The problem w/ the uneducated & programmed base is that they are now unreachable & thus, cannot be persuaded. They also have lots of weapons. On the wealthy, educated side of the party, there are many billionaires who detest multi-cultural democracy and seem willing to go to any links to prevent it from ever really flourishing in the USA. What to do about these demographics? The billionaires keep the uneducated MAGAs hooked up to the propaganda drip 24/7
The history of political parties in this country is always very instructive. Heather Cox Richardson has been a gift to all of us in laying bare many of the fine historical details. Underlying every single issue we have is the history of the relationship that Americans have with money. It is baked into the cake of our national identity.
We rebelled against England ostensibly over our "rights," but at the bottom lay who determined the economic playing field and taxes. The abomination of slavery was instituted purely to make money. It did. The theory of race in this country was subsequently created and promulgated to justify that. Manifest destiny was about taking land that did not belong to the United States of America, but that Americans coveted. The labor movement fought and shed blood against capitalists and corporations that wanted no limits on their acquisition of wealth. Even the modern issues of immigration and culture war have a great deal to do with economic opportunity. The Devil's bargain that wealthy Republicans made in order to try to return this country to 1886 was only for the sake of money. If this nation rejects democracy for authoritarianism, it will be because powerful people see money in it.
Truer words were never spoken than when "Deep Throat" said to Bob Woodward, "Follow the money."
The .01% are willing to see the most successful and powerful country in the entire world go down in flames so they can make more money. How very patriotic of them.
We still outnumber them, and it would be easy to win, "if we all* voted." *(thinking people).
(Great article, I wish they could turn it into a meme!).
The problem here is there are plenty of extremists waiting to take the place of those Republicans who leave in protest. Their leaving only lets the crazies take over more quickly. Are they doing anything about the problem once they leave office? Or are they just making money appearing on “news” and talk shows complaining about how their party changed?
If they really wanted to save the republic they'd switch their party affiliation while still in office, potentially moving control of legislative houses more toward the side of sanity.
It's not a permanent solution, and it'd be political suicide - in most cases - within the pertinent districts/states, but it could buy some time for democracy to regroup and live to fight another day.
Exactly. Instead you have a woman elected as a Democrat in North Carolina declaring herself a Republican thus giving then an unassailable 2/3’s majority which has proceeded to secure its undemocratic rule.
Years ago, the moderate, perhaps Liberal Republican, Chuck Whalen, represented my hometown of Dayton, Ohio. My staunch-Democrats parents (z”l) voted straight Dem tickets except for Mr Whalen. I’ll have to check dates - he did switch parties and died a Democrat.
Would Liz Cheney, from a long line of GOP family, ever do the same?
I'm baffled by the missing middle in indictments. They've gone after the insurrectionists on the ground on January 6th with over 1100 facing or convicted of criminal charges. And now they're going for the top with the indictments against Trump and his co-conspirators. But why has there been no indictments against the Congress critters who were involved on that day as well as the days leading up to it?
"He’s an election denialist who amplified Sidney Powell’s election conspiracies about Venezuelan software. But he was more than a casual supporter; he also organized Republicans in the House to file suit to overturn the 2020 election results." Similar things are said about the other MAGA Republicans currently sitting in Congress. But without any hint that there might be accountability for their actions.
It's probably not a question anyone can answer but it does beg the question... Where is their Teflon coat coming from and who is funding it?
That's the question, sure wish I knew the answer. They should never have been seated in the first place, (MTG and the other new house members). They have no right to be there.
If I may add to your excellent exposition about the GOP’s current situation; Heather Cox Richardson in her recently published historical study, Democracy Awakening, discusses another interestingly familiar situation from 1879 nineteen years after the 1860 election of Lincoln. Here is a block quote from page 232-233 of her book:
“With the help of this powerful southern bloc [southern Democrats], Democrats had taken control of the House of Representatives in 1875, in the midst of a recession, and in 1879 they took control of the Senate. Because of the seniority system in Congress, this meant that former Confederates held key positions. Retaking control of Congress, they believed they had a mandate to get rid of the power of the federal government to protect civil rights, recreating the hierarchical society the United States had utterly rejected fifteen years before or destroying the government in the process.
Determined to get rid of the new nationalism and restore states’ rights as the law of the land, they refused to fund the government. One southern representative told The New York Times, “The great blunder of our section was in abandoning our seats in Congress in 1861.” [The advent of the Civil War 1861-1865 when eleven Southern states seceded from the Union forming the Confederate Sates of America] That would never happen again, he said; they would stay in Congress and control both the South and the North.
Republican president Rutherford B. Hayes and House minority leader James A. Garfield of Ohio recognized that an extremist faction in Congress forcing its will on the country by holding government finances hostage was a form of revolution. If the extremists’ tactics worked, this would be only the first of their demands, and the country would fall, as one Democrat said, under “the absolute despotism of… irresponsible and unrestrained” partisans.
Popular opinion swung behind the Republicans, and the former Confederates backed down. Caving to the extremists destroyed the Democrats in the upcoming election, when Republicans reversed their recent losses and put Garfield, now famous for his stand against those who wanted to defund the government, into the White House on a platform of protecting Black rights.”
It is going to get far worse....before it slowly rises from the ashes. The society of guns, the cult of Trumpism with over 8 years of brainwashing building an intense hate... is fully ready with loaded guns.
I hope that we can hold them at bay at least for this next election, and that time will do a lot of the work for us in ridding us of the hold MAGA has on so many.
All I know is that my lifelong Republican father, were he still with us, would be so disgusted with what has become of the party he worked so hard for, that he would hold his nose and vote D.
This will fall on blind eyes and deaf ears. The rich will have the rest fighting to protect them and have no need for government until they need FEMA. Keep everyone distracted and uneducated.
Religions teach and Public Education dies and libraries close and people circle their wagons into the camp they belong to. Steven Bannon laughs as families fight each other. People are afraid to speak out and lose their voice. Keep the unwanted babies coming as fodder for war. Censor teachers not congressmen and women. We are living in the Middle Ages again in the 21st century. It is truly fiightening.
Well, it's not the party of Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt, or even Lincoln, but I disagree that it is "disintegrating."
It has a vast army of Trumpetoons and MAGAts who will replace the above types of people and make it an authoritarian party for an authoritarian, personality-cult state. And they may very well get elected unless the public and anti-Trumpers act fast.
The second Trump administration will ensure that there are no police present when the Proud Boys storm the US Capitol to "temporarily detain" opposing Congress Critters.
Trump will enjoy the moment when he bids farewell to Biden on the Capitol East Front. Biden and Jill will board the helicopter, thinking he's going to Andrews to review the troops one last time and go home to Delaware.
Instead, the helo will land at a different end of the runway, far from the media, and a bunch of Proud Boys will take over from the Secret Service, zip-tie the former President and his family, and escort the whole lot to a USAF transport plane, which will take them to Guantanamo Bay for "indefinite internment" and "enhanced interrogation" for a "full confession." That will be followed by him "falling down a flight of stairs," "being shot while attempting escape," or "suffering a fatal heart attack." The remains will be "cremated to avoid the spread of disease."
For the good of the country and the survival of democracy, I REALLY hope the GQP disintegrates and voting rights can be restored. The party is so DEEPLY corrupt, shameless, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and borderline traitorous (not to mention, shockingly stupid in many cases) that they need to be replaced with a party that is actually interested in governing and following their oath of office ("for the people ...").
Only two types of Republicans remain: #ProudMAGA and #ScaredMAGA.
Cheney, who voted 98% of time to secure the Trump/GOP agenda--including tax cuts for billionaires and opposing abortion rights--deserves credit for putting the country and Constitution over her career; she's no hero, though, and we need to stop treating her as one.
I fear we are so close to becoming a dictatorship and that votes won’t count. I hope that we will survive in the short term, but it may well not happen. With the new speaker in place, I feel the extremists are poised for a takeover no matter election outcomes. Please prove me wrong America!
The reforms to the Electoral Count Act make it much harder for the House or its Speaker to object to the electoral count. There’s that at least. Plus, if we win back the House, the new Speaker is installed a few days before the electoral count.
We could only hope for a GOP disintegration . . . Or an incineration. These are the worst fascists to rise since 1932; they are funded and operated by Neo nazi billionaires. Their office holders aid and abet criminals, making them criminals--worse--TRAITORS who pervert the meaning of Rights and work to obstruct, undermine and dismantle this democracy. What does it say about us when we allow MAGAts to run roughshod over the judiciary, freedom of speech, undermining the military & foreign affairs, etc, etc, ETC.
It says we are lazy and cowardly. I think we should have a national strike to protest traitors in Congress and to get women their medical rights back! Reverse Dobbs and Citizens United! (and as much more as possible).
“the modern Republicans now face a schism so stark and so deep that no politician can straddle it and expect to survive. You either stand with Trump and authoritarian rule, or you stand against Trump and on the side of democracy.”
Yes. And my question is will the remaining non-rabid/zombie members of the Republican Party who may still have a functioning central nervous system see it this way? Or will they lick their finger and hold it up to see which way the wind blows?
Armed ,under educated ,brainwashed and,led by a pack of white nationalists,nazis ,who are only interested in their own preservation! Seems to be a really good recipe for a Civil War,those ingredients have been used in many countries for centuries to tear democratic societies down.Germany,and Italy to name a couple in the recent past.l don’t know if this is it for the U. S.or not,but,it’s a bet that,would get pretty good odds in Vegas I'm guessing!Maybe better than even if we don’t smarten up soon !
I do get amused by how so many of the 1,200 men and women hauled into federal court for their role in January 6 have pleaded guilty, blamed their involvement on Trump, Fox, and Alex Jones, and tearfully added that they have lost their friends, family, and jobs, and said that the only thing they will be involved in after they get out of the federal diaper pail will be their kids’ soccer games.
Yeah, right.
You know, when Adolf Hitler and his fellow Nazis stood trial in 1924 for the Beer Hall Putsch on November 9, 1923 (90 years ago next week), they put up a big defense, blaming Versailles, Weimar, and the French for Germany’s economic catastrophe and the need to overthrow the government, and gained massive sympathy.
Adolf did nine months at Landsberg, where he borrowed the warden’s Remington, and dictated “Mein Kampf” to Rudolf Hess, who tapped it out.
None of these cowards and sociopaths (unlike their Nazi forebears) seem willing to withstand time in prison and stand up for their alleged “ideals.”
They disgust me…first for their attempted coup, then for their attempts to wiggle out of it. They deserve maximum punishment.
At least they lost their friends, family, and jobs. They will not enjoy living in a jail cell with a door they cannot open, everything painted in gray, no connection to the outside world and its colors, the smell of ammonia, and having every aspect of their lives dictated to them by guards. They deserve that.
And so much more,how about they get celled up with Rudy? Oh my ,now that would be some very hard time!Imagine being in a 8x10 box with that obnoxious little twerp,spewing out all sorts of nasty nonsense and ,watching his head melt like a wax candle,that could be cruel and unusual, but,Rudy’s crude and certainly unusual,so it’s not so cruel a fate for any of these traitorous cowards!Don t do the crime if you can’t bunk with slime!
The problem w/ the uneducated & programmed base is that they are now unreachable & thus, cannot be persuaded. They also have lots of weapons. On the wealthy, educated side of the party, there are many billionaires who detest multi-cultural democracy and seem willing to go to any links to prevent it from ever really flourishing in the USA. What to do about these demographics? The billionaires keep the uneducated MAGAs hooked up to the propaganda drip 24/7
This is one of the best comments on this matter that I have seen in many years. It’s also very sobering.
I was with ya, until you made it obvious you were just shilling for your advertisement.
Very Trump of you.
Ditto
The history of political parties in this country is always very instructive. Heather Cox Richardson has been a gift to all of us in laying bare many of the fine historical details. Underlying every single issue we have is the history of the relationship that Americans have with money. It is baked into the cake of our national identity.
We rebelled against England ostensibly over our "rights," but at the bottom lay who determined the economic playing field and taxes. The abomination of slavery was instituted purely to make money. It did. The theory of race in this country was subsequently created and promulgated to justify that. Manifest destiny was about taking land that did not belong to the United States of America, but that Americans coveted. The labor movement fought and shed blood against capitalists and corporations that wanted no limits on their acquisition of wealth. Even the modern issues of immigration and culture war have a great deal to do with economic opportunity. The Devil's bargain that wealthy Republicans made in order to try to return this country to 1886 was only for the sake of money. If this nation rejects democracy for authoritarianism, it will be because powerful people see money in it.
Truer words were never spoken than when "Deep Throat" said to Bob Woodward, "Follow the money."
The .01% are willing to see the most successful and powerful country in the entire world go down in flames so they can make more money. How very patriotic of them.
We still outnumber them, and it would be easy to win, "if we all* voted." *(thinking people).
(Great article, I wish they could turn it into a meme!).
i guess they never heard the tale of the golden goose.
Yessir.
The problem here is there are plenty of extremists waiting to take the place of those Republicans who leave in protest. Their leaving only lets the crazies take over more quickly. Are they doing anything about the problem once they leave office? Or are they just making money appearing on “news” and talk shows complaining about how their party changed?
If they really wanted to save the republic they'd switch their party affiliation while still in office, potentially moving control of legislative houses more toward the side of sanity.
It's not a permanent solution, and it'd be political suicide - in most cases - within the pertinent districts/states, but it could buy some time for democracy to regroup and live to fight another day.
Exactly. Instead you have a woman elected as a Democrat in North Carolina declaring herself a Republican thus giving then an unassailable 2/3’s majority which has proceeded to secure its undemocratic rule.
https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-party-switch-republican-01af019aa58fd44f0e2110c32a48c4c0
Seems to me, if they switched to be independents, it wouldn't hurt them nearly so much electorally, it might even help them. It's a huge voting block.
Years ago, the moderate, perhaps Liberal Republican, Chuck Whalen, represented my hometown of Dayton, Ohio. My staunch-Democrats parents (z”l) voted straight Dem tickets except for Mr Whalen. I’ll have to check dates - he did switch parties and died a Democrat.
Would Liz Cheney, from a long line of GOP family, ever do the same?
Her values of small government and total individual responsibility are too at odds with Democratic values of mutual responsibility and fairness.
Yeah, I know. I try to have hope for miracles..it's what I call the "Charlie Brown/Lucy/Football" kind of hope!
Hahaha. When I used to be on twitter I posted the Charlie-Lucy image frequently in my frustrated responses.
Smiling. It’s the best analogy I have.
I would think that death threats against their families would deter them from staying in office.
I'm baffled by the missing middle in indictments. They've gone after the insurrectionists on the ground on January 6th with over 1100 facing or convicted of criminal charges. And now they're going for the top with the indictments against Trump and his co-conspirators. But why has there been no indictments against the Congress critters who were involved on that day as well as the days leading up to it?
"He’s an election denialist who amplified Sidney Powell’s election conspiracies about Venezuelan software. But he was more than a casual supporter; he also organized Republicans in the House to file suit to overturn the 2020 election results." Similar things are said about the other MAGA Republicans currently sitting in Congress. But without any hint that there might be accountability for their actions.
It's probably not a question anyone can answer but it does beg the question... Where is their Teflon coat coming from and who is funding it?
That's the question, sure wish I knew the answer. They should never have been seated in the first place, (MTG and the other new house members). They have no right to be there.
If I may add to your excellent exposition about the GOP’s current situation; Heather Cox Richardson in her recently published historical study, Democracy Awakening, discusses another interestingly familiar situation from 1879 nineteen years after the 1860 election of Lincoln. Here is a block quote from page 232-233 of her book:
“With the help of this powerful southern bloc [southern Democrats], Democrats had taken control of the House of Representatives in 1875, in the midst of a recession, and in 1879 they took control of the Senate. Because of the seniority system in Congress, this meant that former Confederates held key positions. Retaking control of Congress, they believed they had a mandate to get rid of the power of the federal government to protect civil rights, recreating the hierarchical society the United States had utterly rejected fifteen years before or destroying the government in the process.
Determined to get rid of the new nationalism and restore states’ rights as the law of the land, they refused to fund the government. One southern representative told The New York Times, “The great blunder of our section was in abandoning our seats in Congress in 1861.” [The advent of the Civil War 1861-1865 when eleven Southern states seceded from the Union forming the Confederate Sates of America] That would never happen again, he said; they would stay in Congress and control both the South and the North.
Republican president Rutherford B. Hayes and House minority leader James A. Garfield of Ohio recognized that an extremist faction in Congress forcing its will on the country by holding government finances hostage was a form of revolution. If the extremists’ tactics worked, this would be only the first of their demands, and the country would fall, as one Democrat said, under “the absolute despotism of… irresponsible and unrestrained” partisans.
Popular opinion swung behind the Republicans, and the former Confederates backed down. Caving to the extremists destroyed the Democrats in the upcoming election, when Republicans reversed their recent losses and put Garfield, now famous for his stand against those who wanted to defund the government, into the White House on a platform of protecting Black rights.”
It is going to get far worse....before it slowly rises from the ashes. The society of guns, the cult of Trumpism with over 8 years of brainwashing building an intense hate... is fully ready with loaded guns.
I hope that we can hold them at bay at least for this next election, and that time will do a lot of the work for us in ridding us of the hold MAGA has on so many.
All I know is that my lifelong Republican father, were he still with us, would be so disgusted with what has become of the party he worked so hard for, that he would hold his nose and vote D.
Same here. Exactly.
This will fall on blind eyes and deaf ears. The rich will have the rest fighting to protect them and have no need for government until they need FEMA. Keep everyone distracted and uneducated.
Religions teach and Public Education dies and libraries close and people circle their wagons into the camp they belong to. Steven Bannon laughs as families fight each other. People are afraid to speak out and lose their voice. Keep the unwanted babies coming as fodder for war. Censor teachers not congressmen and women. We are living in the Middle Ages again in the 21st century. It is truly fiightening.
Well, it's not the party of Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt, or even Lincoln, but I disagree that it is "disintegrating."
It has a vast army of Trumpetoons and MAGAts who will replace the above types of people and make it an authoritarian party for an authoritarian, personality-cult state. And they may very well get elected unless the public and anti-Trumpers act fast.
And some of them will be violent if they have the support of the state. Count on it
The second Trump administration will ensure that there are no police present when the Proud Boys storm the US Capitol to "temporarily detain" opposing Congress Critters.
Trump will enjoy the moment when he bids farewell to Biden on the Capitol East Front. Biden and Jill will board the helicopter, thinking he's going to Andrews to review the troops one last time and go home to Delaware.
Instead, the helo will land at a different end of the runway, far from the media, and a bunch of Proud Boys will take over from the Secret Service, zip-tie the former President and his family, and escort the whole lot to a USAF transport plane, which will take them to Guantanamo Bay for "indefinite internment" and "enhanced interrogation" for a "full confession." That will be followed by him "falling down a flight of stairs," "being shot while attempting escape," or "suffering a fatal heart attack." The remains will be "cremated to avoid the spread of disease."
I do hope the GQP disintegrates so that democracy can survive.
For the good of the country and the survival of democracy, I REALLY hope the GQP disintegrates and voting rights can be restored. The party is so DEEPLY corrupt, shameless, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and borderline traitorous (not to mention, shockingly stupid in many cases) that they need to be replaced with a party that is actually interested in governing and following their oath of office ("for the people ...").
Only two types of Republicans remain: #ProudMAGA and #ScaredMAGA.
Cheney, who voted 98% of time to secure the Trump/GOP agenda--including tax cuts for billionaires and opposing abortion rights--deserves credit for putting the country and Constitution over her career; she's no hero, though, and we need to stop treating her as one.
Can’t we just say she was a hero when it counted most?
Too generous.
I fear we are so close to becoming a dictatorship and that votes won’t count. I hope that we will survive in the short term, but it may well not happen. With the new speaker in place, I feel the extremists are poised for a takeover no matter election outcomes. Please prove me wrong America!
The reforms to the Electoral Count Act make it much harder for the House or its Speaker to object to the electoral count. There’s that at least. Plus, if we win back the House, the new Speaker is installed a few days before the electoral count.
We could only hope for a GOP disintegration . . . Or an incineration. These are the worst fascists to rise since 1932; they are funded and operated by Neo nazi billionaires. Their office holders aid and abet criminals, making them criminals--worse--TRAITORS who pervert the meaning of Rights and work to obstruct, undermine and dismantle this democracy. What does it say about us when we allow MAGAts to run roughshod over the judiciary, freedom of speech, undermining the military & foreign affairs, etc, etc, ETC.
It says we are lazy and cowardly. I think we should have a national strike to protest traitors in Congress and to get women their medical rights back! Reverse Dobbs and Citizens United! (and as much more as possible).
“the modern Republicans now face a schism so stark and so deep that no politician can straddle it and expect to survive. You either stand with Trump and authoritarian rule, or you stand against Trump and on the side of democracy.”
Yes. And my question is will the remaining non-rabid/zombie members of the Republican Party who may still have a functioning central nervous system see it this way? Or will they lick their finger and hold it up to see which way the wind blows?
I’m going with finger.
Armed ,under educated ,brainwashed and,led by a pack of white nationalists,nazis ,who are only interested in their own preservation! Seems to be a really good recipe for a Civil War,those ingredients have been used in many countries for centuries to tear democratic societies down.Germany,and Italy to name a couple in the recent past.l don’t know if this is it for the U. S.or not,but,it’s a bet that,would get pretty good odds in Vegas I'm guessing!Maybe better than even if we don’t smarten up soon !
I do get amused by how so many of the 1,200 men and women hauled into federal court for their role in January 6 have pleaded guilty, blamed their involvement on Trump, Fox, and Alex Jones, and tearfully added that they have lost their friends, family, and jobs, and said that the only thing they will be involved in after they get out of the federal diaper pail will be their kids’ soccer games.
Yeah, right.
You know, when Adolf Hitler and his fellow Nazis stood trial in 1924 for the Beer Hall Putsch on November 9, 1923 (90 years ago next week), they put up a big defense, blaming Versailles, Weimar, and the French for Germany’s economic catastrophe and the need to overthrow the government, and gained massive sympathy.
Adolf did nine months at Landsberg, where he borrowed the warden’s Remington, and dictated “Mein Kampf” to Rudolf Hess, who tapped it out.
None of these cowards and sociopaths (unlike their Nazi forebears) seem willing to withstand time in prison and stand up for their alleged “ideals.”
They disgust me…first for their attempted coup, then for their attempts to wiggle out of it. They deserve maximum punishment.
At least they lost their friends, family, and jobs. They will not enjoy living in a jail cell with a door they cannot open, everything painted in gray, no connection to the outside world and its colors, the smell of ammonia, and having every aspect of their lives dictated to them by guards. They deserve that.
And so much more,how about they get celled up with Rudy? Oh my ,now that would be some very hard time!Imagine being in a 8x10 box with that obnoxious little twerp,spewing out all sorts of nasty nonsense and ,watching his head melt like a wax candle,that could be cruel and unusual, but,Rudy’s crude and certainly unusual,so it’s not so cruel a fate for any of these traitorous cowards!Don t do the crime if you can’t bunk with slime!
Rudy will go to AdSeg.
He has to. The federal can is full of guys he prosecuted.