LBJ/Moynihan Liberal, and since you think 'nobody else matters' why bother starting a thread on it? You just want a soapbox, not a discussion. We already see that.

Banning all Muslims is unconstitutional, as well as insane and likely to cause a thousand times more harm than good.

He said it would be a temporary ban on travel into the U.S. until serious screening and security procedures can be implemented, but do continue to make hysterical misrepresentations of what he said. And, it isn't 'unconstitutional', it's common sense to bar people from states that known terrorist havens from entering the country, despite your hand-wringing proclamations. Islam is a violent political cult, and that feature is the most relevant, not their fake 'religious' coating the put around themselves; whether or not some hippies and credulous goofs think otherwise is irrelevant; we've restricted immigration before, and didn't suffer from it, quite the opposite.

We ban all kinds of undesirables all the time; do you also think we shouldn't ban Nazis, cus like it might 'make them mad n stuff'? Offend some Germans or something? Here's a choice quote of somebody you may have heard of, maybe not:

Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.

Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816

Throwing out 11 million illegals is simply logistically and morally impossible. Again, not in my opinion, but in the clearly stated opinions of the Republican establishment, who responded to Mr. Trump's proposals in exactly the manner I described. Get it? Not me, not you, but them. That's the subject of this thread, the threat to the Republican brand and power. Is it real or not? Thomas Friedman is of the opinion that if Trump brings down the Republican's house he will be doing God's work, but Mr. Friedman is not a conservative, is he?

Actually it would easy to get rid of a substantial number of them, they would self-deport, not to mention it would slow down drastically those that are still coming in. Of course if you're one of those who expect some sort of instant gratification, claiming it would all be a 'failure' if all 20 million plus didn't leave by noon tomorrow, well that's just silly; they didn't all come in overnight, and it will take a few years. So what? It's like claiming we should just legalize rape and murder, cuz obviously the laws we have haven't stopped that 100%, i.e. false 'logic'. And again, Trump, or more accurately his voter base, has the main power now, not Ryan or the 'Establishment', get it? I already addressed how it can be done, but you chose to not address that, just deslare it all 'insane n stuff'. Once again ...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the other labor racketeering cliques love to hear all that, for obvious reasons, but it's an easy problem to fix, by just enforcing laws already on the books and start arresting the employers and sending them to prison, prosecuting them under RICO statues, etc., and the majority of the problem goes away all by itself.

Yeah? And are you so naive as to believe that this will become US policy? We, of course, have laws on the books against this kind of illegal hiring, but we don't enforce them, not Dems and not Reps. It's a matter of corruption, not ideology. You are correct that we could fix this problem, but we lack the will to face the blowback. Meanwhile, Trump is forcing the hand of the Party apparatchiks

So in other words, just bend over for the Man, cuz 'corruption'. So why bother if laws and politicians are so pointless, then? Why have laws at all if at some point some 'corruption' will happen?

I will ignore the rest as you were indulging in a typical hyper-partisan meltdown, completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. The subject at hand is the reformation of the Republican party.

Nobody is having a 'hyper-partisan meltdown', except you, and you keep shifting the subject around because you can't really address it directly, hence to bombard with us with assorted 'proclamations' and rhetoric.

This is a subject that's difficult to avoid, except here, of course. In the lame-stream media they're all a twitter about it. Here, no one is interested. Perhaps it's a tempest in a teapot. Perhaps it will all go as smoothly as the most deranged Trump surrogate tells us it will. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that it will go that way, though.

Lots of people are interested; they're just not interested in playing the endless 'fallacy of many questions' game over and over again with people who proclaim themselves right and everybody else wrong for not agreeing with their hubris, that's all.

If you think things never change, it's all, like' futile' to do anything, cuz 'corruption n stuff', then why bother with these threads in the first place? Just follow this sage advice, from a scholar who dies understand the differences between politics, history, and hypocritical evangelizing for some 'cause' or other, and neurotic sniveling:


As for Trump, there is really no way on Earth he could be worse than what has been elected the last 40 years, so that ridiculous meme just spin as well. Stop reading hack astro-turfing sites like Daily Kos and Paint Huffer's Post for your 'daily 'talking points', and you might get better results rather than just throwing out non-responses and parroting non-points. You're not really 'discussing' anything; whether you realize it or not, you're just typing out the usual 'talking points' determined by your own selective biases.

 

[Picaro]

Even if we could deport 11 million undocumented workers, why would we? They are VITAL to our economy, which would collapse without them.

lol no it wouldn't; this is just propaganda with zero basis in fact.

Even if we could ban all Muslims from entering the U.S., why WOULD we? All it would do is alienate our best resource in the world for interdicting terrorism abroad (moderate muslims at home) and the terrorists would just adapt by sending "Muslim" terrorists who claim not to be Muslims anyway.

More nonsense, based on wishful thinking, not reality. There is every reason for not allowing them in, the same reasons we don't allow Nazis or gangsters to immigrate or travel freely. Most people have the good sense not to care if they make killers and ideological fringe groups like Nazis 'angry' and 'alienated', hence they feel little desire for Islamists for the same reasons.

Not one thing Trump has ever said throughout this campaign was even given a minute's prior thought, much less the scrutiny and peer-review of policy decisions that have made our country great.

Actually the press never wanted to discuss real policies with him, they wanted to smear him and distort his views just because most of them are hacks and get paid to; Parties and candidates pour billions of bucks on networks, newspapers, radio, all media, and a guy like Trump who spent almost nothing relative to what the others spent trying to sink him sends a very bad message from their point of view; it's like the election cycle's version of the Zimmerman lynching that failed. It worries the hacks a lot. It's a terrible precedent for them, and their arrogant egos.

Trump and his supporters are merely a symptom of our unwillingness to adequately fund and value public education in this country. It's that simple to me.

That would more fit the Democrats, as they are the Party relying most on the uneducated voters demographics. And besides, that '11,000,000' number came out over 30 years ago in Reagan's first term, so you might want to update your own 'education'.

 

[JoeB131]

I think Trump is going to be a disaster for the GOP this year, but the one thing politics teaches us is that a four year term is an eternity.

Barry Goldwater lost 44 states in 1964. Nixon took the White House in 1968.

Richard Nixon won 49 states in 1972. Two years later, he resigned. Democrats won overwealming majorities in both houses and the White House in 1976.

But by 1980, Reagan won 45 states and the Senate.

the big advantage that the Republicans will have is that the repudiation of Trump will be just that- a repudiation of Trump, not the GOP or a validation of Hillary.

2018 will roll along and they'll increase their margins in Congress and if they don't manage to mess it up, they'll have a very good shot in 2020.

 

[Elvis Obama]

LOL You forgot sock puppet. You make some good points, but then spoil them with your poor reading comprehension skills. You completely misunderstood everything I wrote.

My reading skills are just fine. It's your bad writing and dissembling that is poor, actually; seguing into specific issues from a general premise and then making up semantic hubris isn't really that impressive, especially when trying to use length and introducing other issues without addressing what was said by people you're supposed to be quoting.

The moral authority I referred to is the constitution, and I wasn't claiming it for myself, I was saying that Republican politicians, like Paul Ryan, are faced with the embarrassing conflict of either embracing Mr Trump or the constitution, but not both. What good will it do them to retain all the moral authority and conservative principles if Mr. Trump retains the voters?

Ah, well, I didn't know you are a Supreme Court justice, and get to determine what is or isn't 'constitutional' all on your own. My bad.

I was claiming no moral authority for myself. I'm not even a Republican, let alone a member of the Republican establishment. The subject of this thread is the threat to Republican power and identity posed by Mr. Trump. I'm sure you must be aware of the response to Mr. Trump's proposal about banning Muslims, both within and without the party. Reince Preibus and William Kristol don't care what you think about it, and what I think about it is likewise irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is what the Republican powers that be thought about it.

Obviously a substantial segment of GOP voters disagree, and don't give a rat's ass about Ryan's or any other Establishment GOP hack thinks, either, which is why Trump is the likely nominee barring some late 'Gotcha Moment'; they certainly can't make any overt attempts at derailing his nomination with rules chicanery at this point, not without cratering their turnout in November. Trump matters far more than Ryan or the others, obviously, and they are already kissing his ass; they have little choice in the matter.

Just how far can they bend over backwards to kiss Trump's ass, and still retain any semblance of credibility? Christie, Perry, Jindal, have all proven that they'd rather embrace Trump than slip into oblivion, but Ryan is another matter. He's in power. He's got something to lose. Perry doesn't, nor Jindal nor Christie. None of them will ever hold elected office again.

They have no semblance of credibility now with most of their base, which is why Trump is winning the primaries in the first place, so the above is just pointless editorializing; the new voters Trump brings in are the 'new' base. Ryan isn't the big power any more, so why care much about his opinions? Same for the MSM and the other propaganda outlets; the more they bashed, the more votes he got.

It's hilarious, and being the delusional sociopaths they are, they still don't know what hit them, so convinced they are of their own importance and superiority. So, they just pronounce all the Trump voters as 'low information', 'racists', ad nauseam, when it's immediately obvious who the 'low information' types are, which is themselves, not Trump voters. They're getting the middle finger salute right along with the 'GOP 'establishment', from people who no longer assign any credibility to their rackets any more, and justifiably so.

I never suggested that you did. Again, you are not a Republican establishment figure (AFAIK). You are not part of the equation.

I'm not a Republican at all, I'm an LBJ/Moynihan Liberal, and since you think 'nobody else matters' why bother starting a thread on it? You just want a soapbox, not a discussion. We already see that.

Banning all Muslims is unconstitutional, as well as insane and likely to cause a thousand times more harm than good.

He said it would be a temporary ban on travel into the U.S. until serious screening and security procedures can be implemented, but do continue to make hysterical misrepresentations of what he said. And, it isn't 'unconstitutional', it's common sense to bar people from states that known terrorist havens from entering the country, despite your hand-wringing proclamations. Islam is a violent political cult, and that feature is the most relevant, not their fake 'religious' coating the put around themselves; whether or not some hippies and credulous goofs think otherwise is irrelevant; we've restricted immigration before, and didn't suffer from it, quite the opposite.

We ban all kinds of undesirables all the time; do you also think we shouldn't ban Nazis, cus like it might 'make them mad n stuff'? Offend some Germans or something? Here's a choice quote of somebody you may have heard of, maybe not:

Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.

Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816

Throwing out 11 million illegals is simply logistically and morally impossible. Again, not in my opinion, but in the clearly stated opinions of the Republican establishment, who responded to Mr. Trump's proposals in exactly the manner I described. Get it? Not me, not you, but them. That's the subject of this thread, the threat to the Republican brand and power. Is it real or not? Thomas Friedman is of the opinion that if Trump brings down the Republican's house he will be doing God's work, but Mr. Friedman is not a conservative, is he?

Actually it would easy to get rid of a substantial number of them, they would self-deport, not to mention it would slow down drastically those that are still coming in. Of course if you're one of those who expect some sort of instant gratification, claiming it would all be a 'failure' if all 20 million plus didn't leave by noon tomorrow, well that's just silly; they didn't all come in overnight, and it will take a few years. So what? It's like claiming we should just legalize rape and murder, cuz obviously the laws we have haven't stopped that 100%, i.e. false 'logic'. And again, Trump, or more accurately his voter base, has the main power now, not Ryan or the 'Establishment', get it? I already addressed how it can be done, but you chose to not address that, just deslare it all 'insane n stuff'. Once again ...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the other labor racketeering cliques love to hear all that, for obvious reasons, but it's an easy problem to fix, by just enforcing laws already on the books and start arresting the employers and sending them to prison, prosecuting them under RICO statues, etc., and the majority of the problem goes away all by itself.

Yeah? And are you so naive as to believe that this will become US policy? We, of course, have laws on the books against this kind of illegal hiring, but we don't enforce them, not Dems and not Reps. It's a matter of corruption, not ideology. You are correct that we could fix this problem, but we lack the will to face the blowback. Meanwhile, Trump is forcing the hand of the Party apparatchiks

So in other words, just bend over for the Man, cuz 'corruption'. So why bother if laws and politicians are so pointless, then? Why have laws at all if at some point some 'corruption' will happen?

I will ignore the rest as you were indulging in a typical hyper-partisan meltdown, completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. The subject at hand is the reformation of the Republican party.

Nobody is having a 'hyper-partisan meltdown', except you, and you keep shifting the subject around because you can't really address it directly, hence to bombard with us with assorted 'proclamations' and rhetoric.

This is a subject that's difficult to avoid, except here, of course. In the lame-stream media they're all a twitter about it. Here, no one is interested. Perhaps it's a tempest in a teapot. Perhaps it will all go as smoothly as the most deranged Trump surrogate tells us it will. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that it will go that way, though.

Lots of people are interested; they're just not interested in playing the endless 'fallacy of many questions' game over and over again with people who proclaim themselves right and everybody else wrong for not agreeing with their hubris, that's all.

If you think things never change, it's all, like' futile' to do anything, cuz 'corruption n stuff', then why bother with these threads in the first place? Just follow this sage advice, from a scholar who dies understand the differences between politics, history, and hypocritical evangelizing for some 'cause' or other, and neurotic sniveling:


As for Trump, there is really no way on Earth he could be worse than what has been elected the last 40 years, so that ridiculous meme just spin as well. Stop reading hack astro-turfing sites like Daily Kos and Paint Huffer's Post for your 'daily 'talking points', and you might get better results rather than just throwing out non-responses and parroting non-points. You're not really 'discussing' anything; whether you realize it or not, you're just typing out the usual 'talking points' determined by your own selective biases.

Yes, the possible death or reformation of the Republican party are ideas that are being discussed in the "lamestream" media. The conventional wisdom about the potential reformation of the Republican party IS the subject of this thread. Do you disagree with the conventional wisdom? Good! That is, believe it or not, the purpose of conversation. To discuss differences of opinion, not to stay in a perpetual echo chamber. If you don't want to discuss that subject, don't reply.

Do you act like this in the real world? Say, did you hear what Reince Preibus said the the day? WHO CARES, YOU LIBTARD LAMESTREAM MEDIA.... No, of course you don't. You'd be killed. Why do you think it's OK to do that here? You hate me? Why? I cannot understand how anything I've said could lead you to hate me. If not, how can you possibly take such a disgusting personal tone? I don't realize that I'm typing out "talking points"? How the hell do you know that? Why don't you ask if I'm aware that I'm doing that? You might be surprised by the answer. Or is that too human for you?

You know the real difference is between us? I have certitude abut nothing and you have certitude about everything. I have no idea what will happen to the Republican party. You have what you regard as an absolute knowledge about the fate of the Republican party. That makes for dull conversation. Personally, I think the subject is a worth speculating about, potentially affecting as it does... everyone on the earth. But it's not worth enduring your absurd personalizations to do so. FWIW, I stopped reading your post after the word "dissembling". If you feel I'm dissembling, then further attempts at communication are pointless.

 

[Elvis Obama]

LOL You forgot sock puppet. You make some good points, but then spoil them with your poor reading comprehension skills. You completely misunderstood everything I wrote.

My reading skills are just fine. It's your bad writing and dissembling that is poor, actually; seguing into specific issues from a general premise and then making up semantic hubris isn't really that impressive, especially when trying to use length and introducing other issues without addressing what was said by people you're supposed to be quoting.

The moral authority I referred to is the constitution, and I wasn't claiming it for myself, I was saying that Republican politicians, like Paul Ryan, are faced with the embarrassing conflict of either embracing Mr Trump or the constitution, but not both. What good will it do them to retain all the moral authority and conservative principles if Mr. Trump retains the voters?

Ah, well, I didn't know you are a Supreme Court justice, and get to determine what is or isn't 'constitutional' all on your own. My bad.

I was claiming no moral authority for myself. I'm not even a Republican, let alone a member of the Republican establishment. The subject of this thread is the threat to Republican power and identity posed by Mr. Trump. I'm sure you must be aware of the response to Mr. Trump's proposal about banning Muslims, both within and without the party. Reince Preibus and William Kristol don't care what you think about it, and what I think about it is likewise irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is what the Republican powers that be thought about it.

Obviously a substantial segment of GOP voters disagree, and don't give a rat's ass about Ryan's or any other Establishment GOP hack thinks, either, which is why Trump is the likely nominee barring some late 'Gotcha Moment'; they certainly can't make any overt attempts at derailing his nomination with rules chicanery at this point, not without cratering their turnout in November. Trump matters far more than Ryan or the others, obviously, and they are already kissing his ass; they have little choice in the matter.

Just how far can they bend over backwards to kiss Trump's ass, and still retain any semblance of credibility? Christie, Perry, Jindal, have all proven that they'd rather embrace Trump than slip into oblivion, but Ryan is another matter. He's in power. He's got something to lose. Perry doesn't, nor Jindal nor Christie. None of them will ever hold elected office again.

They have no semblance of credibility now with most of their base, which is why Trump is winning the primaries in the first place, so the above is just pointless editorializing; the new voters Trump brings in are the 'new' base. Ryan isn't the big power any more, so why care much about his opinions? Same for the MSM and the other propaganda outlets; the more they bashed, the more votes he got.

It's hilarious, and being the delusional sociopaths they are, they still don't know what hit them, so convinced they are of their own importance and superiority. So, they just pronounce all the Trump voters as 'low information', 'racists', ad nauseam, when it's immediately obvious who the 'low information' types are, which is themselves, not Trump voters. They're getting the middle finger salute right along with the 'GOP 'establishment', from people who no longer assign any credibility to their rackets any more, and justifiably so.

I never suggested that you did. Again, you are not a Republican establishment figure (AFAIK). You are not part of the equation.

I'm not a Republican at all, I'm an LBJ/Moynihan Liberal, and since you think 'nobody else matters' why bother starting a thread on it? You just want a soapbox, not a discussion. We already see that.

Banning all Muslims is unconstitutional, as well as insane and likely to cause a thousand times more harm than good.

He said it would be a temporary ban on travel into the U.S. until serious screening and security procedures can be implemented, but do continue to make hysterical misrepresentations of what he said. And, it isn't 'unconstitutional', it's common sense to bar people from states that known terrorist havens from entering the country, despite your hand-wringing proclamations. Islam is a violent political cult, and that feature is the most relevant, not their fake 'religious' coating the put around themselves; whether or not some hippies and credulous goofs think otherwise is irrelevant; we've restricted immigration before, and didn't suffer from it, quite the opposite.

We ban all kinds of undesirables all the time; do you also think we shouldn't ban Nazis, cus like it might 'make them mad n stuff'? Offend some Germans or something? Here's a choice quote of somebody you may have heard of, maybe not:

Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.

Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816

Throwing out 11 million illegals is simply logistically and morally impossible. Again, not in my opinion, but in the clearly stated opinions of the Republican establishment, who responded to Mr. Trump's proposals in exactly the manner I described. Get it? Not me, not you, but them. That's the subject of this thread, the threat to the Republican brand and power. Is it real or not? Thomas Friedman is of the opinion that if Trump brings down the Republican's house he will be doing God's work, but Mr. Friedman is not a conservative, is he?

Actually it would easy to get rid of a substantial number of them, they would self-deport, not to mention it would slow down drastically those that are still coming in. Of course if you're one of those who expect some sort of instant gratification, claiming it would all be a 'failure' if all 20 million plus didn't leave by noon tomorrow, well that's just silly; they didn't all come in overnight, and it will take a few years. So what? It's like claiming we should just legalize rape and murder, cuz obviously the laws we have haven't stopped that 100%, i.e. false 'logic'. And again, Trump, or more accurately his voter base, has the main power now, not Ryan or the 'Establishment', get it? I already addressed how it can be done, but you chose to not address that, just deslare it all 'insane n stuff'. Once again ...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the other labor racketeering cliques love to hear all that, for obvious reasons, but it's an easy problem to fix, by just enforcing laws already on the books and start arresting the employers and sending them to prison, prosecuting them under RICO statues, etc., and the majority of the problem goes away all by itself.

Yeah? And are you so naive as to believe that this will become US policy? We, of course, have laws on the books against this kind of illegal hiring, but we don't enforce them, not Dems and not Reps. It's a matter of corruption, not ideology. You are correct that we could fix this problem, but we lack the will to face the blowback. Meanwhile, Trump is forcing the hand of the Party apparatchiks

So in other words, just bend over for the Man, cuz 'corruption'. So why bother if laws and politicians are so pointless, then? Why have laws at all if at some point some 'corruption' will happen?

I will ignore the rest as you were indulging in a typical hyper-partisan meltdown, completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. The subject at hand is the reformation of the Republican party.

Nobody is having a 'hyper-partisan meltdown', except you, and you keep shifting the subject around because you can't really address it directly, hence to bombard with us with assorted 'proclamations' and rhetoric.

This is a subject that's difficult to avoid, except here, of course. In the lame-stream media they're all a twitter about it. Here, no one is interested. Perhaps it's a tempest in a teapot. Perhaps it will all go as smoothly as the most deranged Trump surrogate tells us it will. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that it will go that way, though.

Lots of people are interested; they're just not interested in playing the endless 'fallacy of many questions' game over and over again with people who proclaim themselves right and everybody else wrong for not agreeing with their hubris, that's all.

If you think things never change, it's all, like' futile' to do anything, cuz 'corruption n stuff', then why bother with these threads in the first place? Just follow this sage advice, from a scholar who dies understand the differences between politics, history, and hypocritical evangelizing for some 'cause' or other, and neurotic sniveling:


As for Trump, there is really no way on Earth he could be worse than what has been elected the last 40 years, so that ridiculous meme just spin as well. Stop reading hack astro-turfing sites like Daily Kos and Paint Huffer's Post for your 'daily 'talking points', and you might get better results rather than just throwing out non-responses and parroting non-points. You're not really 'discussing' anything; whether you realize it or not, you're just typing out the usual 'talking points' determined by your own selective biases.

I did not read much past the word "dissembling", though your absurd comment about "talking points" did catch my eye. Wow. Dissembling. Consciously, for nefarious purposes, or unconsciously, because I'm such an idiot? Either way, there is no reply to that which would not violate the rules of the CDZ. I like to exchange ideas, not insults. I see no point in picking through your absurd personalizations to see if there are ideas amongst them.

Yes, the possible death or reformation of the Republican party are ideas that are being discussed in the "lamestream" media. The conventional wisdom about the potential reformation of the Republican party IS the subject of this thread. Do you disagree with the conventional wisdom? Good! That is, believe it or not, is the purpose of conversation. To discuss differences of opinion, not to stay in a perpetual echo chamber. If you don't want to discuss this subject, don't reply.

I do not express any certitude, because I possess no certitude. The fate of the Republican party is certainly not clear to me. You, apparently, have all the correct answers. I congratulate you on your omniscience.

Do you act like this in the real world? Say, did you hear what Reince Preibus said the the day? WHO CARES, YOU LYING.... No, of course you don't. You'd be killed. Why do you think it's OK to do that here? You hate me? Why? I cannot understand how anything I've said could lead you to hate me. If you do not, how can you possibly take such a disgusting personal tone? I don't realize that I'm typing out "talking points"? How the hell do you know that? Why don't you ask if I'm aware that I'm doing that. You might be surprised by the answer. Or is that too human for you?

 

[Picaro]

Barry Goldwater lost 44 states in 1964. Nixon took the White House in 1968.

Richard Nixon won 49 states in 1972. Two years later, he resigned. Democrats won overwealming majorities in both houses and the White House in 1976.

But by 1980, Reagan won 45 states and the Senate.

the big advantage that the Republicans will have is that the repudiation of Trump will be just that- a repudiation of Trump, not the GOP or a validation of Hillary.

2018 will roll along and they'll increase their margins in Congress and if they don't manage to mess it up, they'll have a very good shot in 2020.

The Nixon and Reagan victories were viewed much the same in their day as the Trump victory is these days by the 'establishment', so this is nothing new, except for Millennials, who are easily excited and easy to delude. It wasn't until the 1960's that primaries took over from national conventions anyway.

They will still do well down ballot and most likely retain majorities in both Houses, which is more important than the White House, with the exception of Supreme Court nominees. In any case, the same 'experts who kept writing off Trump are the same wrong 'experts' who keep predicting Hillary's Vagina is a shoo in, but then most of these 'polls' are designed to stump for a candidate rather than for objectivity, so as far as we know Trump can win the White House. His game is changing now that the primaries are essentially over, while Hillary's is the same old one. We'll see whose marketing tactics are better on election night.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Paul Ryan, The Prezes Bush, and a host of other GOP bigs are preferring to stand on the sidelines, rather than participate in a Republican party which has morphed out of recognizability. What will this mean? John McCain is doing a desperate dance, trying to keep Trump at a distance while hedging his bets. What about the other down-ballot races? Will they all run from Trump, if their constituencies aren't fully behind him? What will Trump be able to do, should he get elected, if Ryan and everyone else in the power establishment resists the Trump re-branding of the Republican party? What can they do? They have the party titles, Trump has the voters.

Trump's made his position clear, come to me or get lost. A typically nuanced stance. He wins, of course. A party without constituents isn't worth much. So what's left for the Republican establishment? Can a Paul Ryan merely wait out the four or eight years of a Trump presidency (or best case scenario, a Trump loss) and attempt to reconstitute conservatism after that? To bring back the GOP from the grave? Or will Trump literally re-brand the the GOP as the Trump Party, and run Ivanka after his eight years are up?

Trump is but a symptom of the disease crippling the GOP for decades, that disease being the social right, reactionary libertarians, and TPM nitwits.

The blind partisanism, the extremism, the fear, bigotry, and ignorance that has infested the ranks of republicans for the last 45 years has clearly taken its toll.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Paul Ryan, The Prezes Bush, and a host of other GOP bigs are preferring to stand on the sidelines, rather than participate in a Republican party which has morphed out of recognizability. What will this mean? John McCain is doing a desperate dance, trying to keep Trump at a distance while hedging his bets. What about the other down-ballot races? Will they all run from Trump, if their constituencies aren't fully behind him? What will Trump be able to do, should he get elected, if Ryan and everyone else in the power establishment resists the Trump re-branding of the Republican party? What can they do? They have the party titles, Trump has the voters.

Trump's made his position clear, come to me or get lost. A typically nuanced stance. He wins, of course. A party without constituents isn't worth much. So what's left for the Republican establishment? Can a Paul Ryan merely wait out the four or eight years of a Trump presidency (or best case scenario, a Trump loss) and attempt to reconstitute conservatism after that? To bring back the GOP from the grave? Or will Trump literally re-brand the the GOP as the Trump Party, and run Ivanka after his eight years are up?

Trump is but a symptom of the disease crippling the GOP for decades, that disease being the social right, reactionary libertarians, and TPM nitwits.

The blind partisanism, the extremism, the fear, bigotry, and ignorance that has infested the ranks of republicans for the last 45 years has clearly taken its toll.

And yet, no one talks about this. Even the Daily News cover talks about Trump being the demise of the party. The Republican party sold out completely 40+ years ago, and began to betray their rank and file members. Trump is just a vulture pecking at the body. The only three people who got any consideration at all this cycle, unlike 2012, are those who completely repudiate the Republican party. It's a mindless revolution, but a revolution nonetheless. What's Ryan and Co.'s calculation, that they can wait out Trump and try to pick up the pieces after he's gone? It'll be pieces all right.