The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(08-20-2020, 12:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-20-2020, 11:12 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-19-2020, 01:38 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-18-2020, 06:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-18-2020, 01:03 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I have to say, I have been watching the Democrats mainly talking to heir own supporters this evening.

I am inclined to think that most regular posters at this site have already covered the same ground as the DNC, and has already committed to how they are going to vote.  Most are deeply partisan.  The loosers at both at this site and the conventions will have some big time readjusting to do.

I disagree that the Democrats are presenting only one perspective.  They are hitting Trump from all sorts of angles, but as you tune that out you don't notice it.  It almost makes one wonder if you are watching at all.  Your ideological filter sort of tunes out everything that doesn't match your worldview and values.  That doesn't leave much getting through.

I watched and  listened to them. I noticed that they were hitting Trump from every angle that they could from their Liberal  (perspectives). Personally speaking, I see a political party that knows its on the verge of collapsing and knows that Trumps represents a large segment of American society who won't save them this time around and opt to cut its losses and move forward with the rest of the country without them.

The current GOP is the one in trouble. It has an asset in the distorted distribution of Senate representation by winning a raft of states with three to six electoral votes, but I can see that changing. Iowa and Montana have excellent chances of ousting Republican Senators. 

I see rifts within the Republican Party that few of us foresaw before Trump. One of the factions which connects to more traditional values of the GOP is positioning to survive the collapse of Donald Trump, and it will be relevant again. 

Donald Trump is not a conservative; he is a fascist. He admires despots and dictators. He inflicts Newspeak upon people whom he expects to believe without qualification or dissent. He is a blatant misogynist; he mocks the handicapped. He is corrupt and cruel.

True. A small portion of the old GOP is in as much trouble as the DNC today. I'd say the entire old Washington establishment is in deep trouble with the American people today. Yes, there is a bit of a rift between the fiscal conservatives and the borrow and spend Republicans (Rhino's) and old Neo Cons these days but that's about it these days. Trump is a libertarian conservative like most everyone else on the American right these days. If Trump was a fascist, he would be doing what you are criticizing him about not doing today.

The more traditional conservative of the 1970's has no home in the GOP today. Of course the pay-down-the-debt-even-if-it-means-high-taxes set was basically Lost. It is entirely possible that such could be forced upon us by the International Monetary Fund along with privatization that pays off debt without expanding any social programs -- particularly should America lose a war and have to make huge reparations payments. 

Trump is a crony capitalist more than anything else, and that is not conservatism. It is characteristic of dictatorial regimes, and as a rule, the less free a society is the more corrupt it is. Crony capitalism is incompatible with a free market in which people can easily evade cronyism.

Trump has some fascist characteristics; he simply did the dictatorial playbook wrong. First, you eliminate or at least marginalize the opposition by outlawing them, prohibiting their participation in electoral politics, having an arrangement that ensures a predictable and permanent majority for the 'leading force', or regulating the nominal opposition. Then, and only then, do you have the internal purge. 

Trump has been quite ineffective at pushing a Hard Right agenda. He does not understand the system.