I think the definition of RINO has changed in recent years. Back in the day we used to call them Rockefeller Republicans. Senators like Lowell Weicker, Jacob Javits, Arlen Spector, Olympia Snowe, Jim Jeffords, John Chafee, Charles Mathias etc. And they REALLY were liberal Republicans, mostly from the northeast.
I do not think most GOP senators today are anywhere near this liberal. Sen. Mitch McConnell has a lifetime ACU rating of 96%. Sen. Pat Roberts is ranked as one of the ten most conservative members of the US Senate. To classify these senators as RINOs is simply absurd. Nothing in life is perfect, least of all politics. There is no such thing as utopia or perfection in the political world. One thing the far right has in common with far left is an almost child like insistence on purity. As Ronald Reagan once said, politics is the world’s second oldest profession. We have to work with what we have. Here in CA where I have I live, ALL Democrats are Marxists. No exceptions. I have always voted the straight GOP ticket since I have lived here. Not that every Republican I have ever voted for was perfect. Far from it. But without exception, every single Republican candidate I have ever voted for was much closer to my own personal views than any Democrat. Politics isn’t rocket science. It’s very simple. You work with what you have. There is no time for day dreaming.
We can argue semantics and individual examples all you want.
My point is that when the Democrat party wins, liberalism wins. But a GOP victory is not necessarily a conservative victory. In fact, the GOP has shown it’s willingness to stomp on conservatives to move it’s own party agenda ahead.
“One thing the far right has in common with far left is an almost child like insistence on purity.”
So very true. Another similarity I have surmised, is that many on the far side of the spectrum seem to have little real world responsibility, like running a business, meeting a payroll, etc. Another two or four years of economic malaise is no skin off their apple. It is easy to be purer than pure when you have no skin in the game.