If you left the GOP, when & why?

[calamity]

Blame those who refused to put up Great? :lamo That sounds like Hawkeye. :mrgreen:

Enjoy Gorsuch and a record number of far-right circuit judges now in place, just for ****s and giggles.
Purity regressive progressives own this calamity as much as any portion of the electorate.

What I see on DP etc., some of the biggest bitchers about trump
are those who didn't vote at all, or threw their vote away on another Nader ...

Nothing wrong with refusing to vote for a crooked liar, even if she is less crooked and lies fewer times than the other guy.

 

[Middle_Ground]

My Democratic party is losing the ad war on including DACA with any spending bill, AGAIN, just as they impotently stood by in early 2014 as GOPs bashed the ACA roll-out. GOPs were ready with their hit ads; DEMs werre MIA as usual.

My post pointed out that a President Pence would return the USA to normalcy, something that can't be argued against.
DEMs seriously underestimate how popular Pence is within the GOP,
and how presidential he projects on the international stage.

As a mod/con DEM, I can work with normal and mod GOPs, such as those in the northeast.
You'll see between 5 to 7 GOPs elected governor in 2018 in states like MD, MA, ME, VT, NH, and increasingly CT and RI.

One of the best DEM hopes is the NDRC led by Holder and Obama.
However, I fully expect DEMs to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,
as they've done since the census/remap election catastrophe of 2010 ...

Your right the dems have always lost the ad war and that was happening way back to Willie Horton...they suck at slinging ****. Always have.

The thing is lots of local grassroots stuff is changing for the DEM's Obama was so IDK quiet that Dem's got complacement. I thank Trump for waking up a lot of folks.

Dem's and all normal thinking people just need to forget about that (whatever %) Republican base that hates anything not Trump, hates anything at middle to the left....no matter what you do will never vote for DEMS. There hatred is deep , they don't care about the country they only want the everything before the 70's back.

Nimby Dem's need to do exactly what Republicans did, for 7 years and 11months, have there own Tea Party, Lie about everything and get people riled up.

 

[Linc]

Nothing wrong with refusing to vote for a crooked liar, even if she is less crooked and lies fewer times than the other guy.

The worst part is that GOPs would have already impeached Clinton several months ago.
That was the only reason Rep. Chaffetz had for living.
McConnell would have frozen the Nation until she resigned.
In both cases, the GOPs would have ruined the Nation.

You obviously fell for the 40-year plus smear campaign against HRC since she was on the Watergate commission.
You're not alone, as we saw in 2016; Nixon >> raise their negatives and lower the voter participation.
Gowdy and I$$A proved nothing against Clinton ...

 

[Absentglare]

For me, the beginning of the end was "Freedom Fries." The why? Because I decided I no longer wanted to be associated with stupid. And the GOP pushing to take the French out of French fries really was a truly radical turn toward StupidLand.

GOP lost me when they turned their backs on Americans. Rampant lying, virtue signaling, fanning the flames of discontent for political power; these ****ing crooks have poisoned their brand for a generation.

They will pay dearly.

 

[Deuce]

A better question: If you suck democrat dicks, when and why? No self esteem? Lack of intelligence? Want some of that free money? Can't bring yourself to do anything productive? No sense of self-reliance? Hate your father? Skull full of mush? What?

Somebody needs a nap.

 

[Linc]

Your right the dems have always lost the ad war and that was happening way back to Willie Horton...they suck at slinging ****. Always have.

The thing is lots of local grassroots stuff is changing for the DEM's Obama was so IDK quiet that Dem's got complacement. I thank Trump for waking up a lot of folks.

Dem's and all normal thinking people just need to forget about that (whatever %) Republican base that hates anything not Trump, hates anything at middle to the left....no matter what you do will never vote for DEMS. There hatred is deep , they don't care about the country they only want the everything before the 70's back.

Nimby Dem's need to do exactly what Republicans did, for 7 years and 11months, have there own Tea Party, Lie about everything and get people riled up.

I promise you a full response when I calm down towards my own party.
Oh wait, I've just joined the Tres Borrachos party of bashing my own lunatic fringe. :mrgreen:

I disagree with some of your statements in a post loaded with great stuff.
And I'll continue to donate to Conor Lamb, just for instance ...

 

[gdgyva]

For me, the beginning of the end was "Freedom Fries." The why? Because I decided I no longer wanted to be associated with stupid. And the GOP pushing to take the French out of French fries really was a truly radical turn toward StupidLand.

been a member of the GOP since 1979

never heard of freedom fries

i support candidates i want to support, and dont support others like Trump

guess it depends on whether or not you live and breathe this stuff....

i dont...got too many other irons in the fire so to speak

 

[Fiddytree]

I was becoming uneasy with Democrats by about 2003, so I mostly hitched myself to the GOP. But by about the summer of 2008 I was becoming concerned with the Know-Nothing populism of Palin. I could mostly ignore it with McCain and Romney, but by 2014 I was getting a bit apprehensive. Still, I pressed on, as there was a lot I liked about Jeb, Rubio, though too Jeffersonian for my taste, was making some interesting strides with some domestic policy issues (e.g..child care). Of course I also liked Kasich.

I think I started to lose my cool after the first primary poll had the three Presidential candidates with ZERO political or military command experience having the majority of the GOP primary preference. I mean, this was after the legitimate problems with Obama's light national resume. So Trump, Carson, and Fiorina.

To me, before Trump said vulgar things, I thought the guy needed to be removed simply because he had NO experience. That was my rule. No experience= get the hell off the stage. Then he decided to crap on the Growth Opportunity Project report on top of that. I thought for sure he was done. But nope.

Now, I couldn't stand Cruz because he not only offered no substance and was seemingly antagonistic toward government just because, he was also too damn populist. But at least the dude was a first term Senator (not much worse than Obama at that point).

As this dragged on and on, as the debates became dumber and dumber, and Trump's numbers continued to rise despite being a hateful jackass who never offered a useful policy proposal beyond "It's going to be great," I prayed for Bush-Kasich-Rubio. Somebody, please, Christ.

It became clear that wasnt going to happen by mid-spring. I still hoped that I would see a convention revolt, but I knew it was unlikely, and at best, the convention takers were going to pick Trump's best friend Ted Cruz (anyone who remembers the early part of the primary ought to remember how utterly pitiful buddy-buddy Cruz was with Trump) to be the nominee.

Nope. They were all in.

I started hearing some conservatives say Trump was a liberal and would govern like a liberal. I thought, yeah right. He's got the red neck vote so tight he wouldn't dare do that, and he has to work with the GOP-led Congress. Then it was "on they will stand up to him!" I thought, yeah right, at best they see him as an empty suit to put their worst ideas on paper and sign, because they could afford to be drunk with power.

So as I watched his first months go by, I saw Congress do Jack to stand up to him or denounce his antics. Then I saw them do reconciliation bills that accomplished next to none of the supposed goals they had for improving healthcare. Then I saw them crap on existing GOP-led criminal justice reform and opioid crisis reform efforts going on across the country that were very sensible.

And the worst part was, state GOP leaders encouraged it, despite the fact this was only going to make their budget problems way, way worse and their human outcomes tank. "Sure, vote to repeal and replace the ACA while simultaneously gutting Medicaid--we won't mind paying up the ass for our corrections budgets or having our hospitals close down, or our opioid deaths skyrocket."





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[Fiddytree]

Re: If you left the GOP, when & why?

DeVos wasn't a monster, but she wasn't particularly bright either. So shes off running around talking about school choice, which she can't really do anything with and most red states couldnt take advantage of even if all the stars aligned. Then out of nowhere she starts penalizng states for not meeting arbitrary and contradictory standards that are neither responsible nor within federal purview (and I'm a tough guy on school accountability). Then she and Sessions erode their OCR offices and start working backward on making sure schools don't unnecessarily suspend kids or physically harm them. Meanwhile, no one has a sense for what the Dept of Ed even wants to go with public schools. Less hands on? Okay, they arent even articulating what that's going to look like. Remember: public schools are their focus area. Plus these reforms were basically Republican-led since Reagan and Bush Sr.

The only thing with some sense of vision coming about is a minor change on monitoring that's happening through OSEP. I am fine, even to some extent pleased, with what I am seeing there. But given the publications that came out a year or two before the Obama administration left that were quite good, I haven't the foggiest idea if they are even contemplating any of it (not even the bang for buck stuff).

I shouldn't have been so surprised. Republicans, because of Obama's Race to the Top, were becoming reactionary toward every federal involvement in education. Common Core, truly told, was a reform (standards) searching for the ability to actually do real reform (curriculum). Standards tend to be bland and mean next to nothing in the real world. But what was a conservative-endorsed reform became tagged with that liberal Obama guy and so the populism went on.

After a while, Republicans could only see education reform in terms of school choice. School choice is nice and all, but it's neither a miracle pill, nor is it remotely viable in the majority of Republican states, because of population limits, rural areas having a lack of infrastructure, and massive geographic distances between towns. It's a reform best left to more urban areas.

But what did Republicans have to offer for public school reforms in the Tea Party-Trump era? Hell if I know. Feds hands off, I guess. But what about state reforms? No damn clue. No one knows. There was an interesting discussion a few years ago about downsizing state departments of education by linking them away from things they arent particularly good at, but contracting those services out. Ok, flawed, sure, but interesting. May have been especially useful in areas that are weak or contentious, maybe experimental (like student and parent engagement in some aspects of running an individual school, district, or even state policy on some things). Haven't heard a damn thing about that since. Just "gubment" and "competition."


So I feel like with education we are abandoning all the good work the Reagan, Bush Sr., and W. Bush administrations did for improving school accountability, data collection, and so on in favor of reflexive nonsense about getting government out and concentrating on private schools.
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[Mr Person]

The worst part is that GOPs would have already impeached Clinton several months ago.
That was the only reason Rep. Chaffetz had for living.
McConnell would have frozen the Nation until she resigned.
In both cases, the GOPs would have ruined the Nation.

You obviously fell for the 40-year plus smear campaign against HRC since she was on the Watergate commission.
You're not alone, as we saw in 2016; Nixon >> raise their negatives and lower the voter participation.
Gowdy and I$$A proved nothing against Clinton ...

Clinton was a bit of a liar. She never wanted to take responsibility for anything. But to me, her greatest political sin was shedding (or appearing to shed) all personal beliefs. I paid attention to the last campaign. Again and again, the papers would report on what polls said on various issues being kicked around in general and within 1-2 weeks, she'd claim to sincerely believe in whatever it was had the highest polling status among independents and people on the left.

All politicians look at polls, yes, but she seemed soulless.




On the other hand, the notion that she's some kind of hardened criminal and master of corruption (coming from certain portions of the right) are absurd in the extreme.

 

[tres borrachos]

been a member of the GOP since 1979

never heard of freedom fries

i support candidates i want to support, and dont support others like Trump

guess it depends on whether or not you live and breathe this stuff....

i dont...got too many other irons in the fire so to speak

You never heard of Freedom Fries? It was all over the news and widely discussed in 2003. The Republican Chairman of the Committee on House Administration renamed "French Fries" in all the Congressional cafeterias because France opposed the Iraq War, and made a big to do about it. He ultimately had to resign in scandal (not that one) and his replacement, also a Republican, changed it back in 2006.

Calamity is right. It was stupid. It made me cringe at the time.

 

[Linc]

Clinton was a bit of a liar. She never wanted to take responsibility for anything. But to me, her greatest political sin was shedding (or appearing to shed) all personal beliefs. I paid attention to the last campaign. Again and again, the papers would report on what polls said on various issues being kicked around in general and within 1-2 weeks, she'd claim to sincerely believe in whatever it was had the highest polling status among independents and people on the left.

All politicians look at polls, yes, but she seemed soulless.




On the other hand, the notion that she's some kind of hardened criminal and master of corruption (coming from certain portions of the right) are absurd in the extreme.

I'll not fall into the banana republican trap of relitigating the 2016 election, because that's all they have.
DEMs continue to not have an answer for GOP false-equivalence and whataboutism, as that's all they have.
Present Moment Awareness is a thing of the past in today's politics ...

 

[Middle_Ground]

I promise you a full response when I calm down towards my own party.
Oh wait, I've just joined the Tres Borrachos party of bashing my own lunatic fringe. :mrgreen:

I disagree with some of your statements in a post loaded with great stuff.
And I'll continue to donate to Conor Lamb, just for instance ...

LOL sorry you lost me in the first part
Looked up Conor Lamb...new young faces, that's what we need while making sure they have stable mentors.

 

[Linc]

LOL sorry you lost me in the first part
Looked up Conor Lamb...new young faces, that's what we need while making sure they have stable mentors.

Here's my go to link for federal candidates and major state offices.
All of the candidate web sites are there, and much more, so it takes time and effort to get around the site.
They go back to 2000 for election data.
The Green Papers: United States Midterm Election 2018

Ballotpedia is the best for state legislatures and lower; they just retooled their front page; pretty overwhelming.
dailykos.elections does fabulous work with data mining and continuous updates on all the elections ...

 

[Helix]

If you left the GOP, when & why?

i stopped considering myself a Republican after the "patriot" act in 2001, and i became a libertarian (go, Badnarik! Ron Paul!) around 2008, i turned off the fox, abandoned libertarianism, and became an independent. since then, the right has pushed me further left, and now i'm basically the American equivalent of a center left European / Canadian.

i still don't support the patriot act. get a ****ing warrant.

 

[calamity]

been a member of the GOP since 1979

never heard of freedom fries

i support candidates i want to support, and dont support others like Trump

guess it depends on whether or not you live and breathe this stuff....

i dont...got too many other irons in the fire so to speak

It was a Foxian narrative pushed when France chose not to invade Iraq with us. Stupid as it was, it caught fire with the Deplorables for a few weeks. ****ing idiots.

 

[calamity]

GOP lost me when they turned their backs on Americans. Rampant lying, virtue signaling, fanning the flames of discontent for political power; these ****ing crooks have poisoned their brand for a generation.

They will pay dearly.

Yep. After "Freedom Fries," they went all in on being assholes.

I should have seen it coming in the 90's. They were already assholes back then even. I just wasn't paying attention.

 

[Absentglare]

If you left the GOP, when & why?

I'll not fall into the banana republican trap of relitigating the 2016 election, because that's all they have.
DEMs continue to not have an answer for GOP false-equivalence and whataboutism, as that's all they have.
Present Moment Awareness is a thing of the past in today's politics ...

What response is there, NIMBY? Those problems are supposed to be self correcting. Republican constituents are supposed to police the integrity of their own side. They ordinarily do that by communicating with, and thereby establishing a common base of facts with, critics, negative feedback paths. Republicans inoculated their constituents against those feedback paths. They've spent decades insulating their people from narratives that jeopardize their political goals.

 

[calamity]

The worst part is that GOPs would have already impeached Clinton several months ago.
That was the only reason Rep. Chaffetz had for living.
McConnell would have frozen the Nation until she resigned.
In both cases, the GOPs would have ruined the Nation.

You obviously fell for the 40-year plus smear campaign against HRC since she was on the Watergate commission.
You're not alone, as we saw in 2016; Nixon >> raise their negatives and lower the voter participation.
Gowdy and I$$A proved nothing against Clinton ...

Na. I always disliked the Clintons. And, I certainly was not alone. Why do you think everyone--this obviously does not include our deplorable friends---fell in love with Obama? He was a breath of fresh air.

Hillary is sewer meat. Trump is sewer ****.

 

[Perotista]

For me, the beginning of the end was "Freedom Fries." The why? Because I decided I no longer wanted to be associated with stupid. And the GOP pushing to take the French out of French fries really was a truly radical turn toward StupidLand.

The only political party I ever belonged to was Ross Perot's Reform Party. I'm probably your classic ticket splitter or have been. In 2016 I voted third party for president, Republican for senator and Democratic for Representative. I lean right on a lot of issues and left on some and really don't give a crap on a lot of others.

As a kid growing up I latched onto Eisenhower and then Goldwater. But my early voting era was mostly for Democrats. That began to change under Reagan along with the conservative Democrat becoming extinct. I might have become a full fledged Republican if that party had remained true to the traditional/Goldwater ideals of conservatism. Not this religious or social conservatism, not this neo conservatism and definitely not Trumpism.

As someone who believes in small government, that is keeping government out of a citizens private business and lives. Today's Republicans want government to control your life. Abet, from the right, although Democrats want to control your life using government from the left. So that leaves me in the middle. far as I'm concerned keeping government out of a citizen life as long as that citizen isn't harming someone else is important to me. Let the woman decide whether she gets an abortion or not, not government. Let gays marry, let love decide, not government. But keep government out of what type light bulb I buy or what car or what type of health insurance I buy.

Fact is I could never belong to either party today. Way too big a gulf there one way or the other. Or should I say direction and where they stand on things. I have no use for extreme right or extreme left which is exactly what our two major parties have become. Extremist.

 

[calamity]

The only political party I ever belonged to was Ross Perot's Reform Party. I'm probably your classic ticket splitter or have been. In 2016 I voted third party for president, Republican for senator and Democratic for Representative. I lean right on a lot of issues and left on some and really don't give a crap on a lot of others.

As a kid growing up I latched onto Eisenhower and then Goldwater. But my early voting era was mostly for Democrats. That began to change under Reagan along with the conservative Democrat becoming extinct. I might have become a full fledged Republican if that party had remained true to the traditional/Goldwater ideals of conservatism. Not this religious or social conservatism, not this neo conservatism and definitely not Trumpism.

As someone who believes in small government, that is keeping government out of a citizens private business and lives. Today's Republicans want government to control your life. Abet, from the right, although Democrats want to control your life using government from the left. So that leaves me in the middle. far as I'm concerned keeping government out of a citizen life as long as that citizen isn't harming someone else is important to me. Let the woman decide whether she gets an abortion or not, not government. Let gays marry, let love decide, not government. But keep government out of what type light bulb I buy or what car or what type of health insurance I buy.

Fact is I could never belong to either party today. Way too big a gulf there one way or the other. Or should I say direction and where they stand on things. I have no use for extreme right or extreme left which is exactly what our two major parties have become. Extremist.

There are dozens of reasons not to like Democrats. Problem is. There are now hundreds of reasons to dislike the Grand Old Party.

 

[Linc]

i stopped considering myself a Republican after the "patriot" act in 2001, and i became a libertarian (go, Badnarik! Ron Paul!) around 2008, i turned off the fox, abandoned libertarianism, and became an independent. since then, the right has pushed me further left, and now i'm basically the American equivalent of a center left European / Canadian.

i still don't support the patriot act. get a ****ing warrant.

As you mention Ron Paul, how about Rand Paul throwing a monkey wrench into the budget process?
Darn that Senate rule for unanimous consent. The 'no amendments senate' strikes again.
The Senator will shut the government down until he runs out of time about 3:00 AM Eastern.

Meanwhile, the five Asian indexes that are trading are all down around 3 % already, on the heels of our meltdown.
On a normal day, that would easily be the top headline.
But no, we've got a wife-beater with no security clearance handling top secret documents.

There can never be a false equivalence narrative accepted by what this administration has done.

I'm expecting the same bank run as in 2008 ...

 

[Linc]

Na. I always disliked the Clintons. And, I certainly was not alone. Why do you think everyone--this obviously does not include our deplorable friends---fell in love with Obama? He was a breath of fresh air.

Hillary is sewer meat. Trump is sewer ****.

There is no false equivalence between HRC and djt. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.
Just as there is no false equivalence between today's banana republicans and the purity regressive dummies ...
Only the foolish or those playing devils advocate say or accept this ...

 

[Helix]

As you mention Ron Paul, how about Rand Paul throwing a monkey wrench into the budget process?
Darn that Senate rule for unanimous consent. The 'no amendments senate' strikes again.
The Senator will shut the government down until he runs out of time about 3:00 AM Eastern.

Meanwhile, the five Asian indexes that are trading are all down around 3 % already, on the heels of our meltdown.
On a normal day, that would easily be the top headline.
But no, we've got a wife-beater with no security clearance handling top secret documents.

There can never be a false equivalence narrative accepted by what this administration has done.

I'm expecting the same bank run as in 2008 ...

i was having a brief reminiscence of my libertarian days. i am not a Rand Paul supporter, though i do think that his neighbor is a violent asshole.

as for trickle down, it tends to yield the same result again and again : bubbles and crashes.

 

[gdgyva]

You never heard of Freedom Fries? It was all over the news and widely discussed in 2003. The Republican Chairman of the Committee on House Administration renamed "French Fries" in all the Congressional cafeterias because France opposed the Iraq War, and made a big to do about it. He ultimately had to resign in scandal (not that one) and his replacement, also a Republican, changed it back in 2006.

Calamity is right. It was stupid. It made me cringe at the time.

Nope...but I was out out of the country for a bunch from 02 thru 04

Probably why it never registered....

And my American news was sporadic at best at that point...