President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

I saw Willie Brown and thought it said Willie Horton, and I was so very confused.

 

But a funny thing happened after Trump won. He purged the old-line Republicans and brought to prominence a new crop of far-right politicians, activists and media personalities who stood well outside the mainstream. As Trump strengthened his hold on the Republican Party so too did these figures come to dominate conservative politics nationwide. Out with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan; in with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.

Besides Trump, there is one other living former Republican president. There are three living former Republican vice presidents. There are any number of former high-ranking Republican officials, from cabinet members to party leaders. Few, if any, were present at the Republican National Convention last month. Instead, when the Republicans gathered to nominate Trump a third time for the presidency of the United States, they marked the occasion with conservative celebrities, Silicon Valley reactionaries and a wide assortment of far-right extremists, culminating in the introduction of Senator Vance as Trump’s running mate and heir apparent.

The Republican Party under Trump has fallen so far out of the political and cultural mainstream that the central aim of its most ambitious representatives and apparatchiks is to use the power of the state to bend that mainstream to their will.

In their minds, they’re only fighting back against a domineering cultural left. But the truth is that Republicans are alienating a large part of the American public and they just don’t see it.

 

You think? Try this on. I'd feel more sorry for Harold Ford if he hadn't taken Fox's big money to be the token liberal punching bag, but Jesse Watters is simply repulsive.

 

Thanks for that.
He makes the point that the Democrats used to be the party of weirdos: apologists for druggies, hippies, anarchy in the street, etc. Now the Trumpists are introducing the bizarre and it gets under their thin skin to hear a description that conjures up images of counter-culture.

But through all this, we must remember that Trumpists never punch down or to the left. Oh no.. They can't do that.

 

Good stuff. Alma needs to be sure to read this NY Times piece. It says it better than I ever could.

“Weird” doesn’t sound like much. But of all the attacks Democrats have levied against Republicans since Trump came down that escalator, this one appears to hit the hardest. Republican politicians seem taken aback by the idea that they’re outside the mainstream, by the charge that their interests and priorities are alienating to the average American.

Now, stepping back a bit, they shouldn’t be. The signature obsessions of Republican politics since 2020 — election denialism, book banning, abortion bans and the crusades against trans and other gender-nonconforming people — are either unpopular with most Americans or electoral dead weight. Democrats in local, state and federal elections have scored win after win in opposition to these and similar preoccupations. In fact, if not for its commitment to this divisive, far-right cultural agenda, the Republican Party might have gotten the “red wave” of its dreams in the 2022 midterm elections."

"But a funny thing happened after Trump won. He purged the old-line Republicans and brought to prominence a new crop of far-right politicians, activists and media personalities who stood well outside the mainstream. As Trump strengthened his hold on the Republican Party so too did these figures come to dominate conservative politics nationwide. Out with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan; in with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.

Besides Trump, there is one other living former Republican president. There are three living former Republican vice presidents. There are any number of former high-ranking Republican officials, from cabinet members to party leaders. Few, if any, were present at the Republican National Convention last month. Instead, when the Republicans gathered to nominate Trump a third time for the presidency of the United States, they marked the occasion with conservative celebrities, Silicon Valley reactionaries and a wide assortment of far-right extremists, culminating in the introduction of Senator Vance as Trump’s running mate and heir apparent.

The Republican Party under Trump has fallen so far out of the political and cultural mainstream that the central aim of its most ambitious representatives and apparatchiks is to use the power of the state to bend that mainstream to their will.

In their minds, they’re only fighting back against a domineering cultural left. But the truth is that Republicans are alienating a large part of the American public and they just don’t see it."

 

I said for years that I couldn't believe no one ever caught Tucker in a parking lot and beat the crap out of him. Watters may actually be worse.

 

Lawrence absolutely nails this. After all these years our media still hasn't figured out how to cover Trump's avalanche of bullshit.

 

you can't figure it out if it's your job to not figure it out

 

“Remember that war our side started with a series of lies, that most of Trump’s voters supported that killed half a million people? Tim Walz didn’t want to fight in it.”

Amazing opposition research, Team Trump.

 

More than that, he had served enough that his body was starting to break down and he was about to run for Congress.

 

Didn't he rate for disability pay after he retired? Sounds pretty legit to me.