Posted on 08/27/2015 9:25:05 AM PDT by Mariner
Lindsay Graham, as part of the taunt-war he’s having with Donald Trump, says that if Trump wins the GOP nomination, it will mean the end of the Republican Party. He’s right, but Trump means the end of the Republican Party even if he doesn’t get the nomination.
I wrote a few weeks ago that Trump represents the Jump the Shark moment of the party. The GOP has been a rickety, unsustainable contraption of policy prescriptions that don’t add up, don’t really represent the coalition’s actual members, and is based on a backward-looking set of views appealing to an ever-shrinking demographic. It has been held together this long with an ever-more-obfuscatory confabulation of misdirection, packaged in buzzwords and amped with anger. It was overdue to come unglued.
Trump is a disruptor of the most lethal sort. His blunt language is shattering the brittle framework of GOP nostrums that forever promise things they don’t deliver. He is revealing the basic discordance between party leaders and rank and file. He is like the rogue catalyst that breaks one bond, then moves on to break the next and the next. There’s no easy way to stop this, though the party establishment is frantically trying to think of one.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
There's plenty to criticize about Trump, but using Lindsay Graham as an avatar of what a "real" Republican and a "real" conservative should be like is a non-starter.
LOL
Who is this “we” you’re talking about? The gop and it’s minions can KMA. Further, I will happily stand by and watch the gop lose rather than vote for their leftist pukes in any position. Bush in any position, including dogcatcher, is a nonstarter. No deal. I will actively campaign for people to stay home.
The gop needs to die, die, die.
Who is this “we” you speak of?
You seem to think that the gop is somehow fixable, somehow reformable, somehow redeemable. It is not. The gop is a cancer. You don’t bargain with cancer. You don’t negotiate with cancer. You get chemo. Or it kills you.
“Do you vote that ticket with Cruz on top?”
No. Not a chance in hell. Jebito in any capacity means I work overtime to urge others to stay home. The time for “compromise” and “comity” and “reaching across the aisle” are long over.
No, the party must die. It represents nothing of honor or virtue or decency.
For the sake of discussion, let’s acknowledge the fact that there were some otherwise decent people in the German nazi party. I have no doubt that there were even some in the upper echelons who thought gassing Jews was a bad idea. Yet, thankfully, the allies didn’t seek to “compromise” or try to “reform the nazi party from within.” No, we decided the nazi party offered nothing of value and we destroyed it
In much the same way, the gop needs to be destroyed.
Yeah, that might work.
I think there are a few minds left : )
We have some terrific conservatives in the race this time around. Of the current crowd, there are about half a dozen I could get excited about. I would ask all those who want to begin with litmus tests and purges of the big tent: if we can't propel one of the stronger conservatives through the primaries this time around, on what grounds do you think a splinter faction can ride as as-yet unidentified champion to victory in the general?
We have some great candidates out there. Personally, I want to back someone who spends most of his time carrying the fight to the Democrats, as opposed to running ideological purity purges against people who are agreed on three quarters of the issues. If a conservative can't compete in a Republican primary, he is not going to win the general election.
Toles is a pseudo political cartoonist with the drawing and wording skills of a 3 year old.
“If a conservative can’t compete in a Republican primary, he is not going to win the general election.”
That’s Ted Cruz’ problem in a nutshell.
The US is not a conservative country in the sense we wish it was. It’s center right some times, center left others. If you want to win as a conservative however defined, you’re going to have to bring something else to the table. In DT’s case, it’s raw nationalism and optimism. And perhaps honesty. And that’s why he might win.
As for splintering, I think you misunderstand my point. The gop as a brand and an organization is poisonous. In the coming election, a large portion of those who vote for the gop candidate will be doing so not because that person is in the gop, but in spite of it. If you had a product with a brand as poisonous as the gop is, you’d change the name and fire the management and hope that you weren’t indicted and sued into bankruptcy.
That the gop has used ballot access laws and skulduggery to embed itself into the political process like an engorged tick doesn’t mean that people have affection for it.
“No. Not a chance in hell. Jebito in any capacity means I work overtime to urge others to stay home. The time for “compromise” and “comity” and “reaching across the aisle” are long over.”
Explain to me how Bush would reach across the aisle? He’s a tie breaking vote in the Senate and he gets to go to all the funerals. I think aside from that he is about as useful as Biden was.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want Yebbie within 1000 miles of the White Hut. My thought is to get the GOPe to give up on attacking Conservatives so they can put up Libs that cannot get elected dog catcher.
I want Cruz in DC. For lack of Cruz I will settle for Trump. Anyone else, I am voting local because like you I am tired of the crap from the establishment.
And this differs from the Democrats how?
Okay, they may appeal to a rising demographic, but their policies are as contradictory as the Republicans' are and their coalition is as held together by buzz words and anger as much as the Republicans' is. Plus, there's even more misdirection among the Democrats.
But Toles is the paper's cartoonist. Not that great with words or complex ideas.
If the GOP falls it will not be the fault of the conservatives, but it will be the fault of the moderates that have ruined the party.
sphinx, you are spot on with these comments.
My mom was active in county politics, and passed that on to me.
When I was 19 I went to my first Young Republicans meeting.
I didn’t recognize the people I saw there. Guys wearing $500 blazers, and $300 loafers. I was from a working class family. My dad retired from the City.
You’ve heard the expression “Turd in the Punchbowl”, well that was exactly what I was to these people. Needless to say I didn’t go to many more of these meetings.”
My friends and I loved Reagan, but if I had invited any of them to one of these soirees there would have been a fight.
These were the people they bussed into our school so they would have more blacks at theirs.
After I got older, I wanted to try again.
County Republican meeting. I was the only male there, and between 30-50 years younger than everyone else.
They were much more welcoming, but I felt weird going to any meeting with that many older women, and arguing with them by myself felt like I was beating up someones Granny.
I’ll bet most of these people sceaming for the death of the Republican Party can’t name the chairman of their county Republicans, much less ever have gone to a meeting to try and change the direction of the party.
All politics are local, and it doesn’t matter whether the GOP dies, or what it’s replaced with if no one else gets involved at that level , then the outcome will be the same.
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