The Sam Spade Memorial Good Post Gallery

[Virginiá]

It really amazes me to watch people who have voted Republican all of their lives, who endlessly cheered on the likes of Ronald Reagan, both George Bushes (especially the second one - have we forgotten already??) as they did much to wreak havoc on America (and the rest of the world!) through destroying the social safety net, launching pointless and devastating wars, appointing thousands of right-wing hacks to the federal judiciary and the federal bureaucracy; who nodded in approval as congressional Republicans have, without exception, blocked much of President Obama's legislative agenda in an unprecedented display of bitter sore-loserdom; who have stoked the ugly, base, racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, chauvinistic instincts of White America, long before Donald Trump cared about being a politician; and who, more than anyone else, enthusiastically endorse, promote, and intellectually rationalize the modern American conservative ideology - the single most destructive ideology in American politics, not least of all to black Americans and other minorities, immigrants, women, the LGBT community, the poor and the working classes; it really amazes me, to watch these people be horrified by the out-of-control Frankenstein(Trump) that they are directly responsible for creating.

Donald Trump may say a lot of outlandish and awful, bigoted bulls-it, but that's par for the course for the Republican Party for the last 50+ years. Take a good, hard look at the other Republican candidates in the race: John Kasich? The "moderate, sensible" Governor whose favorite pastimes have included not allowing gay people to get married, wrecking the public education system in Ohio, and  quietly slipping vile anti-choice/anti-abortion provisions into larger, less controversial budget bills? Marco Rubio, the Republican Senator from the state that recently gave us such "moderates" as Jeb Bush and Rick Scott? Ben Carson? Ted Cruz? Are you f-cking kidding me?

I have no sympathy for the Republican Establishment as they utterly failed to see the likes of Trump coming. I have no sympathy for people who focus obsessively on Trump while ignoring (or worse, promoting) other, equally vile Republican candidates. I have nothing but contempt for wealthy, elite Republicans who themselves have nothing but contempt for the less well-off or less-educated members of their own party who have been gravitating to Trump in large numbers.

As far as support for Trump goes; for me, it is strictly schadenfreude at the inevitable consequences of Republican electoral strategy, the right-wing media (National Review, FOX News, etc.) and other lifelong water-carriers for America's main right-wing party being utterly discredited, and other Establishment pricks who failed to take Donald Trump's candidacy seriously - until it was too late. No, I don't actually support Donald Trump or what he stands for (I'm a liberal Democrat, FFS) , but I fail to see how he is any worse than the Republican Party as a whole - and that most definitely includes the so-called "moderate" Republican Establishment.

If Trump is a fascist, then the Republican Party as it has existed for the past several decades is directly responsible for creating and enabling fascism in America. They can't wash their hands of that, no matter how hard they try.

That is a premium post. I need to save this.

[Virginiá]

@KingSweden, this is the sort of thing I like to chew on, so I'll reply a bit lengthy.

Snippets...

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His supporters want retribution more than they want lasting legislative change. In fact, many of them are unhappy with the status quo but their anger is focused on retributive means, rather than means to satiate their lives. Trump's voters, mainly, are expressing anger and lashing out at other groups instead of cohesively drawing up plans to better their lives. This is masturbatory politics. (And I use that word carefully and deliberately).

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Correct. The focus on the media as the enemy is Trump's way of trying to inoculate himself from members of his own party, and expending energy on those who would dissent from him in the Republican Party. The very honest truth is this: Trump does not care about the Republican Party or the conservative movement. He does not care about who is on the 2018 ballot, just that he wins - even if it comes at the expense of the GOP. Right now, the GOP is a vehicle for his personal success.

But let's be honest. Every Republican defending him on Atlas is underestimating how much they're considered expendable by Trump. After Trump goes, he doesn't care what the future is for the GOP. He doesn't care as long as the history books lionize him.

The Republicans need to be pushing an agenda, and notice, they're not. They're spending all their time dealing with Trump and his angry tweets and the controversies he kicks up. Trump is turning into an ineffective President everytime he drives the story away from a legislative agenda and drives up his negative ratings. (Which makes it much easier for the Democrats to oppose him). 48 Democrats consistently oppose his cabinet nominations, and they read polls daily. They figure that there's room to oppose him.

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Pretty much.

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Bingo. Contrast to W's first 3 months in office, when he passed a tax cut, No Child Left Behind Act, and strove for the image of the compassionate conservative Republican eager to rebuild the Republican coalition in 2001. This is nothing like W and Trump is milking the tweets until he can't anymore. And the more he tweets angrily, the more he divides the country, the more he sets the GOP base against the Democratic base. It's like nobody in the White House understands that he needs goodwill from the country when a real situation emerges, or a recession, or whatever.

He and his supporters are so hell bent on vengeance politics that they're ignoring all the typical requisites of a governing majority - pass your agenda, create support for that agenda, debate it, and get the country behind you. Trump is systematically alienating the country he was elected to run and losing political capital in the process. He's wasted 30 days in angry repartee with the media, and saw his approval ratings dive from a tie to negative ratings.

How much longer do they think they can go? His supporters can't answer you because they don't know the strategy, they don't know the game plan, and they don't even have talking points because day to day, Trump's White House careens from crisis to crisis.

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Yes. It's akin to a one night stand compared to the work of creating a marriage. Coalitions are like marriages, you have to work at them, constantly, to keep them running. The GOP has traded marriage for a plethora of one night stands designed to create temporary happiness.

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Yup. They know he's a weak president, they know he has no mandate, and his governing coalition is weak as well. They know that from day one, there's huge pockets of opposition to Donald Trump and they are writing a story in which THEY are the moral heroes of the story, not Trump and his supporters.

Note on the supporters - they are locked in an identity battle, in which they feel compelled to support Trump against the media, because, if Trump goes down, they feel like they've lost the "war," an imaginary war for their cultural identity, but a war nonetheless. This is why they are so stubborn, because they live in fear that if they lose the cultural war, they lose everything. So they're insistent that everyone stays on the sinking ship, because they refuse to let go of the last timber of the rotting wood.

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Pretty much. We are in a period of transition, where the old majority collapses, there's emerging gridlock and decay in our political and media institutions, and we are grappling with the future. This is all a long drawn out prologue to the finale. But you knew that I'd say that.

[Virginiá]

rut roh!

[Virginiá]

Anyways, look guys, as much as I am humbled (I am) by the thread title and the defense of said thread, I also don't want people fighting over it. And to be fair to Grumps, there didn't ever really appear to be a wide consensus on the change. Can we just agree to disagree on this, or whatever, and resume other daily Atlas hijinks?