“The GOPe has forced us to surrender our principles for too long...”
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One more comment about this situation if I may...
The GOP has a uniquely self-destructive culture in which weakness is celebrated and feeds upon itself. Its really a remarkable organizational culture that operates in reverse; principle and resolve gets pushed down while compromise and appeasement get elevated. The party rewards the wrong type of behavior and therefore has no foundation of success. And nobody in the party, save for Trump, cares about it.
For an example as to why conservatives have lost so much ground over the past few years one only has to take a look at NRO. Even from this week, from what I’ve seen elsewhere (I haven’t actually been to the site), there are at least two articles supporting the Democrat’s replacing Biden with Harris without input from the voters.
I often check the headlines at NRO and notice that although they often have articles criticizing Biden/Harris on policy (especially when it comes to Israel), they still insist Trump would be worse for our nation.
A true conservative magazine would have apologized for their never-Trumper stance years ago, and fired all the left-wing writers. But they still insist that THEIR view of conservatism is the correct one. Much like their former staff writer David French (now the ‘conservative token’ at NYTs.)
With the GOPe in charge, we will continue to lose.