Opinion of Romney-Hillary voters?

[The_Doctor]

Let me solve this ongoing Eharding-RINO Tom debate on who the real conservatives are: neither of you are real conservatives.  In fact, no one with a negative social score should call themselves a conservative.  In fact, if any of the following are true, you are not a true conservative:

-I think free trade is a net negative for America
-I think abortion should be allowed in most or all cases
-I would rather have unrestricted privacy, even if it compromises public safety
-I believe that there are more than two genders
-I voted for Donald Trump in the primaries
-I did not vote for Donald Trump in the general election
-My social score is below a +5
-My economic score is below a +5

Hi there.

I come down on the conservative side on all of these except the General of 2016, where I wrote in a Republican for President. Still definitely a conservative. I don't remember my social or economic scores but I've scored above +5 in both areas and dislike the New Deal and the Great Society at a couple of points. I'd call Tom RINO a Republican legitimately.  

I also voted for Cruz in the GOP primaries. No, NOT voting for Trump in the General (but not voting for Clinton) does not make you NOT conservative. (Ditto resisting Donald Trump and his Administration) The man is not a conservative.

[The_Doctor]

Also, a lot of us liked Bush, McCain, and Romney, and drew the line at Trump. Doesn't make us not part of the Right; for the record.

[The_Doctor]

Let me solve this ongoing Eharding-RINO Tom debate on who the real conservatives are: neither of you are real conservatives.  In fact, no one with a negative social score should call themselves a conservative.  In fact, if any of the following are true, you are not a true conservative:

-I think free trade is a net negative for America
-I think abortion should be allowed in most or all cases
-I would rather have unrestricted privacy, even if it compromises public safety
-I believe that there are more than two genders
-I voted for Donald Trump in the primaries
-I did not vote for Donald Trump in the general election
-My social score is below a +5
-My economic score is below a +5

Hi there.

I come down on the conservative side on all of these except the General of 2016, where I wrote in a Republican for President. Still definitely a conservative. I don't remember my social or economic scores but I've scored above +5 in both areas and dislike the New Deal and the Great Society at a couple of points. I'd call Tom RINO a Republican legitimately. 

I also voted for Cruz in the GOP primaries. No, NOT voting for Trump in the General (but not voting for Clinton) does not make you NOT conservative. (Ditto resisting Donald Trump and his Administration) The man is not a conservative.

-You basically became a liberal as a result of your Trump Derangement Syndrome. Sad!

I am not a liberal but yeah, you need to stop stalking me. I've told you to stop responding to me. You need to learn to respect boundaries and when people tell you to not engage them.

This is the third time I've told you to not respond to me.

[The_Doctor]

LOL

Anyway, FFs, much better than the rubes who voted for Trump.  Can't wait until "Trumpism" - to the extent it means anything, haha - is discredited.  Trump was a last stand for people like Eharding and TN Vol, and the future of the GOP is gonna be a LITTLE less White trash, friends.

"White trash"? Wow... you really want the GOP to be a big tent party, huh?

A lot of Trump voters would have fit in with the John Birch Society for the record. You know, the people that William Buckley and Ronald Reagan wrote out of the movement. They're also a a bunch of proto-Wallace voters.

Does the GOP really need these people?

[The_Doctor]

Again, that wasn't my point. People like you seem to have this idea that the Republicans have cherished the values of small government in the past and that the party was totally perfect until Trump came around and "hijacked" it, but it's simply not true. Bush's 2000 campaign was in many aspects similar to Trump's: Populist, outsider, "compassionate conservative", somwhat isolationist... and you know what? He turned out to be a fraud, just like Trump (to a certain extent). Of course I have never seen you or any other Rockefeller Republican criticize Bush, but that's not surprising.

Straight up, W wasn't perfect. I hated the Medicare Part D expansion, I thought his government spending was out of control, and the No Child Left Behind Act was reprehensible. I thought this compassionate conservative stuff was inane.

But let's give W. a lot of credit where it's due. He protected the country in eight years, went to war for a cause he believed in (rightfully, exporting democracy to Iraq), cut taxes and put two conservative justices on the Supreme Court. He fought for Social Security reform in 2005 and after 2005, began to rein in government spending, so I give him credit on that. EDIT: He also enacted a number of sweeping free trade deals that were great for the country.

He did not: act as a rabid populist, he generally operated within Reaganite neoliberal conservative orthodoxy, and he exemplified the best parts of the GOP orthodoxy second to only Ronald Reagan.

You know Trump is a class apart from W and Reagan, and vastly more different. He's basically George Wallace with blonde hair.

[The_Doctor]

Well, TD, we'll just have to agree to disagree here. I'm not a big fan of neocons and neoliberalism, and the idea that the US brought democracy to Iraq is obviously very dumb. The worst thing Trump has done so far is drone strikes, which of course are terrible as well, but at least he hasn't invaded another country and killed hundreds of thousands of people. The judges Bush appointed to the Supreme Court are a mixed bag, to say the least. We'll have to wait and see how Gorsuch turns out (I'm hoping he won't be another Souter).

I can respect that and we'll agree to disagree.

One question - how do you reconcile the fact that Reaganism is neoliberalism and the basis of the Republican Party?  It seems to me that you're rejecting, in part, Reagan's ideology in a sense (remember he was the father of NAFTA, just to give an example).