GOP Civil War! They are all fighting with each other.

[Dawson Leery]

http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/01/22/gop-civil-war-conservatives-turn-on-national-re/208117

[KentuckyWoman]

1. Judging by GD:P

It's pretty much open season all the way around......

[NutmegYankee]

2. We have always been the party of the circular firing squad.

What's new this time is the Republicans have formed their own version. It's God Squad v. Il Douche, v. Wall Street.

[Hortensis]

3. Finally coming out swinging in this mess are

defenders of traditional political conservatism bunkered in the New Republic, and that's not a bad thing. One enormous problem of conservatism is that, unlike liberalism, it's very hard to define concisely -- an ideology arising from the emotional side of the conservative brain (as opposed to liberalism which arose mainly from intellectual Enlightenment philosophy).

Thus it's been far too easy to use mass marketing techniques to "turn" conservatives away from traditional commitment to protecting what works to support of disastrously experimental laissez-faire deregulation policies that are destroying the party by destroying the wellbeing of its supporters.

Conservatives are finally admitting at the same time that cynical leaders have betrayed their social ideals by using them to gain power but otherwise ignoring them. Using them like the cheese rodents on a wheel run continually toward but never reach.

Of course all the factions and interests are finally at war. The big question is whether the GOP, as we know it, will finally complete its death spiral this election.

(The Rout Of Traditionalist Conservatism http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-rout-of-traditionalist-conservatism/ )

[Volaris]

4. That depends on us.

If we landslide whoever is the party nominee, they will have one hell of a time coming to grips with the fact that they make up about 20% of the total population, and oh how they will grieve for 'murika then.
If it's a close election, they will do what they ALWAYS do, and blame the 'liburl' media for being oh so mean to them, and they will be back to fight another day.
It's important to defeat them in such a way that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the majority disagrees with them, and then prove to them legislatively that the programs we enact are good for ALL Americans, not just the 'liberal coastal elites'.

[Hortensis]

6. Volaris, about 1/2 of mankind is hard-wired conservative

personality to some degree, and that is certainly true in the United States. Conservatives think, react, process information, even see morality different from liberals.

I'm talking here about what is going on with American conservatism in politics and its main political organization. These aren't my ideas. Conservative thinkers have been in despair over the "eclipse," sometimes described as "death," of traditional, or classic, conservatism in the U.S. That link I posted to a conservative site discusses this.

Traditional conservatism has been corrupted by people like the Kochs (and many others) who've used vast sums of money and advertising techniques to turn conservatives away from protecting good institutions from change to changing institutions to direct more money and power to a few. And, of course, training nice people to behave like attack dogs whenever the other party, the Democratic, tries to block them.

William Buckley's humorous but once-true definition of traditional conservatives: "A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!' "

Unfortunately, for a long time they have instead been busy destroying all that worked well if it blocked the accumulation of wealth by their handlers. Which brings us to today...

[Volaris]

7. Agreed. One of the sticking points of 'modern'

Conservatism for me is the brainwashing that subverts otherwise smart people into advocating against their own best interests and the systemic-wide destruction of Public Institutions that exist to prevent the usefulness of that kind of propoganda. Traditional conservativism says
'I might not be all that keen on the theory of Social Security or the means to universal Public Education, but generally those programs work as intended so we probably shouldn't fuck with them all that much'.
Modern MOVEMENT Conservatism, as it's been wedded to Christian prosperity-gospel bullshit is nothing but a sophisticated propoganda machine designed to destroy intellectual aptitude for the singular purpose of privatizing as much of the Commons as possible so that the American Rich can be the equals of their old English Lorded kin.
Fuck ALL That.
=)

[librechik]

5. more stupid from RepuKKKes n/t