Serious question about the GOP

[grumpyduck]

Okay, I know most of us are beyond pissed off by now, but I'm looking for serious answers, please.

A lot of you follow the news and chatter far more than I do, so I'm curious about something. From where I sit, most of what I hear about the GOP is Democrat-bashing, but I rarely seem to hear anything about their plans or policies. I know... I know...

How much has been in the MSM about GOP policies or about their plans to do something for the country? I know about Mnuchin and DeVos, but has there been anything else concrete, on a regular basis?

Thanks.

[Crunchy Frog]

1. Cut taxes for the wealthy, and end regulations.

Not much more than that.

[lagomorph777]

3. Also, suppress more voters and cause as much harm as possible.

[snowybirdie]

2. I'm retired

and spend a lot of time monitoring the news. As far as I can determine, the GOP has no agenda or plans for a second rtump term. They didn't even have an agenda at their Convention. Just Democrat bashing. Worthless people

[CanonRay]

4. They have neither plans nor policies

Their last idea was trickle down economics. That was 40 years ago. Since then it's been hate, fear, tax cuts and culture wars.

[thucythucy]

5. The GOP had no party platform at their convention.

Essentially, their "plan" for America is whatever Trump wants.

That, and whatever it takes for them to stay in power.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

6. They have no plans because

What they plan is wrong and seditionist anti. Democratic and insane and dangerous and hurts people.

Thier agenda if revealed would end the republican party and they'd never win the Senate the house or the presidency.

They gerrymander because without cheating they would never win. This is why they fear mail in voting and they gutted the voting rights act.

[BlueNProud]

7. it's all culture war all the time for the GOP

they stopped talking about policy a long time ago because it doesn't matter to their voters. Just be racist and troll the libs and you got their vote.

[Backseat Driver]

8. One can't report on something that doesn't exist

No new platform was adopted by Republicans at the 2020 convention. In fact, proposals to that effect would, by rules adopted, be ruled "out of order." The 2016 platform would continue...(despite Trump's request to have a new platform and/or amendments to the 2016 document adopted better suited to his Law & Order themed despotic madness).

I'm pretty sure you can google that 2016 document - there's nothing new under the sun of the last four years, apparently. Trump's madness will suffice...but it's not really clear who's using whom - Did the insurrection last week make that any clearer?

[relayerbob]

9. No. There are no plans. Their platform was a literal carbon copy of the 2016 platform

[betsuni]

10. During the 2016 election the MSM famously spent only 10% of its coverage on policy.

I remember the anchor of a news program putting up the two party platforms side by side the day after the election and looking a little stunned.

"The current iteration the GOP is indifferent to the substance of governing. It is disdainful of experience and analysis. It is hostile toward evidence and arithmetic. It is tethered to few, if any, meaningful policy preferences. It does not know, and does not care, about how competing proposals should be crafted, scrutinized, or implemented. The modern Republican Party has become a post-policy party.

"After Barack Obama's election in 2008, the GOP's Mayberry Machiavellis took over the entirety of the party. On Capitol Hill, Republicans abandoned policy argument altogether ... . GOP lawmakers' offices privately stopped hiring policy staffers and started hiring media flaks, because as far as Republicans were concerned, messaging trumped government, and selling a conservative vision to the public took priority over undergirding a conservative vision with serious legislative proposals that worked.

"The deliberate shift began with the Gingrich Revolution in the mid-1990s, when the new GOP majority went on a firing binge, getting rid of lawyers, economists, investigators, auditors, analysts, and perhaps more notably, subject-matter experts. ... GOP lawmakers, quite literally, decided to become less invested in governing and more invested in public relations. USA Today reported that between 2011 and 2014, with Republicans in control of the U.S. House, policy-making staff shrunk by nearly 20 percent, while press and communications staff grew by nearly 15 percent. ... All of this was the opposite of what a governing party is supported to prioritize."

Steve Benen, "The Impostors, How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics"