09-09-2021, 05:34 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-09-2021, 06:07 PM by Eric the Green.)
(09-09-2021, 01:00 PM)sbarrera Wrote:(09-09-2021, 06:14 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(09-09-2021, 12:12 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(09-08-2021, 11:15 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(09-08-2021, 09:46 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: What's the GOP without the 70 some million Trump supporters? I disagree, the GOP ain't shit without Trumps base.
Trump had no political base until he decided to run for President, largely due to spite against President Obama. (If you can think of a worse reason to seek the Presidency than to settle old scores or to get fantastically rich through corruption, then tell me).
The GOP used to be known as the Party of Lincoln; oh, how it has fallen!
It is safe to assume that about 70 million of Trump's voters would have voted for practically any Republican nominee. In view of his old age and suspect health at the least, Republicans are going to need someone else as their exponent rather soon.
Demographics do not favor the Trump base. It is already old, and for that reason it is shrinking every year. It has practically no youth appeal, and practically no appeal to young adults. Millennials and Boomers can get along so long as the Boomers don't exhibit extreme narcissism as does Trump. Millennial adults loathe his anti-labor, anti-environmentalist, and anti-education stances.
Boomers deserve some credit for shaping Millennial attitudes, and Trump does not fail the values that Millennials sought to impart upon Millennial children. Trump is a man of cruelty, greed, and bigotry. he is the most despotic person that we have ever had as President.
In my most cynical moment I expect the GOP and the Patriot Party to merge, if on the terms of the Patriot Party. I expect a disaster.
Yep, the GOP has been falling along with the Democratic party for a while now. It's just a matter of time before the American people begin to let go of them altogether. In case you're not up on current events, Trump didn't leave a bunch of Americans behind in Afghanistan. BTW, that's the primary difference between Democrats and Americans these days. You deserve what's coming dude. Biden did what an American would never do or accept as an outcome these days.
No, it is the neoliberal agenda into which the GOP bought in completely and tried to commit us all to that has failed. The economic doctrine of diminishing returns applies to public policies as well as to productive efforts and marketing. Democrats largely rejected neoliberalism because
(1) it offered them little
(2) it offended their sensibilities, and
(3) liberals, by 1980 mostly Democrats, could see through it.
As it was with the New Deal in the second-to-last completed era of the Skowronek cycle (the New Deal was highly effective early but by the end of the Carter Presidency it had spent itself and could solve no problems cheaply), so it is with the neoliberal era that begins with Reagan's "Morning in America", Trump was unable to make it work even though he had untried and untested ideas for his Presidency. Those ideas were untried and untested for very good reason... or rejected long ago.
Trump bungled the response to COVID-19 as badly as was possible. Just watch the demographics of those contracting COVID-19 and dying of it: it is heavily people on the Right side of the political spectrum.
I don't know about that; I think a lot of Democrats are fine with neoliberalism, specifically the affluent ones who have thrived in the neoliberal regime. Consider this article which broke America down into four political factions:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...as/619012/
These are the factions and my interpretation of them:
Smart America: left/Democrats who are happy with neoliberalism and want to stay 3T
Free America: right/Republicans who are happy with neoliberalism and want to stay 3T
Just America: left/Democrats who are unhappy with neoliberalism and want to go 4T
Real America: right/Republicans who are unhappy with neoliberalism and want to go 4T
I think the Patriot Party is Real America trying to break away from the GOP.
I agree with brower.
Smart America as you describe it does not exist. left/Democrats cannot be happy with neoliberalism, and are not. Neo-liberalism is exclusively a Republican program at this point. The Left is the opposite of laissez-faire, trickle-down economics. Affluent white Democrats are more radical at this point than Democrats of color. Real America does not exist as you describe it, either. Trump and his followers are as neo-liberal as could be; their policies are neo-liberalism on steroids. Read the 2016 Republican platform and see. The only difference from those merely deluded by neo-liberal Republican "freedom" slogans is that the Trump Republicans are also more-prejudiced. To tear down the administrative state as the Trumpists want-- and carried out in such places as the EPA and the Dept. of Education, is giving big business all the freedom it wants to exploit us and ruin our lives and our planet. And social conservatism/prejudice is at this point intimately connected with neo-liberalism, and has been all along. That is why the policy and slogan of cutting welfare and smaller government appeals to both of these supposedly-different factions. Opposition to welfare is the dog-whistle for prejudiced people to vote for less government, which is allowing business to have fewer taxes and regulations. That's also why Republicans rule the White South these days.
"Prejudice" is a convenient term I use which includes white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, Christian Right, anti-immigrant and so on; and often this includes conspiracy theory and anti-vax these days. It's opposition to women's rights, ethnic rights, gay and transgender rights, rights for young people, immigrant rights, nationalist opposition to foreign trade, foreigners and alliances, support for Christian restrictions on other religions and on science, denial of climate change/rights of Nature, denial of science, etc. And since these groups they oppose get protection from the government, the prejudiced are neo-liberals who are against social government (and against democracy). A primary doctrine of neo-liberalism is self-reliance and the belief people should take care of themselves on their own and that only the strong survive (social Darwinism). This connects with neo-Nazis too, and with Christian emphasis on "building character."
The Left is social democracy and respect for diversity. The Right-wing is neo-liberalism and prejudice.
We are all 4T at this point. We can't go back.