Sorry for the confusion, I meant specifically the Trump base, not the Republican base. The Republican base has been left out in the cold since the convention.
What's the difference between the two? I'm honestly asking. I think that's the revelation from this election. The Trump base IS the Republican base now.
This is a hard question to answer, I'm not even sure I know. But I still don't believe that the hardcore racists, sexists & homophobes are the heart of the party despite Trump winning the primary. I really don't. Most of the people I know who are voting Trump don't like him at all but find abortion to be an incalculable evil. So they are making the only vote they can, so they think. I'm really curious about what would happen if a Republican cropped up who was very anti-abortion but believed in climate change and government regulations on business and was pro government social programs and pro immigration. Maybe it's impossible for someone like that to get past the primary.
I also think that the people in the party who are the hardcore racists, sexists and homophobes are dying off - ie they're the 70+ and they won't be around for that much longer. I'm not ignoring the young shits who are MRAs and think they know everything because Reddit and 4chan told them they do, but those people also tend to grow out of that as they get older (the Scott Adams of the world not withstanding).
I am not trying to start an argument, but I am curious;
Why do you expect people who have been shown that what they believe is perfectly acceptable in popular culture, and can get you as far as presidential candidate, billionaire, and tv star, to grow out of it?
Because I grew out of it. Because a lot of people on these forums grew out of it. Because I'm seeing at least some Republicans say "I can't vote Republican this year for the first time in my life." You're asking a fundamental question, "how do people change?" I don't know the mechanics of it, I only know it happens. Usually because you have a person who is fundamentally intelligent and intellectually curious who learns things!
I also find the claim of, "I am willing to risk the collapse of the nation, and potential nuclear winter on a madman with whom I disagree with on everything else, in order to tell other people what they can or can't do with their body.", pretty strange. They can't just abstain? Write in a protest vote?
This made me pretty angry about family members who are supporting Trump, but the answer is they think that the "checks and balances" will keep him from doing anything truly harmful. So, self-delusion.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Glyph I don't want to say all the sources you're following are biased, but based on your posts lately and lack of sources being provided it kinda seems like it.
Trump got a few zingers in that his base will love I'm sure, like the jail thing and "Because you have nothing to say!" stuff. Most of us realize this is childish dumb shit but his supporters tend to eat that up.
Glyph is a pretty good representative of his base, I think. Trump played directly to his base and no one else. My parents will love that he said that he'd jail her, so does every pro-Trump dude I know. Dude at my work just says, "he really stuck it to Hillary a few times!" with gleeful enthusiasm. So yeah, he did exactly what the people who are already for him want, and what they fondly believe will play to undecideds.
Unfortunately for Trump, you gotta have more than the base to win an election.
Trump isn't even playing directly to the GOP "base". I'm as rock-ribbed reliable as you could ask for when it comes to Presidential votes, and I've never been on board the Trump train. Trump is playing not to the base, but to the large and vocal minority within the party. The center-right is gone this election, he isn't speaking to us. And that's astounding because all you had to do this election to get me to vote against Hillary was be a default generic Republican. My dislike for her runs deep. I never liked her, voted against her husband twice, only hated her more through the years. The thought of voting for a Clinton makes me want a shower.
And yet I'm doing it.
The base is fragmeted... only some of them are still on board.
Spool, what do you think of the poll after the tape came out that said 73% or so want the party to stand with him?
I think the base has changed enough that you might be in the minority now, which is terrifying for several reasons.
I don't put a lot of stock in snap polls like that. I'd really want to see the wording of the question and the timing.
You're definitely justified in saying you want to analyze the poll, but I guess my question is more fundamental - assuming for discussion that the poll is accurate, how would you feel/process/analyze that?
sorry to put you on the spot about the state of your party but it's the big question of the week, I think. Where is the Republican party going, what's going to happen wrt the "base" and how it's been courted over the past decade or so?
I don't know where it's going... so many people i respect have jumped ship this time. If what pantsb suggests and what this poll indicates ends up being the case, I can't stay a Republican. I don't know what I do at that point, because I can't deal with the ascending Left either...
If this is the disintegration of the GOP, I hope to see a group with a little bit of sense rise up from the middle, but I don't believe it'll happen quickly. The purity test demanded of the opposition to escape the orbit of Trump's alt-right hatefest can never be passed. It will take a broad move from a Democratic rightwing to reconstitute the GOP as something more sensibly center-right, and people do like to win.
I might be 50 before there's a Republican party worth electing to the Presidency. In the meantime, rearguard opposition from the House will continue to fuel the fringe. It's a Democrat's dream, that's for sure. I believe that it'll take a good few years of excess for some of you to really decide enough is enough and break with your own party to reinvigorate a new GOP that doesn't rely on the maniacs to get anywhere.
What is this purity test? It's news to me and I genuinely want to understand what the other side thinks, so to speak.
I'm sorry your party looks to be disintegrating. Being able to group up and organize with other politically like-minded people should be a simple thing. Trump really is destructive to everything he touches.
He absolutely is.
By purity test I mean that trying to be a Republican politician post-Trump, or run as a new party post-Trump, means proving that you aren't allied with the hard right, or connected to the hard right, or taken a dime from someone who also donated to the hard right, or that you've never made a hard right turn in traffic. The poison runs deep, and it's not to any Democratic politician's advantage to allow a rebranding or a reconstitution of their opposition party.
I sort of understand that it feels "unfair" to be permanently associated with Trump, but the repercussions of feeding that beast need to be felt if it's going to become unviable to do so. That may result in a lot of "crossfire" with (from a small government perspective) good Republicans being knocked down by bad Democrats, but the alternative would be just letting a party get away with toxicity, which is both electorally stupid and morally questionable.
In other words, purity testing the poison out of the Republican party seems to be practically beneficial to the Democrats but necessary for the Republicans/new party to excise some terrible views from being a controlling stake in government.
This is all predicated on Trump losing hard enough and the public caring enough years down the road to punish people electorally, which may not actually be a valid assumption.
For me, if you are a politician and you couldn't discern the tire fire to come that was Trump from the beginning, then your judgement is to be under great scrutiny.
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GatorAn alligator in ScotlandRegistered Userregular
And also, I'm flabbergasted by people saying they're surprised the racists are the base of the Republican party. It's an insult to anyone's intelligence. Nixon's Southern Strategy is almost 50 years old. The Republican Party's base, from the late 60's forward, has always embraced racism, even in its ugliest forms (I am more than comfortable asserting that all people here who are saying "oooooh the party left me by 2005/2008/2001 are white). So Trump is not an aberration; it is the Republican Party's id, revealed for all to see.
Shame on you for supporting them, even ten or twenty or thirty years ago.
Sorry for the confusion, I meant specifically the Trump base, not the Republican base. The Republican base has been left out in the cold since the convention.
What's the difference between the two? I'm honestly asking. I think that's the revelation from this election. The Trump base IS the Republican base now.
This is a hard question to answer, I'm not even sure I know. But I still don't believe that the hardcore racists, sexists & homophobes are the heart of the party despite Trump winning the primary. I really don't. Most of the people I know who are voting Trump don't like him at all but find abortion to be an incalculable evil. So they are making the only vote they can, so they think. I'm really curious about what would happen if a Republican cropped up who was very anti-abortion but believed in climate change and government regulations on business and was pro government social programs and pro immigration. Maybe it's impossible for someone like that to get past the primary.
I also think that the people in the party who are the hardcore racists, sexists and homophobes are dying off - ie they're the 70+ and they won't be around for that much longer. I'm not ignoring the young shits who are MRAs and think they know everything because Reddit and 4chan told them they do, but those people also tend to grow out of that as they get older (the Scott Adams of the world not withstanding).
I am not trying to start an argument, but I am curious;
Why do you expect people who have been shown that what they believe is perfectly acceptable in popular culture, and can get you as far as presidential candidate, billionaire, and tv star, to grow out of it?
Because I grew out of it. Because a lot of people on these forums grew out of it. Because I'm seeing at least some Republicans say "I can't vote Republican this year for the first time in my life." You're asking a fundamental question, "how do people change?" I don't know the mechanics of it, I only know it happens. Usually because you have a person who is fundamentally intelligent and intellectually curious who learns things!
I also find the claim of, "I am willing to risk the collapse of the nation, and potential nuclear winter on a madman with whom I disagree with on everything else, in order to tell other people what they can or can't do with their body.", pretty strange. They can't just abstain? Write in a protest vote?
This made me pretty angry about family members who are supporting Trump, but the answer is they think that the "checks and balances" will keep him from doing anything truly harmful. So, self-delusion.
Sorry for the confusion, I meant specifically the Trump base, not the Republican base. The Republican base has been left out in the cold since the convention.
What's the difference between the two? I'm honestly asking. I think that's the revelation from this election. The Trump base IS the Republican base now.
This is a hard question to answer, I'm not even sure I know. But I still don't believe that the hardcore racists, sexists & homophobes are the heart of the party despite Trump winning the primary. I really don't. Most of the people I know who are voting Trump don't like him at all but find abortion to be an incalculable evil. So they are making the only vote they can, so they think. I'm really curious about what would happen if a Republican cropped up who was very anti-abortion but believed in climate change and government regulations on business and was pro government social programs and pro immigration. Maybe it's impossible for someone like that to get past the primary.
I also think that the people in the party who are the hardcore racists, sexists and homophobes are dying off - ie they're the 70+ and they won't be around for that much longer. I'm not ignoring the young shits who are MRAs and think they know everything because Reddit and 4chan told them they do, but those people also tend to grow out of that as they get older (the Scott Adams of the world not withstanding).
I am not trying to start an argument, but I am curious;
Why do you expect people who have been shown that what they believe is perfectly acceptable in popular culture, and can get you as far as presidential candidate, billionaire, and tv star, to grow out of it?
Because I grew out of it. Because a lot of people on these forums grew out of it. Because I'm seeing at least some Republicans say "I can't vote Republican this year for the first time in my life." You're asking a fundamental question, "how do people change?" I don't know the mechanics of it, I only know it happens. Usually because you have a person who is fundamentally intelligent and intellectually curious who learns things!
I also find the claim of, "I am willing to risk the collapse of the nation, and potential nuclear winter on a madman with whom I disagree with on everything else, in order to tell other people what they can or can't do with their body.", pretty strange. They can't just abstain? Write in a protest vote?
This made me pretty angry about family members who are supporting Trump, but the answer is they think that the "checks and balances" will keep him from doing anything truly harmful. So, self-delusion.
Uh, are they aware there AREN'T any checks and balances? He has literal access to launch the nukes with no one able to stop it. That seems worth bringing up to them, if you haven't already.
Morkath on
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Orphanerivers of redthat run to seaRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I really do regret that the Republican party is drifting further and further into the fringe. There was a clip of Obama on Fallon's show, as well as an interview with Biden where they express that they do want a Republican party that is willing to oppose them, but on actual policy matters instead of for the sake of opposition and obstruction. I feel bad for spool and people similar to him that disagree with the Democrats on how the country should be run but are getting left behind by a party which has chosen to rely on a base that doesn't seem to care about any of these things other than on a superficial level.
I feel like this election season might've gone well for Republicans if Romney had run
There's an element of this. Despite having 17 knuckleheads on the dais this cycle, almost none of them had any legitimate claim to being a statesman. Rubio was a rookie with a lot of baggage, Kasich was a virtual unknown from Nowhereville, Bush had two generations of dead weight dragging him down, Christie was a slovenly bully with a record of petty abuses of power, and the Ricks are legitimate morons with terrible records and have been out of politics for nearly 20 years between them.
There wasn't a McCain up there this year. There wasn't a Romney. There wasn't a Dole or a Thompson or an Olympia Snowe. Not surprisingly, none of those people backed primary candidates this year, and all of them have condemned Trump (except Fred Thompson, we're still waiting to hear back from him).
There is no one from the establishment that wants to be associated with the current iteration of the GOP base, and there's few in the base that are looking back for them.
At this point, the GOP has so fully poisoned the well that I don't even bother looking at them in all my races. Massive obstruction in house and senate means if I want the country to keep running, I need to vote democrat. My state GOP keeps trying to extract more and more wealth out of my city to benefit the white rural areas while disenfranchising people in the city, so if I want to have public schools or a transit system, I have to vote democrat. And the presidency I have to vote democrat because otherwise we're going to pick justices that make the 1950s look progressive.
The Republicans need to try and be a real party, and not the anti-democrat pro-ism party. I expect this to never happen.
I think there's a nonzero chance that if trump were elected and told the Pentagon to launch some nukes they'd just be like "no"
The NCA dictates when nukes are launched, which is the CIC and SoD. Past that it would be insubordination and potentially treason charges to refuse the order.
The SoD can't even veto it, he can only approve it, or be fired. Trump can just work his way down the chain until someone agrees with him.
1) Trumpism
2) The burn it down with the most conservative nominee possible (Ted Cruz)
3) The reasonable-ish GOP (Romney-ish)
On the plus side, anybody who can come out of thatand manage to gather support from the other two sides might be, politics aside, at least more worthy of the job than anybody they trotted out this year.
I think there's a nonzero chance that if trump were elected and told the Pentagon to launch some nukes they'd just be like "no"
The NCA dictates when nukes are launched, which is the CIC and SoD. Past that it would be insubordination and potentially treason charges to refuse the order.
The SoD can't even veto it, he can only approve it, or be fired. Trump can just work his way down the chain until someone agrees with him.
yeah but that stuff isn't physically handled by any of those people
assuming Trump goes down the chain (let's assume the secdef actually approves the order for simplicity), they still call the DoD to have them actually do it
I'm saying that the generals who manage that might have sense enough to refuse
I think there's a nonzero chance that if trump were elected and told the Pentagon to launch some nukes they'd just be like "no"
The NCA dictates when nukes are launched, which is the CIC and SoD. Past that it would be insubordination and potentially treason charges to refuse the order.
The SoD can't even veto it, he can only approve it, or be fired. Trump can just work his way down the chain until someone agrees with him.
yeah but that stuff isn't physically handled by any of those people
assuming Trump goes down the chain (let's assume the secdef actually approves the order for simplicity), they still call the DoD to have them actually do it
I'm saying that the generals who manage that might have sense enough to refuse
Hopefully? Given they discharged a guy for asking this exact question makes me question it enough to the point it isn't something I would bet on.
There wasn't a McCain up there this year. There wasn't a Romney. There wasn't a Dole or a Thompson or an Olympia Snowe. Not surprisingly, none of those people backed primary candidates this year, and all of them have condemned Trump (except Fred Thompson, we're still waiting to hear back from him).
Well Fred Thompson must like Trump's pro-law & order stance
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Because I grew out of it. Because a lot of people on these forums grew out of it. Because I'm seeing at least some Republicans say "I can't vote Republican this year for the first time in my life." You're asking a fundamental question, "how do people change?" I don't know the mechanics of it, I only know it happens. Usually because you have a person who is fundamentally intelligent and intellectually curious who learns things!
This made me pretty angry about family members who are supporting Trump, but the answer is they think that the "checks and balances" will keep him from doing anything truly harmful. So, self-delusion.
I sort of understand that it feels "unfair" to be permanently associated with Trump, but the repercussions of feeding that beast need to be felt if it's going to become unviable to do so. That may result in a lot of "crossfire" with (from a small government perspective) good Republicans being knocked down by bad Democrats, but the alternative would be just letting a party get away with toxicity, which is both electorally stupid and morally questionable.
In other words, purity testing the poison out of the Republican party seems to be practically beneficial to the Democrats but necessary for the Republicans/new party to excise some terrible views from being a controlling stake in government.
This is all predicated on Trump losing hard enough and the public caring enough years down the road to punish people electorally, which may not actually be a valid assumption.
Romney would have died during the primaries.
Shame on you for supporting them, even ten or twenty or thirty years ago.
Belief is what can change the nature of a man.
/planescape torment
Uh, are they aware there AREN'T any checks and balances? He has literal access to launch the nukes with no one able to stop it. That seems worth bringing up to them, if you haven't already.
pleasepaypreacher.net
There's an element of this. Despite having 17 knuckleheads on the dais this cycle, almost none of them had any legitimate claim to being a statesman. Rubio was a rookie with a lot of baggage, Kasich was a virtual unknown from Nowhereville, Bush had two generations of dead weight dragging him down, Christie was a slovenly bully with a record of petty abuses of power, and the Ricks are legitimate morons with terrible records and have been out of politics for nearly 20 years between them.
There wasn't a McCain up there this year. There wasn't a Romney. There wasn't a Dole or a Thompson or an Olympia Snowe. Not surprisingly, none of those people backed primary candidates this year, and all of them have condemned Trump (except Fred Thompson, we're still waiting to hear back from him).
There is no one from the establishment that wants to be associated with the current iteration of the GOP base, and there's few in the base that are looking back for them.
The Republicans need to try and be a real party, and not the anti-democrat pro-ism party. I expect this to never happen.
The NCA dictates when nukes are launched, which is the CIC and SoD. Past that it would be insubordination and potentially treason charges to refuse the order.
The SoD can't even veto it, he can only approve it, or be fired. Trump can just work his way down the chain until someone agrees with him.
On the plus side, anybody who can come out of thatand manage to gather support from the other two sides might be, politics aside, at least more worthy of the job than anybody they trotted out this year.
yeah but that stuff isn't physically handled by any of those people
assuming Trump goes down the chain (let's assume the secdef actually approves the order for simplicity), they still call the DoD to have them actually do it
I'm saying that the generals who manage that might have sense enough to refuse
Hopefully? Given they discharged a guy for asking this exact question makes me question it enough to the point it isn't something I would bet on.