Breaking News January 6th Stop the Steal Rally & Capitol Breaching/Storming
- Thread starter Duke Nukem
- Start date
Duke Nukem
Hail to the king baby
Wow.
gral
Well-known member
L'audace, toujours l'audace.
Despite the claims to "uniparty", the Establishment Republicans really ARE NOT Democrats nor aligned with their party establishment. If you look at the legislative history of when the Republican Establishment is in control, you'll note there's actually a LOT of issues where they and the Democrat Establishment differ.
For instance, federal funding of abortion. Say what you will about the R establishment not being aggressive against abortion, but they have very VERY consistently maintained things like the Mexico City Policy and other anti-government funding for abortion measures, not simply maintaining them, but REESTABLISHING them when the Dems end them. Gun control is another issue like that where the Rs generally don't push anything. Green matters is another big area where the two Establishments depart ways rather dramatically.
Why is this? Because the R establishment WANTS power too, just like the D establishment, and they know they need to at least do things to support what their base wants. Beyond that much of the R establishment is ACTUALLY pro-life, they are ACTUALLY pro-gun, etc. They just want power more than they want to see those things come to pure fruition and so they tend to not pursue objectives that could have major backlash and cost them power.
Which brings us back around to this Jan 6 commission. Between its remit and its schedule, it was a blatant ploy by the Democrat's to keep the riot on Jan 6 in the forefront public consciousness for the 2022 midterm elections. The Jan. 6 riots are seen to be damaging to the Republican Brand in an election that appears to be otherwise shaping up very favorably to the Rs. The R establishment wants power back, thus, they will seek to squash constantly bringing up Jan 6 as much as they can. You'll note that the Rs who voted FOR it are the ones who's personal influence and power is not as much tied to being in the majority, and, in fact, their power might well DECREASE if the number of Rs increase in the Senate, as the closer things in the Senate stay to 50/50, the more power the squishy Rs have, but the larger the R majority is, the less the majority has to depend on them and the more they have to fall in line.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
If the Republican establishment wants power so badly, why are they so insistent on surrendering power to the Democrats at nearly every opportunity? Or on not doing anything with that power when they do have it?
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
Refusal to accept that they are fighting an enemy who does not deal in good faith, rather than sadly misguided peers who are just the loyal opposition.
That's a pretty big part of it for old establishment types.
The Washington Beltway media bubble is another part.
Yep, if the issue isn't directly related to abortion, immigration, or guns, the GOP doesn't give it much effort.
Or at least they didn't before now; what DeSantis is doing in Florida is what the DC GOP should have been doing for years.
But too many of the establishment GOP are career politicians, and are more interested in preserving their own personal power over that of their voters.
This is also why the Senate term limits, so that Senators serve the people who elected them, not their own careers.
That won't solve the issue with Senators, heck, Senators shouldn't even BE "serving the people who elected them", they're not meant to represent the people at all, they're meant to represent the interests of their State. This is a critical difference in outlook that I think many forget but is important to what the role of Senators is supposed to be, and the disconnect between this duty and the Senators is one of the major driving factors to why we have ended up with such a dysfunctional and overly powerful Federal government.
Consider: when Senators are directly elected and therefor "represent" the people in their state, they are primarily concerned with their own personal popularity and being seen as benefiting those people. This means that when there's problems they are meant to "do something", it also means they have an interest in shifting power into the Federal government in order to enable them to DO MORE. If Senators were appointed by the State Legislatures, or perhaps by the Governor with advise and consent of the State Legislature, suddenly the Senator's core interests are no longer in personal popularity nor in ensuring that the Federal government is the focus of things. Rather, they now would face concern and consequences for shifting power from the State to the Federal government. Further, it also ensures that Senators are LESS beholden to corporate special interests, after all, what is beneficial to corporations in New York has no bearing on what is the interests of the State of Georgia; however, as it stands now those interests often can have considerable influence on the Senators from Georgia since, well, running statewide campaigns is EXPENSIVE and they need that funding.
LindyAF
Well-known member
I mean this is pretty expansive and they're all social issues, which is what the GOP is generally criticized for falling short on. If you factor out economic issues then these are the issues GOP voters probably care about the most. My issues with the GOP are largely that I think they don't do enough on these issues, but if you think they do I'm not sure where you think they're actually folding.
The GOP dropped the ball on environmental issues, and let the Left dictate that whole arena. It also let the neo-Confederates in it lead it to defend things it should not be defending (Confederate symbols).
I cannot overemphasize how much this has hurt the GOP with much of the youth, who see it as the party of big oil and corpo's that give no damns about the long term state of our biosphere.
Only trying to play to the old and shrinking GOP base, and not putting much effort into youth outreach till Trump, has severely handicapped the GOP in the wider culture war. Also, people remember Bush Jr's GOP's part in the Iraq War, and do not want risk that to happening again.
LindyAF
Well-known member
Both issues you mention are areas where you wish the GOP was more like the Dems. Framing issues where you wish the GOP agreed more with the Dems as evidence that the GOP rolls over too much or as evidence of uniparty is pretty nonsensical. Since these are the issues you don't agree with the GOP on, why would you want them to focus more on them?
What exactly was the GOP supposed to do on "environmental" issues. They've been consistently fair when it comes to ACTUAL pollutants with minimal pushbacks on things like SO2 and clean water standards, and the huge to do about "Global Warming" / "Climate Change" that focuses on CO2 emissions involves a LOT of bunk science and was always meant as cover for attacks on industries that favored the right / exerting more governmental control over people's day to day lives.
As to Confederate symbols, this is one where you're the one who's highly out of touch, at least according to the polling, and the Republicans HAVE been more consistently in line with what actual PEOPLE, not activists or twitter say, which is that most statues should be local decisions. Of course, then you go and nationalize what ARE local decisions, blaming the NATIONAL GOP for what State level people are doing, and most of the time, those STATE LEVEL people are doing what the local people in their States are saying what they want to happen. Further, the entire issue of Confederate memorials is an ASTROTURFED crisis created BY the Twitter and Activist classes in order to smear and CAUSE racial strife, while allowing white liberals to virtue signal their wokeness by doing things that have no real systemic impact and generally cause them no trouble, all while costing schools millions of dollars in rebranding.
LindyAF
Well-known member
My experience with college republican activism is I can't think of any young Republicans or right-leaning people who hate Confederate memorials or symbols. There were people who liked them 'cause it was edgy and anti-PC (I live in a northern state so not many people who liked 'em for southern pride or anything, although my guess is you'd find that in the South), and most people just didn't care or saw it as a non-issue.
I live in Northern Virginia, and until last year nobody in the region gave a flying fuck about things named after Confederates, save, perhaps Jefferson Davis Highway. Of course, that was because most people understood that the majority of things named for Confederates also coincided with, well, ACTUAL Civil War history in the region. IE Stonewall Jackson High School (now renamed to something stupid) was, at the time it was originally named, the closest High School to Manassas National Battlefield Park... AKA the VERY PLACE where Jackson got the nickname "Stonewall" and was one of many, MANY things in the area around the city of Manassas named for a Civil War General and Manassas had MANY such places, like Grant Ave being the town's literal Main Street (so we're clear this was not JUST Confederate Generals they were naming for), as Manassas' Brand was being a Civil War tourist place... and everyone knew it, and nobody cared...
Until the yammering and chattering classes all got up in arms about things named for Confederates and how evil it was...
Terthna
Professional Lurker
I think the GOP should have been more savvy about the fact that the left was using environmentalism as a smokescreen, and confronted them on it more directly; though to be fair, considering the fact that the left had basically taken over every major institution, from academics to the media, that's kind of a tall order. Maybe they should have done something about that first, before they let the left drag them into a losing disinformation battle on the environment.
As for the Confederate symbols; I don't find them offensive, and I'm among those that think it should be a local decision to take them down. It should not be something that's decided by the federal government and/or angry activists.
I know you guys only see environmental issues as a smokescreen for the Left to push things with, and I know nothing will change that view among a lot of the Right's historical base.
However, there are moderate Dems and Independents who DO believe a lot of that stuff, because some of it is true and not just a smokescreen.
This is yet again a case of people in the GOP thinking that they don't need to worry about thier perception among Independents and moderates, which is part of why the GOP keeps having issues when it reverts to pre-Trump methodologies and ideas about the electorate.
Also, the Confederate stuff does matter to people in the center, and defending the stuff does the Right no favors.
LindyAF
Well-known member
See, this is the most confusing thing about what you believe to me, because being scrupulously PC on Climate Change or Southern History was not really Trump's thing. Trump was the one who withdrew from the Paris Agreement, for instance. Trump's a new yorker, so it can't really be expected that he'd go around whistling dixie or anything, but he was pro- Southern History on a number of occasions, threatening to veto a military spending bill that would rename bases named after Robert E. Lee for instance, issueing executive orders to defend monuments (which Confederate ones are the most targeted, although other historic White American figures are increasingly targeted as well). DeSantis, who you praised earlier, is doing similar. If anything Trump and those who align themself with him are more pro Southern History than people like Nimrata Haley, who have made a point of removing Confederate symbols.
I'm not 'PC' on the environment, I'm realistic about it because I understand it.
I got my Bachelor's in General Geology, and have been looking at environmental issues on my own, separate from politics, for years.
The rad-greens are idiots, but mostly in how they want to address problems, not in thinking problems exist.
I want practical and sane environmental policies, and those will only happen when the Right as a whole is willing to admit environmental issues are legit and not just smokescreen. Because the Right cannot effectively counter the rad-greens until they can accept not everything they are worried about is 'Leftist lies'.