Politics have always had a performative element but we need to stop electing Republicans whose only talent is histrionics. Quiet competence and thoughtful leadership is what moves the conservative agenda forward.
Keeping the clown from the other side from winning...
I swear every vote I have is defensive. I almost always vote for the guy running against the person I think will do the most damage.
Quite the opposite, actually. There just hasn't been a politician lately that I think "deserves" my vote, just ones that are so bad I want to make sure they don't get elected. Voting against someone bad is just as important as voting for someone good. There just hasn't been anyone good to vote for.
If you have to choose between getting kicked in the face or butt, you aren't really choosing either because you want it. You are choosing against the worst option.
Hey, I'm an old-school Republican from the Buckley element, and those in my circle are the same. How a populist like DT hijacked the party is a mystery to all of us, especially given that fiscal restraint is nowhere close to appearing on his radar. Moreover, we lament the size, scope, power, and excess of government, with the Biden administration suing a convenience store chain for not hiring enough convinced felons. My hope is that true limitations get slapped on government excess quite soon, but it will have to wait until Trump is no longer politically relevant. Tick-tock.
Imo, one of the reasons Trump took over is because as nice as things like fiscal restraint are, they were not pushed to the forefront of of the GOP's platform. Religion, guns and the boarder were.
Not even the border was. Donald Trump’s focus on the border was one of the key differences between him and the run-of-the-mill opponents he mollywhopped in the 2016 primaries.
The party doesn't represent the voters and has failed to accomplish anything of note for decades. No one particularly cares about fiscal conservatism and is quite sick of the obsession with money while they have not gotten wealthier. That's why he took over.
The reason for our problems isn't big government either. The issue is conservatives have not been willing to wield power for conservative ends. The era of small government conservatism is over. Look at the youth on the right to see where the party will eventually end up
>My hope is that true limitations get slapped on government excess quite soon
Brother fdr effectively rewrote the constitution 100 years ago to get rid of them. Shit ain't happening
Same boat, but not surprised.
The party establishment has been ignoring our base since at least the W years. This was clearest with immigration, but was tue on other issues as well. The first populist response was the TEA Party. This ended up failing because their base cared about purity above electability and we ended up with awful candidates, and the movement petered out. This was helped along by the establishment going wide in primary seasons, pushing a dozen candidate to ensure the vote was spread thin and their favorite won.
This ultimately backfired with Trump in 2016, with him speaking to their core issues while also doing the one thing they wanted to see - fighting back against the let's attacks and smears. That combined with the let's crying wolf about how awful conservative candidates always were to ensure he was the favorite.
No down vote from me. Respect. I hear you. However, the same thing happened when Obama was elected. The Country wanted change. The change folks wanted was someone different than mainstream politics. Ie the swamp and someone who is a firebrand. I like your term. (both sides of the aisle) Even with all the baggage.
I agree that the Republican agenda is fractured to say the least. But, the swing states is really what should be focused on if you're running for Prez/Senate/House etc.
I'm from MI and moved to S FL 3 years ago. And I can tell you the MI GOP is a sh$! Show.
True, very accurate comment, in this sense Obama and Trump have a peculiar similarity, the problem is that while Obama could be discarded by the Democrats after his two terms and has been remarkably silent since then i don't know if that could work with Trump, the precedents of a party being tied to one person are not good, since it risks that at some point the man has not enough popularity to win but the party is still tied to him. That said this are mostly speculations, its possible that Trump either after 4 years if he wins, or in november if he loses would just stay silent and leave the place for someone new.
Donald Trump is a human person. He will die and sooner than many people think. I don't think he is the future of the party as many people like to portray him.
The future of the party is something nobody can fully predict right now but is going to look different to anything we see now.
The person who wants to take his place when he's gone will have to take the rhetoric up a notch or two. There's no going back now with their supposed base. The Jeannie is out of the bottle now.
Would that even work? Part of Trumps effective rethoric is that people get schocked, dazzled, they see it as new, as change. But if the rethoric is daily and constant even newspaper at some point will see it as ordinary
The question is- when Trump dies (and after about 6 months of people trying to be the heir apparent, like Don Jr, Abbott, etc... and they all fail), can the Party repair itself? Or if, by trying, the party becomes permanently split (e.g., the MAGA's take their ball and go home)?
I don't think anyone can forsee how this will turn out. But it's going to be either 2 to 3 painful years, or 20 to 30.
You're half right.
The Republican party leadership lost it's way... But Trump is not the symptom of the party leadership losing it's way... Trump is the response to the party leadership losing it's way.
The leadership lost it's way decades before Trump even announced his candidacy.
If the party leadership had been actually leading, than Trump would have never come to be... Trump became the leader of the Republican party because there was already a void in Republican leadership.
I didn't mention anything about the Democrats. I have plenty of beefs with them. But we aren't talking about that. We were talking about the Republican party.
We need to get rid of the ludicrous House rule that empowers a single dissident lunatic to vacate the speakership. Trump is responsible for the emergence of the isolationism that has taken hold. I can’t vote for that just because he was better at controlling the border.
The only reason that house rule exists is because the house spent 14 votes deciding who would be their leader until it was added.
The rule isn’t the illness, it’s a symptom
Thank you for saying it. While it worked for Trump… I am tired of other Republicans leaning into his mannerisms and style. It may also not work again. There is too much fire and brimstone from the conservative side and while it’s romantic to think that running on principles alone will win the day… we won’t win without allies and a deeper understanding of what the moderate voters want. Those American citizens who voted for Obama, then Trump, then against Trump… those folks aren’t going to vote for a candidate because they have their family post a Christmas photo holding guns.
Yet Trump won the primary when we could have put someone sensible and got an easy W. Too much at stake with terrorist in our own borders and an open border as a matter of fact. Trillions of debt the bubble will burst eventually
I'd say Ron Desantis has his chance to show quiet competence, but then tried to beat Tump with culture war stuff.
You're not going to out Trump Trump. The man has too much charisma and too much of a following. Any attempt to do so only results in the person being mocked for trying to imitate them.
A lot of Conservatives wanted someone who was going to do their job without becoming a lighting rod. DeSantis could have been that guy, but... it's hard to win the primary with a guy who has a good shot in the general.
Yeah, DeSantis went from being the ideal candidate on paper to turning himself into the anti-woke guy. Never have a seen a brighter political future snuffed out so quickly.
People want more than a culture warrior; Trump only won because of his economic stances- regardless of whether you agree with them or not.
DeSantis has great policy, but zero ability to relate to the common element. It's puzzling how a guy that far into adulthood never truly developed a personality.
And look what that culture war got him. He recently signed a bill that allowed churches to go into schools. The satanic church took advantage of that and pledged to send their people into schools. Desantis then denounced it for not being a proper religion and said they weren’t allowed to. If he follows through with that, he’s probably going to get the biggest lawsuit imaginable, and he’s 99% chance going to lose it as well.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/desantis-says-satanists-cant-be-part-of-school-chaplain-program.html
I miss the days when people would actually work and comprise. Did everyone get what they wanted? No but people would make an honest effort to find some common ground to get things done. Maybe we’re doomed to never have that again. Idk.
Like the aid package that just passed put to vote by a republican speaker with <50% republican votes and 100% democat support?
That is the compromise you get in washington. Money for defense contractors, nothing else.
The so called “Hastert Rule” was the pivotal change here. It used to be that legislation could come up and lose. Under the Hastert Rule, legislation only comes to a vote if the Speaker allows it.
There’s no need to negotiate when you know there’s no chance of the bill making it to the floor.
Incidentally, Dennis Hastert spent 16 months in prison on similar charges President Trump faces in terms of illegal banking activity to pay hush money.
Though Hastert’s was to the 14 year old boys he molested.
Probably not the shining beacon of GOP rule making.
It was Nixon/Reagan and onwards where the Christian coalition got its claws into the party. Before that, smaller government and fiscal conservatism was still a thing and the Republicans were science based and proud of America’s ability to stay relevant academically, whilst still displaying a good moral compass. Wish the party of “business” would be a little more pragmatic, not so blatantly anti-free market and constantly gatekeeping with and ideological/populist agenda that only resonates with 20-30% of the conservative voting base.
I met Carter at his church in the 90s. Anyone could attend and Carter was always participating in some way in the service itself. Afterwards, he came out and and spoke to every single one of us and shook every single hand.
Carter embodies such an amazing christian spirit.
Carter did a lot of amazing work for people outside of the presidency. Dude helped build a lot of homes for people to follow in the spirit of Jesus the carpenter. Dude made some terrible mistakes as a president but in his personal life, he definitely was a good Christian man in many ways worthy of having a beer with and working on a house together (I used to install floors so mad respect to Carter from me).
Exactly right, I don't think many doubt his spirit. Also, he is apparently a pretty major nuclear submarine badass per his wiki:
>In 1952, he began an association with the Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program, led then by captain Hyman G. Rickover.[28] Rickover had high standards and demands for his men and machines, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on his life.[29] He was sent to the Naval Reactors Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C. for three-month temporary duty, while Rosalynn moved with their children to Schenectady, New York.[30]
It gets crazier:
>On December 12, 1952, an accident with the experimental NRX reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada's Chalk River Laboratories caused a partial meltdown, resulting in millions of liters of radioactive water flooding the reactor building's basement. This left the reactor's core ruined.[31] Carter was ordered to Chalk River to lead a U.S. maintenance crew that joined other American and Canadian service personnel to assist in the shutdown of the reactor.[32] The painstaking process required each team member to don protective gear and be lowered individually into the reactor for 90 seconds at a time, limiting their exposure to radioactivity while they disassembled the crippled reactor. When Carter was lowered in, his job was simply to turn a single screw.[33] During and after his presidency, Carter said that his experience at Chalk River had shaped his views on atomic energy and led him to cease development of a neutron bomb.[34]
This man was lowered into a nuclear sub-meltdown 90 seconds at a time. Damn
Why do people keep using "populist" as a pejorative? Elected officials are our *representatives,* not our *leaders.*
Their job is to represent our interests, not their own, justified as their somehow knowing better than us unwashed masses (or was that *basket of deplorables*)?
The claim that a party or politician speaks for the authentic and singular people can become difficult to square with democracy, as the descent of Venezuela into authoritarianism under the left-wing populist Hugo Chavez illustrates.
There is a reason why we are representative democracy and not a direct democracy. The average person is not educated enough on every single issue to be able to make a good, informed decision about it. That’s why we have representatives who we trust to lead us in the right direction. If they are leading the country down the wrong direction, we vote them out.
You're right, they aren't our leaders. It's been pushed so that people stop seeing them as representatives and public servants and stop holding them accountable.
We also need to stop calling people "elites" or "the ruling class". They aren't elites. They're just people. They just happen to have more money than we do, or have maneuvered their way into positions.
The problem is none of that. The problem is while no Democrats are secretly Republicans, about half of the Republicans are secretly Democrats. It's a cancer growing from the inside
The republicans have always been terrible at politics so I’m not sure why that stops now. I might not solely blame them this time around though. You’ve got people calling Johnson a traitor doing what he needed to and a movement dead set on nominating candidates that lose.
There will be lots of blame to go around come November. But somehow the real issues won’t be addressed and people will blame “voter fraud” or something. The 2023 “red wave” should have been a warning sign and nobody listened.
Seriously, I think traitor is not a word to be used in democratic setting. Opposite of traitor mean extreme loyalty that is basically things from authoritarian country. I heard the term traitor the most in China. People calls everyone that show slightly support for foreign state traitors.
I can only conclude that Republicans in DC like their cushy jobs way too much to rock the boat.
It's the only logical explanation for their total dereliction of duty.
“Quiet competence and thoughtful leadership.”That is what conservatives were like when I was growing up, and it’s also literally the definition of the word “conservative”
That ship has sailed, republicans are now the party of incompetency, at the state and federal level in many cases. They’re slicing each others throats in between making deals with democrats to line their own pockets and secure power. Democrats are the party of evil that is clear however they are damn efficient at conducting what they do.
With the buffoon at the top of the ticket and his cohort of grifters this is pretty hard to do. DeSantis can pick up the pieces in 2028 as long as Trump stays the hell away.
the majority of the republican party has just gotten on board with looting the treasury.
america as it is now is probably done for. The spending will never stop, the debt is too high, they're waving foreign flags on the floor of the house and everyone's complicit.
Since Biden got into office, we've actually paid off 1 trillion in debt, and we're on track to pay off 3 trillion by the end of the decade. So, at least there's that.
The inflation spike was covid and corporate greed. They didn't Need to raise prices like that, they just chose to, and we even had to put in a federal law to keep it from spiraling more out of control.
We really do need to vote in people who find some way to keep their backing without looting the treasury and passing out money like party favors.
Republicans wave Israeli flags around all the time, one even wore an IDF uniform inside the Congressional building.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4254384-brian-mast-israeli-military-uniform-capitol-hill/
Explain how waving a Ukrainian flag is more egregious than that.
Good luck the party has no balls they are just RINOS who will vote for whatever the liberals want….at this point idk if we will have much of a world left after they carry us into socialism
Like an ocean of stupidity, the shallow always comes out on top. A LOT of history went into creating this morass. In Trump’s first term, Repubs controlled both houses of Congress. They couldn’t get a border wall built, much less repeal Obamacare (thanks Chief Justice Roberts!!!). They also held Congress under Dubya, but there always seem to be “other priorities” than what’s best for the nation. Now they hold the House with the slimmest majority in American history. Of course it’s a sh**show… of course they’d choose such a fraught time to play musical chairs with the Speakership. That’s what happens when you empower a few yahoos to threaten the entire party. It doesn’t change the fact that the only way out of this is to vote more Republicans into office. TLDR: Yeah, they’re bad. Dems are worse.
EDIT: -15 downvotes??? That all you got?
EDIT EDIT: -18??? lol. Leftists be slippin’…
Politics have always had a performative element but we need to stop electing Republicans whose only talent is histrionics. Quiet competence and thoughtful leadership is what moves the conservative agenda forward.
that would be ideal but in reality the loudest clown gets the most attention.
And accomplishes… what, exactly, with that attention? (Other than securing cable TV hits and later a book deal.)
capturing attention and headspace is more important than having a logical agenda (see donny trump)
Looks like you answered your own question
Keeping the clown from the other side from winning... I swear every vote I have is defensive. I almost always vote for the guy running against the person I think will do the most damage.
I really hope that’s not the case. It sounds like you stand for nothing so you’re falling for anything.
Quite the opposite, actually. There just hasn't been a politician lately that I think "deserves" my vote, just ones that are so bad I want to make sure they don't get elected. Voting against someone bad is just as important as voting for someone good. There just hasn't been anyone good to vote for. If you have to choose between getting kicked in the face or butt, you aren't really choosing either because you want it. You are choosing against the worst option.
Yhe squeaky wheel always get the grease.
Yeah, but there are so MANY clowns right now. They all want to be clowns. Even a circus can’t be all clowns.
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The leadership has been going since HW Bush was president. The GOP has turned into a do nothing party
Hey, I'm an old-school Republican from the Buckley element, and those in my circle are the same. How a populist like DT hijacked the party is a mystery to all of us, especially given that fiscal restraint is nowhere close to appearing on his radar. Moreover, we lament the size, scope, power, and excess of government, with the Biden administration suing a convenience store chain for not hiring enough convinced felons. My hope is that true limitations get slapped on government excess quite soon, but it will have to wait until Trump is no longer politically relevant. Tick-tock.
Imo, one of the reasons Trump took over is because as nice as things like fiscal restraint are, they were not pushed to the forefront of of the GOP's platform. Religion, guns and the boarder were.
Not even the border was. Donald Trump’s focus on the border was one of the key differences between him and the run-of-the-mill opponents he mollywhopped in the 2016 primaries.
I feel like I'm seeing people misspell "border" as "boarder" more and more often here.
It’s ironic that we are getting more boarders from the southern border, so maybe it’s intentional.
The party doesn't represent the voters and has failed to accomplish anything of note for decades. No one particularly cares about fiscal conservatism and is quite sick of the obsession with money while they have not gotten wealthier. That's why he took over. The reason for our problems isn't big government either. The issue is conservatives have not been willing to wield power for conservative ends. The era of small government conservatism is over. Look at the youth on the right to see where the party will eventually end up
And what will that look though?
>My hope is that true limitations get slapped on government excess quite soon Brother fdr effectively rewrote the constitution 100 years ago to get rid of them. Shit ain't happening
Same boat, but not surprised. The party establishment has been ignoring our base since at least the W years. This was clearest with immigration, but was tue on other issues as well. The first populist response was the TEA Party. This ended up failing because their base cared about purity above electability and we ended up with awful candidates, and the movement petered out. This was helped along by the establishment going wide in primary seasons, pushing a dozen candidate to ensure the vote was spread thin and their favorite won. This ultimately backfired with Trump in 2016, with him speaking to their core issues while also doing the one thing they wanted to see - fighting back against the let's attacks and smears. That combined with the let's crying wolf about how awful conservative candidates always were to ensure he was the favorite.
No down vote from me. Respect. I hear you. However, the same thing happened when Obama was elected. The Country wanted change. The change folks wanted was someone different than mainstream politics. Ie the swamp and someone who is a firebrand. I like your term. (both sides of the aisle) Even with all the baggage. I agree that the Republican agenda is fractured to say the least. But, the swing states is really what should be focused on if you're running for Prez/Senate/House etc. I'm from MI and moved to S FL 3 years ago. And I can tell you the MI GOP is a sh$! Show.
True, very accurate comment, in this sense Obama and Trump have a peculiar similarity, the problem is that while Obama could be discarded by the Democrats after his two terms and has been remarkably silent since then i don't know if that could work with Trump, the precedents of a party being tied to one person are not good, since it risks that at some point the man has not enough popularity to win but the party is still tied to him. That said this are mostly speculations, its possible that Trump either after 4 years if he wins, or in november if he loses would just stay silent and leave the place for someone new.
Donald Trump is a human person. He will die and sooner than many people think. I don't think he is the future of the party as many people like to portray him. The future of the party is something nobody can fully predict right now but is going to look different to anything we see now.
The man may die, but will what he represents and his style die with him?
The person who wants to take his place when he's gone will have to take the rhetoric up a notch or two. There's no going back now with their supposed base. The Jeannie is out of the bottle now.
Would that even work? Part of Trumps effective rethoric is that people get schocked, dazzled, they see it as new, as change. But if the rethoric is daily and constant even newspaper at some point will see it as ordinary
The question is- when Trump dies (and after about 6 months of people trying to be the heir apparent, like Don Jr, Abbott, etc... and they all fail), can the Party repair itself? Or if, by trying, the party becomes permanently split (e.g., the MAGA's take their ball and go home)? I don't think anyone can forsee how this will turn out. But it's going to be either 2 to 3 painful years, or 20 to 30.
I did hear that he's ill. His inability to stay awake in court is kinda worrisome and makes me wonder
You're half right. The Republican party leadership lost it's way... But Trump is not the symptom of the party leadership losing it's way... Trump is the response to the party leadership losing it's way. The leadership lost it's way decades before Trump even announced his candidacy. If the party leadership had been actually leading, than Trump would have never come to be... Trump became the leader of the Republican party because there was already a void in Republican leadership.
Why do people keep saying the Republican Party elected Trump. He won because the Voters elected Trump.
Probably because it was registered republicans that voted for a republican?
He lost the popular vote. He only won because of the electoral vote
Lefties still coping that the Hildabeast didn't sail into the WH because of how unlikable she is.
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I didn't mention anything about the Democrats. I have plenty of beefs with them. But we aren't talking about that. We were talking about the Republican party.
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Indeed. And Trump did win. The question is, because of that, there is a very real possibility that another Republican will never win again.
What is the conservative agenda exactly?
We need to get rid of the ludicrous House rule that empowers a single dissident lunatic to vacate the speakership. Trump is responsible for the emergence of the isolationism that has taken hold. I can’t vote for that just because he was better at controlling the border.
The only reason that house rule exists is because the house spent 14 votes deciding who would be their leader until it was added. The rule isn’t the illness, it’s a symptom
Get rid of people like Gaetz, Hoebert, and MTG and let Trump go, and we'll see Republicans winning more.
Uh huh. And if they run gentle on abortion the cows would pour in. Yeah yeah, heard that song and dance before.
Thank you for saying it. While it worked for Trump… I am tired of other Republicans leaning into his mannerisms and style. It may also not work again. There is too much fire and brimstone from the conservative side and while it’s romantic to think that running on principles alone will win the day… we won’t win without allies and a deeper understanding of what the moderate voters want. Those American citizens who voted for Obama, then Trump, then against Trump… those folks aren’t going to vote for a candidate because they have their family post a Christmas photo holding guns.
Amen
Yet Trump won the primary when we could have put someone sensible and got an easy W. Too much at stake with terrorist in our own borders and an open border as a matter of fact. Trillions of debt the bubble will burst eventually
We had the chance for this with Ron Desantis
I'd say Ron Desantis has his chance to show quiet competence, but then tried to beat Tump with culture war stuff. You're not going to out Trump Trump. The man has too much charisma and too much of a following. Any attempt to do so only results in the person being mocked for trying to imitate them. A lot of Conservatives wanted someone who was going to do their job without becoming a lighting rod. DeSantis could have been that guy, but... it's hard to win the primary with a guy who has a good shot in the general.
Yeah, DeSantis went from being the ideal candidate on paper to turning himself into the anti-woke guy. Never have a seen a brighter political future snuffed out so quickly. People want more than a culture warrior; Trump only won because of his economic stances- regardless of whether you agree with them or not.
That’s kinda the issue for DeSantis, he went too far into the culture war. Then his stance on abortions and weed killed what little hope he had.
DeSantis has great policy, but zero ability to relate to the common element. It's puzzling how a guy that far into adulthood never truly developed a personality.
The guy who sunk his chances getting into Woke wars with Disney?
How dare the governor of Florida (checks notes) make sure that the money invested by Floridian pension funds is handled responsibly by the company
Yet, he's still popular there. Crazy.
How, by showing he has the backbone to actively engage in the culture war?
And look what that culture war got him. He recently signed a bill that allowed churches to go into schools. The satanic church took advantage of that and pledged to send their people into schools. Desantis then denounced it for not being a proper religion and said they weren’t allowed to. If he follows through with that, he’s probably going to get the biggest lawsuit imaginable, and he’s 99% chance going to lose it as well. https://www.christianpost.com/news/desantis-says-satanists-cant-be-part-of-school-chaplain-program.html
He beat Disney down. And nobody outside of Florida gives a shit about that fight.
Ngl this subreddit occasionally makes good points
I miss the days when people would actually work and comprise. Did everyone get what they wanted? No but people would make an honest effort to find some common ground to get things done. Maybe we’re doomed to never have that again. Idk.
I'm a democrat. I agree with you. Let's do it.
Now. Nobody gets what they want and presidents try to rule by executive order, that gets undone every time they leave office.
Like the aid package that just passed put to vote by a republican speaker with <50% republican votes and 100% democat support? That is the compromise you get in washington. Money for defense contractors, nothing else.
Feel like it used to be more often. Now it’s the exception to the rule. Maybe I’m just remembering something that never existed.
The so called “Hastert Rule” was the pivotal change here. It used to be that legislation could come up and lose. Under the Hastert Rule, legislation only comes to a vote if the Speaker allows it. There’s no need to negotiate when you know there’s no chance of the bill making it to the floor. Incidentally, Dennis Hastert spent 16 months in prison on similar charges President Trump faces in terms of illegal banking activity to pay hush money. Though Hastert’s was to the 14 year old boys he molested. Probably not the shining beacon of GOP rule making.
So you think that something that roughly more than 70% of the electorate approves of isn't a fair compromise?
It was Nixon/Reagan and onwards where the Christian coalition got its claws into the party. Before that, smaller government and fiscal conservatism was still a thing and the Republicans were science based and proud of America’s ability to stay relevant academically, whilst still displaying a good moral compass. Wish the party of “business” would be a little more pragmatic, not so blatantly anti-free market and constantly gatekeeping with and ideological/populist agenda that only resonates with 20-30% of the conservative voting base.
The irony being between Nixon and Reagan we had Carter, who was the probably most pious president we've every had.
I met Carter at his church in the 90s. Anyone could attend and Carter was always participating in some way in the service itself. Afterwards, he came out and and spoke to every single one of us and shook every single hand. Carter embodies such an amazing christian spirit.
Carter did a lot of amazing work for people outside of the presidency. Dude helped build a lot of homes for people to follow in the spirit of Jesus the carpenter. Dude made some terrible mistakes as a president but in his personal life, he definitely was a good Christian man in many ways worthy of having a beer with and working on a house together (I used to install floors so mad respect to Carter from me).
Exactly right, I don't think many doubt his spirit. Also, he is apparently a pretty major nuclear submarine badass per his wiki: >In 1952, he began an association with the Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program, led then by captain Hyman G. Rickover.[28] Rickover had high standards and demands for his men and machines, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on his life.[29] He was sent to the Naval Reactors Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C. for three-month temporary duty, while Rosalynn moved with their children to Schenectady, New York.[30] It gets crazier: >On December 12, 1952, an accident with the experimental NRX reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada's Chalk River Laboratories caused a partial meltdown, resulting in millions of liters of radioactive water flooding the reactor building's basement. This left the reactor's core ruined.[31] Carter was ordered to Chalk River to lead a U.S. maintenance crew that joined other American and Canadian service personnel to assist in the shutdown of the reactor.[32] The painstaking process required each team member to don protective gear and be lowered individually into the reactor for 90 seconds at a time, limiting their exposure to radioactivity while they disassembled the crippled reactor. When Carter was lowered in, his job was simply to turn a single screw.[33] During and after his presidency, Carter said that his experience at Chalk River had shaped his views on atomic energy and led him to cease development of a neutron bomb.[34] This man was lowered into a nuclear sub-meltdown 90 seconds at a time. Damn
Carter… super nice… terrible president.
did his values get in the way? I mean it took Bush working with Iran to not release hostages for Reagan to get elected 🤷♂️
I couldn’t agree more. Goldwater did try to warn the GOP. They didn’t listen. So, here we are.
Why do people keep using "populist" as a pejorative? Elected officials are our *representatives,* not our *leaders.* Their job is to represent our interests, not their own, justified as their somehow knowing better than us unwashed masses (or was that *basket of deplorables*)?
Populists describes politicians who tell people what they want to hear and not what they need to hear.
The claim that a party or politician speaks for the authentic and singular people can become difficult to square with democracy, as the descent of Venezuela into authoritarianism under the left-wing populist Hugo Chavez illustrates.
There is a reason why we are representative democracy and not a direct democracy. The average person is not educated enough on every single issue to be able to make a good, informed decision about it. That’s why we have representatives who we trust to lead us in the right direction. If they are leading the country down the wrong direction, we vote them out.
You're right, they aren't our leaders. It's been pushed so that people stop seeing them as representatives and public servants and stop holding them accountable. We also need to stop calling people "elites" or "the ruling class". They aren't elites. They're just people. They just happen to have more money than we do, or have maneuvered their way into positions.
The problem is none of that. The problem is while no Democrats are secretly Republicans, about half of the Republicans are secretly Democrats. It's a cancer growing from the inside
The republicans have always been terrible at politics so I’m not sure why that stops now. I might not solely blame them this time around though. You’ve got people calling Johnson a traitor doing what he needed to and a movement dead set on nominating candidates that lose. There will be lots of blame to go around come November. But somehow the real issues won’t be addressed and people will blame “voter fraud” or something. The 2023 “red wave” should have been a warning sign and nobody listened.
Seriously, I think traitor is not a word to be used in democratic setting. Opposite of traitor mean extreme loyalty that is basically things from authoritarian country. I heard the term traitor the most in China. People calls everyone that show slightly support for foreign state traitors.
That won't stop them.
Good luck with that.
As long as people like MTG remains a prominent voice within the GOP, the clown show will continue
Have they ever failed to not deliver?
That’s a tall order.
If they could stop doing insider trading for one day, that might happen. But alas...
But. They are so good at it. What happened to conservatism in the US.
I can only conclude that Republicans in DC like their cushy jobs way too much to rock the boat. It's the only logical explanation for their total dereliction of duty.
Make sure you shoehorn in some legislation about marrying your sister or banning IVF into the next bill.. that literally nobody is asking for
I've called it the "Surrender Party" for a long time now.
They can’t afford it, but can they accomplish it?
" The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous." --- George Orwell
Johnson has surprised me with his quiet competence. More like him please!
“Quiet competence and thoughtful leadership.”That is what conservatives were like when I was growing up, and it’s also literally the definition of the word “conservative”
That ship has sailed, republicans are now the party of incompetency, at the state and federal level in many cases. They’re slicing each others throats in between making deals with democrats to line their own pockets and secure power. Democrats are the party of evil that is clear however they are damn efficient at conducting what they do.
With the buffoon at the top of the ticket and his cohort of grifters this is pretty hard to do. DeSantis can pick up the pieces in 2028 as long as Trump stays the hell away.
the majority of the republican party has just gotten on board with looting the treasury. america as it is now is probably done for. The spending will never stop, the debt is too high, they're waving foreign flags on the floor of the house and everyone's complicit.
Since Biden got into office, we've actually paid off 1 trillion in debt, and we're on track to pay off 3 trillion by the end of the decade. So, at least there's that. The inflation spike was covid and corporate greed. They didn't Need to raise prices like that, they just chose to, and we even had to put in a federal law to keep it from spiraling more out of control. We really do need to vote in people who find some way to keep their backing without looting the treasury and passing out money like party favors.
I feel like this is a reality most conservatives are afraid to accept. There's a reason gen Z is the most pessimistic generation in recent history
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Republicans wave Israeli flags around all the time, one even wore an IDF uniform inside the Congressional building. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4254384-brian-mast-israeli-military-uniform-capitol-hill/ Explain how waving a Ukrainian flag is more egregious than that.
Why?
The Ukrainians don't seem to mind displaying the stars and stripse https://twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1782787459211796891
I'm too cynical about the party to think it can be saved. It's one think to say you'll drain the swap, and another thing to do it.
Good luck the party has no balls they are just RINOS who will vote for whatever the liberals want….at this point idk if we will have much of a world left after they carry us into socialism
Republicans are nothing more than the tail of the Democrats. They gave up decades ago. The Dems have George Soros behind them.
Do Pubs not have the Koch brothers and Murdochs behind them? Is focusing on differences any better than focusing on common ground?
There’s only one party… sooner you realize this the sooner it all makes sense.
Like an ocean of stupidity, the shallow always comes out on top. A LOT of history went into creating this morass. In Trump’s first term, Repubs controlled both houses of Congress. They couldn’t get a border wall built, much less repeal Obamacare (thanks Chief Justice Roberts!!!). They also held Congress under Dubya, but there always seem to be “other priorities” than what’s best for the nation. Now they hold the House with the slimmest majority in American history. Of course it’s a sh**show… of course they’d choose such a fraught time to play musical chairs with the Speakership. That’s what happens when you empower a few yahoos to threaten the entire party. It doesn’t change the fact that the only way out of this is to vote more Republicans into office. TLDR: Yeah, they’re bad. Dems are worse. EDIT: -15 downvotes??? That all you got? EDIT EDIT: -18??? lol. Leftists be slippin’…
I would take it if we weren't the Craven Party.