The Partisan Divide on Issues

[David Horn]

(11-02-2021, 10:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-02-2021, 03:57 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't see another politician besides Biden available now who could beat Donald Trump, or even several other likely Republican candidates. If he is a placeholder, who is he holding a place for? Trump? Another Republican? That is practically all there is to replace him with. If McAuliffe fails tomorrow, where does that leave him? And us?

You don't see some Democratic politician who can defeat Donald Trump?

With the sordid events of January 6, the former President has disgraced himself. He could have told people to have a celebration of his political legacy as a start of the effort to take America back from people that he deemed sure to wreck it with their liberal, big-0spending agendas. He could have told his supporters to work upon local races to take advantage of structural weaknesses in Democratic support to replace shaky liberals with hard-core MAGA types in swing states. He could have told them to hone their pitches to appeal to people who might be amenable to the MAGA message.

Instead President Trump claimed that people could go on to the Capitol Building and obstruct the official count of the Electoral Vote. There is no legal precedent for people negating a settled election. We have elections in the various States and Dee Cee, and and laws determine who can vote and how votes will be counted. It is up to nobody to refute an official count even in a close election barring egregious fraud such as tampering with voting devices or intimidating potential voters..

This should be telling: on January 6, the State of Georgia had two run-off elections for US Senators. Typically, Republicans win such races. Those elections were held the same day as the Capitol Putsch, and voters in Georgia replaced two Republican Senators with liberal Democrats who make an effective majority if their Party has the presidency. A state that had had no Democratic Senator since 2002 now had two, reflecting the growth of the electorally-Blue area of Greater Atlanta. Whether such is cause or coincidence, even one Republican win of either race would have caused more complete gridlock than we now have.

Most Republicans soiled themselves by backing the coup, a coup that better resembled the Bolshevik seizure of the Winter Palace in Petrograd (Commies long called that event the Glorious October Revolution) on behalf of Vladimir Lenin.  The vast majority of Americans have no use for Marxism-Leninism either for its agenda or its methods.

The American electorate is still conservative on the whole. Nevertheless, the Democratic party is finding an increasing number of people, genuine conservatives, recognizing the Democratic Party. Those who see rational thought as a good idea (it is better than superstition, pseudoscience, bigotry, and religious fanaticism), who think that law and order is necessary for the protection of human rights and civil liberties, and who would like to see small business become a useful escape from poverty can find a home in the Democratic Party that the GOP has made unwelcome. Ordinarily the defense of tradition is a cause for the Right, but remember well that America is multicultural in having multiple traditions that nobody can assail without resorting to bigotry. What all of those traditions share is respect for the Rule of Law, respect for formal education in its own right, and recognition of the value of skill and expertise. The Trump-era GOP has rejected what used to be cornerstone values of the GOP in Eisenhower's day.

Just recheck the overlay between the Eisenhower and Obama victories. Obama may have been too liberal to win over the farm-and-ranch vote and the Mormons, but he got the rest of the Eisenhower coalition. Eisenhower was the last Republican to win all three of Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island since 1924, and the last Republican to win all three states. He accomplished that tricky feat twice.

I can't speak for Ike, but I can't imagine him thinking well of Donald Trump.

Yes, it is Election Day, 2021. Les jeux sont faits.

You're using logic, when emotion, especially raw fear and anger, are what you're tryiing to counter.  It doesn't work, and never has.  It may be necessary to climb into the slime, and fight jsut as dirty as the GOPpers, but barring that, gut punches are needed.  The people neediing convincing aren't listening.  If here in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin can use Critical Race Theory to rile up the crowds yet none of his supporters has the foggiest idea what it is, then we're not working the higher brain functions.