The Death of the Grand Old Party

[Govi]

This is a good thread on the basic principles of the current GOP and their supporters.

IIRC, at one point in Winston Smith's torture (in 1984), his torturer tells him that one of the essential requirements of a citizen of the State is that s/he be able to sustain two mutually contradictory thoughts at the same time. "Doublethink" in Newspeak. The GQP is deep into that and because they are, they have become more dangerous to our democracy. They will (if they are not already) be quite capable of thinking that they are preserving a democratic America by imposing an extreme fascism on us all. Certainly, the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were thinking along those lines: change the election by violence to preserve in office a president who lost the election, a president who knew no bounds on his official (and private) behavior. They wanted to restore a tyrant to office.

 

[Romana]

IIRC, at one point in Winston Smith's torture (in 1984), his torturer tells him that one of the essential requirements of a citizen of the State is that s/he be able to sustain two mutually contradictory thoughts at the same time. "Doublethink" in Newspeak. The GQP is deep into that and because they are, they have become more dangerous to our democracy. They will (if they are not already) be quite capable of thinking that they are preserving a democratic America by imposing an extreme fascism on us all. Certainly, the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were thinking along those lines: change the election by violence to preserve in office a president who lost the election, a president who knew no bounds on his official (and private) behavior. They wanted to restore a tyrant to office.

And while doing all that, calling the Dems "Orwellian" (Hawley when his book publisher backed out).

 

[Free]

85% Of Republicans Want Candidates To Agree With Trump, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Americans Support Early Cut To Federal Jobless Benefit | Quinnipiac University Poll

"The numbers fly in the face of any predictions that Donald Trump's political future is in decline. By a substantial majority, Republicans: (1) believe the election was stolen from him, (2) want Trump to run again, and (3), if they can't vote for Trump, prefer someone who agrees with him," said...

poll.qu.edu

• As candidates begin to enter races for the 2022 mid-term elections, more than 8 in 10 Republicans (85 percent) say they would prefer to see candidates running for elected office that mostly agree with Donald Trump
• Asked whether they would like to see Trump run for president in 2024, Republicans say 66 - 30 percent they would
• Six months after the 2020 presidential election, two-thirds of Republicans (66 - 25 percent) say they think that Joe Biden's victory was not legitimate

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Surely they're trolling.

 

[WolfEyes]

Surely they're trolling.

Let me be Frank. Don't call me Shirley.

 

[Free]

Let me be Frank. Don't call me Shirley.

 

[WolfEyes]

Since Argent rolled his eyes at me...

Let me be Frank. Don't call you surly.

 

[Free]

Just a bit of fun.

Viral – UPROXX

Find the viral stories and trending news you need to stay informed here on UPROXX.

uproxx.com

 

[Romana]

Just a bit of fun.

Viral – UPROXX

Find the viral stories and trending news you need to stay informed here on UPROXX.

uproxx.com

Considering he's the guy who invited a Holocaust denier (who wanted to put a hit out on a BLM activist) to the State of the Union, Oswald isn't that far of a reach. He'd have done it in purpose if he thought it would annoy "the libs".

 

[danielravennest]

Last night Democratic candidate Melanie Stansbury defeated Republican candidate Mark Moores in the special election to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Deb Haaland when she became Secretary of the Interior. Stansbury was always going to win, given the demographics of her heavily Democratic-leaning district. But the margin of victory actually tells us something interesting.

Stansbury won last night by a whopping 29 points. That’s notable, given that Haaland only won reelection by 17 points last November. That’s a twelve point gain for the Democrats, in this same district, in just six months.

from Palmer Report

It's only one seat, but this is encouraging. We'll need a few more special elections before 2022 to see if this is a trend.

 

[Romana]

from Palmer Report

It's only one seat, but this is encouraging. We'll need a few more special elections before 2022 to see if this is a trend.

It's to be hoped that the Republican -controlled state legislatures don't get to pass their voter suppression bills in the meantime. And the one that gives the legislature the power to reject any result they don't like.

 

[Romana]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Evernote link because why not

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I don't think there has been a pure direct democracy since the Republic of Athens.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't think there has been a pure direct democracy since the Republic of Athens.

And only then if your definition of democracy involves votes only for male citizens who have completed their military training and who owe no debts or back taxes to the city, so no women, foreigners, slaves or poor people, and amounting to about 10% of the actual population, which would probably recommend it to many Republicans.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

That too.

Ironic that it's remembered for being both a democracy and a republic.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

That too.

Ironic that it's remembered for being both a democracy and a republic.

It's only very recently that we've taken it as axiomatic that democracy is the best form of government, or seen Athenian democracy as a particularly admirable form of government (which it wasn't -- it was completely shambolic much of the time, as you'd expect, with effective legislative and executive power in the hands of a far smaller weathty elite, who actually ran things).

 

[WolfEyes]

Anybody here know what a democratic republic is supposed to be?

Yes?

Oh good.

That's a relief.

 

[Beebo Brink]

It's only very recently that we've taken it as axiomatic that democracy is the best form of government, or seen Athenian democracy as a particularly admirable form of government (which it wasn't -- it was completely shambolic much of the time, as you'd expect, with effective legislative and executive power in the hands of a far smaller weathty elite, who actually ran things).

My main criticism of democracy (such as what we have in the U.S.) is that it's proving to be quite fragile in some fairly predictable ways. As we're learning now, many people who claimed to love their country because of the constitution and democratic ideals turned out to really love a system that supported them specifically as the ruling group. Once other people (minorities) started asking for equivalent rights and freedoms as promised by the ideals of democracy, the first group ditched democracy as no longer being very useful. The true goal was always remaining in power, and "democracy" was just a smokescreen.

An egalitarian society is very difficult to scale up to nation-sized populations. There's evidence they have existed in the past, although that is always a matter of interpretation and open to debate. I was just reading in archaeological news that some supposedly egalitarian hunter-gatherer groups may have been ruled by secret societies that controlled the rites and rituals of their tribe. So yeah, hierarchical structures of power tend to develop over time and that urge for power over others is a very difficult force to counter, as is the hunger to follow a strong leader.

We are an unruly mob of apes that really can't find a ruling mechanism that suits our nature and guarantees the greater good, all at the same time. At least not in the huge groups we have created by prolific breeding.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Anybody here know what a democratic republic is supposed to be?

Basically all republics ever that aren't authoritarian dictatorships. And most of those pretend to be democracies.

All republic means is "not run by an inherited aristocracy", with a few edge cases like "also not medieval Poland" and "technically North Korea isn't a republic after all".

It's really got very little to do with the structure of government.