The media and Republicans have been quick to analyze what Democrats are doing wrong and how they can correct it. One of the duties of the party that wins the election is to bring the country back together again. The Trump administration and the party that supports it are doing a terrible job of that: constantly referring back to the election, legislating against the public interest, and breaking norms and possibly the law. In the spirit of all that advice to Democrats, I offer some friendly advice to Republicans.
Our country is in danger. Donald Trump is unsuited to the presidency. He causes damaging crises that prevent us from dealing with real issues. He may be guilty of financial and other crimes. Investigations are in progress, but political actions to unify the country need not wait for the results of those investigations.
Since Trump was elected as a Republican, it is the Republicans who can be most effective in stopping the bleeding and perhaps turning the damage around. Democrats have a part to play, too. Members of Congress are the most important, along with elder statespeople like Mitt Romney.
Republicans need to reaffirm a number of points about our democracy. They can do this at town hall meetings, which might soften the public response to those meetings. The points I offer can be worked into other speeches and public statements. Different Republicans might emphasize different points at different times.
- As members of one country, we respect each other’s beliefs and lawful actions. Denigrating others because of who they are is unacceptable. We need to talk respectfully to people we disagree with. This is the only way we can make our country work for all of us.
- Nobody is above the law. This includes the President. Republicans should call upon the President to make his tax returns public and to explain his administration’s connections with Russian individuals and organizations.
- Republicans should also call upon the President to refrain from attacking individuals and organizations that are part of the law-enforcement apparatus. That includes the Attorney General and others in his office and the special investigation of Robert Mueller. Other attacks on individuals are inappropriate.
- We have important issues to face: a responsible budget for the country, renewing infrastructure, the opiod crisis, income inequality, and more. In foreign affairs, the North Korean development of nuclear-tipped missiles, wars in the Middle East, Russia’s attempts to divide the West, and China’s rising power. We cannot afford histrionics and division.
- Fox News and rightwing radio have done Americans no favors. They actively deceive their listeners.
Democrats need to resist “gotchas” against the Republicans and cheap points. They should present a vision of a better America. They can use talking points 1, 2, and 4. If both sides use those talking points, they may find ways to come together on other points.
These points are a start. Once civil dialog is resumed, we can begin to talk about specific policies to address the real problems that America faces.
Baud
You are shrill.
Villago Delenda Est
We’ve gone too far. The damage has been done. There can be no compromise with fascists; they must be crushed, driven back under the rocks from which they crawled.
The last few remaining decent Republicans can join us, or share the fate of the fascists.
Devore
Patriotic Republicans should immediately change their party affiliation to democrat.
ruemara
I have no idea what you’re counting as a “gotcha”. I also believe Dems have consistently presented a better vision of America. One that America has failed to live up to on a regular basis, but wants brownie points for sorta half-assedly kinda doing. call me when you get a better class of citizen, because you’ll need to for this to work. Ideally, a majority that doesn’t shut their eyes and ears to racism, prejudice and facts as a basic matter of tribal membership. I’ll be “civil” at that time.
Villago Delenda Est
@ruemara:
May I say something?
Won’t take long.
WORD!
Baud
Might be worth a post for this. (Vox)
From the news, it sounds like a plan to work with the Wilmerites and focus messaging for the midterms. Should be interesting and a welcome break from all things Trump.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2017/7/23/16016676/chuck-schumer-democrats-populism
debbie
The GOP has long been party over Trump. Trump has always been Trump over everyone and everything else.
The GOP should have realized this by now.
Catherine D.
When this happens, I will be skeet shooting pigs …
Davis X. Machina
As members of one country, we respect each other’s beliefs and lawful actions. Yeah, we’re members of one country – Real America– and all those other people need to shut up, and go away. Leave go away, or the other kind of ‘go away’, if you know what I mean…
Nobody is above the law. God-Emperors are.
Republicans should also call upon the President to refrain from attacking individuals and organizations that are part of the law-enforcement apparatus. If you’re investigating the President, you’ve thrown in with the not-Real-Americans. Suppressing your efforts then is the the highest form of loyalty
We have important issues to face: Boy howdy. We sure do. The wrong people get to vote, and have civil rights. Our police can’t do the needful. We pay for a social safety net, and way too many people who get to use it aren’t actually Americans — they’re either foreigners, or not Real Americans.
You could get 50 million votes running with that explicitly as a platform. Enough to keep one house of Congress forever. And snag the occasional EC victory.
MattF
Yeah, but… how does this happen? There are conservatives who I could deal with. Maybe not David Fucking Brooks, but… The problem is that, e.g., DFB is only a respectable veneer over an army of genuinely disgusting people.
Sorry, but I don’t get it. See above comment from ruemara.
Yarrow
It would be great if they did this. Are they likely to do so? No. They are seriously compromised and cannot point fingers at Trump and his administration and its corruption and treason without revealing their own.
Besides, Trump voters are fine with him. I had the misfortune of seeing yet another CNN Check In with Trump Voters, All of Whom are 55+ and White and guess what? All but one of them thinks he’s doing a great job! Everyone just needs to shut up and give him a chance. Everyone should work with him. It’s not his fault! The Russian stuff is totally made up. It’s a lie. Oh, and he should quit tweeting.
Good fucking luck convincing those people of trite ideals like, “we respect each other’s beliefs and lawful actions” and “nobody is above the law.”
OGLiberal
The biggest problem with the US is we’ve got too many white people. I’m one…there are too many of us. I tried to contribute to change by adopting my second kid from China. (She was actually supposed to be our only kid…her older brother was a very wonderful and unexpected surprise.)
Scott S.
It’s already too late for the Republicans, and probably too late for the nation.
Yarrow
@Villago Delenda Est:
“Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.”
M. Bouffant
Please. This sounds like “I will love the police as they kick the shit out of me on the street.” (F. Zappa,
“Who Needs The Peace Corps?”)
You cannot respect “beliefs” that are based on fantasies of the free market, demand-side economics, & racist & religious paranoia. They don’t have “beliefs”, only reactions.
Let me know when the right in this country changes its proverbial scorpion nature.
And I’ll not be holding my breath waiting for any condemnation of lying right-wing media from any Republican in or wanting power.
Is it your scientific training that makes you think the right can be made to see or understand reason? The same right that thinks college (& virtually any knowledge) is dangerous to the nation?
Picky semantic P.S.: We aren’t “members” of one country, we’re citizens thereof. This isn’t some damn golf club we can quit whenever we want.
Baud
As Ronald Reagan said, peace through strength.
You really can’t persuade them to change through rhetoric alone. They need to fear losing political power.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
It was after all a post aimed at republicans, not us.
That said, you are 10000000% right. We have looked to be reasonable for far too long and where has it gotten us? Only deeper in the shit. And I don’t like being in the shit at all, let alone deeper. Maybe it’s time we eased up on compromise and started leading again. President Obama was pretty good at that leading stuff, just by his very nature. Actually Hillary Clinton wasn’t bad at it, either. But both of them are past, shouldn’t be forgotten at all but not in the future, at least not in the level they have been. Who is out there, not standing on the parade route not saying, “These are my people, where are they going, I need to know so I can lead them there” but is out in front taking command, because no one is going to appoint or anoint them?
Yarrow
@MattF: There’s a set of Never Trump Republicans out there–David Frum, Evan McMullin, Rick Wilson, the Bush family for example. Some of them have been calling out Republicans’ craven behavior for awhile, some like the Bushes made it clear they wouldn’t and didn’t vote for Trump. I think if Republicans are going to call out what’s happening, those people may be the place to start.
The problem for them is, the Republican party IS Trumpism at this point. The Never Trumpers are actually something else entirely. Maybe they should start their own party.
craigie
Point 5 is the most important and the least likely to happen. Putin must be very jealous of Rupert Murdoch – Murdoch managed to destroy the US and make a lot of money doing it.
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud: Sounds like Schumer may have a good plan. Let’s wait and see the whole thing.
Yarrow
@Baud:
They don’t really fear losing political power. They’ll just go on wingnut welfare. What really needs to happen is for them to fear losing a lot more. Their money. Their property. Their freedom because they go to prison. Their lives (capital punishment is still used for espionage and treason). Threaten them with something that really matters to them and maybe they’ll pay attention.
Baud
The Hill
smintheus
A lot of politicians in DC need to figure out that their job is to represent all their constituents, not just those who voted for them. It’s concept totally lost on far too many Republicans.
Also, that they have an oath of office.
Amaranthine RBG
“As members of one country, we respect each other’s beliefs and lawful actions. Denigrating others because of who they are is unacceptable. We need to talk respectfully to people we disagree with. This is the only way we can make our country work for all of us.”
You are new here, aren’t you?
Baud
@Yarrow: They are terrified of losing power. Wingnut welfare exists because they maintain power. It’s not its own thing.
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer: I think all the Congressional Dems came together on this. We’ll see how it plays.
Cheryl Rofer
@Yarrow: Good point about the Never-Trump Republicans. Some of them have said stuff like what I recommend, but they have effectively been kicked out of the party. I was thinking more of the current Republicans in Congress. Some of them seem like they believe these things but have been bullied into not saying them.
Schlemazel
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yes
@Devore:
Fuck them, dont want them
@Baud:
Dems have been doing this regularly, it is stunning that even Dem friendlys seem to ignore/miss it always.
Yarrow
@Baud: It’s both/and. Republicans were well rewarded, even new candidates, by the Kochs and Mercers. They are expected to deliver, but if they can’t or don’t, the money doesn’t completely disappear. At least not so far. Republicans know that so they’re not truly afraid.
We need them to be truly afraid. Fear on the level of McConnell in December. Whatever they have on him is good.
OGLiberal
@Cheryl Rofer: That’s exactly right. There is not one Never Trumper who is a federal elected official. Most are pundits or academics. And many are Jewish, because their grandparents watched this show before and it didn’t end up so well.
The elected folks? Cowards…and party to this by being cowards.
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud: Good for Jeb! !
Ruckus
@Baud:
Wingnut welfare doesn’t exist only because they maintain power. It exists to purchase that power, to maintain it and to grow it. This is not an overnight position we’ve arrived at, it has taken decades and far more money than any tax breaks would have provided. It is bluntly speaking, a bribe to exploit people with no honor, no morals. And there are plenty of those people among humans, they have been courting the extremely wealthy for as long as money has existed separate from food. And they did it before then, the bribe was just food.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: Certainly the Republican leadership will not say a word. They are all compromised. I think I caught that some low level lesser known Republican Congressman did say something a bit bolder about Trump and his Russian ties, but I don’t remember more than that.
Mike J
I’m against unilateral disarmament.
Baud
@Schlemazel: Right. I bet at least half the things announced tomorrow will be existing policies repackaged as new. I think the one new thing I heard is that they will officially come out for the $15 minimum wage. So that’s fine.
Schlemazel
@OGLiberal:
With the GOP it is Party before country every time. Has been for the majority of them since 1992. You could find decent Republicans before that time, after they became fewer and fewer, either electing to get out or being tossed out in primaries against true wingnuts. The whole damn bunch of them are either thieved (Like John Kline and his replacement Lewis) or insane morons like Gommert and Cruz
Baud
@Yarrow:
@Ruckus:
My only point is that wingnut welfare doesn’t prevent them from fearing a loss of power as a party. It might make an individual elected official more bold about taking an unpopular position, however.
In the end, however, it’s about controlling government.
Aimai
@ruemara: right. I could not disagree more with cheryl’s post. We need scorched earth. Not fake comity and bothsiderism.
rikyrah
Are you phucking kidding me?
The GOP is aiding and abetting TREASON
TREASON
and, once again, we’re told to ‘ move past thing’.
ARE.YOU.PHUCKING.KIDDING.ME.
The President of the United States, and others, are assets of a HOSTILE FOREIGN POWER.
and, the GOP is impeding investigation at every turn.
And,WE have to not go ‘gotcha’.
ARE.YOU.PHUCKING.KIDDING.ME.
the GOP is aiding and abetting enemies of this country.
ENEMIES OF THIS COUNTRY.
All the while, they are not investigating the invasion of our election.
BUT, we’re supposed to not do ‘ gotcha’?
ARE YOU PHUCKING KIDDING ME?
Yarrow
@Baud: There isn’t that much new under the sun anyway. Sometimes the packaging and messaging matters because it can convey an idea more effectively. Sometimes a new messenger has better luck conveying old ideas. Sometimes several things come together and old messages and ideas can just hit at the right time and become very popular.
One thing I hope is that, if the message is a good one, that Dems are on the same page and say it over and over again. Republicans are good at that. Dems are not quite as good at it.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
As much as it pisses me off that the GOP and the media ignore these solid proposals it pisses me off 10x more that the Berniebots, Steiniasses and fellow liberals chose to ignore them & whine endlessly that the Dems have no alternative & are not providing leadership on progressive plans
Davis X. Machina
@Baud:
Any failure to call for ownership and direction of the means of production, distribution and finance by the workers, and I’m right out. That’s not ‘bending the knee
WaterGirl
@Baud: Consequences. They need to experience the negative consequences of their behavior. Only then will they change.
Schlemazel
@rikyrah:
Thank you. I had chosen to go at this stupidity obliquely because I will lose my shit if I have to explain one more time. That needed to be said. I am up to here with this version of both-siderism
RepubAnon
@Yarrow: The secret to the Republicans’ political power is the hate they nurture in their base. We need to find a way to either reduce the hate, or re-direct it against, say, the bankers and the 0.1%.
Betty Cracker
While you were posting this, Hair Furor was tweeting this:
God help us.
Another Scott
Well said, Cheryl. But we have to recognize the ecosystem that resulted in the political circumstances we find ourselves in: Citizens United and the other rulings expanding the “religious” and political power of the rich and corporations at the expense of all the rest of us.
People are afraid of change, and the rich like it least of all. They have figured out how to take maximum advantage of the current environment and they will fight all efforts to reduce their power and influence. Similarly with politicians.
We know that political change is slow and difficult in the best of times.
We also know that corporations and state governments respond to bad publicity and economic pressure. E.g. Limbaugh, O’Reilly, NC HB2, etc.
We need (to the extent we’re able) to withhold our dollars from corporations, media outlets, and states and localities that are undermining our system of government and tell them why.
Rational arguments about civility and compromise are not going to have any impact on the Teabagger majority as long as they figure the only constituency that matters are those few 0.01%ers and the hard-core voters who see the world in terms of purity tests. Unfortunately. We have to go “over their heads” and make their funders and leaders understand that we’re not going to silently and meekly take their treachery any more.
Yeah, it’s hard. Yeah, I’m not a perfect exemplar of this approach either, but I think we all need to do what we can.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@ruemara:
AMEN
Yarrow
@Baud: But the Republicans, as we see now, aren’t good at controlling government and getting things done. They’re good at obstruction. If by controlling government you mean stopping Democrats from accomplishing things and refusing to cooperate with Democrats at all, then yes, they like that.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: YEP. Traitors, every last one of them. I’m glad Dems are calling them out.
Cheryl Rofer
It’s right to be angry at the willingness to destroy America’s principles. But anger goes only so far. We have to live in the same country with these people.
Trump has whipped up some of the worst of what America has to offer. Most of the people going along with that can be brought back to a positive vision of America. The Republicans have to play a large part in that. We have to keep reminding them of their responsibilities.
And yes, we go high where they go low.
rikyrah
Is case I’m Not clear..
ALL these muthaphuckas BELONG IN JAIL.
I have lived my entire life, watching the GOP cast aspersions at Democrat’s patriotism and Black folks in particular.
It galls me to no end, as a member of a community that has had to FIND THE REASON to support America…
Remember, Black folks have fought FOR this country and its ideals, ever since the American Revolution…
Yet, somehow, OUR patriotism has always been questioned.
My father, fought, put his life on the line for a country that had him, IN ITS LAWS, as a second class citizen.
EVERY Black person who has fought in the military, did so, knowing that, in its LAWS, America had them as second class citizens.
The first time a Black solider could say otherwise was Gulf War I.
And, for you to write such babble is insulting.
THEY.HAVE.BETRAYED.THIS.COUNTRY.
TREASON.
and, if you don’t understand that….
We really have nothing to talk about.
Because, I want no less than ALL OF THE TRAITORS IN JAIL.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: One of the reasons they are afraid of losing power is they also fear being treated by the brown and blah exactly as they treated the brown and blah.
They have no faith in forgiveness, even though it’s a central tenet of the religion they claim to follow.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: *Applause*
Villago Delenda Est
@Betty Cracker: Obviously, Donald does not understand that Congress is a co-equal branch of government with the Executive.
Their allegiance is to the Constitution, not another co-equal branch of the government.
Donald thinks he’s a king.
Fine. Let the example of Charles I be his lodestone, then.
Barbara
T@Cheryl Rofer: The denial feels like it’s existential for too many. I keep waiting for a show of good faith, but I think it is unlikely to be advertised in advance if and when it happens, and I don’t think it will be in response to pleading.
Cheryl Rofer
@Another Scott: We need to work on multiple tracks. The economic track is an important one and has had one small success in removing Bill O’Reilly from the airwaves. My contribution up top is one small piece. We need to remind the Republicans, particularly the officeholders, that they serve the people and that they currently are doing that very badly indeed.
WaterGirl
@Aimai: A friend of mine told her first husband that she was unhappy in their marriage and told him she wanted to work on their problems. His reply: “we don’t need to change anything, I’m perfectly happy with the way things are.”
There was nowhere to go from there; she left him and made another life for herself.
Republicans are perfectly happy with the hate and division they have sown. Why should they want to change anything? That’s what got them all 3 branches of government! The idea that they would be interested in a more civil environment is pretty ridiculous.
schrodingers_cat
I see three problems if we want to analyze the situation from a apolitical POV
1. Celebration of the stupid
2. Worship of wealth over everything else (Or in the BS case economics solves all problems)
3. The notion that everything needs to be entertaining (politics, physics, anything).
We are amusing our selves to death. HRC was boring , T was more entertaining.
Van Buren
Trump provides a test of the intellectual honesty of conservatives. Will they denounce the very actions that; had a Democrat done, would be leading to meltdowns on FOX?
So far , they are failing the test.
Party over country.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: What rikyrah said:
Patricia Kayden
@Villago Delenda Est: Agreed. Republicans have shown their true colors by supporting an inexperienced, dangerous bigot as President and by turning their backs on the American people by averting their eyes while he canoodles with a foreign enemy. Not sure why anyone on our side thinks that Republicans are suddenly going to do an about face and do the right thing.
Paul Ryan stripped the defense spending bill of Barbara Lee’s amendment which would have forced the House to do its job by voting on authorizing military excursions. So basically Trump can start WWIII with Iran any day now.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: They want to kill us and you want to go kissy face with them? Even tiny infants have a better sense of self preservation.
Starfish
@ruemara: The concern about whether or not Sean Spicer stole a microfridge when he left the job is shallow and unimportant. That type of thing is focusing on petty things to score points. I am old enough to remember when Hillary Clinton was accused of stealing a lamp.
eclare
@WaterGirl: Seconded. The time for when they go low we go high is over.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer:
Have you seen the card that shows a human yelling at their dog? Bad dog, Ginger, bad dog! Why do you get in the garbage all the time, Ginger? Bad dog, Ginger, bad dog.
What Ginger hears: blah blah blah, Ginger! blah blah blah Ginger!
For us to remind the republicans of their responsibilities is a total waste of breath.
BBA
My recommendation: get as many people of color Kobach-approved IDs as possible. (Yes, I know, Kobach wants to make the paper bag test part of the driver’s license process. But right now he’s not allowed to do that.) Start chartering buses to inconveniently located polling places. Beat the suppressors at their own game.
Ohio Mom
All I can think about are the Republicans in my day-to-day life, who are average, middle-class suburbanites. Most of them are a little on the sheltered side. I realize this is not a scientific sampling.
They can not be reasoned with. The simplest little fact, no matter how gently and carefully explained, they reject. Although the entire discussion will be very civil.
If by some chance, a new idea made its way into one of their heads, it would die of loneliness. They are psychologically very well-defended. They may not be “bad” people but they are very stubbornly attached to keeping everything the same. It is hard for me to imagine what could open them up to a bigger vision of the world.
Baud
@Yarrow: obstruction had its own value, but I doubt anyone on their side foresaw the level of ineptitude they would have even with them controlling all three branches.
Cheryl Rofer
@Betty Cracker: Those two tweets are really something. He’s continuing to stew, doesn’t usually tweet in the middle of the afternoon. And they make less sense than usual.
It’s encouraging that he wants to pick a fight with Republicans. That could encourage some of them to take my advice. But what is it they haven’t done to “protect their President”?
This one doesn’t make sense at all. Democrats and Russians are laughing at the “Witch Hunt”?
Cheryl Rofer
@Ohio Mom: This is why I directed my post to Republican leadership, particularly the elected Republicans. They have to lead the rank and file out of the mess they’ve led them into.
Josie
@rikyrah: Word. We let ourselves in for this mess when we permitted Nixon to be pardoned. He and all his crooked cronies (not just a few sacrificial lambs) should have gone to jail. As a result, Republicans took away the lesson that, if you have enough nerve and the ganas to do whatever you please, you can get away with anything. Don’t tell me there aren’t two vastly different legal systems in this country. This situation didn’t just happen in the last year or so.
Yarrow
@WaterGirl: My favorite Far Side cartoon. “Blah, blah, blah, blah, Ginger!”
Cheryl Rofer
I’ll just say again: We have to share the country with these people. They are bent on destroying it. We have to turn them around.
Yarrow
@Ohio Mom:
YES. This. Reason doesn’t work. The Republican industry appeals to the lizard brain–fear. Reason doesn’t break through that.
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer: We have to outvote them (by a supermajority given the structural hurdles) first.
NobodySpecial
Sorry, we’ve had to deal with being called enemies of America for too long to believe that they either want or deserve civil discourse.
They elected a clown over fear of us, regardless of what we’ve said or done. Our only hope now is the death rate of older Americans.
NotMax
When porkers fly.
Betty Cracker
Rikyrah is correct that these treasonous bastards are shitting all over the country we love, and I’m not inclined to give Trump supporters any quarter. Even the ones who changed my diapers and taught me to drive. I’m done being silent or conciliatory. That’s part of what got us in this mess, IMO.
Cheryl is correct that we have to find a way to share a country with the sumbitches. I think we can do that without compromising our principles — in fact, I think we can do that while telling the rotten bastards exactly what we think of their phony morality and ersatz patriotism. Their own incompetent nitwit of a president will help make our argument for us.
The shitheels strutting around like they own the goddamn world right now think they’re the majority. They aren’t. We need to demonstrate just how wrong they are.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: If you wait for them to come to their senses it will be too late. There are plenty of people that are not plugged into politics like we are. It makes more sense to get those bystanders into the process than try to win over the hearts and minds of hard core Rs. If some of them have a change of heart like JGC then they are more than welcome to join us.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Well said BC!
James Powell
@Villago Delenda Est:
Agreed. Our current crisis, like most such nation-defining crises, involves much more than the present occupant and his entourage. The Republicans, funded and guided by the ruling class, have brought us to where we are today. They’ve done it with their eyes open. They would like nothing more than for the United States to be a democracy in name only.
And they could never have accomplished this without the enthusiastic support of a healthy majority of America’s white people, who are so bound up in their belief in white supremacy, so afraid of and angered by anyone who suggests otherwise, that they just don’t care about any other thing. What they’re showing us is that if they have to share constitutional democracy & the rule of law with black people, brown people, non-Christians, and others who are different then they’d rather not have constitutional democracy at all.
This problem cannot be undone by the Republicans because Republicans – their beliefs, their stated goals, their rhetoric, their laws, their actions – are the problem. The current crisis isn’t something that happened to them, it’s what they produced, Deliberately and without regard to how it affects anyone.
They are, without exception, evil. We cannot reason with them.
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud:
Yes!
Cheryl Rofer
@Betty Cracker:
I think that is another part of what we have to do.
Cheryl Rofer
@schrodingers_cat: I am not waiting for them to come to their senses. That’s why I posted – to push them.
James Powell
@Betty Cracker:
Could not agree more. The gravest error of the Obama administration – and to be honest the Democratic leadership in the house and senate – was the whole looking forward not backward business. Instead, he should have been fanning the flames of anger at the banksters and the corporate ruling class who caused and cashed in on the financial crisis. Instead of singing kumbaya he should have been passing out the pitchforks & torches and scheduling some show trials. It was an opportunity lost, lost for at least another generation.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: For the GOP, losing political power = obstructing the Democratic President, shutting down the government and using voter suppression tactics to kick as many brown/black folks off the rolls as possible. Even when they were out of power in Washington, D.C., they stuck do their guns and obstructed President Obama as much as possible. Seems to have worked out fine for them although they’ve elected an incompetent idiot who has no interest in legislation.
I’m hoping that Trump continues to do everything he can to motivate voters on our side to vote en masse next November. Yes. He. Can.
chris
@Cheryl Rofer: Well, that certainly worked for Obama. Except for… Meh, pick your favourite.
I loved the guy and I miss him dearly but he kept reaching out to the other side and they bit his hand off every fucking time. So by all means reach out to your esteemed colleagues across the aisle and maybe this time it will be different. Nah, not going to happen.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer:
Who is this WE who has to turn them around? Democrats? People who didn’t vote for Trump/Republicans? Why is it up to those people (us) to turn them around? They don’t listen to us. They see us as un-American at best and non-persons for a large part.
The first part of your post about what Republicans need to do is one thing. The second part about Dems resisting “gotchas” against the Republicans and cheap points is maddening. They don’t fucking care what Dems do or say. Jesus himself could come down from heaven on a cloud with God playing wingman, declare he’s a Democrat, proclaim that all Christians should vote for Democrats and tell Republicans, the party of Satan, to go back to Hell, and Republican voters would claim he’s a false prophet, a fake, a charlatan, and not to be trusted.
Baud
It beats repeating that since 1981, the Democrats have controlled the two political branches of the federal government for only 2 two-year periods. Four years out of 36 total years.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
@rikyrah:
Standing ovation.
I’ve never met any black person who wants it all, they only ask for equality. They want to be part of this country, the ones I’ve served with and the ones I talk to at the VA who already served, they don’t want everything or freebees or welfare or handouts. They want to be part of this.
I’ve met a bunch of republicans who want it all. I can see far more of them every day giving speeches, looking for votes. They want it all for themselves. They want the fruits of others labor. They want the pride of other’s work, for they have little to none of their own. They want to own people. Fuck them.
Ohio Mom
@Cheryl Rofer I suppose somebody could point to my governor Kasich as someone who is trying to do what you suggest. He’s making some noises in that direction.
But in the end, he is a run-of-the-mill Republican, whose ultimate goals are rewarding his cronies and doing whatever he can to make labor as cheap as possible.
Let’s say he did end up being somewhat effective in stopping Trump somehow. He is still the jerk doing jerky things on a statewide level.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: Indeed, we must work on multiple tracks. We can’t assume that there is a silver bullet that will turn everything around.
That’s one of many reasons why I tell everyone who will listen to pay attention to the elections this fall and to do what they can to help there. And to support the League of Women Voters and VoteRiders and all the other groups in the trenches to get people registered to vote, and the ACLU and NAACP and SPLC and all the other legal protection groups. And Indivisible and other in-the-streets advocacy groups.
None of us can do it all on our own, but all of us can make a difference.
It’s a long-term struggle and it will include working to persuade Republican voters even if their elected representatives are too often too far gone.
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
It may not be possible.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: The people you want to convince are happy that T’s ICE is going to start targeting minors for deportation. At least 10 people have died in ICE detention centers. A number that is only going to get higher.
Patricia Kayden
@Quit now: That’s a bit harsh. Realistic when it comes to most modern-day Republicans but still overly harsh. And how in the world could you hate the sweetest creatures known as dogs? /s
Cheryl Rofer
@Ohio Mom: There is resistance from several Republican governors, including Kasich, on the healthcare bill. They’re not going to all turn around and be perfect all at once. We have to encourage movement in the right direction.
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
That’s what makes them conservatives. They really want to retain their little slice of the pie. They are afraid that if everyone is equal, has all the rights, has their health, etc, they will be equal and then what your neighbors have worked for, a little peace and serenity will be changed. They will have to work harder, they will have to share, their world will not be the same Norman Rockwell picture that they see in their minds. IOW they might/will have to experience the world they want everyone else to live in.
Yarrow
This tweet from conservative Rod Dreher seems relevant in this thread.
Jay S
@Cheryl Rofer: He is saying that they (we) are laughing that the excuse is taking hold, that the witch hunt is working. Laughing at them having taken the bait.
BBA
I think we’ve got the Adlai Stevenson problem: We have everyone in this country with a brain or a soul or basic human decency supporting us, but that’s not enough. We need a majority. (“But Hillary won the popular v–” A majority of congressional districts and EC votes, happy now?)
Baud
@Jay S:
Good. Since it’s not a witch hunt.
Ohio Mom
@Yarrow: I always go back to a discussion I had many years ago with an ex-friend — she went on to help start the Cincinnati branch of the Tea Party and one Yom Kippur I told her I couldn’t be her friend anymore. That was back in the early years of the Bush presidency.
Anyway, she explained to me that the reason her (Jewish) father got so much better care in his nursing home as compared to her (Protestant) father-in-law in his nursing home was that FIL was in a “Medicaid” nursing home and her father was in a “private” nursing home that didn’t take government money.
She would not believe me that both nursing homes took Medicaid, the difference was that FIL was in a for-profit nursing home and father was in the non-profit home sponsored by the Jewish community.
She could have said, “I don’t know about that, I will have to research that,” but she didn’t, she just stared at me. It did not compute.
Nowadays if I was having that conversation, I’d whip out my phone and goggle. Or maybe even call the Jewish nursing home and ask to talk to the development department on speaker.
What I am trying to say is that I agree with you, there is no fact too trivial not to threaten them.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Starfish: Nah, Spicer stealing Kumar’s fridge is just funny.
It’s not a gotcha, it’s a deep breath and a belly laugh before we plunge back into the fray.
A laugh restores the soul.
BBA
@Ruckus: I got your Norman Rockwell picture right here.
Jay S
@Baud:
You only say that ’cause you are not Trump or his minion. I should have put it in scare quotes.
OzarkHillbilly
Cheryl, I think
is problematic. While it is factually true, we have to start where we are, and too many already believe everything they hear coming out of Roger Ailes nether regions. I think we need to say,
“Respect the freedom of the Press.”
In other words, telling them that everything they believe is bullshit is likely to just make them stop listening. However, if we can stop all the “fake news” BS, maybe we can reach a few with actual facts.
germy
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2017/07/23/gabriel-sherman-msnbc-sean-hannity-and-bill-oreilly-are-potentially-moving-sinclair/217350
OGLiberal
@Cheryl Rofer: “Most of the people going along with that can be brought back to a positive vision of America.”
I wish I could believe that. I don’t. They have their own “positive vision” of America that is far from positive. They won’t be swayed. I just hope their kids and grandkids reject that particular “positive” vision and vote accordingly. Unfortunately, even if they do, we’re 20-30 years away from that making a difference.
JDM
We know what Republicans count as a “gotcha”. It’s things like the tough question Katie Curic asked Sarah Palin: “What newspapers do you read?”.
Given that, I think Cheryl is being just a tad optimistic about being able to placate any Republicans who have any power whatsoever.
TriassicSands
@Cheryl Rofer:
The Tweets are bizarre. But Trump is an idiot. His sense of victimization is amazing — poor baby, everyone is out to get him; no one will help him; he’s all alone fighting a titanic battle against the forces of evil (that is anyone and everyone who doesn’t think Trump is the smartest, nicest, most competent person in the whole wide world).
Cheryl, your suggestions are fine, but you have to know that there is no reason to believe the Modern Republican Party will ever act on any of them. It’s worth trying — up to a point. With the potential for discord between Trump and the Party it doesn’t make sense to give up yet. However, I think it is fair to say that a lot of people faulted Obama for continuing to try to find common ground with a party that was wholly committed to obstructing everything he did. Eventually, it just made Obama look weak and silly. Which is hard for someone of his qualities. As long as it doesn’t cost the Democrats anything to try to get the Republicans to begin to act responsibly (as if they care about democracy, for example) then fine. In the end though, I just don’t see the GOP changing its ways. Maybe the shock of something Trump has done or will do will change that, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Ruckus
@James Powell:
I agree with you on the cause and why we are where we are. I’m a little less positive about all of them being evil. Vast majority I can get behind. And in agreement about reasoning with them. Persuade them? Some maybe. Show them a better way by example? Maybe a few. But I’m not holding my breath on either. On the other hand, John changed, and more than a few others have over the years. It takes a pivoting point, a last straw, for him it was Terri Schiavo, for some now it might be or has been drumpf. For probably many it will be never. Because they aren’t taking the easy way or the smart way or the reasonable way, they are conservatives. And this is their party. And party will win against reality to them at all time because they don’t want change, unless it means going back to some imaginary time of that Norman Rockwell picture in their heads.
zhena gogolia
@TriassicSands:
Obama never, ever looked weak or silly.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jay S: No, Baud only says that because he didn’t do the nose. Or the hat.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Thanks. Beat me to it.
Ohio Mom
@Cheryl Rofer: Kasich is still the person who tried to get rid of all public sector unions.
He is still the person who is rewarding his cronies with my tax
money. He is still the person who is starving my school district of funding.
I appreciate that he expanded Medicaid and went to bat against Trumpcare. But if I had a Democratic governor, I wouldn’t have to say, “Wow, my governor did the right thing.” It would be like complimenting him for putting his shoe on the correct foot.
Kasich is gearing up to run for president. God forbid he is elected. He won’t be stuffing his family’s pockets like Trump is, he won’t be colluding with Russia. He will be doing everything else a conservative would do, from nominating horrible SC justices to supply-siding the economy, etc., etc.
LongHairedWeirdo
I think this is a fine post, but it’s speaking from a set of assumptions that might be good, but aren’t held by anyone that I know of. I feel like I’m missing a tag about how some other, fantasy world, might operate.
At the same time – I approve of the notion. People should talk about the Republicans the way they would talk about rational people who love their nation. It’d be good to draw a picture of how far out they really are.
“Obviously, the Republicans should point out how horrified they are about possible Russian interference, and show even more zeal than in investigating Benghazipalooza”.
“Republicans should agree that if the President were to pardon anyone, they would have to be called in as a witness, and sworn to tell all of the details of any actions they have taken; with as much detail made public as is consistent with national security.”
And so on.
What a concept – acting like Republicans should act like decent people. It could be just crazy enough to work.
germy
http://notesironbound.blogspot.com/2017/07/some-advice-for-democrats.html
Some Advice For Democrats
raven
I could see how someone wouldn’t like Dunkirk, it’s not your run of the mill rah-rah war movie. It’s great and I don’t care who directed it.
Baud
@germy: About as useful as any other piece of advice.
NoraLenderbee
If any Republicans were capable of doing these things or even hearing what you say, we wouldn’t be where we are right now.
Ruckus
@BBA:
I said the one they have in their minds, not the one I have in mine.
rikyrah
@Ruckus:
tell it
Patricia Kayden
@zhena gogolia: Not even in his “Mom jeans” or that tan suit which caused the entire media to lose its collective mind. President Obama has swag and charisma. Trump has sleaze and lies.
ArchTeryx
I’m absolutely for gotchas and scoring all the cheap points we possibly can score, because that’s what gets Congressional and Senate seats. Period. And power is about the only way that we’re going to have any say in what’s coming at all, because sure as hell the Republicans aren’t going to voluntary give up their power – or Trump’s fat-fingered signing hand. Naked power is all they understand, and naked power is what it is going to take to crush the fascists where they stand.
Smiling Mortician
@rikyrah: I am totally with you. I mean, I spell it “FUCKING,” but otherwise, I endorse every word.
john fremont
This is what Jim Wright at Stonekettle was saying a few months ago
@Cheryl Rofer: @Cheryl Rofer:
Cheryl Rofer
@OzarkHillbilly:
I cogitated on that as I wrote #5. Coming from any of us, yes. You’ll note that #5 is not one I listed as being part of what Democrats might say. But coming from higher-ups in the Republican Party, it could make a difference. Fox is having a number of problems now, and it would be a good time to push back.
Ruckus
@raven:
Explain please. I like what I’ve heard so far but you have a particular point of view that might lend a better review than most people.
I agree we should like/dislike a movie on it’s merits, even bad directors sometimes have hits. OK not all of them.
So, what did you like about it?
Mnemosyne
So I’ve been reading a pretty interesting book about the founding of the US Navy called Six Frigates, and I came across this quote from you-know-who, who wrote it in Federalist 11:
This is the fire that Republicans are toying with in their win-at-all-costs political game. Once we are a client state of Russia, we no longer have any say about our own foreign policy. We will be making decisions at Putin’s whim, not decisions based on our own national self-interest.
I realize that there’s a big chunk of the American left who thinks that’s a good thing and closes their eyes to the Russian-sponsored massacres in Syria because, hey, both sides do it, but America is worse.
I think Cheryl has some good points here, but I doubt they will be effective en masse. We may be able to chip away at one or two Trumpsters that we personally know, but the larger mass of them won’t care about any of this as long as the Fox propaganda tells them they’re “winning.”
Smiling Mortician
@schrodingers_cat: No kidding. She lost me at “we have to live with them.” No, we fucking don’t, given how hard they’re trying to fucking kill us.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
This is my favorite parody version of that painting.
OzarkHillbilly
@john fremont: Jim Wright, the eternal optimist. (for the record, i love jw, just can’t resist the snark)
Ruckus
@john fremont:
Jim Wright is a smart man.
Cheryl Rofer
@TriassicSands:
Things change. The GOP was, within living memory, a different party. It began as the party of abolition. The GOP will change. That’s why I offered a push in the right direction.
Immanentize
@raven: Just saw it with my son, Immp. As a movie it is friggin brilliant. It takes a story we know and makes it had and human. And noisy. I love that you had to strain to hear any of the dialogue. Like you said, not rah rah. No shit! War sucks.
Cheryl Rofer
@LongHairedWeirdo: We have to imagine the world we want.
Smiling Mortician
@Cheryl Rofer:
Maybe you should have published it somewhere other than BJ, then. Cause seriously, they aren’t reading this. You’re just pissing off the choir.
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer: Imagine Baud!
raven
@Ruckus: I assume the flying scenes were CGI and I have never seen better. It’s not linear in terms of the stories but does a nice job portraying people who are trying to survive, some to the point of seeming cowardice. Mark Rylance is his usual understated self and shows great compassion in instances one wouldn’t expect. The living and dying was totally random, just like it really is. It helps to know some of the details of what Dunkirk was even though, if you pay attention, they do explain it.
Smiling Mortician
@Cheryl Rofer:
Please provide even ONE piece of evidence that would suggest we have the power to do that. Jesus.
zhena gogolia
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Yes, this is a good take on what Cheryl seems to be trying to do.
Patricia Kayden
@john fremont:
What happens when you have a bunch of people on the other side like Rep Stephen King who believe that civilization = White Supremacy? What happens when Republicans need White Supremacists to win elections? We’d have to assume that there are a large number of Republicans whose view of civilization lines up with our view (multicultural, multiracial, diverse, tolerant). Not sure if that is the case.
Cheryl Rofer
@john fremont: Good advice from Jim Wright. He is starting from a more basic place than I am. Maybe I’ve piled too much on.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I like it.
Hadn’t seen that before. Understand that I’m not dissing Norman, he did some nice work, but that late 40s early 50s all white nirvana has always been bullshit no matter who painted/talked/wished/killed to have it. As @rikyrah: so eloquently stated.
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud: YES!
We have our own alternative.
Immanentize
Cheryl. I really like this post but I see it a bit differently. You have heard the pain and blowback, but what you are trying to do is move the dialectic in our direction. I really like the idea of identifying core principles than no one can disagree with as a starting point. The details, meh. But the idea that we can shift the while stream by standing on first principles? Count me in. AND it is sold conflict strategy with our opponents. But don’t give an inch (don’t give so much).
Immanentize
@Smiling Mortician:
OK,
I’ll provide three.
Barak Obama
JFK and, because you suggested it,
Jesus
raven
@Immanentize: I wished for subtitles. I wore my hearing aids but had to take them off immediately. Here’s info about the flying
Redshift
@Cheryl Rofer: While it might not be effective for Democrats to criticize Fox, it is essential that media figures start to do so. Part of how we got here is by our media elites defending Fox as legitimate news outlet, as one of them.
Maybe now that we have a White House press corps where the president regularly attacks media outlets without a peep from Fox, and outlets much worse than Fox are given credentials, they will finally get that their misguided solidarity will never be returned.
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: Swag and charisma, yes. But what I miss most of all is the security of knowing there was a MIND working there, in the Oval Office. A person capable of taking in relevant facts and making decisions in the best interests of the USA. I could weep when I think of what we’ve lost.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cheryl Rofer:
Yeah, it could. Unfortunately Fox is where they get their marching orders.
I have long been in favor of the proposition that when your opponent is in the process of shooting themselves in the face, get out of the way. As to pushing back, I have thought for many years now that the solution to FOX news is very simple, because in my mind, it is. But that thought is soon followed by the fact that if it was simple, people way smarter than I would have figured it out by now.
I will never understand the right wing reactionary mind. For that matter, any other mind. My wife’s baffles me.
InternetDragons
@rikyrah – thank all the gods you are in this thread.
No, I’m not going to try to “resist gotchas”, because to a Republican, the truth is a gotcha, and they see the truth as an attack.
I’m not going to stay away from “cheap points” because to a Republican, believing that health care is a basic right, refusing to cave in to bigotry, protecting freedom of the press, and rejecting collusion and treason are “cheap points”.
Don’t lecture me about how as a Democrat I “should” present a “vision of a better America”. Dems have always done this, and I don’t see any evidence at ALL that we’ve ever stopped doing so. Hillary did a good job of this on a point-by-point basis, and look where it got her.
It’s just lovely to present a “vision of a better America”, but you know something? The people you’re presenting it to have to be at least minimally interested in what you’re saying. As a party, the Republicans aren’t interested – and they’ve made this crystal-clear.
I am hoping against hope that Mueller’s team is as good as others claim they are, because so much is resting on their shoulders right now. I can’t personally do anything about that process. But I can focus on the business at hand – which is about making damned sure that the sanctuary cities in my state are supported. I can do my share to see that the Democrats around me are registered to vote, and that they can get to their polling place. I can focus on people who didn’t vote in the last election, and on Independents who are on the fence in terms of their party allegiance.
But I’m not going to spend a single, solitary moment wondering if I am being being “civil”, “acceptable” or “appropriate” in the eyes of a Republican or Trump voter.
The Republicans have dug their own toxic hole, and I don’t see much interest on their part in climbing out of it. In the meantime, I am sure as hell not going to go out of my way to help members of a party that’s co-signed on sheer fucking treason feel like I want to establish some lame kumbaya dialogue with them. That option was nuked when they nominated Trump.
Another Scott
@NoraLenderbee: I don’t blame most Republican voters. They have been blatantly lied to for years by their elected representatives and too much of the press. Even moreso during Trump’s campaign.
Yes, voters have a responsibility to be informed about the issues. But there is a toxic environment that created that disinformation. There has to be a way to make sure disinformation does not crowd out the facts and the truth. How? Exercise for the reader…
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@raven: You know what amazed me (reminded me) about flying pre-jet aircraft? Gliding. Beautiful gliding.
As for subtitles, I totally agree but … The point was you can’t hear shit at the front.
Cheryl Rofer
@Immanentize: Thanks. I think something that is getting lost in the discussion is that the post is advice for REPUBLICANS, particularly those at the head of the party. The part for Democrats is just a reminder to be civil and accept agreement, if it comes.
First principles are important. The everyday Trump dysfunction and disastrous Republican legislation tend to crowd them out, but we need to keep them in mind.
And so do the Republicans. Some, like Paul Ryan, seem to be totally oblivious of them. But there are others who are slowly (yes, too slowly for me too) peeling away from the Tea Party/Trumpite agenda. I am trying to galvanize them.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
I’m screwed. I can’t hear shit out of my behind.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
FWIW, the Four Freedoms are not from the late 1940s — they were painted in 1943 specifically to be wartime propaganda and are based on a speech by FDR. He did his darker pieces in the late 1950s/early 1960s for Look magazine, including the famous one of Ruby Bridges walking to school.
Cheryl Rofer
@OzarkHillbilly:
The image I have of Fox is swaying on the edge of a precipice. Hence the push.
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
I bet they will.
However.
In my lifetime, 68 yrs, they have gone in only one direction. The only difference was the velocity they used to get there. And that’s not the change you meant. As a political party they chose decades ago to go down this path. Their resolve has only gotten stronger that this power is what they need and desire. They will change? Why? Because they will bury us all if they don’t? When has that stopped anyone or any political party from being fucking stupid? Have terrorists ever won anything? No. Yet they keep killing people. And conservatives have won, not by killing everyone but by lying. And if I remember my bullshit religious training that’s not as bad as killing, so they are good to go. In their tiny little minds at least.
I do think that the concept of your post is correct. If there is a change then the republicans have to do it themselves. So…… Tell me again why they will change? How they will change? Any more than a small percentage.
raven
@Immanentize: Should the prop had been turning?
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
Don’t leave out his demand to run the state at the speed of business or his threat to toss anyone who wasn’t willing to go along with his plans off his bus.
dexwood
@InternetDragons:
This atheist of seven decades says amen. All during President Obama’s years, it was always my wife and I who went along, mostly, with biting our tongues at family gatherings while the haters hated. You know, just to keep the peace and keep indigestion in check. About 2013, we had had enough. We began to speak up, to defend our positions. Now, we are the ones who are disowned, told they want nothing to do with “liberal assholes who hate America”. Fuck them.
BBA
@Mnemosyne: FDR’s support rested on racist white Southerners. In due time the party will have to repudiate him, as we did Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: thankfully, neither can I!
#circusfreak.
Smiling Mortician
@Immanentize: OK, I’ll bite. Can you briefly explain how Obama proves that we liberals turned bad Republican behavior around?
ruemara
@Cheryl Rofer: no. We get creamed while negotiating while they shiv us in the back. They win because they have a tribal brand. We lose because key groups cannot and will not see that winning gains is a long term project. I will not go high. I will go Kali on those who attempt to harm me and mine. Unlike Bernie fans, Greens and liberaltarians, my “mine“ includes them. And it doesn’t include Republicans because for my entire 40+ years, they’ve only been more toxic & more hateful over time. Patience and kindness is over. They’ve destroyed the republic in ways that’ll take decades to fix. I will give no quarter.
Smiling Mortician
@InternetDragons: Yes. Please come sit by me.
TriassicSands
@Cheryl Rofer:
Yes, things do change. As it happens, I am currently reading a history of the Republican Party and although it has gone through periodic changes there is really little evidence for making positive change likely anytime soon.
Again, I don’t disagree with your idea or efforts, but I would be more than shocked if any real positive change took place in the near future.
The party was founded before the Civil War to stand for equality for all — including slaves. According to the biography I’m reading (To Make Men Free), by 1872 the party had renounced its founding rationale and embraced policies that demonized ex-slaves and ordinary workers, while pushing the interests of business, wealth, and property. Over time the pendulum has swung, but it’s been on a continuous swing for the worse at least since Ronald Reagan in 1980 and with the election of Trump the evidence would seem to argue that things are getting worse not better.
Will Trump’s outrageousness cause a backlash? It could, but again the current evidence points in the opposite direction. One thing that the Modern Republicans have done is given up completely on democracy. It’s no longer a case of simply favoring the rich, they actively deny truth and science.
Again, I have no problem with your making the effort. I just wouldn’t get my hopes up too high. I’ve made repeated, sincere efforts to communicate with Modern Republicans, but it has been more difficult than dealing with unruly adolescents. No amount of evidence is ever enough. Nothing we on the Left can say will be welcomed as having any potential value. We have no common ground on which to base a discussion — and that includes the welfare of the people or the country.
My former next door neighbor explained it this way: “Obama and Clinton lie constantly. Trump exaggerates.”
We don’t share a common reality. Keep trying and I wish you luck and success. In the end, Trump could be the catalyst to cause the pendulum to start to swing the other way. I’m just afraid of the damage he’ll do to initiate that change. A disastrous war? Economic collapse? Who knows.
Immanentize
@raven: Wow! I wondered that myself which took me out of the movie for a moment!!
OK. So the engine is out of gas. Did he drive it until it seized? Or just put put put.
I settled for seized and tried to get my brain out of the beauty. But thank YOU! for noticing.
ETA Now I assume that the filmmakers had to have it not move so that all idgits understood — no gas, engine stop.
Cheryl Rofer
@Ruckus: It’s always a mistake to assume that a straight-line trend will continue forever. I know that a lot of us, including me, have thought that the Republican move toward crazy couldn’t continue, but it did. But things do change. I don’t know what the exact impetus will be – unpredictable things happen, like John McCain’s brain tumor. Or Republican officeholders will grasp the significance of pushing a bill with 17% approval. Or Trump’s low and declining popularity.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cheryl Rofer: My question is, which precipice? Since Ailes has gone, I sense a different direction. Unsure why, since all my FOX news viewing is 3rd hand. Murdoch’s sons seem to have a slightly different vision for FOX. There have been changes, I get the feeling that Hannity is hanging on by his fingernails (he seems more shrill now) Not that they are going to go all Commy/Bernie/EarthFirsty or anything, just that the boys want to tone it down a little bit, like they actually view the world from a more or less factual basis. It’s almost enough to make me wish I watched it.
Almost.
ArchTeryx
@raven: I’m a big WWII buff and I seriously loved Dunkirk. It was telling three very narrow stories and it told them extremely well. It also helps to recall that it was the Allies’ Darkest Hour – France occupied, Western Europe days from falling, the Nazis preparing a massive cross-channel invasion, and the Americans nowhere to be found. This was war as it actually was – capricious and utterly horrifying.
And it’s not like there was zero heroism. The Spits pilot who managed to shoot down a JU-87 in a dive with no engine actually had me stand up and cheer.
My one objection was how much the French were written out of it, when it was pretty much the French Army that held the Germans at bay long enough to get 300K people off that beach. There was a nice touch at the end, though, when the senior officer said he was staying on the beach until the French defenders were evacuated, too.
Immanentize
@Smiling Mortician: Obama crushed in 2008. My hometown in upstate NY has a balloon festival every year in October. And the people wearing MAGA hats today we’re wearing Obama Ts then. A positive message based on first principles plus policy action! works.
That is why Obamacare is popular today. Those pale folks in upstate hated Obama (after 8 years of spew) but they loved him enough to allow the policy to happen.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: I saw it today. I thought it was great.
raven
@Immanentize: He was out of fuel for sho. The calculations on the dash were all about that.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Smiling Mortician:
That we don’t have the power doesn’t change the nature of the problem.
And one of the things that I like about this post is that it makes an important shift of battleground.
The Republicans *love* to fight on the grounds of “politics is dirty” and “people take advantages they can get” and so forth. If you try to demand that they investigate Trump, they’ll point out that people defended Clinton, too.
Changing the battlefield to obvious questions and obvious best practices changes the type of the battle. We know we can’t get Republicans to show any shame over starving the hungry or taking medical care from the working poor… but even they will have a hard time not being awkward explaining why a coverup is really the right thing to do.
Immanentize
@raven: if it didn’t seize, the prop should have turned like a car in neutral.
Cheryl Rofer
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t watch Fox, so my judgements are all from the outside. If the Murdoch boys turned more toward fact, well, for Fox as we know it, that would be a fall into the abyss.
Mike in NC
@ArchTeryx: We saw “Dunkirk” this afternoon and it was outstanding. When we left the theater the first words out of my wife’s mouth were “Ho-lee shit! Didn’t you feel like you were right there?” Absolutely.
Omnes Omnibus
@ArchTeryx:
It was explicitly stated at the beginning of the movie.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: I also miss Mrs. Obama, Malia, Sasha and even the dogs. Mrs. Obama was loads of fun and played her own role in the White House.
frosty
@BBA:
I read this over and over and over. Obama will be working on gerrymandering, Holder is working on Voter ID, etc etc. WHO IS WORKING ON THIS? All the emails I get are to sign petitions and give DCCC DLC OFA money and that’s it! Who is asking for volunteers with work to be done and schedules to get out and do it?
All I see is NO ONE. We’ve already lost 8 months from the last election and all I see is words words words. And donate donate donate.
Smiling Mortician
@Immanentize: So . . . 8 years of Obama made otherwise decent people into MAGA assholes. And this is proof that we turned them around. My bad — I thought Cheryl was talking about making them better, not worse.
HeleninEire
OK I admit to being drunk. It’s after midnight here. Baud made me his Special Envoy to Ireland Pubs and I’ve been trying my best to fulfill his mandate.
But anyone who thinks the Republicans are gonna restore America to a Democracy is full of shit or stupid.
Either one. You decide.
Patricia Kayden
@Immanentize:
But then didn’t those same pale folks vote for the party which vowed to repeal the ACA? Just doesn’t make any sense.
Humdog
@Another Scott: How can you not blame R voters? I used to not blame them, when their leaders cared enough to lie to them about what they were doing. I did not blame my family for going along with GWB’s lies about compassionate conservatism. But this last election? Even if you didn’t watch a minute of debates, if you were alive since the 80s you KNEW a reality show dude in a gold plated penthouse was not compassionate or conservative. You had to know the Rancid Cheeto was not fit to lead a group to McDonalds safely. Anyone who voted for this group of Rs, who could count themselves among his supporters as they proudly claimed the deplorable label has earned our contempt and blame. I have not spoken to my family since inauguration I am so disgusted.
James Powell
@Ruckus:
First, you may be right. Nearly everything I’ve said since the middle of last year has been animated by cosmic rage.
Second, those Republicans who are not evil have already changed. I’m making the claim that anyone who voted for Trump is either evil or a willing supporter of evil. And before I’m labeled an out of touch extremist, consider that, yes it takes a pivoting point, a last straw. Now consider the people for whom the events of the last year did not include such a pivot point. What kind of people are they? Not stupid, because nobody is that stupid. Not ignorant, because the reality has been presented and at one time it was on FOX just as much it was on other non-RW propaganda sources. I say they’re evil. I am willing to be shown to be wrong, but if we recall, not that many Germans decided they didn’t like Hitler and the Nazis until their homes were turned to rubble.
dexwood
@HeleninEire:
Any staff positions open?
HeleninEire
@dexwood: Ask Baud. I’m tired of being the boss. But if you come here I will deputize you for the time you are here.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Honestly, it’s a white people’s problem. I don’t even think POC should concern themselves with this, except maybe to keep some of the liberal white people who are still too conciliatory on task. You have plenty of other shit to deal with and there’s no reason to burden yourselves with this, too, because it’s not your responsibility. It’s the responsibility of liberal white people to do this work.
Racist white people will only listen to differing views from other white people. It sucks, but that’s reality. Reality also means that every white person who reads this website has a moral responsibility to pick up this burden and do whatever we can to stand up to the wave of Trumpist bullshit, even when it comes from our own loved ones.
And in case it’s not clear from what I’ve posted here, I am saying that it is my moral responsibility to take on this work, because I am white.
dexwood
@HeleninEire:
Ok, will get back to you. Actually, there is a a bird sanctuary in Ireland with my family name. I don’t want to be a boss anymore myself.
Mnemosyne
@James Powell:
I’ve noticed that the one vocal Trump supporter in my Facebook feed (one of my cousins) has shut up since about a month after the inauguration. And she somehow managed to schedule an urgent visit to her in-laws in Minnesota right when the annual family reunion was happening and she and her Trumpster husband would have gotten an earful of shit from both me and another cousin who switched from lifelong Republican to Hillary supporter because of Trump. (I ended up missing the reunion myself because of the timing, but our other cousin was still going and has no compunction about speaking his mind.)
I do think that Trump’s support is shrinking, and his less-attached supporters are going to start pretending they never liked him. We need to keep the pressure on and make those people admit that Republican policies are destructive and wrong and not let them get away with claiming that the policies are fine, but Trump was the wrong messenger. Keep riding herd on them and don’t let them slide.
chris
Oh well, maybe next week will be better.
https://twitter.com/samstein/status/889171962165121024
John Fremont
@Patricia Kayden: I definitely hear what you are saying. I have relatives and classmates that are very suspicious of non whites. No I wasn’t raised in the South, I’m from outside Philadelphia originally. Yes, it’s very dispiriting to hear your own relatives backing Trump when our own grandparents were the Ellis Island generation. I’ve been pretty broken inside over the last five years hearing opinions about things like immigrants, Trayvon Martin, Black Lives Matter etc. But something inside tells me I got to keep swinging and talk to the people that will listen. After all, I was a Republican in the 1990’s like our host of this blog and Charles Johnson at LGF.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: I think its the individual voter’s responsibility. You can bring the horse to the water, but you can’t make him drink the water.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, but if I don’t tell the Trumpsters I know that the water exists, they can just keep on pretending that it doesn’t. So I have a responsibility to keep telling them, Hey, there’s water. It’s right over there.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: I honestly think you are one of the few that get it, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Ruckus
@raven:
I’ll have to wait till it hits my computer screen then. Noise and especially explosions don’t do it for me anymore, ever since standing next to one that cost me part of the hearing in my right ear. Funny that it wasn’t in the military, considering the 5 in guns, guided missiles and ASROC that I watched and heard go off. A 100% nitromethane powered engine I was standing less than 2 feet from blew up. That may be an understatement, blew up. Every single part, nut and bolt in that motor was broken or damaged beyond use. I’m still amazed the 3 of us next to it didn’t take shrapnel.
WaterGirl
@Patricia Kayden: I miss her so much, I actually teared up when that was over.
M. Bouffant
@Mnemosyne: Small (literary) world: I’ve just finished Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 and The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944, “the first two volumes of a nonfiction trilogy about the Pacific War”, both by the author of Six Frigates, Ian W. Toll, & am waiting for the final installment.
Best parts: When Toll calls Gen. MacArthur “messianic”, & not in a good way.
WaterGirl
@frosty: How is what you are talking about NOT covered by voter ID?
Cheryl Rofer
@Mnemosyne: Good point.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
The rot definitely predates Ronnie. It picked up a lot of steam with him and his “friends.” And those friends have been hard at it ever since.
raven
@Ruckus: If I were you I’d wear earplugs and see it on the biggest screen possible.
raven
@M. Bouffant: Toll’s work is wonderful, have you read The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, by Hornfischer?
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
Planes don’t have clutches. The prop is direct drive. If the engine is turning the prop is turning. If the engine can’t turn the prop won’t.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Should is a huge word in your sentence. My boss was a WWII gunner. He flew out of Italy, but still they were never sure the plane would hold up and make it back to base.
Mnemosyne
@M. Bouffant:
Six Frigates is in the approximate historical wheelhouse of the novel I’m working on, from approximately the election of George Washington to the war of 1812. It’s a really good general-interest read so far — the first 2 frigates completed have started patrolling the Carribbean.
raven
@debbie: You seen Catch 22?
ronrab
I honestly thought this was a piece of satire on first read. Everything I’ve seen from Republicans my entire life tells me this is pure fantasy, completely outside the realm of possibility. Would be great to be wrong, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Fester Addams
Sounds like a modest proposal to me. By that I mean it sounds like satire worthy of Jonathan Swift.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Lunatics all.
frosty
@M. Bouffant: Toll’s two books were really good. I was surprised that there was so much new info considering all the WWII histories I’ve read for 50-odd years.
debbie
@raven:
Yes, and read the book. It seemed wrong to laugh, though.
frosty
@WaterGirl: It is, of course, covered by Voter ID. What I want to know is where should I go, who should I be helping? Do we need drivers to DMVs? Do we need support in getting birth certificates? Of course we do! Who’s organizing it? I’m on a lot of mailing lists but no one is asking for this kind of specific help.
Do I need to reach out to someone else?
Ruckus
@James Powell:
We are sort of talking past each other.
But I think the problem you are having is that tipping points are the same for everyone. They are not. A lot of people didn’t switch after Schiavo. Some people will have to have their healthcare taken away, their docs refuse to see them or even have a family member die and their republican congress critter laugh right in their faces before they might be convinced that republican policy is in any way harmful. And even then they might just be so racist or whatever that they don’t care, they will gladly give one for the team. But there are others who might be convinced that as much as they hate Hillary Clinton, and even for all the wrong and bullshit reasons, at least she wasn’t out to kill them.
I’m not ready to coddle the republicans that voted for drumpf, I can’t see that I’ll ever be ready for that. But, and it’s a huge, firm, round but, I agree with Cheryl, there may be some ready for change and the only people that can make that happen is them and if necessary, a kick from their republican friends and politicians. I just don’t know that it is worth anything to wait for that. I think I’ll turn blue long before that happens. Which is what I think you are saying.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
? Blushing! Thank you, but I do honestly think that it’s because a lot of POC in my life — including people here — have been willing to call me out on my shit when necessary. So I hope that people will continue to do that task for me as I continue to try to learn and grow.
Immanentize
@debbie: Oh God. So true. Nothing really is ought to is it?
Villago Delenda Est
Jim Wright’s words are wise…but…
A tremendous, irreconcilable problem is when the sides differ, radically, on what “civilization” means.
And that, right there, is our problem. It’s either the vision of the Founders as it applies to everyone, regardless of race, color, creed, sex, etc…or something else…the vision of the Founders of the Confederacy…White Straight Male “Christian” Supremacy, now and forever.
Felonius Monk
@debbie:
I wonder if Alex Jones realizes that he will probably be among the first to die in that civil war he wants.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
I’m doing my part!
(steps on bugs)
weaselone
@Mnemosyne:
They can just go on pretending it doesn’t exist even if you tell them. In fact, the way to be most certain that they will never drink that water, is for a liberal to point it out and recommend drinking it.
M. Bouffant
@raven: No, I haven’t, but I just added it to the library list. Thanks.
Immediate male ancestor was a gunner’s mate on a tin can in ’44 &45, after being on a seaplane tender at Pearl Harbor during the attack & then in the South Pacific area, & then washing out of O.C.S. (Not just him: A six-wk. expedited class which was dissolved after enough candidates got a bad flu & missed too many classes to keep up.) Wondered if he’d been at Samar, but his ship didn’t get to Ulithi until 3 Nov. 1944.
Mnemosyne
@weaselone:
Many of them will continue to refuse to see the water, or refuse to drink it even if they concede that it’s there. But it’s still my moral responsibility to keep pointing them to it at every turn, because I never know what the breaking point will be.
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
I don’t disagree that it’s possible that a number of republicans will change. But as several have pointed out drumpf has not been a secret his whole life. He’s been exactly the same asshole he is now. Exactly the same. Now maybe he wasn’t in their wheelhouses at all so they didn’t know. But there was plenty of evidence, even in this campaign coverage. Hell his own words said it. He should have gotten no more than that almost mythical 27%, even if a lot of people stayed home. But he didn’t. People, like the asshole at work, were proud that they voted for him. On Nov 9 this asshole was joyous, like a very small child with a candy bar. Whatever caused that is not going to be easy to shake no matter the cost. As has been covered numerous times, our government was never set up to work with people that want to destroy it in charge. It doesn’t have enough safeguards in place and it creates a very simple dynamic, two sides. We are not two sides of the same coin. We aren’t trying to come to a conclusion. The republican party elite and it’s followers want us dead or at least as slaves.
Please name me 3 things the republican party and the democratic party agree on. Because that’s the only starting point that I see as possible to change their minds, points of agreement. Right now I can’t name any.
Felonius Monk
@raven:
Haven’t read that, but soon will. My uncle was career Navy officer. He was on the Astoria that was sunk in the Battle of the Savo Islands. He survived and went on to command the USS Twining(DD540) in 1943.
john fremont
@Mnemosyne:
This!
ruemara
@Villago Delenda Est: I got that reference even if no one does.
@weaselone: Sure, but the point is to not rest in telling them the truth. The utter silence that they get from their liberal friends, clients and families are what has led them to this pass.
dnfree
@NobodySpecial: As an “older American” who knows plenty of right-wing and libertarian “younger Americans”, I don’t think the theory of waiting for us to die is going to be the final solution, so to speak.
raven
@Felonius Monk: My old man was a mustang, enlisted Tin Can sailor on the UUS Crosby, DD 164-APD 17 and then, after college, took a commission.
raven
@Felonius Monk: Quite a history he had.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Have wanted to get back to you on Rockwell.
I have an understanding of the history here, I was saying two separate things and using the first to show the bullshit of the latter. What his paintings represent to a lot of people and the general perception of the late 40s early 50s, a blissful time of white pride and domination. Of course only white people have that perception. It was bullshit then and it still is. That doesn’t mean that a lot of white people don’t want it.
Amaranthine RBG
@Cheryl Rofer:
Unfortunately, a number of people on the “left” – and more than a couple of commenters on this blog – see politics primarily as performance art: a chance to stake out the one true position and then self-righteously criticize people whose positions are virtually indistinguishable from their own.
These people are part of the problem, not the solution.
raven
@Felonius Monk: CDR Ellis Kerr Wakefield?
Another Scott
Interesting e-mail I just got from CrowdPac: Arnold Schwartzenegger to match every donation for Common Cause’s legal fight against Wisconsin gerrymandering.
Good, good.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
@Villago Delenda Est: seconded and done. What else is there to say? Republicans have had their chance to try and rein this clown in and thry have done nothing but continue to enable him.
Full blown investigations, indictments and jail time for the guilty – none of this ” looking forward not back” crap – and a truth and reconciliation committee afterwards.
If the RNC wants to regain some principles like insisting that candidates for national office disclose 10 years worth of tax returns to be eligible in their party, happy to help them with that.
M. Bouffant
@raven: Just downloaded Hornfischer’s Neptune’s Inferno from the L.A. Public Library. Maybe this iNternet thing isn’t so bad after all.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
This is right. POC on BJ have rightfully called me out a time or two, along with having a great black man as a mentor when I was 12-13 yrs old. That has allowed me to not think like so many of my generation and lack of color do. To open my eyes and mind to the fact that any stick I may have up my ass is not the axis of the earth, it’s just a stick up my ass and doesn’t belong there. I believe that drumpf learned exactly the opposite, that the stick up his ass is the axis of the earth and he sits atop everyone else. If only they’d see that.
dww44
@Cheryl Rofer: Thank you, Cheryl, for you efforts here. We do have to get beyond our justifiable anger and resentment for the members of the opposition who enabled this Presidency.Jim Wright is correct that no less than our civilization, at least the American version of it, depends on it.
Felonius Monk
@raven: Yep. Spent most of his career in tin cans and cruisers.
ETA: Retired in the early 1960’s as RADM. Then went to work for RCA involved with installation of the DEW Line.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
My personal take on it is likely a lot of in not the majority of the Republicans in Congress get it about Trump. It’s they are in a rock and hard place with their voters who are caught up in the myth of Trump, Business Superman Savior. I figure it won’t be until the news years stuff start changing if anything it will take a year of constant Trump screw up to wear down that myth in these people’s minds.
Buy yes, it’s the right time for the Dem to offer positive solutions, for one thing it will make those very solutions toxic to the Republicans as the midterm election primaries start because Modern Conservatism is Against What ever the Left Wants, updated daily.
M. Bouffant
The right reacts:
We just have to be nicer to them, is all.
TriassicSands
@Ruckus:
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I’m not going to do it now, but one of my favorite hobbyhorses is how America’s film and TV censorship regime allowed far too many white people to have a vision of a world that was essentially free of any people of color except as servants. That creation of a false world allowed white people to dream of a nostalgic time before Black and brown and Asian people were part of American society that never actually existed.
Lena Horne’s musical numbers at MGM were filmed in such a way that Southern movie exhibitors (and probably quite a few Northern racists) could snip her numbers out of the print and run it as though she didn’t even exist in the movie except as a voiceless bystander to the action. And way too many people in this country thought that censorship was reality and were enraged to find out it wasn’t so.
Felonius Monk
@M. Bouffant: Not only is Alex Jones most likely a Russian dupe (or is it DOPE), he is also a flaming asshole. He will probably walk funny after someone stuffs that microphone up his ass.
Mnemosyne
@M. Bouffant:
Adam Schiff is a former prosecutor who worked in Los Angeles when our crime rate was much higher than it is now. Anyone who assumes he doesn’t know how to use a gun is likely to be very surprised.
Cheryl Rofer
@Ruckus:
There are a number of ways to respond to this. Jim Wright’s argument is to gather people who agree that civilization is better than the alternative. That’s one, but it’s a big one.
I would not put it in terms of the two parties. There’s a lot of infighting in both, and even more posturing. So there will be no practical agreement.
But, on the other hand, and this is where I was trying to go in the top post, along with Wright, the parties as institutions agree that the US Constitution is our basic document. So there’s that.
The Republicans are wrapped up in a number of major contradictions that have gotten worse since Trump was elected. Those contradictions are potential levers and snapping points.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Look, let’s just hang a Mercer or a Koch from the nearest lamppost and call it a day. That will send a clear message
Cheryl Rofer
@Amaranthine RBG: Yes, we have our own factions. The best way to pull them together is to present a vision. Although some will always want to do their own thing.
John Fremont
@Villago Delenda Est: I hear you, but what is our alternative? The political landscape right now is islands of blue amongst a sea of red. All of our representation in government is based on geography. We can say acres ain’t people all we want but it is how power is dispersed in our government . As that scene in Saving Private Ryan had it, we got to get off this beachead somehow.
ruemara
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I’m kinda down with that.
M. Bouffant
@Cheryl Rofer: Their ideas of “civilization” are significantly different from those of “civilized” people. See: Ol Gin Blossoms Bannon, paranoid Catholic mystic.
Citizen Alan
@Cheryl Rofer:
Speak for yourself. My mother is 82. When she passes, I start liquidating assets and preparing to emigrate.
I find that nearly impossible to believe.
The only responsibility the Republicans recognize is their obligation to preserve white supremacy. They would rather be ruled by foreign oligarchs than show basic decency to blacks, gays, Muslims, immigrants or anyone else outside their vicious little tribe. I remember Obama’s stirring words that Americans “don’t look to be ruled.” And I watched as he was proven demonstrably wrong.
The success rate of that strategy is somewhat dubious.
Mnemosyne
@M. Bouffant:
I bet you that Bannon is in the same group of retrograde Catholics as Mel Gibson that believes that Vatican II is the work of the devil because it lets Jews off the hook for killing Jesus. There is still a group of nominal Catholics that’s pissed off because they’re not allowed to be anti-Semites anymore, and they think that John XXIII and all Popes forward are illegitimate anti-popes.
Citizen Alan
@Another Scott:
I do. I have told Trump voters to their face that I hope they burn in hell. And I meant every word of it. It was OBVIOUS what Trump was and is. Fucking obvious from the very beginning. There was no one who didn’t see it. There were only racist misogynistic swine who voted for him just as they would have happily voted Dixiecrat in another era. What we see today from Shitgibbon and the scum that support him is exactly what we’d have seen if Strom Thurmond had become President in 1948.
No, wait. It’s WORSE! Because at least Strom Thurmond wasn’t in bed with the god-damned Russians!
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan:
You’ve checked out. Got it. Not really interested in anything else you have to say.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen Alan:
What I take from when they go low, we go high is a warning that we need to stick to the truth and not just make shit up like they do.
SgrAstar
@Cheryl Rofer: Totally disagree. I have the misfortune of being a blue state expat to a red state. My fellow citizens here hate our guts and revel in it. They are not at all interested in finding
common ground with their baby-killing, jesus-hating opponents. I think it’s mad to imagine that we can paper over these profound differences with appeals to comity and shared heritage. It’s hopeless.
Omnes Omnibus
@SgrAstar:
So what do you suggest we do?
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus:
I live in Mississippi. And I can tell you first hand that the posters talking about the Republicans literally hating us all are 100% true. I’ve lost count of the number of people on Facebook who now talk openly about exterminating liberals. I honestly think that the majority of white voters in my state (not majority of Republicans, but majority of all whites) would be perfectly fine with concentration camps for undesirables. They literally see nothing wrong with what Hitler did except that he waved a German flag instead of an American one. Or possibly a Confederate one.
Another Scott
@SgrAstar:
In Trump’s best state by proportion of the vote, he got 68.6% in WV. That’s a lot, but that means that over 31% did not vote for him.
Stop painting everyone as being the same.
People do change their minds, but granted it often takes much more pain and suffering than a sensible person should have to endure for that to happen.
Giving up on [all of] them isn’t helping.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: I have no reason to change my opinion.
Bill Arnold
@SgrAstar:
They hate our guts because they’ve been thoroughly manipulated and subverted over many decades, by a series of overlapping very effective propaganda apparatuses. Currently Fox News, Breitbart, Alex Jones, etc.
Seriously – a median [1] RW Believer (the cap B is key) is reciting simplified crafted talking points. A year from now they won’t even remember the talking points, just the fact of the hate. [2] The point is that messaging can be altered and re-flowed and even neutered, as e.g. the Russian propaganda (whatever we want to call it) efforts have shown.
[1] Thoughtful conservatives who have arguments that don’t crumble when nudged with a feather are to be respected.
[2] Re-linking this illustrative piece:
These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In.
I applaud Cheryl’s effort here. It is part of the fighting (in contrast to simply giving up due to despair) that needs to be done.
Bill Arnold
@Citizen Alan:
Facebook allows talk of exterminating liberals? Interesting. Does Zuckerberg approve?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill Arnold: I say that we write off the “it is hopeless” people. Right now? Call your reps and show up for every protest. Give money where you can.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
I see this list as being more useful for when you have somebody you know that is starting to doubt. They are items that we as a sane country SHOULD agree about, but currently political sanity is in very short on the right side of the aisle. It’s a good deprogramming list.
Items #1,2 and 4 should be brought up, hopefully get agreement, and then follow up when their party repeatedly violates them (then when the cognitive dissonance gets large, start introducing #’s 3&5). There is a large part of the Republican party that is lost unfortunately, but we need to save what people we can. If John can do it, others can too.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen Alan:
Even places like Mississippi can react when smacked in the face with reality, as when the “personhood” voter initiative got smacked down. But it really has to strike people in their everyday lives and not be theoretical in any way.
And, anecdotally (from a friend’s sister), apparently the Democrats have such a terrible reputation in Mississippi that even Black voters were thinking of giving Trump a chance. I think the people she knew ended up backing down from that, though.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
After a quick google search, what I am talking about really isn’t deprogramming (which involves force and is discredited), but is exit-counseling. I do like that term more, we have a mass psychotic outbreak in the republican party.
Dmbeaster
Sadly, this post is delusional regarding what to expect from the current GOP. Its like someone suggesting to Putin that Russia would be better off if he stopped killing critics.
dww44
@raven: Did you see the IMAX version or the standard version. If you saw the IMAx version is it worth the extra bucks over the standard one?
TenguPhule
Is this some kind of joke?
Republicans are the enemy of Democracy.
Cue Village on them all.
TenguPhule
@Mike J:
This this this.
Republican Dismemberment instead.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
Oh no we don’t.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
They will sooner lead their charges into brownshirts and death marches.
Its not even a matter of if at this point, only when.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
Into the party of Pol Pot.
More and more people are figuring this out.
Vhh
@Cheryl Rofer: Trump, his hangers on, and the GOP are already bringing people together against them all by themselves. The burning issues roiling the Republicans: Do we de-insure 18, 22, or 33M Americans,likely causing 20-45K deaths/year? How large a campaign payoff from Russia does it take before it is illegal? Can we get away with Trump pardoning himself, his family and all his campaign staff? How much in govt business and international bribes can Trump Org get away with? Can Trump get away with not releasing his tax returns? How many secrets does Trump owe Putin in blackmail? Can Trump put outa hit on Comey and Mueller?
Cheryl Rofer
It’s not quite what I urged up top, but here’s Susan Collins:
It will come, a little at a time. We have to keep pressing in this direction.
Cheryl Rofer
@Vhh: You and others have characterized “the Republicans” as a mass of uniform thinkers. They aren’t. My message is intended to split them. Yes, it’s early, but there are small signs that we can do it, like the Susan Collins quote.
The support for the AHCA, or whatever mostrosity Mitch McConnell can come up with, is 17%. That means that even some Republicans disagree with their party in Congress. There are differences on the other issues as well.
The Republican Party is not a monolith. We have to split those who still have some sense of responsibility to the nation from the others. And once some start to move, others will follow.
Admiral_Komack
@Cheryl Rofer: You won’t.
That bullshit won’t work.
Take it to the Republicans.
LosGatosCA
@Devore:
No other options are viable
LosGatosCA
@Cheryl Rofer:
Too late. A portion of the rank and file may be severable from the party, but the leaders are irretrievable. Any serious approach to them is just wasted effort. Obama proved that, Bill Clinton proved that, Mitch McConnell proved it’s beyond hope when stealing a Democratic Supreme Court Justice seat. The Supreme Court proved its partisanship was beyond the pale 17 years ago in selecting Bush.
No at this point, it’s unconditional surrender because that is what they have sought.
Ksmiami
@Villago Delenda Est: don’t forget Louis XIV – just saying…
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’m not so sure that’s true any more. I’d like to see some proof of that somewhere. For if they accepted this they have to accept the entire thing, warts and all the amendments. They don’t seem to do that. Now that may be differences of opinion about what the sections mean but let’s take a little look to see whats what.
1st amendment. Religion. I notice that a good number of republicans want to effectively impose religious tests on people, ie Muslims or even atheists.
2nd Guns. Liberals aren’t even all in agreement here.
4th Search and seizure Surly you can’t expect me to believe they like this one.
8th Cruel and unusual punishments Same as the 4th. Some on the left don’t seem to get this one either. I’ve even posted stuff that might make one believe I don’t.
9th The constitution does not limit rights. We could go rounds on this one.
13th Slavery Is there a question that a lot of conservatives want this back?
14th Equal protection. See 13th
15th Right to vote Ever hear of gerrymandering, voter ID?
Need I go on, because I can. We have major fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals about the constitution. Many think the differences were not all that far apart a while back. I think they have always been, since day one.
Ksmiami
@Cheryl Rofer: fuck these people I want to take away their Internet and Advil and wall them off – they’ve chosen spite and nihilism as opposed to civilization- so let’s give them what they want.
Sister Golden Bear
When Republicans don’t think trans people, including me, are human and deserving of human rights and are actively trying to use the power of government to harass us out of public existence,* there’s not really any common ground to start from.
So while I appreciate the high-mindedness of your piece, and if there are Republicans willing to listen to it that’s awesome. But for me, and my trans sisters and brothers, it’s a fight of life and death, and I will fight the rest of them until my dying breath.
(Funny how these “if we just have gentle discussion with them, we’ll get them to see the light” pieces always seem to be written by white cisgender heterosexual folks…)
* Texas is in the middle a special session dedicated entirely to legislation to persecute trans people. One effect of the proposed “bathroom bills” targeting students is that it would forcibly out them. Trans people already have a 41% rate of attempted suicide — a rate only equalled by combat vets with PSTD — because yes, life *is* that fucking hard for all too many of us** and if the bill passes, it *will* end up killing kids who are bullied to death.
** It’s an extreme case, but there was a middle-aged trans woman who robbed a bank so she’d go in prison for the rest of her life, because the prospect of dying in prison was preferable to the hatred and hate crimes she was experiencing on the outside (in a deep red state).
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
Sorry, but Collins, not to put too fine a point on it is a Hypocritical GOP Bitch who says what she likes but ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS falls into line with her fellow Fascists when its time to count heads.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
They’ve already left while the going was good. John Cole was one of the last to come to his senses.
The rest of them can’t be saved. And none of us should bother to try.
They can burn. They can all burn.
Cheryl Rofer
Just wondering – what do those of you who think the Republicans are hopelessly evil plan to do to take the country back?
Matt
Sorry, but this exact advice could’ve been written in the 1850s. Conservatives have hated the values the Constitution stands for since even before this country was founded – and they’ve consistently lost their shit every time people demanded that we live up to those values. They have regularly employed both state violence and domestic terrorism to oppose anything that threatens their political power – the KKK, the Pinkertons, etc etc et goddamn cetera.
Dmbeaster
@Josie: Actually, nearly everyone around him went to jail, just not Tricky Dicky. There is a famous “Wanted” poster from the era with Nixon surrounded by 24 major aides, and essentially everyone in that poster pled guilty and went to jail
Cheryl Rofer
@Matt: In the 1850s, Republicans were organizing to take over from the Whigs, who had fluffed their response to slavery badly. The Republicans opposed slavery and ran a new guy for the presidency in 1860, Abraham Lincoln.
Dmbeaster
Trump voters hate us and everything we stand for. They love Trump because he gives free expression to their id and lets them feel free to let their freak flag fly. They dont care that Trump is a disgusting human being. He gives them what they want. They revel in his brutality and nonsense.
Make America Hate Again – that is the mantra. Playing kumbaya with GOP leadership so that they will allegedly moderate this is suicide. We have reached a place where this poison in America will not be resolved nicely. Dont bring a knife to a gun fight.
Cheryl Rofer
So what do you doomsayers propose to do to get America back?
alhutch
@Cheryl Rofer:
Well, not exactly. I believe that time will eventually solve this problem, but at what cost to the country in the mean time? The nutty Rs in my life are old, as in retired, Medicare receiving old. Even if Fox ceased broadcasting today, they are beyond reaching. But nobody outruns the ol’ grim reaper.
Barbara
@Cheryl Rofer: I see this almost like a case of addiction. Your loving and not so loving family members can cajole and complain and ostracize you until they are exhausted from the effort, but you won’t consider stopping until you want to. There are all kinds of signs that reasonable people who have historically and automatically voted Republican are reconsidering their views. They aren’t doing so because of what we tell them but because of what they see with their own eyes. For those who will not see, we will not make them see. In my view, we need to publicize acts of conscience and resistance and find common cause with those voters. For many people, the heroin of Donald Trump is going to win out, at least in the short run.
From a policy perspective, I think there are two particular policies that we should keep pursuing at local, state and federal level. The first is health care. It hits all people at all levels and it matters. The second is bringing communications infrastructure to rural areas, first, because it’s hard to see how investment can go to rural areas that don’t have it, and second, because it will instantly expand their access to other sources of information. My father in law was old enough to remember when the rural electric coops brought electricity to his aunt’s farm. If the Republican Party had been in continuous power from 1928 forward, a lot of those places would still be waiting for electricity because it would never have been sufficiently profitable for the Verizons of electric utilities in the 1930s to do so. Those are my ideas and I am happy to find common cause with those who would join me on them.
Barbara
@Cheryl Rofer: Just to follow up, if this makes sense, the first sign that people are reconsidering will be in widening disparity in party affiliation as reported in polls. When you see polls that say things like “Republicans still overwhelmingly support Turmp” they are often masking a lurking variable, which is the underlying percentage of people who self-identify as Republican. Party affiliation is very fluid. Those that report their affiliation with one party or another are doing so at least in part because they support where the party is currently headed. What that means is that it is likely an ineffective tactic to engage as you have, with the premise that Republicans can jump start a resistance against Trump. If Republicans decide to do that it will be as a result of them seeing other Republicans abandon their party. It would be potentially more effective to appeal to “Americans” or “People who love our country” and appeal across party identification.
Barbara
@Cheryl Rofer: And just to follow up again, I cut and pasted a comment to Jonathan Capehart’s excellent WaPo column this morning, as an example of dawning reality for some Republicans, who are going to get there mostly on their own:
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
Accept that Republicans no longer count as Americans or humans.
And work on organizing. Lots and lots of organizing, because when it comes to conflict, the side that’s better organized tends to win.
J R in WV
@Amaranthine RBG:
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop eating pie.”
Thank Cleek, Alain the fixer, and Major^4 for a built-in pie filter~!!!
J R in WV
@Yarrow:
Back in the late 1980s we visited the Denver Museum of umm Natural Science, maybe? They have changed the name since then. Anyway, combined with the terrific displays of fossils, minerals, science in action, the museum was filled with Giant copies of the best Gary Larson comics!
It was wonderful !! The crowd was respectful, but amused. Instead of the hushed slience of a library, there was a quiet background of amusement, broken by involuntary guffaws. Such a different experience from the average Science Museum trip. We had a ball !
Dmbeaster
@Cheryl Rofer: Proclaim the American values in which we believe and condemn our enemies who are debasing those values. Our adversaries have abandoned any belief in getting along with us, and this is a fight for hearts and minds of the country. Stress the positive things we believe in but do not shrink from the harsh judgment that properly applies to the vision of most of the GOP.
J R in WV
@BBA:
This is incorrect. FDR needed the votes of racist white democratic politicians from the south in order to pass legislation needed to save the nation. Therefore he was willing to compromise with their bigotry in order to get their votes to pass Social Security, the TVA, Rural electrification, and dozens of other programs that were necessary to recover from the Great Depression.
Unemployment was over 25% when FDR was elected. With votes from “racist white” southern politicians he had an unbeatable coalition, without votes from the corporatist Republicans who drove the nation into the Depression and were not willing to do what was needed to end the Depression. We’ve seen the Republicans cause recessions over and over – their invisible hand of the Free Market is really quite the dunce when it comes to regulating financiers.
Imagine if Senator McCain and Bunny-hop Palen had been elected in 2008. How do you think employment would have worked out over the past 8 years in that case? People would have raised hell if things had gone the way they did in 1930~!!
You need some education in political history before you start talking about FDR with his racism as you starting point. I will be the first to admit he worked with the racists to get his programs through congress, and probably did things he regretted to get them on board. That isn’t what you said.
As far as “repudiating” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Fuck you and the horse you limped in here on! And welcome to the pie factory~!
Cheryl Rofer
@Dmbeaster: This is a good point, and I think a way in which people are misreading my top post.
This is consistent what I intended, and why I appended some comments for Democrats as well. But I left out the part about harsh judgment because I was stressing a gracious approach, and because I was putting it in a context of Republicans reading it. I am not averse to the harsh judgment, as you can see from my Twitter stream. I tend to mute it here because so many others offer it up.
Cheryl Rofer
@Barbara: Thanks for your comments and the Jonathan Capehart op-ed, this one I think? As a Republican, he is doing some of what I was appealing for in the top post. Republicans talking to Republicans (or as you point out, leaving the party) will be the most effective in changing minds. But we have to keep exhorting them. Capehart uses those exhortations as part of his argument.
I agree with your policy suggestions and hope that the Democrats can get those kinds of messages out. But Chuck Schumer’s attempt yesterday was quickly overrun by the spectacle of a totally inappropriate Presidential speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree. We have to keep on it.
Ithink
@OGLiberal:
You always tell it like it is; I love that!
Ithink
@Barbara:
Amazing comment but it affirms that they are, yes, indeed getting albeit slower than many of us would like. But better late than ever these days!