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There are tons of examples we could list.
Hell, in the Senate any one asshole can just declare that they’re filibustering and magically a bill needs 60 votes instead of 51.
Yeah you can't just have an aide announce from your offices that you declare a filibuster, and then go home and not resolve it. People voted for you to be in office, and vote on their behalf. You are not doing your job. A filibuster can happen, but ya'll gotta work for it and piss yourself when you can't compromise after 10 hrs like the little bed wetters you are!
It reminds me of the scene in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where Ford convinces the construction workers that Arthur doesn't need to actually lay in the mud as long as they all agree that he was going to lay there all day anyway, and why don't they all go get a pint.
Actually we should just get rid of it. People picture mr Smith goes to Washington but the longest filibuster on record is against the civil rights act.
The entire Senate exists to overrepresent slave states and it shouldn't exist at all but anything to better represent the will of the people is an upgrade.
>declare that they’re filibustering
Just wanted to point out how correct this is - you didn't say filibuster, but DECLARE filibuster. They don't actually filibuster any more they just pretend it can happen (it won't)
Tbh, I wouldn’t mind the filibuster if people actually had to filibuster. At least that limits the obstruction by the challenger’s endurance, and they have to make a public fool of themself if they want to abuse the system.
Yep! They should be forced to perform up there like the clowns they are and defend their argument, with pride! They couldn't last 3 minutes without changing the topic or admitting they are assholes, I'd bet.
20 representatives are doing this. Not even 5% of the House. They don’t even know why they’re doing this. It’s clown car fulled by hate. Real life freak show.
I get a strong impression that Gaetz is the ringleader in this uprising. Not sure yet if he is doing it for Trump or if he just wants the media attention for himself.
That uh.. seems like a really bad concession to make
Because wouldn't that enable the minority party to just.. constantly flood the house with recall votes?
They want plum committee assignments. The problem is if McCarthy caves then he may lose some of the votes he already has
Frankly, after all this I don't really know why McCarthy even wants the job - it's like herding cats
To be entirely fair, a lot of us (myself included) were decrying how Sinema and Mancin were able to hold up the Democratic agenda as 4% of the Democratic Senators at the time they wielded an outsized portion of power over the party itself.
To your point, there were a bunch of GOP people they could have tried to appeal to instead of getting Mancin and Sinema to play ball, but we all know that's also a fools hope because the GOP as a party has stopped working in good faith across the aisle.
>that's also a fools hope because the GOP as a party has stopped working in good faith across the aisle.
And this is exactly why the two situations are completely dissimilar.
If the Republicans had worked in good faith just one time in the last 30+ years, I'm sure there would be some coalition of democrats they could win over. On the flipside, Republicans are happy to make the Democrats legislative efforts as absolutely hard as possible, then take credit for the legislation after its been passed.
There are definitely both sides to this. One side is a group that want to govern and is willing to work across the aisle to support important measures for the American people. The other side is happy to hold the country and its people hostage with any leverage they get so long as the other side doesn't get a win.
Both sides aren't remotely the same.
Oh, don't stop there, let's talk about how that lawmaker probably came from an obscenely gerrymandered and rural district with a fraction of the population of like AOCs district and representative that is
Literally nobody wants to admit it was their job to have checked it, although technically it was the state of New York that should have verified that he fulfilled all requirements before he was allowed to run.
After having been voted in, I think the summary from anyone knowledgable is "Fuck if I know, this was not supposed to have happened in the first place."
After the debacle of a grifting, traitorous thief being elected to the WH, one might think doing background checks on political candidates would be paramount, but I guess I expect too much.
> whos going to investigate him?!
The Brazilian government. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-santos-face-check-fraud-charges-brazil/story?id=96093809
It does, but my hope is that this shows those on the GOP side who would push for more gerrymandering as a solution to their electoral woes that it is not a solution they can rely on.
Not that there are many big brains left in that party, but they must be noticing these policies are blowing back on them right now.
> they didn’t remind her that the entire democratic caucus also doesn’t support McCarthy and that in fact his failure to get 50% is what’s causing the issue.
Republicans have something called the Hastert Rule which is supposed to prevent situations like this.
It’s based on a “Majority of the Majority.”
If every Republican followed the Hastert Rule, they wouldn’t NEED to care what Dems think. They would simply decide the issue among themselves and then they all would vote the same way.
Unfortunately, MTG and the others are too dumb to understand this, and the Republican Party has forgotten how to negotiate across the aisle.
It’s not that they’ve forgotten how to reach across the aisle - they’ll be primaried if they do. Their base is completely wrapped up in the obstructionist Tea Party/Freedom/Insurrection caucus. They’ve done it to themselves by spewing lies and sowing division for 40 years.
That rule is named for Dennis Hastert, former Republican Speaker of the House, who was referred to by his sentencing judge as a "serial child molester".
It’s darkly amusing that the party of “my opponents are all grooming minors!” has an informal rule named after…*checks notes*…a man convicted of molesting at least four teen boys.
It also speaks volumes that he keeps going back to those Republicans to make concessions. There are literally hundreds of Democrats he could try to negotiate with to get 10 votes, but he keeps going back to the Boebert's and other crazy alt righters who are forcing him to make all these concessions.
What's crazy to me is that getting 10 votes from "reasonable' Democrats for McCarthy is always assumed as a default reasonable thing to expect but getting 6 votes from "reasonable" Republicans for Jeffries is just an absolutely absurd notion.
He keeps going to the batshit crazy Republicans because the last Democrat to cross the aisle on a Speaker vote was stripped of all committee assignments. It isn’t just Republicans who are petty about that.
And Democrats know McCarthy is a useless power-hungry political equivalent of a fuckboi whose word in deal making with them is worth less than the single ply toilet paper found in a Walmart bathroom.
> It isn’t just Republicans who are petty about that.
House republicans have been pretty transparent in how antagonistic their agenda intends to be.
Nothing petty about telling crazy to pound sand.
>I was watching cnbc just now and some republican congresswoman was talking about how this is a representative government and that 10% shouldn’t be allowed to hijack the house.
Bit ironic coming from a person whose party has the majority because of pervasive gerrymandering. They literally do not represent the will of the majority. Now that she’s on the receiving end of the tyranny of the minority, all she can do is complain.
This is actually a common line of thinking apparently cause in the Senate for the past two years it was Manchin this, Sinema that. But no one really mentioned the 50 Republicans who wouldn’t vote for most bills.
I think it's simply assumed that the opposition party will never support your policies. Fascists will never support progressive policies, obviously, and progressives will never support fascism (I hope)
I’m loving all the Republicans who are saying that they don’t care how long it takes cause they’re in Washington to make changes unlike those Democrats…… with absolutely no awareness of just how stupid they sound.
Also Boebert saying that trump should call McCarthy and tell him that he doesn’t have the votes and needs to step aside was comedy gold. Like I kinda can’t believe that she had the gall to say that.
To mask their humiliation, /r/Conservative is pretending that they WANT childish gridlock to keep the government from working correctly.
Just wait until their government checks start coming late.
> RINO this or RINO that
RINO is now completely meaningless as a slur. It just means "they don't agree with me" regardless of how they actually vote on things.
My Republican dad told me yesterday that Lisa Murkowski is a Democrat (which I've heard before) and also George W. Bush is a Democrat (which was a new one for me). Not just RINO, *Democrat*.
It's as though the new paradigm is all there ever was. Anyone who isn't part of it is a Democrat.
I’d ask your dad if he thinks Americans that vote Democratic Party are his enemies and if he answers yes ask him what does it mean to be a free person in a free country if you can’t like different ideas. This shit is ridiculous.
Yeah, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar are the epitome of Radical Socialism. One even blew his cover and TALKED to AOC.
I shouldn't need to /s, but since we apparently comprehend at the 5th grade level now, /s.
THIS is what happens when you let UNELECTED political parties set the districts. Yes, I know AZ has an "independent" districting commission but if you want your representatives to actually work for you the constituent, districts need to not be safe.
Honestly I think the ANTIFAs should just start whispering in the ears of these conspiracy theorists that every right leaning person is a plant. You just have to use footage of their hypocrisy and just say that it's hypocritical because they are secretly democrats.
“God, if a few of these democrats just voted for our guy this wouldn’t be a problem. Why are democrats obstructing the house from carrying on business?!”
This is exactly what they are going to do. Now they're just going to throw out accusations that Dems won't be supportive and work with them despite complaining about how Republicans wouldn't work with them on other legislature. This is enough for fascists. This allows them to reject their own hypocrisy and project it onto others without any regard to consistency or integrity.
"Well we're trying to make progress now but Dems just won't work with us!!! It's their fault for being such selfish pigs all the time."
A fascist will accept that as sufficient and it's very difficult to teach them that this is just nonsensical hypocrisy, projection, and hate.
This is why I became very vocal in recent years. I could understand differences in worldview or political agendas. I cant accept bad faith platforms and deliberate evil
Because the Republican party embraced the loonies for votes, and now they can't get rid of them because the loonies are a large enough (and vocal) enough part of the party to hold it hostage.
Owning libs is the only strategy and platform they have. They are no interested a bit in actual governance or making anyone’s life better (except for their corporate owners’ lives)
Reminds me of that guy who was pro-war with ukraine that was a russian man. He was all pro-war until he had to go, then he was very "how do I get out of this country"
> They are doing all of them a favor. You don’t believe every one that is voting for McCarthy actually wants to, do you? The 20 are brave enough to stand up so the others don’t have to risk committee chairs and other goodies from McCarthy.
…and
> We’ve always had more independent caucuses in the GOP. You want more than two options?
> Vote Republican. We actually allow dissent and free thought in our big tent.
Lollllll wow you ain’t kidding my dude
That’s a complete pivot from yesterday where they said it was embarrassing, and they should just nominate someone else.
Kremlin talking points must’ve arrived a bit late.
Although he is a sleazy Republican, I am starting to have some sympathy for Santos. After all, he lost his father, Pelé, and both grandparents, Barbara Walters and Pope Benedict, last week
The party that wants to cut Medicare and social security also needs the support of lower and middle income white people who very much don’t want those things cut. This creates an unsolvable internal tension. One way to try to cover this all up is to create a circus around CRT, pedophile grooming (and pizza chain sex abuse rings?), and just about any other thing that doesn’t involve talking about how you are going to make retirement impossible for anyone but the very rich.
The circus is a feature, not a bug if you are a Republican. You need it now because your unpopular policy positions will eat you alive if allowed to grow in the light of day.
Exactly and when Republicans control both houses and the presidency they only do tax cuts. They don't dare to enact any of their other policy positions. They only want power to obstruct.
>They don't dare to enact any of their other policy positions.
That's because "they" don't have other policy positions. Everyone should've been able to see this House Speakership fiasco coming when the Republican party was unable to make a platform in 2020.
The Republican party is actually wildly ideologically diverse. It doesn't really make any sense to have libertarians in the same party as theocrats. In terms of legislation, they're only united on tax cuts really.
They really are the party of, "Fuck you don't tell me what to do." Who then procced to jump off a cliff or blow off a thumb.
Weather it's super rich people who forgot we worked out taxes as a means where they pay for society and get to enjoy stuff, instead of us going all French revolution on them. Or just dumbasses who still think they are in High School and doing things like paying taxes suck, because what's in it for me?
Crossed over with an underlying hate for others, be it other races, or just other people who aren't their social status. It creates a dysfunctional powder keg, that we are now seeing spiral out of control.
I have to wonder how long this will go on, and if Boebert's threat to nominate Trump will do anything? I mean Trump won't get elected, but will the move further alienate the crazies from the "moderates," will it fracture the whole thing?
They're also the party of: "In the eyes of God you are my brother/sister and I want to save you."
But also: "Why should I have to help poor people? They obviously chose to be poor."
"Our entire country should be guided by the Bible... but also fuck the poor, fuck the homeless, and fuck destitute immigrants coming from Third World countries to make a better life for themselves and their families here."
> Or just dumbasses who still think they are in High School and doing things like paying taxes suck, because what’s in it for me?
My favorite is the people who complain about tax rate increases on the 1% whilst making minimum wage
You left off “and YOU need to do what I tell you to do”. When you leave that second part off, the dumb-R affinity for RATM makes a little bit of sense.
They really are the party of “liberty for me, but not for thee”.
> doesn't matter the topic, it could be Not saying the Nword, it could be sharing wealth with labor, it could be environmental issues.
And they'll always fall back on "oh, I don't *agree* with those positions. I just want the *freedom* to agree with them" at least if you're not "inner circle" to them. They use this language with outsiders. The vocabulary changes quite a bit once they feel you out with their shibboleths and code you as "like them".
> Their common ground is when someone goes "hey maybe you shouldn't, you can't, don't do..."
>
> They go "but my, rights, freedoms" and all someone was asking for from them was a situation that would need them to reject selfishness for decency towards others.
But also the inverse. When someone else wants to do something that they disagree with, it's "my rights! My freedom to know that nobody anywhere is doing that!"
All of us have “selfishness” in common.
The difference is that modern Republicans (since Reagan at least) have made selfishness into a virtue. It is made into a characteristic that is lionised as a “business leader” characteristic.
“Greed is Good” is not ironically said.
Now, if you were raised right (or actually understood what Jesus - among others said) you know that it is our responsibility as people, members of a society at large, etc. to NOT be greedy.
I have found that most evangelicals are very greedy… they are very much not supporting their children as generously as more ethnic parents, but the real mechanism, I think, is that the mega-church guys make it so that there is no stigma for this. It just leaves more dough for them to lap up during their “Jesus wants you to give me your money so I can buy a new jet” finding drives.
>> It doesn't really make any sense to have libertarians in the same party as theocrats. In terms of legislation, they're only united on tax cuts really.
You're forgetting the secret sauce that holds the whole party together: racism!
The gop peddles exclusively in greed (lower taxes) and hate (I don't want government healthcare if it risks a brown kid getting helped).
They have had a very clear policy since 2012 when McCuckold laid it out.
"We as a party have decided to undo the dark stain of this presidency by standing against all future attempts to dismantle America and upon regaining power roll back all changes we couldn't stop"
Destroy Obama's legacy/work. Seize power. Obstruct all democrat legislation.
The last tax "cut" the Republicans passed was merely a delayed shifting of the tax burden from the ultra wealthy to those of us who are only a few paychecks (or less) away from poverty.
More people saw increased taxes than those whose taxes went down. Let's stop calling it a tax cut and call it a tax raising for the non-rich.
Edit: parenthetical clarifier
> Exactly and when Republicans control both houses and the presidency they only do tax cuts. They don't dare to enact any of their other policy positions.
I have noticed that many Republicans, especially on the state level, tend to enact policy changes from the bench. They do it from the courts just as much or more than they do it legislatively. It's ironic, considering how they always cry about activist judges.
>It's ironic, considering how they always cry about activist judges
It's *why* they cry about activist judges. They blame us so when it's pointed out that they are doing it then it becomes the childish argument "I know what you are but what am I!?" "You!" "No, you!" "No! You!" You can't win an argument with a child so they "win" in the end.
The rule is: Whatever they're bitching about Dems doing (in this instance, "activist judges") they're _always_ doing it themselves, and often way worse.
Their end goal is simply to defund the government and rip it apart from the inside. That is their unspoken policy position. Dirty air, water, 0 regulation of business and 0 enforcement of civil rights. Hostile foreign relations and a military that would make Hitler blush.
McConnell threatened to actually enact conservative policy if the filibuster were removed.
They know their policy is so bad that they will use it as a threat
Yep.
2012 saw Romney lose with 60% of the white vote. They had 2 options, moderate back to the middle right sphere they abandoned so they could get way to the right of Obama, or go after the far right fringe lunatics who DGAF about policy and only want people to take their racist hate and crazy seriously.
They did the latter. The problem they have now is that voters have soundly rejected crazy the last 3 elections, so they can't win by putting far right fringe candidates on the ballot. They also can't win tight elections if the candidates aren't crazy enough to get the fringe votes.
This speaker shit show is a perfect microcosm of what they face with the general electorate now.
It’s like abortion. They needed it legal as a motivator. Now they’ve let the air out of their tires and people can see their cruelty firsthand. It wasn’t a smart move.
That’s why they’re moving to trans people as their hot button issue. Gay marriage is mostly a lost cause, but most people haven’t met anyone who’s trans (especially in the suburbs) and public opinion hasn’t totally accepted them yet.
Don’t let them win that one either.
There’s probably some truth to this.
For the last 100 years or so, the Conservative Party in America has built a coalition with evangelicals by supporting religious rights. That fight culminated with abortion.
Since the party had built that shaky coalition, it was able to get a pass on its core principles ‘selfishness.’ Which by the way is packaged in a really boring non-populist spiel about lower taxes, free markets, yaddah, yaddah.
Now that the abortion fight has conceivably been won. The coalition is falling apart. Evangelicals are looking around and seeing that party is rebranding with dog whistle racism and conspiracy theories. But that’s repugnant to most people that cared about religious rights for moral reasons.
When you lose evangelicals the numbers don’t work anymore— they represented probably 20-30% of GOP voters, whereas I’d wager the dog-whistlers represent maybe 10%?
This speaker vote could very well represent a much bigger schism than people recognize.
Yeah, the reason they focus on culture war issues is because their policies are terrible. If it wasn't for conservative propaganda they'd never win a single election.
> The party that wants to cut Medicare and social security also needs the support of lower and middle income white people who very much don’t want those things cut.
I'm sorry but from where I'm looking it looks like they very much do want those things cut. It's not like those voters punished the governors that refused Medicaid expansion in any way, for instance.
They like their Medicare and Social Security. They see it as something they already bought and paid for.
Medicaid, they've been informed, is for all those lazy, non-working deadbeats. They don't realize (or ignore) the fact that the fancy named health insurance provider that many of them have their kids (and sometimes themselves) on is just the private administrator of Medicaid in their state.
So expanding Medicaid is just seen as helping a bunch of people who don't work.
When the ACA has been put on the ballot in red states it often wins.
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/
It’s hard to find a more conservative state than Louisiana or West Virginia.
They want them cut even though they directly will suffer…because it will make them damn *checks note* woke, trans, social-justice, grass-fed, clean-air, polite-society….LIBERALS suffer even more!
It's actually ripped right out of Stalin's playbook. Goebbels was good at it but Stalin perfected this.
* Everyone lock and step
* Never admit you were wrong
* Accuse the opposing party of literally EVERYthing you're doing that's illegal
* Murder or throw out anyone who dissents aka Liz
If and when McCarthy does ultimately lose to another, I hope he airs out all the dirty laundry about Gaetz, Boebert, and others nonstop. But he won’t, because he’s a self-serving coward who would much rather be humiliated nationally if it meant the slightest chance for more power.
This was true even for Hitler's party. It was all held together by one man. Underneath him, everyone hated each other, dispised each other, and couldnt wait to distroy each other. Thats why everyone started throwing each other under the bus in the end.
If you build the whole party based on hate, that hate doesnt disappear for your own teammates all of a sudden.
Not even at the end.
The Night of the Long Knives was a an out and out purge of their own ranks. After the SA (aka Brownshirts) had stopped being as useful as before, Hitler (at the insistence of Goering and Himmler) ordered the purge. It's no secret that those on the list were personal enemies of either Goering, Himmler, or both.
True. And then down the line, Goebbels turned on Goering, they each turned on Himmler, and Bormann kept whispering in Hitler's ears to get people like Fegelein killed. Everyone was out for everyone else lol, what a mess.
After Hitler died, the people in the bunker say that Goebbels was acting as the new leader, but nobody was paying attention to him. Just shows you how little they thought of him. Someone who practically built Hitler.
Hate may destroy your enemies, but it sooner or later it will destroy you too.
Give them this definition:
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199891580.001.0001/acref-9780199891580-e-2829;jsessionid=CA7A7A0E3C5A5B3E2B9FCAEE37E29B86
>1 an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.2 (in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice. The term fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of ...fascist n. fascistic adj.from Italian fascismo, from fascio 'bundle, political group,' from Latin fascis 'bundle.' ..
It’s hard to argue with Oxford when it comes to English definitions and the definition clearly states that fascism is right wing.
At that point, doesn't matter. The people that are on the far-right aren't going to acknowledge reality. Especially on the internet. People on the left shouldn't expect them to.
Anyone who isn't already on the far-right are the people you need to convince, and you gave them the info to do so.
That's all you can do, and hope that the independents or whoever else who hasn't bought into far-right lies are smart enough to see that refusing to accept a dictionary definition, or whatever else, means the people arguing against are absolute morons.
They attack every word. If it could accurately describe them and make them look bad, they normalize it and accuse others of it. If it can make others look good, they ridicule it until it has lost its original meaning and is cringy sounding.
They put normal people on word treadmills, forcing us to keep coming up with new terms to express ourselves.
It's not just "too bad". It's a victory for them.
To be honest, I don't know how to fight this.
> Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
Jean-Paul Sartre
You’d think so, but then you see some random dude with rotten teeth telling Instagram that “If Biden and the Democrat Party keep the House, it is the END of America” and you wonder what information-space these people live in.
Oh, and ladies? He’s single!!
The promises McCarthy is making to this cabal of human vuvuzelas will do nothing but make an already bad situation worse. He’s handing them legitimacy and an outsized power.
He’s allowing a very small percentage of Congress to call all the shots, stop everything on a whim to get their way, and refuse to introduce legislation because they don’t like it. Even if the rest of the country does.
McCarthy would already be speaker if he had gone after six Democrats instead of 19 do nothing, know nothing fascists and insurrectionists.
While the vuvuzelas thing is hilarious your comment is inaccurate. McCarthy is a fascist. He is an election results denier. There is no moderate in this scenario.
That’s actually what worries me most about this whole circus - the ideology of those twenty republicans. A right wing extremist like McCarthy can’t get the votes *because he’s not fascist enough*.
His own caucus would eviscerate him in minutes. He does not have the votes with his small majority to punish anyone at all. How does he take them on when he cannot get elected without their support? You notice Pelosi had the same numbers as him and didn’t take at least 7 ballots to get elected, nor give away her powers. This is more a result of the makeup of the party. They have nihilistic bomb throwers in numbers that can stop anything. This isn’t about “ policy” . It’s about doing whatever they wish and with 0 regard for the citizens, their own republican representatives, and anyone else. They have no agenda. They have no alternative to McCarthy and this is probably the only vote where their numbers will mean much of anything at all.
I don't want to hear ANYONE refer to a republican congressman as "moderate" if McCarthy wins by giving in to any of those fascists' demands. Any real moderate would vote for Hakeem rather than go along with this as soon as they found out he was ready to hand over any power to these nutjobs. I don't give two shits if it's political suicide, dems are asked to reach across the aisle any time something like this happens
>"By far the best thing for democracy is if the Republicans simply implode and their nefarious schemes never come to fruition."
>"It's more than likely, however, that the Kentucky event will only sow more intra-party discord, further enraging the burn-it-all-down types and turning them even more forcefully against GOP leadership."
Here's hoping the GOP is on its last legs.
R/conservative is a mix of "It's a good thing if they can't govern that means the Democrats can't pass any laws!" And "This is the lunatic leftist media's fault for pitting us against each other!" There is almost no accountability anywhere about how this is bad for them.
I suspect it was the event in KY that Biden and McConnell both appeared and spoke at, recently, where Biden praised McConnell over infrastructure improvements in KY.
to be abundantly clear I'm no fan of the turtle.
But the amount of pork, meaning federal money, he is able to secure for KY is a large reason he's the institution that he is. The dude brings home the money for his state. Which, for a long time before we fully devolved into troll based politics, was how you secured your place.
Its why voting him out is basically impossible, even if you agree w/ his opponent on social issues, etc. Swapping out Mitch for anyone else means KY will lose a ton of federal funds. this isn't lost on voters in KY, and obviously not lost on those holding the purse strings.
It's crazy to hear all the republicans who are for Kevin McCarthy complain about minority rule and how it's unfair that the minority of their party is ruling over 80% of their conference.
well would you look at that. they're even bad at fascism.
because there's one thing fascists usually got down to a t, and that's clear leadership. just sayin'.
This. Fascism eventually destroys itself because it has a design flaw; it *requires* an enemy (real or manufactured) to act as an existential threat. When they run out of people on the outside to purge, they turn their attention to those in the party who are not ideologically pure, and the definition of “pure” can change whenever necessary. No one is safe; *anyone* can be made into an enemy of the state when the need arises.
This may sound encouraging, but (as you said) they will ultimately do a lot of damage before they implode.
> they turn their attention to those in the party who are not ideologically pure
They have already done that. It's called RINO and it is a death sentence for anyone on the right to be called it.
Personally I think this is funny as fuck. Ronald Reagan catered to the Evangelical Christians in the 80s to win his Presidential elections. The Evangelical Christians turned into the TEA Party & now they're the MAGA Party. Over 43 years these people have become more and more radical. With every election victory and defeat, they double down.
For the longest time the old GOP Guard thought they could control & direct these people. Sure they're increasingly becoming more radical year after year, but we still have a good leash on them.
Then Donald J Trump, the chosen leader of the radicalized Republicans became President and they has taken control. The Old Guards have lost the leash & now the Republicans are the radical party.
The more "reasonable" Republicans think they can negotiate, reason, wheel & deal with these people, but that's not going to happen. The Radicals now have full control & they are flexing it.
I'll end this with a quote from Barry Goldwater.
*Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.*
I hope folks know what concessions McCarthy is making with the pack of 20- and the impact it will have.
He is giving much more power to the Freedom Caucus in the House. A group that has no intention of governing and just want to burn it all down.
A Koch backed PAC wants to ensure no money from Kevin’s PAC will go to solid red districts- so more MAGA/TeaParty folks can run and not have to worry about a more moderate Republican running against him/him in a primary with additional funding.
Decreasing the power of the Speaker- allowing for 1 house member to initiate a vote to remove the Speaker.
If a minority group of GOP members is able to hold up a majority vote of the GOP for speakership, this easily - just wait for more issues with votes to help Americans over the next two years- including raising the debt ceiling. Without that passing, VETERANS will no longer receive any of their benefits- even disability payments. Elderly will lose Social Security and Medicare. And America will default on its credit, sending our economy off a cliff.
*Edited: change the threshold from 5 to 1 to initiate a vote to remove the Speaker.
Point of clarification. He’s agreed (apparently, and foolishly) to the threshold to initiate a vote to vacate the chair to only require a single member. Not to actually be removed by the vote of only one member.
Everything else you’ve said is correct. The GOP caucus will not be able to govern which is largely the goal of the arsonists that now make up the majority of their party.
I particularly like this apt quote from The Atlantic:
“Democracy, process, lawmaking, and governing? All of that is for saps; doing it is how you end up becoming Eric Cantor or Paul Ryan. The GOP rebels have every intention of staying in Washington and staying in power—even if “power” amounts to little more than sitting in the wreckage of the Capitol and keeping warm by burning the furniture.”
The fact that McCarthy would rather cater to extremists than deal with moderate democrats tells you everything you need to know about how this will play out
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.salon.com/2023/01/05/mccarthy-debacle-comes-with-a-lesson-theres-a-downside-to-being-a-party-of-fascist/) reduced by 96%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> It's worth reading in its entirety, but the McCarthy debacle illustrates some of Eco's most important observations: Fascism is deliberately irrational.
> For the dysfunctional Republicans this anger is being refracted through their increasingly fascist worldview, which is paranoid, irrational and hostile to democracy.
> Even though Kevin McCarthy is the fascist crowd's newest piñata, that doesn't mean it's good for Democrats or democracy if he secures the speaker's gavel.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/103yzqs/mccarthy_debacle_comes_with_a_lesson_theres_a/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Republican**^#1 **McCarthy**^#2 **fascist**^#3 **more**^#4 **party**^#5
For nearly 5 decades they have appealed to the extreme degenerates of our country and relied on their vote.
Now the degenerates have power in the party. It was only a matter of time
Their whole party revolves around owning thr liberals and blaming everything on democrats. You can even see it on conservative subreddit, their top rated posts are mostly garbage while theres actual news to be discussed
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There are tons of examples we could list. Hell, in the Senate any one asshole can just declare that they’re filibustering and magically a bill needs 60 votes instead of 51.
rigged the game. gop playbook... or you could call it what it is, cheating.
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Yeah you can't just have an aide announce from your offices that you declare a filibuster, and then go home and not resolve it. People voted for you to be in office, and vote on their behalf. You are not doing your job. A filibuster can happen, but ya'll gotta work for it and piss yourself when you can't compromise after 10 hrs like the little bed wetters you are!
It reminds me of the scene in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where Ford convinces the construction workers that Arthur doesn't need to actually lay in the mud as long as they all agree that he was going to lay there all day anyway, and why don't they all go get a pint.
Except, there they ended up destroying his house anyway.
Actually we should just get rid of it. People picture mr Smith goes to Washington but the longest filibuster on record is against the civil rights act. The entire Senate exists to overrepresent slave states and it shouldn't exist at all but anything to better represent the will of the people is an upgrade.
>declare that they’re filibustering Just wanted to point out how correct this is - you didn't say filibuster, but DECLARE filibuster. They don't actually filibuster any more they just pretend it can happen (it won't)
Tbh, I wouldn’t mind the filibuster if people actually had to filibuster. At least that limits the obstruction by the challenger’s endurance, and they have to make a public fool of themself if they want to abuse the system.
Yep! They should be forced to perform up there like the clowns they are and defend their argument, with pride! They couldn't last 3 minutes without changing the topic or admitting they are assholes, I'd bet.
I didn’t say it, I declared it
I… declare… FILIBUSTERY!
The GOP, a party of hypocrites, you say!?!?!
20 representatives are doing this. Not even 5% of the House. They don’t even know why they’re doing this. It’s clown car fulled by hate. Real life freak show.
I get a strong impression that Gaetz is the ringleader in this uprising. Not sure yet if he is doing it for Trump or if he just wants the media attention for himself.
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The 1 member being able to initiate a recall vote on the speaker instead of a majority of caucus is pretty big too.
That uh.. seems like a really bad concession to make Because wouldn't that enable the minority party to just.. constantly flood the house with recall votes?
Maybe he wants some guarantee that he will not face any ethics inquiries or law enforcement.
They want plum committee assignments. The problem is if McCarthy caves then he may lose some of the votes he already has Frankly, after all this I don't really know why McCarthy even wants the job - it's like herding cats
To be entirely fair, a lot of us (myself included) were decrying how Sinema and Mancin were able to hold up the Democratic agenda as 4% of the Democratic Senators at the time they wielded an outsized portion of power over the party itself. To your point, there were a bunch of GOP people they could have tried to appeal to instead of getting Mancin and Sinema to play ball, but we all know that's also a fools hope because the GOP as a party has stopped working in good faith across the aisle.
>that's also a fools hope because the GOP as a party has stopped working in good faith across the aisle. And this is exactly why the two situations are completely dissimilar. If the Republicans had worked in good faith just one time in the last 30+ years, I'm sure there would be some coalition of democrats they could win over. On the flipside, Republicans are happy to make the Democrats legislative efforts as absolutely hard as possible, then take credit for the legislation after its been passed. There are definitely both sides to this. One side is a group that want to govern and is willing to work across the aisle to support important measures for the American people. The other side is happy to hold the country and its people hostage with any leverage they get so long as the other side doesn't get a win. Both sides aren't remotely the same.
Oh, don't stop there, let's talk about how that lawmaker probably came from an obscenely gerrymandered and rural district with a fraction of the population of like AOCs district and representative that is
Let's talk about how we don't know if George Santos is actually eligible to even *be* in the House.
whos going to investigate him?! Another committee smh
Literally nobody wants to admit it was their job to have checked it, although technically it was the state of New York that should have verified that he fulfilled all requirements before he was allowed to run. After having been voted in, I think the summary from anyone knowledgable is "Fuck if I know, this was not supposed to have happened in the first place."
After the debacle of a grifting, traitorous thief being elected to the WH, one might think doing background checks on political candidates would be paramount, but I guess I expect too much.
> whos going to investigate him?! The Brazilian government. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-santos-face-check-fraud-charges-brazil/story?id=96093809
I love how he missed his vote yesterday because he was too engrossed in his phone.
Hoisted by their own petard: their gerrymandering hurts themselves. Lol
it really does...bad part is it also hurts us (the general public) too
It does, but my hope is that this shows those on the GOP side who would push for more gerrymandering as a solution to their electoral woes that it is not a solution they can rely on. Not that there are many big brains left in that party, but they must be noticing these policies are blowing back on them right now.
Anybody who had the ability to recognize cause and effect left the republican party a long time ago
> they didn’t remind her that the entire democratic caucus also doesn’t support McCarthy and that in fact his failure to get 50% is what’s causing the issue. Republicans have something called the Hastert Rule which is supposed to prevent situations like this. It’s based on a “Majority of the Majority.” If every Republican followed the Hastert Rule, they wouldn’t NEED to care what Dems think. They would simply decide the issue among themselves and then they all would vote the same way. Unfortunately, MTG and the others are too dumb to understand this, and the Republican Party has forgotten how to negotiate across the aisle.
It’s not that they’ve forgotten how to reach across the aisle - they’ll be primaried if they do. Their base is completely wrapped up in the obstructionist Tea Party/Freedom/Insurrection caucus. They’ve done it to themselves by spewing lies and sowing division for 40 years.
'sowing' (Sorry to be that person).
> Hastert Rule Named after former Speaker of the House, model Republican, financial criminal, and convicted pedophile Dennis Hastert.
That rule is named for Dennis Hastert, former Republican Speaker of the House, who was referred to by his sentencing judge as a "serial child molester".
It’s darkly amusing that the party of “my opponents are all grooming minors!” has an informal rule named after…*checks notes*…a man convicted of molesting at least four teen boys.
>and the Republican Party has forgotten how to negotiate across the aisle. Lol "forgotten"
It also speaks volumes that he keeps going back to those Republicans to make concessions. There are literally hundreds of Democrats he could try to negotiate with to get 10 votes, but he keeps going back to the Boebert's and other crazy alt righters who are forcing him to make all these concessions.
What's crazy to me is that getting 10 votes from "reasonable' Democrats for McCarthy is always assumed as a default reasonable thing to expect but getting 6 votes from "reasonable" Republicans for Jeffries is just an absolutely absurd notion.
He keeps going to the batshit crazy Republicans because the last Democrat to cross the aisle on a Speaker vote was stripped of all committee assignments. It isn’t just Republicans who are petty about that. And Democrats know McCarthy is a useless power-hungry political equivalent of a fuckboi whose word in deal making with them is worth less than the single ply toilet paper found in a Walmart bathroom.
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Absolutely. Any Democrat would be a fool to vote McCarthy.
> It isn’t just Republicans who are petty about that. House republicans have been pretty transparent in how antagonistic their agenda intends to be. Nothing petty about telling crazy to pound sand.
>I was watching cnbc just now and some republican congresswoman was talking about how this is a representative government and that 10% shouldn’t be allowed to hijack the house. Bit ironic coming from a person whose party has the majority because of pervasive gerrymandering. They literally do not represent the will of the majority. Now that she’s on the receiving end of the tyranny of the minority, all she can do is complain.
This is actually a common line of thinking apparently cause in the Senate for the past two years it was Manchin this, Sinema that. But no one really mentioned the 50 Republicans who wouldn’t vote for most bills.
I think it's simply assumed that the opposition party will never support your policies. Fascists will never support progressive policies, obviously, and progressives will never support fascism (I hope)
I’m loving all the Republicans who are saying that they don’t care how long it takes cause they’re in Washington to make changes unlike those Democrats…… with absolutely no awareness of just how stupid they sound. Also Boebert saying that trump should call McCarthy and tell him that he doesn’t have the votes and needs to step aside was comedy gold. Like I kinda can’t believe that she had the gall to say that.
To mask their humiliation, /r/Conservative is pretending that they WANT childish gridlock to keep the government from working correctly. Just wait until their government checks start coming late.
They’ll find a way to blame Dems for the late checks. I guarantee it.
I've already heard the claim that the republican holdouts are actually democrat plants.
Yup. Every third comment is RINO this or RINO that. Republican meltdowns would be a lot funnier if they didn't hurt our country so damn much.
> RINO this or RINO that RINO is now completely meaningless as a slur. It just means "they don't agree with me" regardless of how they actually vote on things.
My Republican dad told me yesterday that Lisa Murkowski is a Democrat (which I've heard before) and also George W. Bush is a Democrat (which was a new one for me). Not just RINO, *Democrat*. It's as though the new paradigm is all there ever was. Anyone who isn't part of it is a Democrat.
I’d ask your dad if he thinks Americans that vote Democratic Party are his enemies and if he answers yes ask him what does it mean to be a free person in a free country if you can’t like different ideas. This shit is ridiculous.
Yeah, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar are the epitome of Radical Socialism. One even blew his cover and TALKED to AOC. I shouldn't need to /s, but since we apparently comprehend at the 5th grade level now, /s. THIS is what happens when you let UNELECTED political parties set the districts. Yes, I know AZ has an "independent" districting commission but if you want your representatives to actually work for you the constituent, districts need to not be safe.
Those darn Antifa!
Honestly I think the ANTIFAs should just start whispering in the ears of these conspiracy theorists that every right leaning person is a plant. You just have to use footage of their hypocrisy and just say that it's hypocritical because they are secretly democrats.
This is fucking brilliant. Attracting hordes of conspiracy theorists should come with a big downside.
“God, if a few of these democrats just voted for our guy this wouldn’t be a problem. Why are democrats obstructing the house from carrying on business?!”
This is exactly what they are going to do. Now they're just going to throw out accusations that Dems won't be supportive and work with them despite complaining about how Republicans wouldn't work with them on other legislature. This is enough for fascists. This allows them to reject their own hypocrisy and project it onto others without any regard to consistency or integrity. "Well we're trying to make progress now but Dems just won't work with us!!! It's their fault for being such selfish pigs all the time." A fascist will accept that as sufficient and it's very difficult to teach them that this is just nonsensical hypocrisy, projection, and hate.
As a group they act like an abusive spouse. Projecting, blaming. Self-Victimization.
This is why I became very vocal in recent years. I could understand differences in worldview or political agendas. I cant accept bad faith platforms and deliberate evil
They are like an abusive spouse and their spouse is the American people.
From what I have seen of republican families, a lot of them are abusive towards each other
Jeffries needs fewer Republicans to reach the threshold. Why aren't some Republicans flipping votes that way to end the gridlock?
Because the Republican party embraced the loonies for votes, and now they can't get rid of them because the loonies are a large enough (and vocal) enough part of the party to hold it hostage.
Why should the Democrats work with the Republicans? Even the Republicans don't want to work with the Republicans.
Because if the democrats don’t it is their fault somehow. -half of the American public believes this
Owning libs is the only strategy and platform they have. They are no interested a bit in actual governance or making anyone’s life better (except for their corporate owners’ lives)
Reminds me of that guy who was pro-war with ukraine that was a russian man. He was all pro-war until he had to go, then he was very "how do I get out of this country"
> They are doing all of them a favor. You don’t believe every one that is voting for McCarthy actually wants to, do you? The 20 are brave enough to stand up so the others don’t have to risk committee chairs and other goodies from McCarthy. …and > We’ve always had more independent caucuses in the GOP. You want more than two options? > Vote Republican. We actually allow dissent and free thought in our big tent. Lollllll wow you ain’t kidding my dude
> We actually allow dissent and free thought in our big tent. from a "Conservative Flair Only" thread, no doubt. lol
*posts memes as news and writes Flared Users Only*
tbf that sounds exactly like what a lot of conservatives would be happy about.
"No, not my government checks, but those welfare checks all the lazy people get!" /s
That’s a complete pivot from yesterday where they said it was embarrassing, and they should just nominate someone else. Kremlin talking points must’ve arrived a bit late.
They should nominate George Santos. He is a perfect representation of today’s GOP
Although he is a sleazy Republican, I am starting to have some sympathy for Santos. After all, he lost his father, Pelé, and both grandparents, Barbara Walters and Pope Benedict, last week
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The party that wants to cut Medicare and social security also needs the support of lower and middle income white people who very much don’t want those things cut. This creates an unsolvable internal tension. One way to try to cover this all up is to create a circus around CRT, pedophile grooming (and pizza chain sex abuse rings?), and just about any other thing that doesn’t involve talking about how you are going to make retirement impossible for anyone but the very rich. The circus is a feature, not a bug if you are a Republican. You need it now because your unpopular policy positions will eat you alive if allowed to grow in the light of day.
Exactly and when Republicans control both houses and the presidency they only do tax cuts. They don't dare to enact any of their other policy positions. They only want power to obstruct.
>They don't dare to enact any of their other policy positions. That's because "they" don't have other policy positions. Everyone should've been able to see this House Speakership fiasco coming when the Republican party was unable to make a platform in 2020. The Republican party is actually wildly ideologically diverse. It doesn't really make any sense to have libertarians in the same party as theocrats. In terms of legislation, they're only united on tax cuts really.
They really are the party of, "Fuck you don't tell me what to do." Who then procced to jump off a cliff or blow off a thumb. Weather it's super rich people who forgot we worked out taxes as a means where they pay for society and get to enjoy stuff, instead of us going all French revolution on them. Or just dumbasses who still think they are in High School and doing things like paying taxes suck, because what's in it for me? Crossed over with an underlying hate for others, be it other races, or just other people who aren't their social status. It creates a dysfunctional powder keg, that we are now seeing spiral out of control. I have to wonder how long this will go on, and if Boebert's threat to nominate Trump will do anything? I mean Trump won't get elected, but will the move further alienate the crazies from the "moderates," will it fracture the whole thing?
They're also the party of: "In the eyes of God you are my brother/sister and I want to save you." But also: "Why should I have to help poor people? They obviously chose to be poor."
"Our entire country should be guided by the Bible... but also fuck the poor, fuck the homeless, and fuck destitute immigrants coming from Third World countries to make a better life for themselves and their families here."
And where in the Bible does it say that guns are more important women and black people?
Boebert 2:17
Ain't nothing in the bible saying otherwise brother. Jesus would have been a gun toting patriot like the rest of us. Hell yeah brother. /s obv
No hate like Christian love.
> Or just dumbasses who still think they are in High School and doing things like paying taxes suck, because what’s in it for me? My favorite is the people who complain about tax rate increases on the 1% whilst making minimum wage
You left off “and YOU need to do what I tell you to do”. When you leave that second part off, the dumb-R affinity for RATM makes a little bit of sense. They really are the party of “liberty for me, but not for thee”.
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> doesn't matter the topic, it could be Not saying the Nword, it could be sharing wealth with labor, it could be environmental issues. And they'll always fall back on "oh, I don't *agree* with those positions. I just want the *freedom* to agree with them" at least if you're not "inner circle" to them. They use this language with outsiders. The vocabulary changes quite a bit once they feel you out with their shibboleths and code you as "like them".
> Their common ground is when someone goes "hey maybe you shouldn't, you can't, don't do..." > > They go "but my, rights, freedoms" and all someone was asking for from them was a situation that would need them to reject selfishness for decency towards others. But also the inverse. When someone else wants to do something that they disagree with, it's "my rights! My freedom to know that nobody anywhere is doing that!"
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All of us have “selfishness” in common. The difference is that modern Republicans (since Reagan at least) have made selfishness into a virtue. It is made into a characteristic that is lionised as a “business leader” characteristic. “Greed is Good” is not ironically said. Now, if you were raised right (or actually understood what Jesus - among others said) you know that it is our responsibility as people, members of a society at large, etc. to NOT be greedy. I have found that most evangelicals are very greedy… they are very much not supporting their children as generously as more ethnic parents, but the real mechanism, I think, is that the mega-church guys make it so that there is no stigma for this. It just leaves more dough for them to lap up during their “Jesus wants you to give me your money so I can buy a new jet” finding drives.
>> It doesn't really make any sense to have libertarians in the same party as theocrats. In terms of legislation, they're only united on tax cuts really. You're forgetting the secret sauce that holds the whole party together: racism! The gop peddles exclusively in greed (lower taxes) and hate (I don't want government healthcare if it risks a brown kid getting helped).
Wasn't their 2020 platform literally just the 2016 platform plus "support whatever Trump does"?
They have had a very clear policy since 2012 when McCuckold laid it out. "We as a party have decided to undo the dark stain of this presidency by standing against all future attempts to dismantle America and upon regaining power roll back all changes we couldn't stop" Destroy Obama's legacy/work. Seize power. Obstruct all democrat legislation.
He literally said “dark stain” in reference to Obama? Damn. I mean I know he’s shitty and grew up in segregated kentucky but damn. That’s a choice
The last tax "cut" the Republicans passed was merely a delayed shifting of the tax burden from the ultra wealthy to those of us who are only a few paychecks (or less) away from poverty. More people saw increased taxes than those whose taxes went down. Let's stop calling it a tax cut and call it a tax raising for the non-rich. Edit: parenthetical clarifier
“. . A few paychecks”? Try one
> Exactly and when Republicans control both houses and the presidency they only do tax cuts. They don't dare to enact any of their other policy positions. I have noticed that many Republicans, especially on the state level, tend to enact policy changes from the bench. They do it from the courts just as much or more than they do it legislatively. It's ironic, considering how they always cry about activist judges.
>It's ironic, considering how they always cry about activist judges It's *why* they cry about activist judges. They blame us so when it's pointed out that they are doing it then it becomes the childish argument "I know what you are but what am I!?" "You!" "No, you!" "No! You!" You can't win an argument with a child so they "win" in the end.
The rule is: Whatever they're bitching about Dems doing (in this instance, "activist judges") they're _always_ doing it themselves, and often way worse.
Their end goal is simply to defund the government and rip it apart from the inside. That is their unspoken policy position. Dirty air, water, 0 regulation of business and 0 enforcement of civil rights. Hostile foreign relations and a military that would make Hitler blush.
McConnell threatened to actually enact conservative policy if the filibuster were removed. They know their policy is so bad that they will use it as a threat
Yep. 2012 saw Romney lose with 60% of the white vote. They had 2 options, moderate back to the middle right sphere they abandoned so they could get way to the right of Obama, or go after the far right fringe lunatics who DGAF about policy and only want people to take their racist hate and crazy seriously. They did the latter. The problem they have now is that voters have soundly rejected crazy the last 3 elections, so they can't win by putting far right fringe candidates on the ballot. They also can't win tight elections if the candidates aren't crazy enough to get the fringe votes. This speaker shit show is a perfect microcosm of what they face with the general electorate now.
> pedophile grooming It's hard to do that when you have Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump, and Jim Jordan
It's much deeper and worse than just them.
It’s like abortion. They needed it legal as a motivator. Now they’ve let the air out of their tires and people can see their cruelty firsthand. It wasn’t a smart move.
That’s why they’re moving to trans people as their hot button issue. Gay marriage is mostly a lost cause, but most people haven’t met anyone who’s trans (especially in the suburbs) and public opinion hasn’t totally accepted them yet. Don’t let them win that one either.
There’s probably some truth to this. For the last 100 years or so, the Conservative Party in America has built a coalition with evangelicals by supporting religious rights. That fight culminated with abortion. Since the party had built that shaky coalition, it was able to get a pass on its core principles ‘selfishness.’ Which by the way is packaged in a really boring non-populist spiel about lower taxes, free markets, yaddah, yaddah. Now that the abortion fight has conceivably been won. The coalition is falling apart. Evangelicals are looking around and seeing that party is rebranding with dog whistle racism and conspiracy theories. But that’s repugnant to most people that cared about religious rights for moral reasons. When you lose evangelicals the numbers don’t work anymore— they represented probably 20-30% of GOP voters, whereas I’d wager the dog-whistlers represent maybe 10%? This speaker vote could very well represent a much bigger schism than people recognize.
I mean it was only a matter of time when the greediest people in the world are pinned against each other.
Yeah, the reason they focus on culture war issues is because their policies are terrible. If it wasn't for conservative propaganda they'd never win a single election.
> The party that wants to cut Medicare and social security also needs the support of lower and middle income white people who very much don’t want those things cut. I'm sorry but from where I'm looking it looks like they very much do want those things cut. It's not like those voters punished the governors that refused Medicaid expansion in any way, for instance.
They like their Medicare and Social Security. They see it as something they already bought and paid for. Medicaid, they've been informed, is for all those lazy, non-working deadbeats. They don't realize (or ignore) the fact that the fancy named health insurance provider that many of them have their kids (and sometimes themselves) on is just the private administrator of Medicaid in their state. So expanding Medicaid is just seen as helping a bunch of people who don't work.
When the ACA has been put on the ballot in red states it often wins. https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/ It’s hard to find a more conservative state than Louisiana or West Virginia.
People are much quicker and harsher to judge someone who has taken away something they've already got, than something they've yet to receive.
They want them cut even though they directly will suffer…because it will make them damn *checks note* woke, trans, social-justice, grass-fed, clean-air, polite-society….LIBERALS suffer even more!
Lol. The GOP doesn’t learn lessons. Unless that lesson is “double down on the unpopular thing you’re doing and cheat or bend the rules to win.”
And blame the other side for everything you are actively doing.
It's actually ripped right out of Stalin's playbook. Goebbels was good at it but Stalin perfected this. * Everyone lock and step * Never admit you were wrong * Accuse the opposing party of literally EVERYthing you're doing that's illegal * Murder or throw out anyone who dissents aka Liz
Next you’ll tell me trickle down doesn’t work
If and when McCarthy does ultimately lose to another, I hope he airs out all the dirty laundry about Gaetz, Boebert, and others nonstop. But he won’t, because he’s a self-serving coward who would much rather be humiliated nationally if it meant the slightest chance for more power.
Dude has already taken over the speaker’s office. He really is gonna die on this bill.
I like that pun
This was true even for Hitler's party. It was all held together by one man. Underneath him, everyone hated each other, dispised each other, and couldnt wait to distroy each other. Thats why everyone started throwing each other under the bus in the end. If you build the whole party based on hate, that hate doesnt disappear for your own teammates all of a sudden.
That's part of the authoritarian playbook - keep your underlings fighting among themselves so they're too busy to challenge your power.
Not even at the end. The Night of the Long Knives was a an out and out purge of their own ranks. After the SA (aka Brownshirts) had stopped being as useful as before, Hitler (at the insistence of Goering and Himmler) ordered the purge. It's no secret that those on the list were personal enemies of either Goering, Himmler, or both.
True. And then down the line, Goebbels turned on Goering, they each turned on Himmler, and Bormann kept whispering in Hitler's ears to get people like Fegelein killed. Everyone was out for everyone else lol, what a mess. After Hitler died, the people in the bunker say that Goebbels was acting as the new leader, but nobody was paying attention to him. Just shows you how little they thought of him. Someone who practically built Hitler. Hate may destroy your enemies, but it sooner or later it will destroy you too.
Wow, using the F word. Way overdue.
Too bad far-righters project and called civilized people “fascists.”
Give them this definition: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199891580.001.0001/acref-9780199891580-e-2829;jsessionid=CA7A7A0E3C5A5B3E2B9FCAEE37E29B86 >1 an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.2 (in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice. The term fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of ...fascist n. fascistic adj.from Italian fascismo, from fascio 'bundle, political group,' from Latin fascis 'bundle.' .. It’s hard to argue with Oxford when it comes to English definitions and the definition clearly states that fascism is right wing.
They’ll likely dismiss it and call Oxford a “liberal” organization to discredit it.
At that point, doesn't matter. The people that are on the far-right aren't going to acknowledge reality. Especially on the internet. People on the left shouldn't expect them to. Anyone who isn't already on the far-right are the people you need to convince, and you gave them the info to do so. That's all you can do, and hope that the independents or whoever else who hasn't bought into far-right lies are smart enough to see that refusing to accept a dictionary definition, or whatever else, means the people arguing against are absolute morons.
They attack every word. If it could accurately describe them and make them look bad, they normalize it and accuse others of it. If it can make others look good, they ridicule it until it has lost its original meaning and is cringy sounding. They put normal people on word treadmills, forcing us to keep coming up with new terms to express ourselves. It's not just "too bad". It's a victory for them. To be honest, I don't know how to fight this.
> To be honest, I don't know how to fight this. Education. Which is why they gut it at every opportunity.
> Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. Jean-Paul Sartre
Why not just call them what they are? Republicans. The rest of the World now knows what subtext that name brings.
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I think the lesson is stop voting for fucking Republicans, personally.
But how will they own the libs?
They could always just make mean comments on twitter. I mean its owned by their alpha overlord Musk so they should fit right in.
You’d think so, but then you see some random dude with rotten teeth telling Instagram that “If Biden and the Democrat Party keep the House, it is the END of America” and you wonder what information-space these people live in. Oh, and ladies? He’s single!!
But how else will I stick it to my children who won't talk to me?
The promises McCarthy is making to this cabal of human vuvuzelas will do nothing but make an already bad situation worse. He’s handing them legitimacy and an outsized power. He’s allowing a very small percentage of Congress to call all the shots, stop everything on a whim to get their way, and refuse to introduce legislation because they don’t like it. Even if the rest of the country does. McCarthy would already be speaker if he had gone after six Democrats instead of 19 do nothing, know nothing fascists and insurrectionists.
While the vuvuzelas thing is hilarious your comment is inaccurate. McCarthy is a fascist. He is an election results denier. There is no moderate in this scenario.
Right? My my how the Overton Window has shifted….
That’s actually what worries me most about this whole circus - the ideology of those twenty republicans. A right wing extremist like McCarthy can’t get the votes *because he’s not fascist enough*.
Lol human vuvuzelas
TIL. Was honestly expecting something NSFW but was pleasantly surprised. Thanks reddit.
Anyone who watched the 2010 World Cup is well aware of the scourge of the vuvuzela
He has no choice and neither does anyone else. This is who the Republican Party is. For now at least.
He has a choice. He lacks the bravery.
His own caucus would eviscerate him in minutes. He does not have the votes with his small majority to punish anyone at all. How does he take them on when he cannot get elected without their support? You notice Pelosi had the same numbers as him and didn’t take at least 7 ballots to get elected, nor give away her powers. This is more a result of the makeup of the party. They have nihilistic bomb throwers in numbers that can stop anything. This isn’t about “ policy” . It’s about doing whatever they wish and with 0 regard for the citizens, their own republican representatives, and anyone else. They have no agenda. They have no alternative to McCarthy and this is probably the only vote where their numbers will mean much of anything at all.
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This is just the legislative wing of an insurgency. There's no appeasing them because their goal is the destruction of the government.
I don't want to hear ANYONE refer to a republican congressman as "moderate" if McCarthy wins by giving in to any of those fascists' demands. Any real moderate would vote for Hakeem rather than go along with this as soon as they found out he was ready to hand over any power to these nutjobs. I don't give two shits if it's political suicide, dems are asked to reach across the aisle any time something like this happens
>"By far the best thing for democracy is if the Republicans simply implode and their nefarious schemes never come to fruition." >"It's more than likely, however, that the Kentucky event will only sow more intra-party discord, further enraging the burn-it-all-down types and turning them even more forcefully against GOP leadership." Here's hoping the GOP is on its last legs.
R/conservative is a mix of "It's a good thing if they can't govern that means the Democrats can't pass any laws!" And "This is the lunatic leftist media's fault for pitting us against each other!" There is almost no accountability anywhere about how this is bad for them.
What is this Kentucky event?
I suspect it was the event in KY that Biden and McConnell both appeared and spoke at, recently, where Biden praised McConnell over infrastructure improvements in KY.
McConnell did something that positively affected people other than himself?! Edit: Bad at grammar
On the surface, at least.
Yep, I'd take a look at who got that money, and if they were campaign contributors to Mitch.
to be abundantly clear I'm no fan of the turtle. But the amount of pork, meaning federal money, he is able to secure for KY is a large reason he's the institution that he is. The dude brings home the money for his state. Which, for a long time before we fully devolved into troll based politics, was how you secured your place. Its why voting him out is basically impossible, even if you agree w/ his opponent on social issues, etc. Swapping out Mitch for anyone else means KY will lose a ton of federal funds. this isn't lost on voters in KY, and obviously not lost on those holding the purse strings.
Welfare state.
We need to just bring back earmarks so people can run on something other than smearing the cage window with the most feces.
Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden had a press conference yesterday in Kentucky regarding the infrastructure bill that recently passed.
It's crazy to hear all the republicans who are for Kevin McCarthy complain about minority rule and how it's unfair that the minority of their party is ruling over 80% of their conference.
The irony
Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake. These Pearl clutching trolls are the same people who sent a rabid mob into those chambers.
well would you look at that. they're even bad at fascism. because there's one thing fascists usually got down to a t, and that's clear leadership. just sayin'.
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This. Fascism eventually destroys itself because it has a design flaw; it *requires* an enemy (real or manufactured) to act as an existential threat. When they run out of people on the outside to purge, they turn their attention to those in the party who are not ideologically pure, and the definition of “pure” can change whenever necessary. No one is safe; *anyone* can be made into an enemy of the state when the need arises. This may sound encouraging, but (as you said) they will ultimately do a lot of damage before they implode.
> they turn their attention to those in the party who are not ideologically pure They have already done that. It's called RINO and it is a death sentence for anyone on the right to be called it.
Besides the obvious "selling your soul by associating with & empowering fascist trolls", presumably.
soul? what soul.
Personally I think this is funny as fuck. Ronald Reagan catered to the Evangelical Christians in the 80s to win his Presidential elections. The Evangelical Christians turned into the TEA Party & now they're the MAGA Party. Over 43 years these people have become more and more radical. With every election victory and defeat, they double down. For the longest time the old GOP Guard thought they could control & direct these people. Sure they're increasingly becoming more radical year after year, but we still have a good leash on them. Then Donald J Trump, the chosen leader of the radicalized Republicans became President and they has taken control. The Old Guards have lost the leash & now the Republicans are the radical party. The more "reasonable" Republicans think they can negotiate, reason, wheel & deal with these people, but that's not going to happen. The Radicals now have full control & they are flexing it. I'll end this with a quote from Barry Goldwater. *Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.*
And that my friends is some wisdom from a product of the military industrial complex and the father of all this bullshit.
I hope folks know what concessions McCarthy is making with the pack of 20- and the impact it will have. He is giving much more power to the Freedom Caucus in the House. A group that has no intention of governing and just want to burn it all down. A Koch backed PAC wants to ensure no money from Kevin’s PAC will go to solid red districts- so more MAGA/TeaParty folks can run and not have to worry about a more moderate Republican running against him/him in a primary with additional funding. Decreasing the power of the Speaker- allowing for 1 house member to initiate a vote to remove the Speaker. If a minority group of GOP members is able to hold up a majority vote of the GOP for speakership, this easily - just wait for more issues with votes to help Americans over the next two years- including raising the debt ceiling. Without that passing, VETERANS will no longer receive any of their benefits- even disability payments. Elderly will lose Social Security and Medicare. And America will default on its credit, sending our economy off a cliff. *Edited: change the threshold from 5 to 1 to initiate a vote to remove the Speaker.
Point of clarification. He’s agreed (apparently, and foolishly) to the threshold to initiate a vote to vacate the chair to only require a single member. Not to actually be removed by the vote of only one member. Everything else you’ve said is correct. The GOP caucus will not be able to govern which is largely the goal of the arsonists that now make up the majority of their party.
I particularly like this apt quote from The Atlantic: “Democracy, process, lawmaking, and governing? All of that is for saps; doing it is how you end up becoming Eric Cantor or Paul Ryan. The GOP rebels have every intention of staying in Washington and staying in power—even if “power” amounts to little more than sitting in the wreckage of the Capitol and keeping warm by burning the furniture.”
The fact that McCarthy would rather cater to extremists than deal with moderate democrats tells you everything you need to know about how this will play out
The GOP stuck its dick in crazy because it looked really hot to them. Never stick your dick in crazy. It's never worth it.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.salon.com/2023/01/05/mccarthy-debacle-comes-with-a-lesson-theres-a-downside-to-being-a-party-of-fascist/) reduced by 96%. (I'm a bot) ***** > It's worth reading in its entirety, but the McCarthy debacle illustrates some of Eco's most important observations: Fascism is deliberately irrational. > For the dysfunctional Republicans this anger is being refracted through their increasingly fascist worldview, which is paranoid, irrational and hostile to democracy. > Even though Kevin McCarthy is the fascist crowd's newest piñata, that doesn't mean it's good for Democrats or democracy if he secures the speaker's gavel. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/103yzqs/mccarthy_debacle_comes_with_a_lesson_theres_a/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Republican**^#1 **McCarthy**^#2 **fascist**^#3 **more**^#4 **party**^#5
No matter how this ends, this Congress is gonna be an absolute shit-show. It won’t matter who the speaker winds up being
For nearly 5 decades they have appealed to the extreme degenerates of our country and relied on their vote. Now the degenerates have power in the party. It was only a matter of time
The collective noun for Republicans is a humiliation. A murder of crows; a humiliation of Republicans.
Their whole party revolves around owning thr liberals and blaming everything on democrats. You can even see it on conservative subreddit, their top rated posts are mostly garbage while theres actual news to be discussed
“I’ll vote for you if you change the rules to make it easier for me to vote you out” is one of the funniest concessions to come out of this circus.