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Worried: the fall of the entire GOP- as bad as McCain/Palin & Romney were, now it's fascism [1]

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Date: 2022-10-18

Representative Liz Cheney is an indictment of today's Republican Party.

The Republican Party's popularity as a percentage of registered voters has been declining since their apex in Raygun to their nadir. Their policies were only good for the upper middle class to wealthy white man. Perhaps this became inevitable after Republicans opposed LBJ and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights law of 1964 were passed. Their response was Nixon's ' Southern Strategy'. There can be no justification for it. In terms of effectiveness, it was only effective in the short term. When the autopsy appeared after the Romney loss, the Republican Party essentially did have two choices, follow the recommendations or largely ignore them. Since they weren't actually talking about altering their public policies, it would have seemed obvious that following the recommendations was the way to go.

Changing policy so that it appealed to the more diverse electorate that was appearing would have meant serious pain in the short term. They would have lost their voters and they would not be trusted by the voters for whom they wanted to compete. They could have tried to tie to the republican President Abraham Lincoln although their recent history would have made this not credible.

But surely it should have been an easy choice to try to do a better job selling the same bigoted policies to voters of color? However, President Obama's two terms had brought out the bigotry of the republican voter. Mostly those who had stuck with them remembered with pride and happiness their wretched bigotry. By 2012, their voters were mostly bigots. They mentioned supply side tax cuts and the lies about stimulating the economy and paying for themselves and a strong national defense, but when push came to shove, they ran on "Culture Wars" , a euphemism for bigotry. Republican voters expressing outright bigotry had become more and more common. Their voters didn't want a whole bunch of voters of color to join their ranks. Besides any honest advisor would have told them that there was a low upper limit to how many voters of color they could pick up without changing policies.

There was only one place this could lead. For those who think that Trump's pick up of some Cubans and some Venezuelan voters in some states demonstrated otherwise, consider that Trump lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes the first time and about seven million votes the second time. Remember that the Democratic Party's nominee for president won the popular vote in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. That's SEVEN OF THE LAST EIGHT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. To counter the preposterous idea that the Republican Party's nominees intended to win the electoral college vote while losing the popular vote, I will simply point out the low probability of accomplishing that goal and the difficulty of it and state that it is much easier to win the electoral college vote by winning the popular vote. The only presidents who lost re-election since 1980 were republicans, President George H W Bush and the would be dictator. Being an incumbent president is a huge advantage. We held the White House 1992-2000, 2008-2016, and 2020-2024. They have held it from 2000-2008 and 2016-2020. That's 20 of the last 32 years =62.5% (we're not at 2024 but we are going to hold it until 2024) compared to their 37.5%.

Therefore, they were following a path that could only lead to the destination at which they have arrived. We nominated a candidate for whom I was extremely enthusiastic, but she had been targeted and dragged by the GOP and hate radio for 30 years. I must admit that I could not imagine in my worst nightmare that they would vote for somebody so unqualified (even if they did love the bigotry) when the alternative was so qualified.

Lest anybody think the most ignorant and stupid thought ever, that somehow Trump's background was equivalent to President Obama's, I will make a few points. I say this because while I won't convince any of them (they aren't reading the Daily Kos), it is not a rational belief. Barack Obama graduated from Columbia, so impressed Professor Laurence Tribe (generally regarded as the preeminent law professor and Constitutional Law expert in this country) that Professor Tribe let Barack serve as his assistant when just entering Harvard Law School, he was chosen to be the Editor in Chief of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, Professor Tribe considered him to be the best student he ever had, served eight years as state senator in the Illinois state legislature, was offered a full tenure position as a law professor multiple times by the University of Chicago, won the primary for US Senator representing Illinois, won a majority of the vote in the general election for US Senator representing Illinois, defeated a highly qualified and well-respected senator, Senator Hillary Clinton, in the Democratic Party's primary, and defeated a well-respected maverick, Senator John McCain, with a majority of the vote. There is no shortage of Democratic Party political talent in a big blue state like Illinois and he had served eight years as state senator in the state legislature previously, the logical next step up was the US Senate, and his education and the rest of his background gave the voters in the Democratic Party's primary every reason to confidently choose him. The point is that there were other respected choices that the voters in the primary could have made. Similarly, after giving the Democratic Party primary voters two years to question him and examine his background and policies, the voters chose him over a very qualified Senator Hillary Clinton. In addition, I find it very relevant and important that Barack won a majority of the vote in all three of his general elections. Barack Obama was able to earn over the course of several years the confidence of a majority of the voters, something (Senator Ted Kennedy spoke about "Making America good again" in his endorsement of Senator Barack Obama - did Trump rip off Senator Kennedy?) Donald Trump was not able to do in any of his three elections. That means something.

While the republican voters might have held that view (that the orange bigot's background was equivalent to President Obama), they also believe the big lie and that Sandy Hook was staged... That view is no more rational or reasonable than the conspiracy theories I just mentioned. In any event, they did somehow justify their choice. While Donald Trump won the electoral college, that election confirmed that the Republican Party is incapable of nominating a presidential candidate who can win the popular vote. It's extraordinarily difficult for the Republican Party to produce a presidential candidate who can win the electoral college; it's barely possible. They have to try a triple bank shot, win the electoral college vote while losing the popular vote. In order to get out the hidden incel bigot vote and put up 74 million votes, they had to motivate more than 81 million of us who raised up a standard that they could not meet.

They started on this path by not respecting the electorate and the message that the electorate was sending them. They refused to change their policies so that they could broaden their appeal and diversify their party. That led them inexorably to where we are today. They realize that they can't win a fair and free election. And because they care more about power than they respect the electorate and care about democracy, they have lande elections. They are trying to simply grab power whether they win or lose the elections. 299 of the 560 something Republican Party's candidates are election denialists. That's a majority of them. Approximately, 75% of them believe the big lie. That this is what the party of Lincoln has become is sad and it worries me. Vote!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/18/2129668/-Worried-the-fall-of-the-entire-GOP-as-bad-as-McCain-Palin-Romney-were-now-it-s-fascism

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