Posted on 11/07/2020 10:18:29 AM PST by kiryandil
Weigh in.
Do you vote Republican as a 'Republican voter always', or do you vote Republican as 'the lesser of two evils'?
I think our Republican leaders need to get a load of the way we think on Free Republic as REAL conservatives.
And so do we at FR.
This thought came to me in the aftermath of the election.
I'm pretty active on Twitter, and I saw numerous people calling themselves Republicans who obviously believed they were Republicans - but hated Trump because they'd been brainwashed by the Media. These people are politically naive, of course - while believing that they're politically astute.
These Republicans actually believe that things will go back to the two-party system after this election.
My belief is that the 1992 Perot-type voters [deficit hawks/small government types], who were nearly 20% of the vote that year, moved to support the Republican column in the following elections. I'm one of those.
If the Republicans, who take these people for granted, lose that much of their base, they will RARELY win seats at the national level again.
I've been watching the DC Pubbie kabuki show for 20+ years. The Republicans are NOT friends of the small government, fiscal responsibility people.
President "Toto" Trump pulled the curtain back on that little game, and there's no going back.
Thanks for the link here!
I’m a Republican, but the GOP needs to re-platform. Have you ever heard of a pro life socialist? Me neither. A New GOP Contract with America agreement. Conservatives should fight abortion on a cultural level, not law. We can probably save just as many babies through outreach funds redirected to this purpose from Right to Life. The Dems will abort themselves over time. Then we can at least bring more people in the party who are also pro capitalist, anti immigration for terroristic religions, and still have a great place for our kids and grandkids to grow up in. We are supposed to be the big tent. I bet 10-15 million pro-capitalist, antiterrorism citizens cast votes for Biden just out of fear of anti-abortion laws. We would also pick up plenty of libertarian votes in states like Wisc. But now we really lose (at least so far), losing Trump in the white house will me a huge deal for so much we believe in.
Lesser... Has been lesser since Reagan till Trump.
ditto here.
Only two men have ever been fully supported because I chose to (very first vote = Nixon, (while still wet behind the ears.)
Ronald Reagan
DJ Trump
d’rats would never be considered possibilities. Too much water under the bridge.
Don’t forget there are many Freepers who are not members of the Republicrats. With the way this is going down I wouldn’t think the GOP should at all feel secure in the fact that all Trump voters will support their party in future endeavors.
If the Republicans stab President Trump in the back in this fight, he will have revealed that there IS no lesser of two evils - to too many people that have voted that way in the past.
I can persuade 20-30 people who vote Pubbie as "lesser" to #SitOutTheVote2022 without even breathing hard.
So it's already a lesser of two evils - freedom vs what is supposed to be a mild compromise. But I'll play.
I vote for republicans as the least worst. There are a few I respect, but I think at this stage of the game unless you come from the outside as Trump did, by the time you rise to anything above state legislatures you have promised away all your action in order to have been able to run a campaign that could get you there. NOT promised to the people who elect you, but those who can fund you. There are a few who I think have navigated that with the least damage to their character and even if they have any character left, the freedom to follow their own character.
Government is dangerous to begin with -> ANY government of man.
So I don't look at them as leaders. I look at them primarily as out-of-control servants who don't understand that they should look at themselves as janitors with a big set of keys, rather than governors of men. Part of being that janitor MAY mean having to whoop some ass and use force on occasion, but that's not the primary role.
The Republicans as a group I find rather disgusting. Trump is not a Republican. He's a Trump who loves freedom and opportunity and I think possesses the rare gift of actually loving his fellow man.
Hence, though many would laugh at this, he's a successfully guy who humbly, yes humbly, and happily, seeks, as a healthy man would at the end of a successful life, serves his fellow man the way a grape vine serves grapes. creating grapes is just what a healthy grave vine does. It doesn't think itself noble or sacrificing or high or low. It's a grape vine, and so ... it 'grapes.'
SUMMARY: The Republicans are highly flawed in character and major sinners. But the different between the Republicans and the Democrats is that with the democrats, sin is a feature and not a flaw. They see it as a strategy - sin is success in government. With the Republicans, it's barely true, but as a group, they aren't totally on the side of sin. (By sin I mean - governing for personal benefit, survival, and out of a lack of sincere natural love for their fellow countrymen.
Lesser of two evils, but one is an infection, the other is arsenic. I'll take the infection so long as it's the least worst I can get.
Trump is neither. You could say Trump is 'before government', outside it, not of it. He understands that it's a necessary evil that's also the most likely thing that will destroy its own people. His job has been to tear down the monster. Governments of men always stagnate into swamps ... that's human nature, not 'this' or 'that' government's nature. Ours is the only government founded on the concept that government is evil, but necessary.
If most in the country understood that ONE single concept (that one weird trick!) ... then things wouldn't be perfect (because we are the men we are, not the men we would choose to be - original sin), but the 'progressives' would get the best progress man is capable of, and the freedom lovers ... the conservatives ... would get their freedom.
Apologies in arrears, not going to go back to edit. Hopefully not too many typos, autocorrects and rats nest sentences.
Lesser of two evils.
I am not a republican.
I’m just an American that votes for what I think best preserves our republic.
I tend to have more in common with republicans.
I didn't see that race in the offing, even though I just did a 2022 Senate races posting (just the incumbents, though - not the challengers).
Good luck to youse AZ guys with that one - looks to be tough.
Same here.
With a little luck, I’ll be dead by the next Presidential election, so I won’t have to worry about who I’m going to vote for, and I’ll make sure my kids send a verified copy of my death certificate to the Board of Elections to remove me from the rolls. I did that with my sister when she died in 2011.
Excellent post.
I have never voted for a dummie crap in 50 years. I will never vote for big giverment
I’m a lesser of two evils type, mostly. I’ll vote for(or against) a Dem on their record, same as I will for a Republican.
I lean pretty strongly Libertarian, but try to find a viable Libertarian candidate. If the choices are a good Dem & bad Pub, I’ll vote the Dem. If it’s good Pub, and bad Dem, I’ll vote the Pub. Party leadership in both parties is getting to be stupidly much alike.
OTH, though I really don’t LIKE DJT as a person, he’s one of the few national-level candidates that have actually tried to do what they said they’d do. He’s the ONLY ONE who made it to actually hold an office. Biden has been in one office or another for nearly 50 years, and has done not one single thing that I can think of that has actually helped this county. And his chosen vice-candidate is worse. Not that she’s been in office as long, but that she isn’t even as honest as he is. Pretty low bar there, too. If it was possible to get off the planet, I’d be gone.
Great analogy, and not one to laugh at.
Nope, GREAT post.
Making a “loyalty” list?
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