Kilmer17's roadmap to fix the GOP

[Kilmer17]

Majority of americans is a bit of a disingenuous spin on the last election. Majority of americans who bothered showing up at the polls bought the GOP spin. In a historically low voter turnout, it's hard to get a sense of where most Americans stand on issues. It seems to be capitalization on peoples apathy rather than winning on a platform that resonates with the public.

Fair point.  And one that can easily be applied to any election result in the past 50 years.

[Larry]

Majority of americans is a bit of a disingenuous spin on the last election. Majority of americans who bothered showing up at the polls bought the GOP spin. In a historically low voter turnout, it's hard to get a sense of where most Americans stand on issues. It seems to be capitalization on peoples apathy rather than winning on a platform that resonates with the public.

 

I see that point a lot.  But I will observe that the opinions of the people who vote are the only ones that matter. 

[88Comrade2000]

This somewhat related and somewhat off topic.  The GOP wins the Midterms, because it's their voters that come out. Now, when it's a Republican President and the Dems are angry, they will actually come out.  1986 and 2006 are examples when Repubs had the WH and at least one chamber of congress.  The Voters gave Dems full control after both elections.  When a Dem was in the WH, The Repubs got full control in 1994 and 2014 and had partial control in 2010.

 

So, why would you appeal to the masses in the midterms?  Only the diehard partisan vote in midterms and all you need to do is get your base angry and riled. The GOP isn't going to change what works.  The right wing believes you nominate a Ted Cruz and all the conservatives will be coming out in droves and propelling them to victory in 2016.  So, why should they appeal to the masses.  Just nominate a conservative and the votes will come.

 

I never knew why more people don't come out during midterms.  Midterms see only about 30 to 35 percent of the electorate voting; whereas Presidential years you get up to 58 to 65 percent.  You would figure that in midterms, where most states have elections for governor; people would come out.  After all, what your governor does; has more of a direct impact on you than what happens at the federal level.   Sadly, people aren't motivated to come out in midterms.  So, we get people elected who don't need to appeal more than other their base.  You get stupid laws, like the one in Indiana. 

 

If more people would vote in midterms; maybe these nutjobs don't get elected and then gerrymander things; so they can stay in power. The 2018,2020 elections will be crucial for what kind of politics we get in the 2020's.

[Larry]

Again, who said the part about God?

You will note that I did not claim to be quoting anyone.

on the opposite side, do you really want to argue that the GOP legislators in Washington are not both announcing, and acting like, they have been given a mandate to enact the crazy?

[Predicto]

You will note that I did not claim to be quoting anyone.

on the opposite side, do you really want to argue that the GOP legislators in Washington are not both announcing, and acting like, they have been given a mandate to enact the crazy?

 

 

prediction:  Kilmer's going to mumble something about both sides being the same blah blah blah   

[Kilmer17]

You will note that I did not claim to be quoting anyone.

on the opposite side, do you really want to argue that the GOP legislators in Washington are not both announcing, and acting like, they have been given a mandate to enact the crazy?

You will note that I am not arguing that they are not announcing and acting like it. I just asked who was doing so.

[Larry]

You will note that I am not arguing that they are not announcing and acting like it. I just asked who was doing so.

 

Then I'm afraid I'm not understanding your question. 

 

You trying to say that only some of the GOP are acting like they've got a mandate to go Full Right?  (And want me to document every single one that is?) 

 

I was under the impression that they were acting with their usual lockstep unanimous adherence to The Party line. 

[The Sisko]

Here's a small suggestion. Stop letting these people run your party. The :44 second mark is just epic hilarity and FAIL. In all fairness, I'm sure there's plenty of the polar opposite of this on the other side. The difference though, is that the Dems don't let their kooks run things the way the GOP does.

[Kilmer17]

Here's a small suggestion. Stop letting these people run your party. The :44 second mark is just epic hilarity and FAIL. In all fairness, I'm sure there's plenty of the polar opposite of this on the other side. The difference though, is that the Dems don't let their kooks run things the way the GOP does.

I'd be fine with a poll test. It would prevent idiots like those from voting.

Agree?

[TradeTheBeal!]

I'd be fine with a poll test. It would prevent idiots like those from voting.

Agree?

Is this the kind of thing you're looking for, smart guy?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html

[Kilmer17]

Not at all actually. That's a test designed to prevent blacks from voting.

I want ton prevent idiots from voting.

[TheGoodBits]

Not at all actually. That's a test designed to prevent blacks from voting.

I want ton prevent idiots from voting.

Permanent revocation of voting rights for anyone who casts a ballot for Donald Trump?

[TradeTheBeal!]

I want ton prevent idiots from voting.

Savor the irony.

[The Sisko]

I'd be fine with a poll test. It would prevent idiots like those from voting.

Agree?

LOL. I see what you did there...or tried to. Look, I don't mind if idiots vote. It's the price we pay for having voting rights. Well, when they're not being suppressed by the GOP, but I digress. Thing is, there's always going to be a few idiots that vote. However if you actively pander to these folks and stoke their fears with half truths and demagoguery, you're setting your party and the country up for long-term failure. The Dems figured that out around the time Slick Willie got elected. They've subsequently marginalized their wingnuts and embraced the center, the center-right in most cases. I will say the rise of Bermie Sanders threatens that formula though. It'll be interesting to see if that trend continues and the Dems end up going back hard left.

[zoony]

There is no fixing it at this point. The pissed off, ignorant, white lower class has hijacked the party. It is what it is at this point.

Only thing the GOP can hope for is better education and an upcoming generation of conservatism that comes from a place of intelligence, not fear and anger

Which is ironic given that Repuvlicans vote against education any chance they get. Guess they get what they deserve.

[@DCGoldPants]

Not at all actually. That's a test designed to prevent blacks from voting.

I want ton prevent idiots from voting.

 

Off-topic. Have a new potential avatar for you.

 

 

https://twitter.com/PaulNicholsDC

 

That guy drew it.

[Riggo-toni]

I'm with Zoony - it's quite clear the GOP is irreparably broken. And no, I'm not some whiney liberal. In the 90s people denounced me as ultraconservative. Now Repubs call me a leftist. Only issues I've switched sides on are death penalty and climate change. Listening to the bozos in the Presidential debate talking about carpet bombing and propping up dictators...they're on the cutting edge of the 1970s. GOP agenda is set by Fox, and Fox's push for ever higher ratings has taken it from being the interesting alternative news site it was in the beginning to an almost caricature of its former self.

In my formative years in the eighties, Dems were equated with Jesse Jackson, welfare, reverse-discrimination, and candidates in their primaries went through a sort of litmus test on social issues. Anything Reagan wanted, no matter how reasonable, was evil by association.

Now GOPers are run by their nutjob components, and to millenials in their formative years they are associated with homophobia, theocracy, anti-abortion, and endless foreign wars. Primaries are loaded with social litmus tests in which candidates must prove they love Jesus, hate abortion,gay marriage, immigration,and now, Muslims.

Gone are critical arguments for fiscal reform, outside of Christie's barely audible calls for entitlement reform. Anything suggested by Obama must be either inherently weak or perniciously socialist.

Driven by Roger Ailes vision, the GOP is still clinging to its anachronistic Southern strategy, completely oblivious to the fact that its key component was California being counted on to go Republican - something that abruptly ended thanks to Pete Wilson's Prop 187 and GHWB's selling out to the evangelical fanatics in 92.

The GOP is destined to become a regional party for the South and socially conservative parts of the mountain west. Competence by Governors will likely keep it relevant at the state level, and gerrymandering will help it maintain a hold on a significant portion of the house. As a national party, its influence will steadily erode as its most dedicated adherents gradually die off.

The tragedy of this to me is it makes the descent of America into European style socialism almost inevitable.

[TheGoodBits]

Roadmap step 1: stop hating science.

The fact that there is a big oil funded climate skeptic that heads the House Science Committee is a ****ing joke. Now he's wasting tax money on investigate NOAA scientists about climate change reports that I guess were inconvenient to his oil company donors.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/12/17/in-fight-over-federal-climate-research-government-turns-over-some-subpoenaed-emails/

[No Excuses]

Upon Hillary's inevitable election as POTUS in 2016, the right will be pushed further into total lunacy.

 

I am actually a bit afraid because I fear that Trump's popularity is an indication that we are getting ready for a radicalized Tea Party. I'm thinking of something similar to the National Front in France. We'll probably have a bunch of Marine La Pen's in the House by 2018.

[Burgold]

See, the problem is that there the GOP doesn't need to be fixed from certain perspectives. Due to changes in voter ID laws and especially gerrymandering, most Republicans feel very safe and content. They may have a harder and harder time winning the Presidency, but the other offices local to Congressional are still in very sound shape. That means that there is little pressure forcing introspection. They're fat. They're powerful. They're winners.

 

Will a demographic tipping point change this ten, twenty, or thirty years down the  line? Who knows? I doubt they are seriously thinking about it or worried about it. They are shoring up their power and in their echo chamber of right wing media they are unassailable and never wrong.

 

So, if there is a roadmap I suspect it's buried and forgotten in the glove box.

[BornaSkinsFan83]

I'm with Zoony - it's quite clear the GOP is irreparably broken. And no, I'm not some whiney liberal. In the 90s people denounced me as ultraconservative. Now Repubs call me a leftist. Only issues I've switched sides on are death penalty and climate change. Listening to the bozos in the Presidential debate talking about carpet bombing and propping up dictators...they're on the cutting edge of the 1970s. GOP agenda is set by Fox, and Fox's push for ever higher ratings has taken it from being the interesting alternative news site it was in the beginning to an almost caricature of its former self.

In my formative years in the eighties, Dems were equated with Jesse Jackson, welfare, reverse-discrimination, and candidates in their primaries went through a sort of litmus test on social issues. Anything Reagan wanted, no matter how reasonable, was evil by association.

Now GOPers are run by their nutjob components, and to millenials in their formative years they are associated with homophobia, theocracy, anti-abortion, and endless foreign wars. Primaries are loaded with social litmus tests in which candidates must prove they love Jesus, hate abortion,gay marriage, immigration,and now, Muslims.

Gone are critical arguments for fiscal reform, outside of Christie's barely audible calls for entitlement reform. Anything suggested by Obama must be either inherently weak or perniciously socialist.

Driven by Roger Ailes vision, the GOP is still clinging to its anachronistic Southern strategy, completely oblivious to the fact that its key component was California being counted on to go Republican - something that abruptly ended thanks to Pete Wilson's Prop 187 and GHWB's selling out to the evangelical fanatics in 92.

The GOP is destined to become a regional party for the South and socially conservative parts of the mountain west. Competence by Governors will likely keep it relevant at the state level, and gerrymandering will help it maintain a hold on a significant portion of the house. As a national party, its influence will steadily erode as its most dedicated adherents gradually die off.

The tragedy of this to me is it makes the descent of America into European style socialism almost inevitable.

Perfect post.

Somewhat related to that last sentence: I'm currently reading "The Winds of War" by Herman Wouk. It's an old historical fiction novel about the lead up to WWII. Follows a generic American military family that finds itself in Europe in 1939 and just what they're witnessing going on around them. I'm reading it and I keep thinking, **** we're becoming Europe, ESPECIALLY the GOP. Just the madness and delusion, completely empty of realistic logic and longterm strategy. It's scary. And like you said, all that, after millions of lives were lost, eventually led to the systems we have in Europe today.

Sorry to hijack, was just thinking about that hard last night.

[The Sisko]

^^This. Trump's proposed anti-Moozlum travel ban and the vandalism against mosques and threats toward Muslims etc. have outed the fact that when the far right says they're fighting for religious freedom what they actually mean by the term is the "freedom" to exclusively practice Xtianity. Well, maybe Judaism too since the fundy preachers are all in the tank for Israel nowadays. But that's it. Nothing else! Now GIT!

[The Evil Genius]

Yeah about that fix. I'd get rid of the morality police from inside the party.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/utah-governor-gary-herbert-declare-porn-public-health-hazard-n558286

 

Utah Governor Gary Herbert to Declare Pornography a Public Health Hazard

by CORKY SIEMASZKO

[88Comrade2000]

You can't fix the Republican party.  The GOP must die, broken apart. The same thing with the Dems. Then let new parties form from the ashes of both parties.

[Larry]

OK, I posted this question in another thread. 

Got no responses.  (And I've thought of a possible response, of my own.)  So, I decided that maybe the question belongs better, in this thread. 

The new improved board software doesn't have a way (that I've found) for me to quote from another thread, so I'm going to do a cut-and-paste: 
 

Quote

 

I also think that the GOP has another problem.  I really don't see any issue that they can make their own.  Any thing that they can use, to create a new identity. 

Over the last few decades, the Dems have triangulated themselves to where they've adopted most of what used to be Republican positions.  (Or at least, the ones that you can win with.) 

I keep seeing people optimistically hoping that Trumpocalypse will result in the rise of a New Republican Party. 

But what issue can this NRP coalesce around?  What's the center pole in their tent? 

What issue can they claim, that the Democrats haven't already planted a flag on? 

The only thing I see these dreamers longing for is "fiscal conservative". 

But frankly, to me, the Dems have been the fiscally conservative party, for the last 30 years.  (I don't know if that's because they actually care about it, or if they're just terrified of being labeled with the dreaded "L-word".  But their actions have been considerably more responsible.) 

Whereas, for the last 30 years, "fiscally conservative" has simply been a Republican code phrase to refer to: 

1. Increase spending on big-ticket military items.
2. Slash taxes on the rich.  (In fact, lately, slashing them hasn't been enough.  You have to completely eliminate them.) 
3. When the deficit explodes, act surprised.  (And point halfhearted fingers at the Dems.) 
4. Loudly yell that the Dems must immediately do something about this.
5. Quietly make it clear that the only solution you will permit to be considered, is for the Dems to cut Social Security and Medicare. 

If y'all were in charge of rebranding the GOP, what issue would you pick, as your defining characteristic? 

 

 

Been thinking about my question (even if nobody else has), since I posted it. 

And it's occurred to me that maybe I'm asking for too much, in a single step. 

Maybe I'm asking people to come up with some grand, major, issue, where the NRP can be 100% opposed to the Dems, and still be moderate. 

And maybe that's a big part of the current R's big problem:  The self-imposed constraint that their positions must be 100% opposed to every single thing that has ever been touched by a Dem. 

Maybe that's the thing that they need to lose, first.  The requirement that any proposal that has been touched by a Dem absolutely must be a sign of the imminent collapse of civilization as we know it. 

Therefore, my proposal: 

Larry's proposal for a good first step, for the Republican Party to begin their journey out of the Deep Dark Woods. 

Immigration reform. 

The R's problem is that, frankly, Obama has already made a pretty good proposal.  The notion that we need to recognize that yeah, illegal immigration is illegal.  But that well, some of them are certainly more desirable than others. 

As I understand it, Obama's proposal was to grant legal status, with a possible path to citizenship down the road, to people who:

• Were brought to this country, as young children, by their parents.
• Were raised in this country.
• Either graduated high school, or obtained a GED, in the US
• Have no major convictions.
• And who either:
• Have obtained a college degree in the US, or
• Have or are willing to serve a term in the US military. 

To me, that's a pretty good proposal, as it is. 

Since I don't see the R's can possibly come up with something that's better than that, I suggest that they Pull a Clinton, and make the proposal at least partially their own. 

Pick a point or two of Obama's proposal, and say that well, if they made these changes, some of the GOP could go along with it. 

(The changes really aren't that important.  As long as they don't go all in for intentional deal breakers.  You want to make the path to citizenship last 5 years longer than Obama proposed?  Sounds like a good idea.  No, demanding the repeal of Obamacare isn;t a reasonable demand.) 

The changes don't have to be major.  Their main purpose is to provide cover for your walking back on the extreme position that you took. 

Doing something like that won't instantly re-brand the Party.  But if nothing else, it will take an issue that you're getting beat up with, right now, and reduce the advantage that the Dems are getting from it. 

At least, in my imagination, it would help the GOP rinse off the image of being a cross between the Nazis and the Klan, and transition them to a party which isn't identical to the Dems, but isn't insane, either. 

And, IMO, if they're willing to do that on several issues, then there will still be differences between the parties, that the voters can look at.  For example:  Move closer to the Dems, and it's a pretty safe bet that the Dems will move to the left on some issues. 

What you wind up with, is a GOP, and the Dems, both moving to the left.  But now, the GOP is closer to the middle than they used to be, and the Dems are now further from the middle than they used to be. 

Maybe I'm just engaging in a Trekkie "happy ending" scenario.  But at least in my imagination, I could see it working.