Yes, they spend a lot of energy on obstructing the government from functioning, and creating a naked kleptocracy to use the government to funnel money into their own pockets. But they are also moving openly towards a fascist dictatorship with very specific ideas about how society should function, and how (and when) people should be permitted to live.
1. Installing a conservative super-majority to the Supreme Court. [Criminalized abortion in half the US. Blocked student loan relief. Gutted voting rights. Environmental protections. Health mandates. Firearm restrictions.]
2. Indiscriminate obstruction. [Months of crucial Ukraine aid. Blocked voting rights bill. Immigration reform. Firearm safety. Tax relief.]
It's honestly difficult to pick the Greatest Hits, given how much damage they've done.
Basically I find a good rule of thumb to be: if comcast is against it, it's probably going to improve the lives of everyone via some form of competition between businesses.
Democrats have been calling on Biden to increase his power through just writing Executive Orders to act on their platform, and bypass all other branches of government...but THAT's not dictatorship?
I don’t think executive orders are that concerning when the legislative body has problems getting shit done. It’s a normal political tool that both parties use (relatively) evenly. What is concerning is gravely anti-constitutional movements to overturn the results of democratic elections.
Executive orders are one instantiation of what's literally the job of the executive branch: executing the law.
Executive orders operate within the authority granted by the legislative branch as judged by the judicial branch, and that authority can also be removed by the legislative branch.
You can say an order is unconstitutional or unlawful, but it's still not dictatorship.
Biden has written 138 in 3.25 years, averaging 42 EOs/year
Every executive order by every President is an abuse of power, as far as I'm concerned.
55/yr for Trump? 44/yr for Biden? No one should be proud of their side.
1. Since the opposition seeks progress in many forms, blindly obstruct them in all cases.
2. Legislate the country back to 1953. When that is accomplished, legislate the country back to 1853.
The only part I'm unsure about is whether they're interested in renaming the nation "Gilead."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
The GOP wants fascism everywhere
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/us/arizona-abortion-ban.h...
The reason that Democrats find all of this unacceptable is that Republicans have either failed to anticipate the chaotic consequences of their actions, or -- as they argue in court in support for jail terms for people who have abortions, and that doctors should not have exception in the case of life of the mother or rape -- that they intend the chaos and resulting harm to women. As people suffer and die due to their actions, it's not hard to see why rolling back laws to 1864 is objectionable to Democrats.
I appreciate you bringing up EU countries, but if we are striving to emulate them, we should strive to match their maternal mortality rates by providing adequate healthcare to pregnant people [2]. Instead, by upending abortion rights in this country, we are worsening these trends. You can't use the EU as a benchmark if you're not willing to implement EU-like healthcare and social services in the US.
[1] https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/a-revie...
[2] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...
Also, you are wrong. The week-number cutoff for abortion for example can EASILY be used as a benchmark for what should be allowed, regardless of what other healthcare is available. I am not from the US, nor am I a supporter of the republican OR democratic party, but it is blindingly obvious that the democrats are WAY less willing to compromise on anything than the republicans, and attempts to use emotion and misrepresent to extreme levels, and on this particular issue, its very obvious that democrats are the obstructionists and extremists, and 100% unwilling to go out of their reality distortion field. On other issues, republicans are insane, but it is a different insane (and different does NOT mean less). And more importantly, NONE of these parties are good for the people, both are abominations that only serve their own agenda
how many americans know who the vice president is? how many can even point to DC on a map?
What is a party? I think there still is a Republican Party that fits your description. I meet them in every day life all the time. They are reasonable, agree on many things, and are willing to seek compromise. I hope they are the majority, if not the voting majority.
But they are not well represented by 90% of the current Republican office holders.
Nothing will change until average Americans are fed up with the status quo, and force change - that goes for basic things like making the parties work together.
I do not believe the majority of Republican politicians today are trying to improve the country. I think the majority are self-serving, self-interested, and corrupt. This isn't the party of George Bush—who I disagree with about virtually everything, but seemed genuinely interested in trying to do a good job. This is now the party of Donald Trump, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, James Comer, Ted Cruz, and so on. There is no equivalent to any of these characters on the left. There is no compromising with obviously bad-faith actors like this.
It's a realistic view.
> The party or parties you disagree with may not share your views, but they do have many things in common with you. In
The major party I disagree with least doesn’t share my most of views but has many things, in broad focus, in common with me.
That’s very much not true of the major party I disagree with most.
> In order to build bridges with other parties, it’s important to believe that the majority of people who get involved in government, regardless of party, are motivated primarily by the desire to serve their neighbors and their country
Why would “building bridges with other parties” be a goal? A lot of people seem to have gotten ideas that the long realignment period from 1930s to the 1990s when the salient political divides were not along the same axis as the divide between the major parties (though they were approaching alignment at the end of the period) was a norm and not an aberration, and thus have fetishized bipartisanship which was simply a result of ideological factions crossing partisan boundaries rather than generally being contained within major parties. When that applies, you don't need to build bridges between parties, the factions inherently provide it; when it doesn't, you don't have a commonality to build on.
And, in any case, this is the fallacy of argument to the consequences of belief – you are justifying a belief in a fact claim not by any evidence that it represents the actual facts, but by the notionally desirable consequences of believing it independent of its truth. > Without that belief, it will be near impossible to form agreements across the aisle.
I actually think that its a lot easier to achieve agreements across the aisle, where there is utility in doings so, by observing the actual things that the specific goals the other side has in concrete terms and appealing to them, rather than fantasizing a distant abstraction like “serving the neighbors and their country”. The latter is only useful once you determine a concrete operationalization that comports with the actual behavior of the individuals involved, but that offers nothing between a low-level concrete model of interests that avoids any high-level abstractions.
Now, to the extent that its often a concrete low-level interest that they want to be seen as motivated by the desire to serve their neighbors and their country, that may be useful, but that’s different than believing that that is their actual motivation.
Neither party wins elections based on which candidates are more suited to the job, they win based on who can out-trash-talk the other side. If this was not true, negative campaign ads would not be the main form of advertising during election season.
I predict that if one of the parties fails and dissolves due to severe missteps, there will be a period of severe democratic instability, followed by a split of the surviving party into two major factions, each of which settles out at around exactly 50% of voter mindshare again.
I actually see this too. The Republican party is on the verge of collapse not because of anything Democrats have done, but because of what Trump has done to the Republican party apparatus. He's redirecting all funds to his legal bills instead of electing candidates. He's causing them to lose in red districts because of abortion by previously unseen margins. He's telling everyone that voting is fraudulent so Republicans aren't voting.
I mean, Trump has never been the head of a non fraudulent, successful company in his entire life. Why would we not expect him to similarly destroy the RNC?
So if the Democrats are left standing, I see them cleaving in two, with one half being the Biden/Manchin/Romney axis. The other party would be more like the Warren/AOC/Bernie axis. MAGA types would be left in the political wilderness.
I would actually be fine with either of those parties in power.
Conservatives sincerely believe that government bureaucracies are less efficient than a free market economy. That's not a cover or a motte and bailey, it's legitimately and literally true. Conservative politicians dismantle government when given the opportunity because that's what their base wants them to do because, again, their base sincerely believes that the government is bad at most things it does.
It's true that Republican politicians (like most politicians) are mostly charlatans who are intentionally creating circumstances that reinforce the belief in the ineffectiveness of government, but OP's stereotype of conservative voters as simply wanting a "daily dose of other people suffering" is baseless, wrong, offensive, and extremely counterproductive.
This stereotype is a misrepresentation of the other core tenet of conservative philosophy, which is that what is right and wrong is not up to humans to decide, it comes either from God or from long-standing and proven traditions. Conservative opposition to LGBT rights and similar have nothing to do with wanting to see people suffer, they have to do with their deep-seated belief that some things are simply wrong because something greater than us has said so.
They can be wrong in that deep-seated belief, but it's unfair of OP to characterize it as sadism.
Before the Internet, people talked politics in person and nuance was included. Communication was synchronous, with instant feedback, and basically required engagement. You couldn't just walk away without upsetting social norms.
But the Internet (and especially Twitter), changed all that. People don't want to discuss, they want to "win", so you get 1-sentence "owns" that are just straw men. Nuance gets thrown out the window. If someone you're arguing with comes up with an excellent point that you can't counter, it's easier to just not reply. You're not on the spot, facing a human, and having to admit out loud that they've got a point. Nope. Much easier to just ignore it and remain entrenched in whatever bullshit you believe.
The other half of the blame is 24-hour cable news that has to constantly come up with shit to show, and now entertainment and news have become intertwined with a disastrous result.
They used to have a a coherent positive viewpoint and policy to support it. And they sought to advance that policy through normal democratic means: convincing a majority of voters.
That has stopped being their approach. They no longer seek a genuine popular majority. They are turning inwards, adopting ever more extreme positions disconnected from genuine ideals. They seek only the power to impose their worldview on others.
They no longer feel constrained by long standing traditions and institutions. Any act is justified in their minds.
The decided exactly the opposite -- they elected Trump and decided to become a party based on white Christian grievance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_%26_Opportunity_Project
The Republican party is the party of unification and engagement. The Democratic party is the tent for everyone else. The presence of the former demands the existence of the latter.
The anti-LGBT party with a well-known track record of racism is the party of unification?
No...no it's not. They're the party, that when asked to NOT be anti-LGBT and not be racist, cries about their freedom being repressed.
The Republican party is the party of authority, tradition (Which is not necessarily a virtue), and conformity. They're the party of freedom, but only if you're a white Christian male, bonus points if you're rich.
The Republican seeks to oppress minorities, and then when asked to not be hateful, act like they're a victim of thought policing. They spew hateful messages on social media, get rightfully banned for it, and then pretend they got banned for their conservative views, which of course is pretty telling.
No, they're anything BUT the party of unification. They USED to be, but they let some loudmouth idiots become the face of the party.
Take for example the words, "In God We Trust; United We Stand." A christian conservative can read those words as a call for compromise around a shared identity; but the rest of us can read them for the threat that they are: either you are in the in group, or you are selfishly standing against it.
If the unification of the Republican voterbase wasn't working, Utah would have put 20% of its 2020 vote into an independent candidate, just like we did in 2016. That didn't happen. Instead, those voters became Trump supporters.
The sincere Conservative electorate had every opportunity to choose a less-sadistic option. They chose. OP's characterization is perfectly valid.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in this time. He barely beat one of the least popular candidates in decades and then got crushed the next election cycle. Opposition candidates tend to do well when the economy is doing poorly, but he’s got a lot of baggage and the poles are dead even right now.
And so they vote for the party that is against rent controls, against expanding food stamps, and against raising the minimum wage?
Make it make sense.
"Think of it like a riot. What does smashing windows have to do with anything? Yet one follows the other."
Very few people have any idea about the causes of their suffering.
AKA, a lot of this is the result of generations of poor education, an education system that is strongly biased propaganda based on provably wrong economic models that tell k-12th graders that the best and only choice is the one where the free market runs roughshod over anyone who can't afford the rent, etc because that's simply "capitalism" and all the other choices are worse.
Remember, Trump successfully pressured the Fed to lower interest rates while the economy was strong. Think that contributed a bit to the inflation we've been dealing with?
Are they recommending corporate tax increases? New marginal tax brackets? No? Did they add tax loopholes for private jets and yachts while they were last in power? You bet!
No, what they're doing instead is trying to scapegoat things like "woke" college students and immigrants.
My parents don't want trans people to suffer: they want trans people to find happiness through the impossible avenue of just not being trans anymore. My parents don't want illegal immigrants to be incarcerated or murdered by border authorities: they want illegal immigrants to find liberty through the impossible process that is just becoming a legal immigrant, or living peacefully in whichever failed country they were born. My parents don't want people with substance abuse disorders to live and die on the streets: they want people with substance abuse disorders to overcome them through the impossible avenue of simply curing their own addiction without any outside support, safety, or encouragement whatsoever.
I cannot convince them that any of this is the case. On the other hand, people like Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh, and Glen Beck can convince them of just about anything. Why? Because right-wing talking heads have a foot in the door: belief. They abuse every belief that a conservative holds dear, and turn it into engagement. Critical thought has no air to breathe in a world made of belief.
It doesn't matter what people want. It matters what people do.
This is an unfair analysis, and is either naive at best or disingenuous at worst.
I'm not a registered Republican, but I AM strongly against an all-powerful centralized body of government that continues to expand exponentially. I would rather focus powers in a more decentralized direction closer to the individuals and the States themselves. e.g. "Think globally - act locally."
The parent's comment is the EXACT problem that comes with a central government that is too powerful: you have to be mindful that "your party" will not be in "charge" about ~50% of the time.
For a concrete example, I don't like expanding Presidential powers nor extensive use of Executive Orders because likely there will be a president I don't support in that position, and I'd rather her/him NOT have that type of power.
States and local communities are more knowledgable about what their constituents need, and the more local you go, the more homogeneous that group becomes - leading to a higher degree of success for those policies. For example, I have never lived on a farm, nor have every lived remotely _near_ a farm...so how can I properly empathize with their needs or considerations in a fair way?
States and more local forms of government also provide solid grounds for the greatest real-life A/B test of policies in the world: if you are living in an area that doesn't align with your values and/or needs, you have _so many_ other options to consider settling. e.g. if you like living in California where virtually all the policies and politicians are left of center, then great! You can live there and it doesn't impact me in any way over in where I live.
The implication of the way you wrote your comment is that it's unfair and naive or disingenuous to say that the Republican party has no policy, because what you outline is their policy. But the rest of your comment just ... isn't their policy. (Which is, presumably, why you aren't a registered Republican.)
For instance, you say you don't like expanding Presidential powers. But the leader of the Republican party has a suit in front of the Supreme Court, right this moment, attempting to expand Presidential powers all the way to "immune from the rule of law".
Now, it could still be true that the policy of the Republican party is in disagreement with the desires of that person who is the leader of their party - that totally happens! - but unfortunately at this specific moment in time, "the desires of that person who is the leader of their party" is exactly as close as you can get to defining the party's policy.
It's a sad state of affairs! But I seem to frequently see this kind of wishcasting based on what people think the party's policy should be, except it has nothing to do with the clear policy of the party in actuality. (Note that this wishcasting thing is not actually unique to the Republican party.)
Government grows because what we do grows. We didn't need legislation on airspace and radio waves and net neutrality and cyber bullying when our Constitution was written. In many cases, powers simply come into existence, and I'd rather the government have those powers than a monopoly or oligopoly of private rich entities.
Rather than limited Government, I'd rather see an Open Government -- one that is accountable to, accessible to, and made up of us. Then why does it matter if government gets big? Government is us, after all. At least we can work toward that. Maybe?
I discriminately support my family more than my neighbors. You probably do too.
I also discriminately support my circle of friends more than the random stranger. You probably do too.
I also don't think a random stranger can come into my home and get equal footing with myself as the homeowner simply because the other person was "out". You probably do too.
Hell, even at the broad government level, US citizens are prioritized over non-citizens - like literally every single country that has ever existed.
This isn't a real problem.
As an example, the cost of natgas on the east coast after California's rules limiting coal for power generation. People in nearby states with different COL pick up part of the tab.
Great example & case study for the beauty of the US Constitution's "interstate commerce" clause, and one of the areas the federal government _SHOULD_ focus its attention.
I wish more people had this perspective.
The topic of packing the Supreme Court comes to mind. There are people who want Biden to do this, but if does it, what’s stopping the next Republican from doing it too… back and forth until the court is so big it can’t function. These easily won “victories” can just as easily work against a group as they can work for them. It’s very short-sighted.
The only reason the courts are getting involved as much as they are, is because Congress can’t get anything done. They make the law, the court interprets it. We need a functioning Congress to avoid the courts needing to give their best guess on what the law currently is for issues that aren’t well defined, or not defined at all. Packing the court as a solution is solving the wrong problem.
As far as people’s opinions of the court goes, it really grinds my gears how most people assume the Supreme Court is there to essentially make or strike down laws on their own whims. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. I’m no judicial scholar but it seems to me the current court is doing the best job of what they’re actually supposed to do than they have in a long time.
> This is an unfair analysis, and is either naive at best or disingenuous at worst.
It's fair given that the party literally produced no platform ahead of the last presidential election.
And that worked, but then the next generation of elected party members seemed to be obstructionist only. So much so that in 2017 when they held the executive branch and both houses of congress, they couldn’t get anything done.
We’re all sleeping in that bed that they made.
The GOP isn't some weird guys who can't govern, but an incredibly powerful group that works almost exclusively for the capital owning class and uses social issues to empower that class. The GOP caters a bit to the workers class but not a lot and is actively radicalizing them to believe they have the same interests as the capital owning class. The culture war is by accident. If the GOP could do this all without the culture war, selling hate, etc then it would. These are merely tools for an end.
The Democrats are almost as bad, but also are beholden to some level of will of the working class, but generally default to the whims of the capital owning class as much as practically possible. The Dems need to get the working class on its side to continue to exist. The pure capital owner party is the GOP and they can't compete against them without this rhetoric. Hence, a lot of Dem ideology being lip service for populist worker issues and actual change from Dems is very rare, and when it happens, its under the approval of the many/most capital owners (see Obamacare being a mandatory private insurance program instead of a Euro-style socialized medicine program.)
The better governing of the dems is by accident. If the dems govern better its only by accident due to the strong influence of the middle-class dependent on good government to survive, and if the dems could maintain power with more corrupt governing, they would.
This is your classic conservative vs liberal divide that defines nearly all modern capitalist nations.
The difference between the two parties isn't that strong. Under capitalism, the government is a capitalist government and is nearly fully corrupted by it, regardless of party. The only real fix is to replace capitalism with socialism, but neither party will allow that, so here we are with the usual back and forth and hiding issues with workers class and capitalism under whatever social issues of the day best distract.
That's the kind of thinking that led to Bush in 2000. Say what you like about Gore, but his administration would have done a great number of things differently from how it worked out.
Additionally, you wouldn't see e.g. Trump's EPA turning up the pressure on coal power plants. In fact hundreds of effective EPA staffers left (/were purged from) the EPA in 2017/2018.
To the working class who labors under inflation with no guaranteed vacation or maternity or pension, its a cold comfort that the one guy "likes ice cream and is friendly." To the working class who can't buy a home, its a cold comfort that one guy has better diction and vocabulary than the other. To the working class that can't retire and will die at their desks, its a cold comfort that one guy said something nice about labor unions. To the working class who are watching the global south be exploited and the pollution there blowing upstream to the "clean EPA driven USA" its a cold comfort. To the working class who can't afford to have children, its a cold comfort that one guy has given lip service to LGBTQ issues.
etc, etc.
Neither can or will address the fundamental problems of capitalism that causes nearly all these issues. The working class will continue to suffer under any pro-capitalist leadership. One guy just has nicer window dressing than the other.
In the South they are banning DEI, queer books, and trans participation in public life. This is not happening in Democratic controlled places, and that's not just lip service, that's for real. People's jobs are being impacted by this, teachers are fleeing Republican controlled states.
You look at rate of infant mortality, pregnancy complications, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, opioid addiction, childhood poverty, poverty in general, and it all looks better in Blue versus Red states. That's real data we can look at which tells us the parties are different. Under Democratic administrations, access to healthcare is expanded. Under Republican control, it contracts. I know it's not your preferred solution, and I'd like a better one too, but when it comes time to vote I'm damn for sure voting for the party that causes healthcare access to expand.
And Trump's problem isn't that he has poor diction or vocabulary, it's that what he says is literally insane and psychopathic. The SC case today was evidence of that, where he argued in court that he deserves the power to assassinate his rivals and to order the military to stage a coup without fear of prosecution. Democrats are not arguing this position in court.
Yes both will not address the fundamental problems of capitalism, and the working class will continue to suffer under both, but the data say they will suffer more under Republicans compared to Democrats.
We are not talking about window dressing we are talking about measurably less suffering. I understand that's not the "no suffering" benchmark you'd like to achieve, but how about we not let perfect be the enemy of better?
And that would be a first, because no one has tried "real socialism"(tm) before, right?
They don't cater to them as much as they convince them that they could one day be a member of the capital owning class.
The whole "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" line.
Instead we have a crusade against the number of Doritos in a bag https://news.yahoo.com/elizabeth-warrens-shrinkflation-rant-...
I don't agree.
I think particularly at the federal level a deadlocked government that is only able to accomplish a few things that can achieve broad consensus is preferable to one that governs badly and will invade the autonomy of the public who is, by the large part, capable of governing themselves.
Political gridlock is, from that perspective, a feature. Not a bug.
In terms of revealed preferences, clearly the bulk of the US agrees. :)
I think a point that gets missed is that in terms of capacity for causing great evil, money hardly moves the needle. People do-- of course-- intentionally perform minor evils for money, or negligently do somewhat greater evils because of money. Worse than money in terms of ability to do evil is shame and gross incompetence combined with power. But to do grandiose evil, the kind of evil that murders tens of millions, requires someone who wants to "do good".
So to many, a party that wants to "do good" but is transparently incompetent or beholden to irrational views is a lot more troubling than someone who wants to sell things off to the highest bidder and otherwise keep themselves out of trouble. Selling things off to the highest bidder is evil, but evil in bounded, largely predictable, and often recoverable ways.
If you really think that the public in general are rooting for other people's suffering in a meaningful way then I think you need to get offline and go spend time in person with the people who you believe are doing that. I am confident you will find that they aren't.
The other half is pretty bad at governing, but at least they try to govern. So when they're in power, the first thing they have to do is try to build back up the institutions that have been disabled or dismantled by the party of government-cannibals.
Don't ask me which half is which. You know.