republicans have no shame

[Leawood]

We all know Tiny’s most influential person was Roy Cohn, right?

[Shirley]

[Shirley]

Wake up, Republicans. Your party stands for all the wrong things now.

Here’s a question: Does anybody have any idea what the Republican Party stands for in 2020?

One way to find out: As you are out and about marking the new year, it is likely you will come across a Republican to whom you can pose the question, preferably after a drink or two, as that tends to work as truth serum: “Look, I was just wondering: What’s the Republican Party all about these days? What does it, well, stand for?”

I’m betting the answer is going to involve a noun, a verb and either “socialism” or “Democrats.” Republicans now partly define their party simply as an alternative to that other party, as in, “I’m a Republican because I’m not a Democrat.”

In a long-forgotten era — say, four years ago — such a question would have elicited a very different answer. Though there was disagreement over specific issues, most Republicans would have said the party stood for some basic principles: fiscal sanity, free trade, strong on Russia, and that character and personal responsibility count. Today it’s not that the Republican Party has forgotten these issues and values; instead, it actively opposes all of them.

Republicans are now officially the character doesn’t count party, the personal responsibility just proves you have failed to blame the other guy party, the deficit doesn’t matter party, the Russia is our ally party, and the I’m-right-and-you-are-human-scum party. Yes, it’s President Trump’s party now, but it stands only for what he has just tweeted.

A party without a governing theory, a higher purpose or a clear moral direction is nothing more than a cartel, a syndicate that exists only to advance itself. There is no organized, coherent purpose other than the acquisition and maintenance of power.

This is a sad fall. In Ronald Reagan’s America, being born an American was to win’s life lottery; in Donald Trump’s America, it makes you a victim, a patsy, a chump.

Trump didn’t hijack the GOP and bend it to his will. He did something far easier: He looked at the party, saw its fault lines and then offered himself as a pure distillation of accumulated white grievance and anger. He bet that Republican voters didn’t really care about free trade or mutual security, or about the environment or Europe, much less deficits. He rebranded kindness and compassion as “PC” and elevated division and bigotry as the admirable goals of just being politically incorrect. Trump didn’t make Americans more racist; he just normalized the resentments that were simmering in many households. In short, he let a lot of long-suppressed demons out of the box.

This paranoid element in the party has existed for decades, since the Joe McCarthy era, when some Republicans who saw dark forces threatening the country argued that only radical action by “true” Americans — white, Christian, conservative — could safeguard the nation. Barry Goldwater revived the theme in 1964, and George Wallace won five states with it as a third-party candidate in 1968. I worked in every Republican presidential campaign from 1996 through 2012 and assumed that those guys had long been vanquished and that optimism and inclusion had prevailed. I was wrong.

[...]

I’d like to say that I believe the party I spent so many years fighting for could rise to the challenge of this moment. But there have been too many lies for too long.

[Shirley]

Because "Moral Majority", "Family Values" party:

[Mjl]

Criticize him for discussing the phone call with the whistleblower, fine. But this? This is frightening. A sitting Senator questioning a decorated Veteran's patriotism for questioning the President's actions.

[DCHawk1]

I assume you'll be posting soon about Nadler calling Republican Senators treasonous?

[Shirley]

Criticize him for discussing the phone call with the whistleblower, fine. But this? This is frightening. A sitting Senator questioning a decorated Veteran's patriotism for questioning the President's actions.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

[Mjl]

I assume you'll be posting soon about Nadler calling Republican Senators treasonous?

He was officially rebuked for that, wasn't he?

[zsn]

Speaking of having no shame....looks like Pompeo had a meltdown after an NPR interview. [Allegedly] Challenged the interviewer to point to Ukraine on a map (I guess he thought she must have been a Fox News viewer/host) and cursed her out.

What's the over-under on timing of DC's next "Iassumeyou'llbepostingabout[someDem]havingameltdown" response?

[Shirley]

Speaking of having no shame....looks like Pompeo had a meltdown after an NPR interview. [Allegedly] Challenged the interviewer to point to Ukraine on a map (I guess he thought she must have been a Fox News viewer/host) and cursed her out.

What's the over-under on timing of DC's next "Iassumeyou'llbepostingabout[someDem]havingameltdown" response?

I think we can all agree that Bill Clinton should have never lied about that blow job.

[dolomite]

So if Republicans have zero shame, how much shame do Democrats have (on a scale of zero to ten)?
(This is not a riddle.)

[Deleted User 295]

0.

Neither side has any shame at this point.

[Deleted User 62]

I think it is dangerous to put numbers to either group.

Both sides have the extreme, and both sides have the moderate.

My disappointment lies in Republicans that I used to have a degree of respect for have jumped all in on this train wreck.

Is it wrong to be shocked that no one in the GOP have the balls to stand up and say that this isn't right?

[Deleted User 62]

Speaking of having no shame....looks like Pompeo had a meltdown after an NPR interview. [Allegedly] Challenged the interviewer to point to Ukraine on a map (I guess he thought she must have been a Fox News viewer/host) and cursed her out.

What's the over-under on timing of DC's next "Iassumeyou'llbepostingabout[someDem]havingameltdown" response?

I think we can all agree that Bill Clinton should have never lied about that blow job.

If he hadn't, he would join the .00021% of men who didn't.

[Deleted User 89]

Speaking of having no shame....looks like Pompeo had a meltdown after an NPR interview. [Allegedly] Challenged the interviewer to point to Ukraine on a map (I guess he thought she must have been a Fox News viewer/host) and cursed her out.

What's the over-under on timing of DC's next "Iassumeyou'llbepostingabout[someDem]havingameltdown" response?

snowflake

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/2 ... 69?cid=apn

[Geezer]

I just don't understand how anybody can stand with that gang of white collar assholes running this Country. I didn't think this was who we are.

[DCHawk1]

I just don't understand how anybody can stand with that gang of white collar assholes running this Country. I didn't think this was who we are.

I have an idea...

[Deleted User 295]

I just don't understand how anybody can stand with that gang of white collar assholes running this Country. I didn't think this was who we are.

You talking about Dems or Republicans?

I see a lot of white collar assholes from both parties.

[DCHawk1]

Geezer's just pissed that he pays fealty to the party of the rich.

[Deleted User 89]

better than the party of the ignorant