The Republican Utopia

[BigRedBuster]

 

[Danny Bateman]

38 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

 

So true.

 

I just finished a book by Paul Krugman last night. It was the one about the flaws of movement conservativism. One of the flaws is they necessarily have to play on racial grievance and class warfare on poor people because their economic plans suck for poor/middle class folks & they require the resources of the rich to bankroll them... the continue churning out beneficial policy.

 

They're pretty terrible at governance, but winning elections is easy if they have the right boogeyman to divide people the right way.

 

The worst of it is they care so much about loyalty that they elect someone like Trump and no pol in the party will call him out because you can't turn on the team. That would wreck their post-politics landing spot.

 

Democrats need to win & enact big, progressive policy that helps poor/working class folks to prove they can & the GOP is full of hot air raving about socialism. The GOP needs to lose big & go into the wilderness for a while to do some soul-searching.

[TGHusker]

10 minutes ago, dudeguyy said:

 

So true.

 

I just finished a book by Paul Krugman last night. It was the one about the flaws of movement conservativism. One of the flaws is they necessarily have to play on racial grievance and class warfare on poor people because their economic plans suck for poor/middle class folks & they require the resources of the rich to bankroll them... the continue churning out beneficial policy.

 

They're pretty terrible at governance, but winning elections is easy if they have the right boogeyman to divide people the right way.

 

The worst of it is they care so much about loyalty that they elect someone like Trump and no pol in the party will call him out because you can't turn on the team. That would wreck their post-politics landing spot.

 

Democrats need to win & enact big, progressive policy that helps poor/working class folks to prove they can & the GOP is full of hot air raving about socialism. The GOP needs to lose big & go into the wilderness for a while to do some soul-searching.

What was the book title?

 

You are right that today's conservatives or should I say republicans don't know how to govern.   When the extremes grab either political philosophy (conservative, liberal, libertarian) I think we end up wt a distortion that doesn't work.   It seems like everything cycles but the cycles have been tighter in the past 20 years or so.  We go from progressive Clinton, to conservative GWB, to progressive Obama, to opportunist Trump. 

 

[BigRedBuster]

4 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

You are right that today's conservatives or should I say republicans don't know how to govern. 

 

Important distinction.  

[Danny Bateman]

1 minute ago, TGHusker said:

What was the book title?

 

You are right that today's conservatives or should I say republicans don't know how to govern.   When the extremes grab either political philosophy (conservative, liberal, libertarian) I think we end up wt a distortion that doesn't work.   It seems like everything cycles but the cycles have been tighter in the past 20 years or so.  We go from progressive Clinton, to conservative GWB, to progressive Obama, to opportunist Trump. 

 

 

Conscience of a Liberal. It's one of his more recent works, being released in 2007. 

 

It's interesting as it was written in the run-up to 2008, so he had no idea Obama would go on to be elected. However, interestingly, he argues in the book that healthcare reform (specifically universal healthcare) should be the top priority of any liberal that takes office with numbers to get it through. He hypothesized it would reverse the notion advanced by conservatives that the government would bungle anything they try to do & thus getting it out of the way by making it as small as possible is always the best option. 

 

Krugman believes liberals need to work hard to demonstrate for people that the government can actually make people's lives better. I think he's dead on. They've been getting hammered by anti-government rhetoric since Goldwater launched the GOP out of a bipartisan consensus that accepted the New Deal programs as beneficial back in the 60s.

[Danny Bateman]

5 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

Important distinction.  

 

If you get out of Washington & look what at what moderate conservatives are able to accomplish in states, some of it is very impressive. I have a lot of respect for guys like Sandoval in NV or Charlie Baker in MA that aren't right-wing ideologues. Since they're in somewhat blue to deep blue areas, they're forced to moderate & the results are largely good.

 

Other places, like North Carolina, the GOP is incredibly toxic and damaging.

 

Don't even get me going on Ricketts in our neck of the woods...

[TGHusker]

5 minutes ago, dudeguyy said:

 

If you get out of Washington & look what at what moderate conservatives are able to accomplish in states, some of it is very impressive. I have a lot of respect for guys like Sandoval in NV or Charlie Baker in MA that aren't right-wing ideologues. Since they're in somewhat blue to deep blue areas, they're forced to moderate & the results are largely good.

 

Other places, like North Carolina, the GOP is incredibly toxic and damaging.

 

Don't even get me going on Ricketts in our neck of the woods...

Which brings up the point of moderation.  When I think of conservative govt - I think of efficiency - cutting waste and wasteful programs.  If we get the compassion of progressives to lock hands wt the Tom Coburn (my former senator) types who hate inefficient, wasteful govt - we'd be getting some place. Wasteful govt can be led by either parties - they just have different beneficiaries of the waste.  

[BigRedBuster]

14 minutes ago, dudeguyy said:

 

If you get out of Washington & look what at what moderate conservatives are able to accomplish in states, some of it is very impressive. I have a lot of respect for guys like Sandoval in NV or Charlie Baker in MA that aren't right-wing ideologues. Since they're in somewhat blue to deep blue areas, they're forced to moderate & the results are largely good.

 

Other places, like North Carolina, the GOP is incredibly toxic and damaging.

 

Don't even get me going on Ricketts in our neck of the woods...

 

This is going to be an interesting time.  The conservative movement is obviously in shambles with the Republicans totally screwing the pooch on electing a pathetic human being like Trump.  Their policies also have not been beneficial to the majority of Americans and they have latched onto a very ugly side of America as their base.

 

That said, I continue to see liberals/Democrats state that what they need to do is take over the government and enact sweeping new big entitlement programs.

 

I still remain in the middle with no party to support.

[Danny Bateman]

2 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

This is going to be an interesting time.  The conservative movement is obviously in shambles with the Republicans totally screwing the pooch on electing a pathetic human being like Trump.  Their policies also have not been beneficial to the majority of Americans and they have latched onto a very ugly side of America as their base.

 

That said, I continue to see liberals/Democrats state that what they need to do is take over the government and enact sweeping new big entitlement programs.

 

I still remain in the middle with no party to support.

 

My theory, pulled pretty directly from Krugman, is that if they can do what you said - sweep into power and push through essentially a second New Deal of very progressive government programs that gain broad popularity and actually help people (think universal healthcare, tackling college debt & UBI, among others), it would force Republicans to finally give up on mantras like "repeal and replace." This is what happened with the New Deal itself - the GOP and big money derided many of FDR's programs, specifically Social Security, immediately and tried to get them undone, but they eventually gave up when they realized they were good programs that were far too popular worth the public.

 

It ushered in a more responsible Republican Party that was more bipartisan-focused for decades, until Goldwater returned them to their old impulses, the whole party shifted under Reagan, and we've been dealing with the aftershocks ever since.

 

This is basically the only way I see possible to force the GOP to reevaluate its priorities and become a party that exists not just to do the bidding of the chosen few but the majority of Americans.

 

The endgame isn't to keep them out of power altogether or eliminate them, as one party rule would also be bad. It's to force them to undergo a rebirth and become a more responsible, respectable outfit.

[RedDenver]

6 hours ago, TGHusker said:

What was the book title?

 

You are right that today's conservatives or should I say republicans don't know how to govern.   When the extremes grab either political philosophy (conservative, liberal, libertarian) I think we end up wt a distortion that doesn't work.   It seems like everything cycles but the cycles have been tighter in the past 20 years or so.  We go from progressive Clinton, to conservative GWB, to progressive Obama, to opportunist Trump. 

 

Clinton and Obama weren't progressives. Part of the problem in America is that the Overton window has been steadily shifting to the right for decades. Here's a graphic I like to show people:

(There's a better graph like this one that's produced by a university poli-sci dept that's backed by numbers but I can't find it right now.)

[BigRedBuster]

 

[knapplc]

15 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

I continue to see liberals/Democrats state that what they need to do is take over the government and enact sweeping new big entitlement programs.

 

As I showed in the Twitter follow thread, I follow a number of liberal news sources.  I haven't seen anything like this from any of them.  What am I missing?

[Fru]

Kansas state rep: Black people 'responded the worst' to marijuana because of 'their genetics'

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/367987-kansas-state-rep-black-people-respond-to-marijuana-worst-off-because-of

 

 

“Basically any way you say it, marijuana is an entry drug into the higher drugs,” Alford said, as first reported by The Garden City Telegram. “What you really need to do is go back in the ’30s, when they outlawed all types of drugs in Kansas and across the United States. What was the reason why they did that? One of the reasons why, I hate to say it, was that the African-Americans, they were basically users and they basically responded the worst to those drugs just because of their character makeup, their genetics and that”

Edited January 9, 2018 by Fru

[BigRedBuster]

50 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

As I showed in the Twitter follow thread, I follow a number of liberal news sources.  I haven't seen anything like this from any of them.  What am I missing?

 

Admittedly, that comment was about posts on here.

[Nebfanatic]

13 minutes ago, Fru said:

Kansas state rep: Black people 'responded the worst' to marijuana because of 'their genetics'

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/367987-kansas-state-rep-black-people-respond-to-marijuana-worst-off-because-of

 

 

“Basically any way you say it, marijuana is an entry drug into the higher drugs,” Alford said, as first reported by The Garden City Telegram. “What you really need to do is go back in the ’30s, when they outlawed all types of drugs in Kansas and across the United States. What was the reason why they did that? One of the reasons why, I hate to say it, was that the African-Americans, they were basically users and they basically responded the worst to those drugs just because of their character makeup, their genetics and that”