When do you write someone off?

[KentuckyWoman]

I had a friend who divorced her husband of 40 years over a dirty bowl put away as if clean. So she said. Truth is the man had a 40 year track record of deliberate disrespect. That bowl cut the last thread.

I have been thinking about that a lot lately considering the political climate. Whatever lies Republican voters told themselves to put up with the abuse surely are wearing thin now that the eff you moves are so blatant.

Will the Republican party split? I doubt it is even close. I don't know why they put up with it. We can hope, but waive a few black men in hoodies in their faces along with buzz words like commie and fascist ... pretend you care about the babies while screaming pedophile toward anyone who disagrees. The same voters claiming to be disgusted show up to voted straight R.

One thing is sure. This is not sustainable. The last thread will get snipped eventually. Either the Republicans divorce the crazy wing of the party or a perhaps small majority of Americans will divorce those who keep going back for worse and worse abuse.

[Thunderbeast]

1. I wish I shared your confidence

We just watched the "loyal opposition" walk out of the senate chamber rather than give ANY modicum of respect to a newly-confirmed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

While race is the obvious rubric for the vitriol, I believe the same treatment would have been given to ANY nominee pit forward by a Democrat. For Crap sake...They didn't give Harland a hearing.

These folks are addicted to their anger-produced adrenaline. "Sticking it to urban liberals" is ALL they live for.

[JI7]

2. What do you mean by "put up with" ? As if they are having

some difficulty in supporting that shit. They enjoy entry disgusting thing about their party and happily support it

[mercuryblues]

3. Only when the money dries up

As long as there are superPacs and mega donors they will survive. People will be brainwashed and conned into voting for them until they die.

[onetexan]

28. +1 -K&R

[Bev54]

4. We just watched an interview with McConnell that he knows Trump's crimes

and I am certain wants rid of him but just stated he would vote for him again if he is the nominee. I don't think they will ever write him off until he is either in jail or dead.

[H2O Man]

5. Recommended.

That's a good question. An important one for Good People to be seriously considering. This week, a couple old friends stopped up. I let one cut up firewood on my property, as there is more here than I need. (Largely due to a gentleman I caught cutting down trees on my property a couple years ago.) But we spend most of the time talking, as old men are prone to do.

Each of us has experiences with extended family, friends, co-workers, and/or neighbors who have bought into the Trump cult. At individul levels, that means having to either firm boundaries, or cut certain people off completely. I have had less examples of these things than either of my friends. I do set boundaries, but I haven't had the need to completely cut off from anyone than they have. One of them had the ultimate cut-off with three relatives who died of covid. They had made fun of him for not attending a family reunion when there were a lot of people dying from it locally. Within a month, the three were dead. So while it's an individual choice, it does us good to compare notes with like-minded people.

I'm not sure how republicans will go as a party. There's not a republican on the national level with the authority -- and I mean moral or ethical authority -- to serve in a leadership role within the party. Mitt Romney might be the best republican in the Senate, and there are two republicans serving on the House's January 6 Committee. But sick systems eject healthy beings. If Romney might be willing to engage in the destruction of his own career, he could step up and try to derail a potential run by Trump. But that's unlikely, and far in the future.

It seems that the return to sanity hasn't taken place as quickly as many of us hoped for in the republican party. PBS had a great documentary on that I watched recently, about the organized republican forces that continue to try to push the Big Lie, etc. They are trying to get the brain-dead to take local, county, and state positions, so that they can steal elections in 2024. So maybe that isn't so far in the future after all.

[cachukis]

14. The sanity issue is moot. The party issue is moot.

People gravitate towards safety and like mindedness.
Movements create leaders.
We have to call out the madness.
It is unacceptable. We have to admonish and call out the humanity in all of us.
I have fifty year friends that, while distant, actually rely on outside input.
If I quit them, I quit myself.
Friendship and sharing is the basis for humanity.
Finding and dealing with faults is sacrosanct.
You depend on people like you.

[KentuckyWoman]

15. Thank you for your response.

In 2018 I fell apart. My brother was all in for Trump but more so began to show an utter hate for anything or anyone not in lockstep agreement. I knew him over 70 years, all his life. This was not the man I knew all those years. We nearly lost each other but eventually settled on boundaries. Before his death he mostly came to his senses. Jan 6 helped with that.

A few friends given up. It is a hard thing at this age to part with those we have left. But one can only live with the toxic for so long ....

Thanks again for highlighting this is an individual as well as larger issue. You said it better than I did.

[Phoenix61]

16. They want a totalitarian government.

They will never stop. They are immune to logic and reason. Any information that doesn’t support their beliefs is a lie. We can, however, shove them back under the rocks they crawled out from under. GOTV!!!

[onetexan]

29. +1 -K&R

[Joinfortmill]

6. I think the Jan 6 public hearings will jolt a lot of folks

[Missn-Hitch]

12. While I still have a modicum of hope, I really do doubt it. Maybe 4 or 5 folks. Not a "lot".

tRump did everything in the open and brags about it.

Cheers!

[gaskinite]

13. I'm hoping the committee will hire some Hollywood folks

The content is far too important to have typical cspan type testimony. It appears that they have woven a pretty damning narrative that implicates a handful of sitting Congress members.

I sincerely hope that indictments come soon for Trump, his family and the douche bags that enabled him.

[CBHagman]

19. I hope the hearings will be covered in such as way as to make people take notice.

Given past failures of the media (the run-up to the Iraq War and of course the 2016 election immediately come to mind), there's no guarantee the media will rise to the occasion, but the trickle or even gush of revelations has to play a role.

[Metaphorical]

7. Remember that the core of the current GOP are the ideological heirs of the Dixiecrats

In the late 1960s, the Southern Democrats abandoned the party for the GOP. Prior to then, the Republicans were essential a Center-Right party, not all that far from where the Democrats are today, and they had progressive, centrist, and conservative members. One of the first acts of the newly formed GOP in the 1970s was to start purging the progressive, and then the centrist wings of the party - withdrawing support for candidates in primaries, promoting conservative think-tanks, and otherwise reforming the party as a far more authoritarian one. When TFG won the EC in 2016, the party was well on its way to being an extremist one - he just made it obvious.

I think there are people who are trying to re-establish a more moderate wing, but they are fighting against zealots.

In many respects, I think that there are a core in both the House and the Senate that will lose their primary races and run as independents - Cheney, Murkowski, Romney, a few others in both houses. I can see Collins getting primaried. Of course, I also see Sinema and Manchin doing the same thing. None of them are going to join the Democratic party, but they may caucus with them. That may be the closest that you see to the GOP splitting.

[KentuckyWoman]

18. Good points all.

I am in Ohio now. Portman's GOP successor will be far more right. Ohio seems to be headed off a cliff. I would not be at all surprised if the Republicans you mentioned either get primaried out or give up like Portman. Each step moves the GOP out farther.

[Grasswire2]

8. Indicting Trump and slapping him with a gag order would help a lot. nt

[dchill]

9. Hoping for a split. The sooner the better.

[Meowmee]

10. It has a lot to do with

Finances and being crooks too I think.

[Warpy]

11. I think the country might have to wait a little while

because the fundagelical preachers have got the lunatic wing of the party so completely turned around they have no way of knowing right from wrong, good from bad, corrupt from honest, or much of anything else.

Millennials and Gen Z are questioning this horse shit, but it will take a while for them to become dependable voters.

[mahina]

17. I wish I could remember where the article I just read was from that showed how much effort Russia

Put into dividing and conquering. Evangelicals, 2A people, yoga and fitness people, they pulled away from us with determined and persistent messaging till they don’t see us as Americans any more and they vote like that too.

[Warpy]

21. Some people found the gateway to madness on vegan recipe sites

Russian trolls were using every single thing they could to find sweet, dumb, susceptible people. The most fertile ground was among the god n gunz bunch.

[mahina]

22. +1

Yes 💧
My church is super liberal and if gives me great comfort

It’s wide open to anyone of any belief or no belief, atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, all are welcome. We do the work too on housing, poverty, hunger, world issues. It’s just Community you know and that is a basic human need, Maslow‘s “belonging”.

The God Botherers as my Grandma called them are a separate thing.

[CanonRay]

25. Mine as well

[mahina]

26. :)

[Ferrets are Cool]

20. I've been thinking about the same thing alot recently

and I have come to this conclusion (I may even put up an OP about my thoughts).

Tfg gets so much support because he openly says what the "average" republican wish they could say but can't because of the consequences. Yeah, there is that very small percentage that doesn't care what comes out of their mouths but they are not the majority of republicans. "They" are the easy ones to identify.
The ones that are not easy are the ones that are your neighbors, the people you pass in the neighborhood store, the ones you sit in church with. They look and appear like good, level headed Americans, but THEY are the ones who ALWAYS vote Republican no matter how crazy the candidate is...now matter how much the candidate that proven that they don't work for "average American". They are the silent racists, the closet homophobes, the hidden bigots. They are the ones we should be afraid of. Not the loud brash outspoken racist, bigots and gaybashers, but the silent ones who "think" they are good Americans, but are only pretenders.

[Dan]

23. I wish that somehow, we could have a non-binding national vote -

On whether to separate into two separate nations.

I would bet my last dollar, the GOP would shit a brick - if they discovered how much some of us disdain them.

I would bet my last dollar, the GOP would shit a brick if they discovered as part of the separation they would have to pay their own way.

For that matter, I wish all the GOP voters would have to live under their rules for five years, giving up all the progressive things that the Democrats have enacted for them.

[Diablo del sol]

24. If the dirty bowl is shoved into their mouth

and followed up by numerous punches then they might get it.

Liberals need to wake the hell up, these people are no different than Russians supporting Putin.

Excuses about Fox, Russian controlled media, all straight out fucking bullshit. It is what they want, a reason to hate, a leader that gives that to them and brutalizes the others.

Don't care if is your spouse, your family, your friends, they need the bowl to the mouth followed by a punch.

Until liberals are ready to do that, we will be in the exact same position.

Alternative, fight them while the are slaughtering people as is the current state in Ukraine.

[ForgedCrank]

27. The Republican

party is already split, well, sort of.
Now this is just my take on things based on my observations for the past 10-12 years or so.
This all started when a group of them were calling themselves "Tea Party". It continued to grow (and still is growing I believe), eventually migrating toward Trump. What we are calling Trumpers today was originally Tea Party, just larger and louder now.
You have the McConnell type old GOP assholes, then you have the super-asshole Trumpers, and they are often at odds with one another.
That is what it looks like to me at least. I hate to tag one as worse than they other as they are both vile and obnoxious. I don't know if it will ever end up with a separate party or not, but I'm guessing no. They already have trouble getting elected, a split would basically deem both irrelevant and incapable of ever winning another election.