General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRepublican lurkers---I admit it: I have seriously misjudged your party.
Last edited Sat Nov 5, 2022, 12:54 PM - Edit history (1)
For most of my adult life I thought you were zealous patriotic supporters of American democracy.
My bad.
AllaN01Bear
(18,242 posts)Lovie777
(12,272 posts)dalton99a
(81,513 posts)Trump and Russia
packman
(16,296 posts)mitch96
(13,907 posts)Evolve Dammit
(16,736 posts)Lonestarblue
(9,998 posts)worked for most of the country (not minorities, though). He was perhaps the last true statesman in the Republican Party. Over the past decades, it has now become the party of charlatans, kooks, conspiracy theorists, and those at the top of the economic cake who simply want all the cake for themselves and only crumbs for the other 99%.
pazzyanne
(6,556 posts)Rebl2
(13,516 posts)sentence is so true. I feel like it started with Nixon, but really got much worse under Reagan.
Joinfortmill
(14,427 posts)Thunderbeast
(3,414 posts)Wilke, Dewey, and Taft stoked the flames of prejudice and nationalism as they sought power. The New Deal was their main target.
None of the Presidents pre-FDR were saints by today's standards.
soldierant
(6,880 posts)There was Beown v Board, and there was a great number of people horrified by it and screaming their heads off. It wasn't until Johnson that we saw a political party actively work for minorities. Johnson always maintained that that action was Kennedy's visin and that he felt bound to execute it. It ended up upending both parties - notably turning the partyof Lincoln into the party of Roger Taney - not that they would, any of them, recognize the name.
Farmer-Rick
(10,175 posts)All that's left for the right wing to destroy is Social Security and unemployment insurance.
Then we will be living back in the 1920s, where people starved to death because of the free market and a world war with genocide was brewing.
Back to putting your 80 year old Grandma in the chicken coop to live and letting the elderly die of exposure.
Beartracks
(12,814 posts)soldierant
(6,880 posts)But, in my house, the adults voted for Adlai.
I suspect he was the last President of either party who played bridge - which I only happen to know because I'm fond of bridge and have read a fair amount about the game and its players.
Hotler
(11,425 posts)and getting wins so they can hurt us. They're waiting for a nod and a wink from a dictator to openly start killings us.
Alexander Of Assyria
(7,839 posts)its had the desired effect.
Remember when mass media would refuse to air any political ad even coming close to the kind of vicious and vile hatred now seen as routine and normal?
America has fallen backwards into fascism by refusing to combat hate speech
not that simple, but widely broadcast hate speech is essential to the toxic formula.
Anyone seen much much more any of that lately on the tv and radio?
yellowdogintexas
(22,256 posts)the ads against Beto and our candidate for County Judge are horrendous.
yellowdogintexas
(22,256 posts)the ads against Beto and our candidate for County Judge are horrendous.
plimsoll
(1,670 posts)Nixon could promote it and make it sound statesmanlike.
Reagan could promote it and make it sound benign.
Bush 1 and 2 for as much as I disliked their policies may have been from an Eisenhower mold, but lacked the skills or will to stop the spread.
Gingrich took the mask off the promotion of that hatred.
Since then every major politician in the GOP has echoed the eliminationist rhetoric of their "base" without usually saying it out loud.
Donald Trump changed that and gave permission to express the GOP bases darkest desires.
We often overuse the Nazi comparison, and I think it's true in this case as well. I don't think the Nazi's wanted the world to be fully apprised of their atrocities. There's a significant portion of todays GOP that want the atrocities publicized and put on full display. Men like Bannon talk openly about boyonetting liberals. The GOP base seems to want an orgiastic blood bath that they can watch and savor. It's more like a Roman spectacle.
Joinfortmill
(14,427 posts)Ligyron
(7,633 posts)Millions and millions of them.
I really hate to say this ... but I'm glad I'm old.
Joinfortmill
(14,427 posts)Emile
(22,776 posts)oldsoftie
(12,548 posts)#1 being china. Which NONE of us are doing enough to stop funding them.
yardwork
(61,622 posts)LymphocyteLover
(5,644 posts)I had doubts during the Reagan years but wasn't sure until I was older
calimary
(81,298 posts)My dad was a salesman. I saw how compelling he could be. Saw that in Reagan, but with Reagan it had a suspicious smell.
Reagan struck me as a candy salesman. But the candy he sold, while tasting sweet, had poison in it. But the taste was so good that he could sell a lot of it. And people wanted as much of it as they could get.
Ronald Reagan was the beginning of the end.
LymphocyteLover
(5,644 posts)calimary
(81,298 posts)voluntarily taken in by the fucking salesmanship.
And he was a master at it. Seasoned by acting and effective script delivery on TV, with a friendly l demeanor and that aw-shucks harmless-looking schtick, and that adorable little crooked smile and those handy-dandy talking points to sweeten the deal. He used to sell what the commercial sponsors offered, and he had a gift for it, and then sold the poison of Republicanism. Brought a whole new meaning to Death Valley Days.
I was never fooled by you, Ronnie, and Im quite proud of that. You were the closest thing to Satan incarnate that I ever saw or heard, and devilishly well-packaged as a smooth-talking nice-looking harmless-old-uncle supply-side angel.
LymphocyteLover
(5,644 posts)LisaM
(27,813 posts)I couldn't bear his oily, unctuous, incredibly phony voice. It baffled me - still does - that anyone could stand him.
NewHendoLib
(60,014 posts)czarjak
(11,278 posts)Free and fair elections aren't part of that plan.
Walleye
(31,027 posts)And their biggest insult for us now is Marxist
calimary
(81,298 posts)I bet many of their marks are swallowing it whole without even bothering to know or understand it. Nowadays, all these know-nothings need to know is how much our side hates it. And if our side hates it, thats what they want more of.
jaxexpat
(6,831 posts)Just ask Saul (nee Paul), drove him to the extreme of insanity, faith. It explains much of our current malaise (no, let me be pellucidly clear, not that Malaise).
peppertree
(21,636 posts)Reich-wingers (especially southern ones) only love a certain image of America - and see democracy as their biggest obstacle to making that come to pass.
relayerbob
(6,544 posts)Around Newt Gingrich.
Joinfortmill
(14,427 posts)COL Mustard
(5,897 posts)Is very different from what I learned. I love our country in spite of all our faults, and I support the Constitution. I've sworn an oath to it which I still adhere to. I love our differences and accept the rule of law, and the outcome of elections. Republicans seem to me 180 degrees out of phase with those beliefs.
electron_blue
(3,592 posts)When I see posts like this I don't understand how you could be so late to this conclusion. I just don't.
All hands on deck, folks!
paleotn
(17,920 posts)when our disagreements with Republicans were on the finer points of policy, not the basic paradigm of representative democracy. Fiscally conservative / socially liberal Republicans were a thing once. LBJ turned to them to pass the Civil Right Act when half his own party (southern Dems) balked. Republicans have always had nuts, but then again so have we. Now the nuts complete run the show over there and they might as well call themselves fascists. Sad and infuriating to see how far down the rat hole a once overall decent and proud party has gone.
electron_blue
(3,592 posts)or even what about the last 4 years... - what were those people thinking who now say they thought republicans were being patriotic when they voted for Trump? Or were republican after the insurrection? Giving republican voters the benefit of the doubt for so long is part of the problem.
paleotn
(17,920 posts)a normal political party, but had morphed into a collection of nuts and psychopaths. About that time, life long Republicans I'd known for years started drifting away from the GOP. Particularly after Trump led today's GOP to its logical conclusion. What's left is a fascist core surrounded by a propagandized base.
Unfortunately, much of our media still doesn't get that or doesn't care. That's a big part of the problem. They still view the GOP as legitimate and not what it really is...an anti-democratic insurgency bent on destroying the American experiment. Current Republicans are patriotic. The difference is, we love 2 completely different and diametrically opposed Americas. That's what the media and conventional opinion doesn't get. And they better figure it fast or the Republic is lost.
Skittles
(153,164 posts)he made greed and idiocy fashionable, and started the loud dog whistling..... it really started with him
SlimJimmy
(3,180 posts)As a moderate Democrat (fiscally conservative, but quite liberal on social policies) I had quite a bit in common with my Republican friends for many years. But, all of that has changed over the last decade or so. That's why I now call them repukes and rethugs. The party of Eisenhower is long gone.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)onecaliberal
(32,861 posts)hay rick
(7,621 posts)Fuck each and every one of them.
IronLionZion
(45,447 posts)but not patriotic and will tell you that America is a republic not a democracy. They believe in alternative facts, alternative vote counts, and live in an alternative reality.
RANDYWILDMAN
(2,672 posts)that was what their patriotism was all about, when the realized it wasn't always gonna be that way, they went off the rails, never to return.
JHB
(37,160 posts)...it's that their preferred form of government is a banana republic, as long as they're not the ones picking bananas.
Missn-Hitch
(1,383 posts)A black man was a 2 term President, the 'the gays' are allowed to marry, the devil's weed is becoming legal, black folks are demanding they not be shot by police at traffic stops....
The horror! Their only option is lying, cheating and stealing. Authoritarianism.
BTW, has anything happened to that confederate governor and Brett Favre?
The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)I bet you are fine with that.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)Atticus
(15,124 posts)2naSalit
(86,638 posts)Gave them that much credit after Nixon.
Aussie105
(5,401 posts)I have to ask.
Why are so many Americans determined to destroy the country?
Not like you have another country to go to if millions decide America is no longer a fit place they want to live in, or another planet to move to once they destroy this one.
Genki Hikari
(1,766 posts)Who have been groomed since birth to value delusion over reality, and not to listen to actual experts, but only to the people who think the same way they do.
They are further groomed to believe that they are never wrong, so if anyone disagrees with them or challenges their stupidity, they are never to back down. No, their groomers tell them, don't back down--you must cling ever more fiercely to your stupidity.
They are also groomed to see those disagreements and challenges not as people having different viewpoints, but as persecution of themselves. They wallow in their persecution complexes and eventually get groomed into thinking that being persecuted means that it's okay to destroy their "oppressors." Everything up to and including murder and mass murder is justifiable to "protect" themselves and their delusions.
And every bit of this comes from the grooming known as religion.
This is what happens to a country that has given religion too much of a free pass for too long.
Meowmee
(5,164 posts)Many other forces are working against democracy here. Add to the mix a culture taken over by social media and reality crap- people who are very uneducated by their own choice and narcissistic beyond belief. Goodness forbid you might have to vote for somebody who isnt good enough for you, who you dont like. Ive done that many times because I always choose to vote against fascism no matter what.
elias7
(4,006 posts)dchill
(38,502 posts)I didn't realize Merkins were something else entirely.
Roisin Ni Fiachra
(2,574 posts)It has been that way for all my adult life. Authoritarian fascism and demolition of democracy in favor of privately controlled government of, by, and for wealthy corporations has long been their goal
Hate sells to weak minds and cold hearts.
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.