How Donald Trump destroyed the Republican Party in 2015

[Baruch]

William F Buckley is long dead ;-(

[SGOS]

I thought the Republican Party was dead after Nixon, but they bounced back with a resilience that dumbfounded me.  There were 4 years when they had to wait out Jimmy Carter, but they came back strong.  Somewhere in the party's roots, there are some basic ideas that once captured the imagination of half the public.  Some of them actually made sense, although the GOP seldom tried to implement them, because they weren't all that good for the welfare of the 1%.

I do think the GOP has become extremist over the last 35 years or so, and consequently a bit wacky, but look at the rabid base to which they try to appeal, mostly with empty rhetoric, but still...

Also, consider how far to the right they have pulled the Democratic party.  Hell, they can get what they want now without even holding office.  Now that I think about it, the right may not even need their own politicians anymore.

[Baruch]

Until Obama came along, Clinton was the best fake Black Republican president we had seen.

I was young and naive in the 70s also.  I really thought our long national nightmare was at an end, with Ford pardoning Nixon.  But I didn't know then that Ford had been part of the Warren Commission scam.  The narrative in the long run, will be how the Deep State/Pretorian Guard took control after WW II ... probably in every country, not just the US.  For our own protection.

[Shiranu]

Also, consider how far to the right they have pulled the Democratic party.  Hell, they can get what they want now without even holding office.  Now that I think about it, the right may not even need their own politicians anymore.

While I think the radicals like Ted Cruz and Trump aren't satisfied (and unfortunately in the lead)... I would say this is more or less true for the big names pulling the strings within in the mainstream party.

It works two-fold as well... besides getting Democrats to implement their shitty policies they also blame the results of those shitty parties on Democrats (and thus "liberals" and "progressives") and advertise their exact same or worse policies as the fix to get votes. They don't get to sit in the limelight but they do get their way.

[josephpalazzo]

If you are anti-Washington, anti-government, anti-establishment, anti-politically correct attitude then Trump is your candidate. Funny part is that 40 percent of blacks, as are 45 percent of Hispanics, are lining up behind Trump. Go figure.

[Unbeliever]

I thought the Republican Party was dead after Nixon, but they bounced back with a resilience that dumbfounded me.  There were 4 years when they had to wait out Jimmy Carter, but they came back strong.  Somewhere in the party's roots, there are some basic ideas that once captured the imagination of half the public.  Some of them actually made sense, although the GOP seldom tried to implement them, because they weren't all that good for the welfare of the 1%.

I do think the GOP has become extremist over the last 35 years or so, and consequently a bit wacky, but look at the rabid base to which they try to appeal, mostly with empty rhetoric, but still...

Also, consider how far to the right they have pulled the Democratic party.  Hell, they can get what they want now without even holding office.  Now that I think about it, the right may not even need their own politicians anymore.

I think the Republican party concentrates more on local and state election rather than the national ones. They seem pretty handy at winning those.

[Baruch]

If you are anti-Washington, anti-government, anti-establishment, anti-politically correct attitude then Trump is your candidate. Funny part is that 40 percent of blacks, as are 45 percent of Hispanics, are lining up behind Trump. Go figure.

Desperation makes strange bed-fellows.  I wouldn't want to be a Democrat when the African-Americans finally figure out who has been corn-holing them.  Many Hispanics (as long as Republicans aren't anti-immigration) would support the R-party ... but fortunately the R-party is happy to employ illegals while decrying illegal immigration, to keep those employees in servitude.  African-American zombies should eat the D-party and Hispanic-American zombies would eat the R-party.

[TomFoolery]

If you are anti-Washington, anti-government, anti-establishment, anti-politically correct attitude then Trump is your candidate. Funny part is that 40 percent of blacks, as are 45 percent of Hispanics, are lining up behind Trump. Go figure.

And people said the hipster movement was fading. If that's not irony for what feels like the sake of irony, I don't know what is.

[Unbeliever]

One hundred and four years of history is in the balance. If Trump is the Republican nominee in 2016, there might not be a conservative party in 2020 either.

Will Donald Trump End the GOP’s Role as America’s Conservative Party?

[josephpalazzo]

Will Donald Trump End the GOP’s Role as America’s Conservative Party?

Considering that he was a Democrat, and is most likely an atheist, it's no surprise...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"[Trump saying he can work with Democrats is] a red flag to a lot of people. They don't want to work with Democrats. They don't want anybody working with them. They want people who are gonna smoke 'em. They want people who are gonna cream 'em. They want people who are gonna drive them into the ground and bury them, then hammer the political nails one after another and end this. Not 'work with them.'"
â€" Rush Limbaugh

[josephpalazzo]

Trump is saying that he can make a deal. Even Putin is on the list of making deal with.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Trump is saying that he can make a deal. Even Putin is on the list of making deal with.

"Governments don't have friends or foes, they have interests."

[josephpalazzo]

"Governments don't have friends or foes, they have interests."

But Trump doesn't aspire to be the government but to be above government...

[widdershins]

I think it was the Tea Party that did the real damage.  In the early days Republicans welcomed the Tea Party.  They were fired up about the country electing a black Democrat president.  They went nuts about it.  The Tea Party did exist pre-Obama, but they were nothing before Obama.  The Republican party welcomed them with open arms.  These were some racist pieces of shit who were REALLY good at hiding that fact, and they were pissed off.  They said things like, "Not MY president!" and, rather than call them out for the anti-American, anti-democratic bullshit that was, Republicans said "Hell yah!".  They refused to send their children to school the day the President of the United States of America was visiting that school and rather than call out how that was disrespectful and un-American, Republicans said, "Makes sense!"  The Tea Party was useful to them at the time.  They could use the Tea Party for their own goals.

But they went too far.  They accepted them as Republicans.  After that, if you were right-wing, establishment Republicans weren't so shiny any more.  They were mediocre as far as being to the right is concerned.  The Tea Party happily said out loud what Republicans had only been whispering amongst their own kind for years, and closet racists LOVED IT.  Because racially, the country is still broken as hell.  Racism is alive and well in America, we just planted flowers over it to cover the smell.  But the Tea Party found a way to revive it and be obviously racist without being overtly racist, somehow.  We KNOW that the bills meant to stop "voter fraud" are really "Don't let black people vote" bills.  It is absolutely unquestionable, although I don't think they specifically target black people for being black, but a populace for how they vote.  But the effect is the same.  They target Romney's "47%".  We ABSOLUTELY KNOW that these bills are intended to suppress votes from people likely to vote for Democrats, not combat "voter fraud", which not only doesn't exist, but is an absolutely ludicrous idea.  What am I going to do, carry a thousand wigs and fake mustaches with me and keep going to the back of the line?  But we can't PROVE it.

And now the Tea Party is replacing the Republican party.  With all the gerrymandering they've actually made it so much easier to get a Tea Party Republican elected than an establishment Republican.  When you group people together into voting districts by how they are likely to vote with the intention of influencing the outcome the left gets more left and the right gets more right, and you don't get more right than the Tea Party without a Ouija Board and something Hitler owned.

It doesn't even matter that Trump isn't Tea Party.  He's obviously racist without being overtly racist, which is what the type of voter who votes Tea Party is looking for.  And he's more obviously racist without being overtly racist than the next guy.  Or the next five, really.  Look at the lineup to see the Tea Party influence.  The two biggest loudmouths who raise the most fuss and best use "liberal" as a dirty word are hands down the only two candidates who count.  Carson was in there for a while, but that was only because he said a few things they wanted to hear, but mostly tried to stay out of the way before he said something they didn't want to hear.  His strategy was to keep his damned mouth shut and not piss anyone off, which worked for a while, but during that time Trump was perfecting his crazy and Cruz was still crying the end of the world if we elected another Democrat (does anyone else just want to hit that face with a shovel over and over again every time they see it, or is that just me?).

So, ultimately, I don't think Trump really did anything new or unique.  He's just the latest icon for crazy, scared, racist people.  Let's not forget how dysfunctional Cruz was able to make the government nearly single-handedly before establishment Republicans finally just had to shut him down.  Trump didn't do so much damage to the Republican party.  They did it to themselves when they welcomed their crazy trailer-trash cousins so that they could get people to deliver racist rants and hate to our first black president without having to claim personal responsibility by simply standing up on stage and saying, "You know he's a black guy, right?  Enough said!"  By welcoming the Tea Party they could fan the flames of racism without having to dirty their own hands with it.  And before then, the Tea Party was nothing.  Now the Tea Party is taking over the Republican party completely.  Republicans almost can't get anything done in Washington without their permission, and don't you dare put forward any kind of compromise with a Democrat!  Hell, their idea of a compromise these days is, "Well, we were asking for 100 things and offering you nothing, but we'll compromise.  We'll take 25 of this things...and offer you nothing."  Even that is "too big" of a compromise for many right-wing nutbags like Cruz.  They fucked themselves.  Hopefully they go so far right they fall off the edge of the Earth.