Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

McCarthy very well might go down as the weakest speaker in history.

That's what you get when the Speaker is not ideologically aligned with his own party.

[iam416]

I'm actually curious -- what is the current ideological identity of the Rs as represented by the "non-cuck" overlord, DJT? I mean, other than sniveling fealty to whatever DJT says. What are the core ideological principles of the new DJT Rs?

The only actual policy principle I can think of is on immigration, but I don't that's inconsistent w/ R policy for awhile. Anything else?

I mean, DJT is hitting DeSantis on being like Paul Ryan and Ronald Reagn, and is also hitting him on wanting to reform SS.

[Hannibal]

Tucker rumors continue to swirl--supposedly he had a story he was running about Epps the day after 60 minutes does thir thing that mangement tried to stop

another rumor it was part of the dominion settlement--that black rock owns both parts of dominion and fox and wanted him out for a while for being so antiwar.

I see Make America Poor Again announced his presidency with his kid potentially facing indictment this week

Wonder if they can find 51 intelligence guys to blame his coming arrest on russian disinformation

That's hilarious.

He'll never face indictment.

[Hannibal]

I'm actually curious -- what is the current ideological identity of the Rs as represented by the "non-cuck" overlord, DJT? I mean, other than sniveling fealty to whatever DJT says.

The same as it was in 2016, but with a lot less patience.

• Fixing the Southern border and ending illegal immigration, which will massively increase the burden on the welfare state when 40 Million illegal immigrants get amnesty.
• Not kowtowing to far-Left terrorist groups like BLM
• Condemning loony cultural deviations like men in women's sports and literal children getting "gender affirming care"
• Pushing back against all of our society's anti-White propaganda and bringing attention to the demographic distributions of violent crime.
• Anti Green New Deal and all of its associated economic destruction
• Ending abortion
• Anti gun control
• Anti expansion of the welfare state
• Pissed off as fuck about the country's policies for managing Covid 19, and wanting heads on platters for it
• Draining the swamp -- purging the government's partisan organizations (e.g. the FBI) of self-serving ideologues. And holding the law enforcement and intelligence community accountable for all of their malfeasance.
• Judicious use of our military and an "America First" foreign policy.

That's what I could come up with in a few minutes. The only one of those bullets where the elected officials are, for some reason, ideologically aligned with their constituents is abortion. And that is probably the least popular bullet on that list (the Rs are the party of stupid). And they have also been decent on gun control, to a lesser extent. The rest of them -- The Rs fuck over their base on constantly. There are a few Rs that deviate from the party's nonsense, but they are people like Lauren Boebert, who nobody respects because she has the same IQ as AOC. Or Marjorie Taylor Greene, who just comes across as a kooky dumbass.

I think that the party is now pretty split on foreign trade/free trade. There are still a lot of economic Libertarians who agree with a lot of the bullets above but want to maintain free trade, but there is a pretty big chunk of voters that want to impose tariffs to maintain the country's manufacturing base. I t is justifiable more as social issue as an economic one. Young men, specifically, need routes to affluence that don't involve going $100,000 into debt to get a degree tha might be totally worthless.

I would say that the base is also pretty split on the Covid vax. Maybe 50/50 on whether it is good/bad. Or maybe leaning more towards bad. It's hard to get a read there. To be honest, I'm not sure where I fall on that one. I do think that the vax saved a lot of old people's lives when it first came out, but it was pointless for anyone who isn't in a higher risk group and vaccine mandates should never have been imposed. We now know that it never stopped the spread of the virus and they didn't even test for it. But that didn't stop companies and governments from around the world imposing pointless vaccine mandates. I think that the party is very anti-vaccine-mandate though.

Trump, for that matter, failed to address any of those points too. That's why I don't want him to be President again.

[iam416]

• Not kowtowing to far-Left terrorist groups like BLM
• Condemning loony cultural deviations like men in women's sports and literal children getting "gender affirming care"
• Pushing back against all of our society's anti-White propaganda and bringing attention to the demographic distributions of violent crime.

The above, IMO, are fundamentally the same.

And DJT isn't aligned with all of those.

And the only positive policy is the immigration; the rest are negative. Which, I understand -- if you're conservative you're trying to stem the tide of country-destroying "progress".

Anyway, thanks for your take.

[Hannibal]

And DJT isn't aligned with all of those.

I agree with that statement. I hope that I have made it clear that I don't want him again.

[Hannibal]

And the only positive policy is the immigration; the rest are negative..

Do you mean negative as in bad (you don't like them), or negative as in the Rs are the party of "no" and they don't have alternative policy proposals?

[iam416]

The latter. And I don't have a problem with/largely agree with the latter and the need to slow the march toward bad policy as much as possible.

[Hannibal]

I will also say this -- the criticism of the Trump cult is valid. But I do think that the people that fit that description are a pretty small minority of the base. I'm talking about the completely intractable people who still wear red hats and attend Trump rallies. Yes they are probably hopeless and they might abandon the party if Trump doesn't get the nomination. We would lose those voters in that event. I don't know if there would be enough voters backfilling them to win a national election. It's a tough call but I'd like to find out.

i do believe that a lot of people still support Turmp because they don't perceive a viable alternative. This gives me some hope for DeSantis. He is a more than viable alternative and I think that he will do a good job of making his case.

[Hannibal]

The latter. And I don't have a problem with/largely agree with the latter and the need to slow the march toward bad policy as much as possible.

OK gotcha. I agree with your statement above then. The base has virtually no elected leadership in Washington driving for positive change. It's maddening.

We haven't had that since the Newt era.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The Republican Party of Newt's era still had lots of people that knew a lot about the govt, federal programs, etc. etc. What I would call serious policy issues.

Today's Republican Party? The base has been encouraged to prioritize culture war crap for the past 15 years. And that's because it's easier to keep people's attention and anger running high (and donating money) when you're ranting about trannies versus having a detailed talk about healthcare proposals.

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

[Hannibal]

The Republican Party of Newt's era still had lots of people that knew a lot about the govt, federal programs, etc. etc. What I would call serious policy issues.

Today's Republican Party? The base has been encouraged to prioritize culture war crap for the past 15 years. And that's because it's easier to keep people's attention and anger running high (and donating money) when you're ranting about trannies versus having a detailed talk about healthcare proposals.

The culture war stuff is highly relevant and very important. There is a cultural crisis in the country and we are following a path that has, historically, led to huge levels of strife or, at worst, a total societal collapse. We have a drug overdose epidemic and a large reproduction deficit. Crime is skyrocketing in major cities too, and there is no sign that it is ever going to return to pre-BLM levels. Enforced diversity at corporations means that a huge employment sector is now off limits to a lot of white people. Specifically, white men. Marriage rates have plummeted accordingly, and so has fertiilty.

White people and, specifically, white men, are now second class citizens in the eyes of both the law and in corporate America. Dhimmis in the woke theocracy. That is why so many young men and, specifically white men, are checking out of society. Atlas is shrugging and it's not going to be pretty.

Neither party is addressing these issues with any seriousness.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The culture war junk should be completely secondary. Worry about it when you have time. I don't put crime or drugs in that bucket BTW.

But CRT, BLM, trans issues, anything related to "woke"? These are non-serious topics for non-serious people. Explictly designed to distract from the economy, crime, or foreign affairs. You will never, NEVER grow your movement if you demand people adopt your orthodoxy on that. The worst of all is "trans in sports" which is so irrelevant and miniscule an issue it boggles my mind that any time is being spent on it all let alone laws being written that target approximately 3 people.

[Hannibal]

Destroying CRT is very important. The mindset at its roots is the same mindset that causes colleges and corporations to discriminate against White people. White kids are being indoctrinated to hate themselves and feel guilty, while other races are being indoctrinated to hate white people. 40% of the population is being indoctrinated to hate the other 60%. That's why nobody bats an eye at the multitude of black on white violent crimes that occur in the country on an annual basis. As far as Liberals are concerned, white people deserve the violence that they get. Serves 'em right for all of their past racism.. And the country will be better off when these evil white colonizers and enslavers have been replaced by noble minorities.

You aren't even allowed to talk about black-on-white crime. It's a completely taboo, off limits topic. And you're not allowed to say that you don't want to be around people who probably hate you and might commit violence against you. That makes you a "racist".

This has never ended well historically and it's not going to end well here.

The trans stuff might be miniscule, but it is absolutely relevant. If you can't even define what a man or a woman is, then you have a profoundly sick culture. 25% of Gen Z now identifies as "gender non conforming". This is all related. And it's all insanity. And I guarantee you -- absolutely guarantee you -- that the incidents of men in women's sports affects more people than "12 year old girl raped and denied abortion". Exceptions to abortion laws for rape and incest woud be a miniscule issue too, but that hasn't kept Democrats from not only pounding the Rs on it, but leveraging it successfully to win. The cops shooting unarmed black men is a miniscule issue too but, once again, that hasn't stopped Democrats from leveraging it, with wild success I might add.