...Trump induced madness.

tRump derangement syndrome long before tRump came along. They’ve been waiting for leadership is all.

Even if many of them may have heads in sand or are otherwise in denial.

Red state politicians are doing what people want.

Majority of Red state people support 2A, racist, fundamentalist christian, anti-government ideas - and the media radicalizes them.

According the Michael Savage.....illegal immigrant rapists are on the loose, and Nancy Pelosi is coming to take your guns, bibles and money - and use public school teachers (aka red diaper doper babies) to turn their sons into feminine godless communists.

The GOP has embarked on a path of darkness that you don't come back from.

The best thing we can do is use our superior numbers to keep them contained and out of power as much as we can until they die from old age. The younger generations, having grown up suffering the effects of their garbage policies, are not conservative. Keep the GOP out of power until the young are old enough to vote and the white fascists have died off. We do that, and the planet might have a chance.

The virus isn't only a scourge after all!

Although a serious shame that highly trained health professionals have to waste their time and energy on these suicide-by-yams.

started to cater to people who had previously been apolitical, particularly Christian fundamentalists and the poorly educated. They started selling family values and superficial Christian ideals, while making promises that they never intended to keep. It was all to get more votes, but in the process, they seriously altered the nature of the republican party.

Like Frankenstein, they eventually created a monster they couldn't control anymore, which we saw with the creation of the Tea Party and later The Freedom Caucus. This is the price of a "Win at any cost" strategy.

In another universe, these people would have no interest in politics whatsoever. I've known such people and they didn't care about politics or world events, until politicians started to speak directly to them (The Silent Majority) and later right-wing radio and TV amplified the message. Now social media is doing the same thing.

So I think it IS way too late for the GOP to pull back. This didn't happen overnight and it could really be the end of the republican party. When people say, "This isn't your father's republican party", it is true. My father was a republican and he would be appalled at what his party has become.

They could not get a majority of voters to go along with their only core tenet, preventing the rich from paying more taxes. All of the religious and social wedge issues are as you say all about getting more votes. The craziness ramped up against Bill Clinton who came out and said, "we are raising taxes on anyone making over $200,000 a year, speaking the heresy directly.

The Frankenstein they created yearned for a Trump-like candidate before Trump was on the radar. The only silver lining is that Trump through his naked self interest has made it obvious that national security and democracy itself would be sacrificed to keep winning. This has cleaved the republicans into those who still care about those things and those who see them as secondary concerns to the campaign of winning at all costs.

who never showed the slightest interest in politics until they got hooked on Fox News and/or right-wing radio. Seeds were planted in minds that had no political predilections, so it was relatively easy. They played to their emotions and moral outrage using a simplistic good vs. evil message, with thinly veiled undertones of racism and bigotry. It was rather brilliant in a perverse, diabolical way.

It took decades, but the end result, Donald Trump, said out loud what they were thinking all along, "I love the poorly educated", and the poorly educated didn't bat an eye. Sounds like the prequel to 1984.

Happy New Year!

we do not need the Republican party in this country. They have brought us nothing but misery at every turn. This author sounds very out of touch.

and are committing sedition - fuck all the excuses.

Reasonable GOP members need to speak out loud and clear that those anti-democratic members need to go because they have not upheld their oath to our constitution. I would love to see Hawley be recalled for not upholding the constitution.

I have no time or interest in any other discussion.

I want to hear from the Speaker - they must be censured for starters

Happy New Year

If it smells like a fascist, throw it out. No sense in taking any chances on making our already sick country any sicker.

Fascist poisoning is almost always fatal.

... out of a bucket full of turds and pee.

I don't remember anyone like them taking their place. I could be wrong.

Sometimes in a very weakened form, inversely proportional to the stature of the dictator. Lightening just doesn't strike twice.

It's more like the close relative or lieutenant presides over the unraveling. Or some totally different state emerges. Charismatic cult leaders are just hard to follow.

Every single one of these traitors needs to be called to task for their transgressions, no matter how minor. Playing nice will have no effect, or worse, it will strengthen their resolve.

If you asked me what the #1 item on the DOJ and Congressional Democrat's agenda should be, it wouldn't be COVID, it wouldn't be the economy, it wouldn't be foreign affairs. Of course we can walk and chew gum at the same time, but in truth the worst threat to America today comes from within and must be eradicated. It's the belief of the Republican base that they're right, we're wrong; their disinformation is reality; their power is greater than our numbers. All of this must be quashed, destroyed, annihilated, or we're doomed as a country as soon as 2024.

Who gives a shit if a minority of American citizens think they're getting the shaft when in truth they're basing that determination on lies and falsehoods? Gut them, pulverize them now, or kiss it all good-bye.

Start a new reality based conservative party - one that upholds Democratic standards and believes in The Constitution.

But the GOP brand is fucked - no sane person will ever again trust anyone in that steaming pile of excrement called a political party.

Never. Will. Trust. GOP. Again. EVER.

It has self-destructed all on its own. I think a lot of rational republicans will leave politics and others will become Independents.

is if the Lincoln Project folks somehow wrest control from the crazies, or more likely, form their own new political party.

"The problem with the Republican “establishment” and with elected officials such as Josh Hawley is not that they are crazy, or that they don’t know any better; it is that they are cowards, and that they are weak. "

They're all angling to co-opt a movement that's based totally on one, single, "charismatic" figure. It can't be done. Time and time again, such maneuvering has failed. Donnie was simply in the right place, at the right time, with the right message of fascism and racism. That can't be recreated. It can't be bottled. And it can't be co-opted. Once Donnie leaves for good, he takes all the evil "magic" and political oxygen with him and the toadies are left with nothing.

I think Republicanism and the current iteration of conservatism is actually dying, despite the large numbers of voters. It is not sociologically sustainable in any reasonable way EXCEPT by odd conspiracy and outright bigotry.

I think, of their grandchildren will reject them, find a more loving God, embrace their neighbors with out wondering what they do in bed. Understand the complexities of immigration the value of immigrants and the horrors of war torn countries. The blessings of sharing wealth, and diverse work models. The necessity of healthcare. The need to steward the land and protect it.
The internet changes everything.

Also, they is did this to themselves.

Our democracy will be in jeopardy. Someone will always up the ante. Note how the Russians have bought their way into and have completely infiltrated the Republican Party. After Trump and this latest this election debacle it has become abundantly clear we have almost run out of time to change course.

How this is not common knowledge, just boggles me. It is THE criminal and national security issue, and I just hear crickets. Media complicit in not screaming this from the rooftops. Divide and conquer, indeed.

Huge mistake by these guys latching on to the Trump base. Hawley has big plans, runs for President, etc. He will indeed curry favor with the Trumpers but he is doomed to ever go higher than his own state. Demographics are changing fast in the key counties. Trump was the high point for the percentage of the national vote they can get and unless the Repubs rebuild their party and moderate, zero chance of national office. I doubt we see another Repub President for a long, long time.

.... when in power. Then when the Democrats take the White House........ SCREAM... but the deficits.... cut social programs there is no money because of the HUGH deficits. Which of course they created by the giveaways to the top 1%.

The problem is it WORKS cycle after cycle. Give away the treasury to the rich. Then blame the poor and middle class.

So my hope is the republican party as we know it never recovers. Cut the head off the snake to kill the venomous threat to Democracy.

But then, Republican conservatism was no real moral hill to die on, anyway. It was fancified, intellectualized justification for selfish control of racial supremacy, other people's collective will, and money.

Those who are cult adjacent and not batshit must rebuild the soul of their party, because the old one is dead. If Reagan, Bush, Trump and all their operatives didn't kill it, covid finished it off.

We should encourage all former Republicans to form a new party, lose their name and political brand, build a platform that comes back to rule of law.

Great article. But saying it's up to patriotic rethugs and conservatives to fight for the soul of the party was almost laughable, and sad. They are vastly outnumbered, and can not win. A significant number live in a fantasy world, according to the article. Alternate reality, alternative facts. Cowards and cult 45 members who will follow their leader, whoever it may be, down a dark hole.

There are very few true Patriots remaining in that cult/party. Many have withdrawn and become independents or Democrats. Over this past year, many in the LP have left after realizing they can not change things from within. A few do remain in the party, attempting to be the voice of reason.

Cult 45 members will not listen to reason, they are the deplorables, and mostly predictable.
Those not in the cult but who have enabled it, for their own benefit, are a different variety of deplorable, and not predictable (or trustworthy) They might appear to listen to reason, but it is calculated on which position will be best for them, financially. The ones sitting on the fence, waiting to see the outcome of 45's challenges are duplicitous.

Is the party salvageable, or is it even worth salvaging? I don't think so.

Unless the infection that's been running rampant within the party for decades is defeated. No sane person can discuss, compromise or negotiate with those who claim a different (alternate) set of facts. No one who believes that our democratic Republic and rule of law construct is beneficial, absolutely necessary for a free nation to exist, is willing to hop on the fascist train and call it good.

Members of the current GOP need to be defeated, run out of town. Their willingness to bend to every conspiracy, every disgusting rumor makes them untrustworthy. Their penchant for putting personal ambition over the safety of the American public makes them dangerous. Their embrace of Trumpism makes them unreliable, decidedly unAmerican. Burning the House down so they can see Libs weep makes them childish, selfish adolescents.

Trouble is we need a two-party system to make the system work properly. The question is what do you do when the opposing party becomes diseased? Flush the infection out and hope for the best? Or cut off the limb before it infects the whole of the body politic?

It's a question that will need to be answered in short order. Because this cannot go on without the country's security and baseline values being further compromised.

We're in for a very long haul.

be sane and healthy . Their core beliefs, such as they are, are NOT affirmative, positive, healthy, or sane. Reanimating this rotten, disease-ridden corpse would not serve the people of this country, of this world.

If we're going to shine a spotlight on part of Nietzsche's work, we should look at the "will to power," which is pretty much a dead ringer for "own the libs." (I think this stuff is all grounded in affective neuroscience and evolution, and I'm betting Nietzsche would have been a completely different guy in our time.)

Long story short, we need to get a handle on our stories and spend much more time not merely living in them. We need sustainability and an end to poverty first. Those are within our reach, and achieving them is both a great story and technically necessary to stabilize the infrastructure for other stories. Also, even if you don't like living in stories (or like to spend a lot of time not living in them), you still need the infrastructure.

is a contributor to a conservative think tank. While I will give him at least a tiny amount of credit for at least acknowledging there's a problem with the Republican party (gee what was your first clue?), he can take that, "America needs two strong, healthy, sane parties" garbage and shove it. America doesn't need the GOP. The GOP has been nothing but a blight on America for decades and has brought nothing but misery to the country. Everything it has touched in the last 40 years has turned to complete and total shit.

The sooner we're rid of that fascist party, the better off the entire planet will be.

McCarthy with his witch hunts.
Nixon with his "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War while sabotaging peace negotiations with his back-channel offers to the South Vietnamese government.
Reagan's treasonous "October Surprise" deal with the Iranians.
The so-called "Gingrich Revolution" when Republicans abandoned policy completely in favor of dishonest propaganda and pandering.
Bush Jr.'s election skullduggery in 2000 and 2004.
The Republican Party as an institution is a criminal enterprise solely dedicated to enhancing the wealth of oligarchs by any means necessary.

What Christians call "soul," we Buddhists call "mind." And alas the minds of Republicans are closed, intolerant, and indifferent to the suffering and well-being of others. They worship the gods of money, power, and privilege. The only thing that will ever change a Republican for the better is a great catastrophic and painful fall from money, power, and privilege. When one loses all his money, of he, or one of his children get a painful and perhaps terminal disease, then he might develop some compassion and generosity for others. But it's not a certain deal that would be result.

So in the meantime, we have to just keep voting them out and voting in honest, decent civil servants and try to get some good, beneficial things accomplished for the people. Start with raising the minimum wage to $15/hr, affordable universal healthcare, raising the social security income, ending voter suppression, green infrastructure jobs. Once peoples' lives actually get better and they can pay their bills and have some money left over to save, people will stop voting for Republicans.

One of the reasons McConnell blocks everything Dems want to legislate is because he knows such legislation would actually help people live better lives and they would credit the Dems for making it happen.

It's an open question as to how many of them could pronounce "Nietzsche."

And, "opening up space" for some "brave and responsible figures" is a big, big ask. That there are many of them seems doubtful, at this point. So, take those that are, and winnow out the ones that see it as too much risk and personal downside for whatever upside they see arising from that. Selfless and altruistic doesn't exactly pour over their collective horizon like a clear summer sunrise.

Getting past those hurdles and still having a few individuals left that would try it, how is that going to play with the vocal and stupid? Those selfish toads are going to do their very best to pull the ones trying to climb back into the ooze with them. Those Republicans have nothing at all to gain from the more principled around them actually achieving the upward climb. Quite the opposite, especially as they view the world.

Sadly a real return to a sane Republican party, or its successor, cannot happen until the power of right wing media is quashed. FOX News, OAN, and numerous others need to be either eradicated or fundamentally changed. As long as low information, middle aged, white conservatives have these Liberal Hate Porn outlets to edutain them, they will continue to live in their fake world. This should be priority #1 of the new administration.

The pursuit of huge amounts of wealth. I can never imagine why someone worth hundreds of millions of dollars won't rest until they get more. And they do it until the day they die. I'm just not wired like that. The closest thing I have heard as an explanation to the seeking of crazy wealth that they could never spend in ten lifetimes is when I heard Bill Gates say in an interview that it's not so much the money, it's just a way of keeping score. Which is a sick idea when they can see people every day that are struggling for food and shelter.

Now I don't think Bill Gates is one of the above mentioned bad actors. He has in his later years become somewhat philanthropic. But anyone seeking obscene wealth for the power it brings, is a weak person indeed.

What do they stand for?


https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Resolution_Platform_2020.pdf]

The GOP = Trumpism