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The GQP: Trumpist Death Cult


Hugo Stiglitz

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Excellent opinion piece

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/09/22/ruth-bader-ginsburg-court-seat-victim-republican-warfare-column/5853211002/

 

"Part of the asymmetrical nature of the behavior of the Republicans is that no matter how outrageously they behave — whether refusing to work with a two-term Democratic president or making up bogus rules to take a Supreme Court seat — if Democrats respond in any way, the GOP goes straight into victim mode, acting like the Democratic response just came out of nowhere. Don’t fall for it. The Democrats have shown incredible restraint, due to their commitment to the institutions of this country — the same institutions that Trump has been firebombing for the past four years."

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1 minute ago, Horn Dog said:

Excellent opinion piece

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/09/22/ruth-bader-ginsburg-court-seat-victim-republican-warfare-column/5853211002/

 

"Part of the asymmetrical nature of the behavior of the Republicans is that no matter how outrageously they behave — whether refusing to work with a two-term Democratic president or making up bogus rules to take a Supreme Court seat — if Democrats respond in any way, the GOP goes straight into victim mode, acting like the Democratic response just came out of nowhere. Don’t fall for it. The Democrats have shown incredible restraint, due to their commitment to the institutions of this country — the same institutions that Trump has been firebombing for the past four years."

And this is the key -- the Dems can't go into this tentatively or half-assed.  They need to go in brutal, vicious, and stating flat out "the GOP left us no choice.  They demanded that we do this by their actions, so we're doing it.  Next question?"

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Just now, Brisketexan said:

And this is the key -- the Dems can't go into this tentatively or half-assed.  They need to go in brutal, vicious, and stating flat out "the GOP left us no choice.  They demanded that we do this by their actions, so we're doing it.  Next question?"

100%.  The gauntlet has been thrown down and they must answer.  If they don't, the Rs continue to have free reign.

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7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

And this is the key -- the Dems can't go into this tentatively or half-assed.  They need to go in brutal, vicious, and stating flat out "the GOP left us no choice.  They demanded that we do this by their actions, so we're doing it.  Next question?"

The first (and possibly one which stymies the whole thing) step to doing this is to get everyone on the same page. The press is going to make a huge deal about the Dems acting like Pubs. That will be off-putting to the older Dems, set in their cravenness, who expect their appearance on TV to be rather pleasant and well in their comfort zone. If the weaklings can't handle a tough sounding question from creampuffs like Willie Geist, stay the fuck off TV and let the new blood take the lead. They should lean heavily on Katie Hill, Eric Swallwell, Ted Lieu and Chris Murphy. They should prepare to go on MSNBC like they're going on OANN. Prepare to bring their A games, because the "liberal" media is going to go completely apeshit. There's nothing those guys like better than a chance to show how objective they are by tearing into what is perceived to be their own "team" (kind of like Kirk Bohls picking Reggie Bush).

This isn't the well-traveled road to an easy life of wealth and power for these folks. Which is why I'm not really expecting them to take it.

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4 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Does anyone here believe Chuck Schumer has the killer instinct to pull off any of this? Who's the biggest asshole D Senator? Put that person in charge ASAP. 

This is another reason to leave Warren in the Senate. She's very much needed there. The Dems in the Senate don't have any other bomb-throwers among them, unless you count Gillibrand, but she's into torching her own house. Other than Warren, I think Chris Murphy, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar are your best bets to step up effectively in this fight. I have doubts that Schumer will even want to go the direction that's needed.

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12 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Does anyone here believe Chuck Schumer has the killer instinct to pull off any of this? Who's the biggest asshole D Senator? Put that person in charge ASAP. 

 

2 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Elizabeth Warren

Warren is a good interrogator (although Harris gets the nod as well),  but maybe give Tammy Baldwin a chance .

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16 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

 

Warren is a good interrogator (although Harris gets the nod as well),  but maybe give Tammy Baldwin a chance .

Yeah, I just think she's the only one that's shown the chutzpah to at least be fucking serious about this shit and call out the people who need to be called out.  Missing Al Franken about now.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-gops-long-march-to-fascism-finally-arrives-with-trump-2020?ref=home

 

Quote

Donald Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, though shocking, was no surprise. It's a dark, culminating step, although not the dark, culminating step, because that is still yet to come, of a long march, a step-by-step chipping away at democratic norms that long predates him.

At the heart of it: relentless attacks on the truth, large and small, year after year, decade after decade, until the point is reached where roughly 40 percent of the people still cling to truth, but another 40 percent have come to believe anti-truth, and the 20 percent in the middle don't know what to think. And that's how you put a knife in democracy's heart.

 

Quote

Small case in point. I watched about five minutes of Sean Hannity Tuesday night, and it was enough to get the drift. The segment was devoted to the lionization and martyrization of teenage Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, a campaign that’s been underway for weeks now.

Let’s make sure we have this right: A legal minor leaves his house in Illinois toting a semi-automatic weapon, crosses state lines into a state where it’s illegal for a minor to carry a gun except while hunting or at a range with an adult, saying it’s his job to protect the community (of which he is not a part), then he gets approached or accosted by two people who aren’t carrying guns and allegedly shoots them. This is what is what is being converted on Fox and elsewhere into an act of self-defense.

 

Quote

The obliteration of truth is essential to fascist movements. People who are fascists at heart know this in their bones, even if they’ve never read a book and don’t know Filippo Marinetti from Mario Andretti. They must destroy truth. Not by merely lying. They must tell anti-truths: things that are direct, frontal assaults on truth.

The reason is simple: Truth is a core value of democracy, and, importantly, of democratic power-sharing. In the golden age of American bipartisanship, from 1945 until maybe 1990, Democrats and Republicans disagreed on how to address a budget hole or a particular social problem. But they agreed that it existed. They agreed on the facts.

 

Spoiler

Yes, the country took a sharp turn to the right after 1980; and yes, certain non-truths were advanced then that from time to time one sensed a Weimaresque odor in the air: ketchup was a vegetable; trees caused pollution; Saddam Hussein was a good guy. But most of the time, Reagan accepted facts, such as that Social Security was in trouble in 1983, which is why he agreed to tax increases. George H.W. Bush did, too.

The effort to obliterate truth, and to elevate ideology and culture higher than factual truth, really began with Newt Gingrich. He was our first proto-fascist politician. He just said things, vicious things, out of thin air, complete inventions (one-quarter of Clinton White House staffers were taking illegal drugs), and he said them with intent—as a political weapon, to heighten the tension, divide us into camps.

This man is dangerous, some said. Oh, yes, he’s over the top sometimes. But you gotta admit he’s interesting.

Then came Rush Limbaugh. The entire purpose of his show from the beginning was to destroy truth and any sense of common, shared reality. And to get conservatives to leap from disagreeing with liberals to despising them. This, too, is a necessary ingredient of authoritarian power: domestic foes are evil. Subhuman.

This guy is way over the line, many said. Well, yes, in some ways; but look, bottom line, he’s an entertainer. People don’t really take him that seriously.

Then came Tom DeLay. Often overlooked these days, DeLay was a crucial soldier in this march to bury truth. He really started the aggressive gerrymandering and enforced the Hastert Rule—in other words, he made the first serious moves toward the anti-democratic stacking of the electoral deck to rig the game, which is the kind of thing you get away with, as DeLay knew, by accusing the other side of doing it. Then of course he was a key player in the Terri Schiavo madness, using that poor woman (in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery, her doctors said) as a bullet in the culture war.

And of course there was Karl Rove back in those days, too. John Kerry was a war hero, an upper-class Yale graduate who could easily have skipped the army but who volunteered anyway; who killed how many men for his country, risked his life how many times, we still don’t know. But Rove knew that he had to obliterate those truths in 2004, and the way to do that was to tell a morally sick anti-truth: to turn Kerry into a coward and a traitor.

DeLay and Rove, many of us were writing and saying, are taking this country to dark, unprecedented places. Oh, yes, some of this is pretty shocking, more hardball than usual. But creeping fascism? Don’t be silly.

On and on it went, too many steps to name here, each one taking us that much closer to the rendezvous with destiny that awaits us after Nov. 3. Barack Obama was a Kenyan, a Muslim. The antichrist, even. Subhuman, in other words. This was where Donald Trump started joining in, and from there, it made sense that each of those desecrations of truth led to Trump. I feel like an idiot today for thinking in the summer of 2015 that he’d fade in a few months. I didn’t understand how many millions of people had been persuaded to embrace unreality.

Now, it turns out the most important anti-truth of recent vintage was the one about voter fraud. This is what Trump will use to steal the election if he can.

If current polls hold, Joe Biden will win by maybe 6.5 or 7 points nationally, which could be as many as 10 million votes, and The Economist as I write these words predicts a 333-205 Electoral College majority for Biden. Trump and Bill Barr and Fox News and all the rest of them will call even this illegitimate—10 million votes, and 128 electoral votes. And they’ll pull every trick they can, from Nov. 4 to Jan. 20. That Barton Gellman piece The Atlantic posted Wednesday covered much of the grim territory.

They’ll say then the most outlandish things they’ve ever said, things that will shock us (even though we think we’re beyond shocking), because fascists know: The clearer the factual truth, the louder and more outrageous must be the anti-truth.

I can’t believe I’m writing this way about the United States. But then again, I’ve seen this coming for a long time. I just never really thought we would end up all the way here. But it’s where Donald Trump has brought us.

 

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31 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-gops-long-march-to-fascism-finally-arrives-with-trump-2020?ref=home

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Yes, the country took a sharp turn to the right after 1980; and yes, certain non-truths were advanced then that from time to time one sensed a Weimaresque odor in the air: ketchup was a vegetable; trees caused pollution; Saddam Hussein was a good guy. But most of the time, Reagan accepted facts, such as that Social Security was in trouble in 1983, which is why he agreed to tax increases. George H.W. Bush did, too.

The effort to obliterate truth, and to elevate ideology and culture higher than factual truth, really began with Newt Gingrich. He was our first proto-fascist politician. He just said things, vicious things, out of thin air, complete inventions (one-quarter of Clinton White House staffers were taking illegal drugs), and he said them with intent—as a political weapon, to heighten the tension, divide us into camps.

This man is dangerous, some said. Oh, yes, he’s over the top sometimes. But you gotta admit he’s interesting.

Then came Rush Limbaugh. The entire purpose of his show from the beginning was to destroy truth and any sense of common, shared reality. And to get conservatives to leap from disagreeing with liberals to despising them. This, too, is a necessary ingredient of authoritarian power: domestic foes are evil. Subhuman.

This guy is way over the line, many said. Well, yes, in some ways; but look, bottom line, he’s an entertainer. People don’t really take him that seriously.

Then came Tom DeLay. Often overlooked these days, DeLay was a crucial soldier in this march to bury truth. He really started the aggressive gerrymandering and enforced the Hastert Rule—in other words, he made the first serious moves toward the anti-democratic stacking of the electoral deck to rig the game, which is the kind of thing you get away with, as DeLay knew, by accusing the other side of doing it. Then of course he was a key player in the Terri Schiavo madness, using that poor woman (in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery, her doctors said) as a bullet in the culture war.

And of course there was Karl Rove back in those days, too. John Kerry was a war hero, an upper-class Yale graduate who could easily have skipped the army but who volunteered anyway; who killed how many men for his country, risked his life how many times, we still don’t know. But Rove knew that he had to obliterate those truths in 2004, and the way to do that was to tell a morally sick anti-truth: to turn Kerry into a coward and a traitor.

DeLay and Rove, many of us were writing and saying, are taking this country to dark, unprecedented places. Oh, yes, some of this is pretty shocking, more hardball than usual. But creeping fascism? Don’t be silly.

On and on it went, too many steps to name here, each one taking us that much closer to the rendezvous with destiny that awaits us after Nov. 3. Barack Obama was a Kenyan, a Muslim. The antichrist, even. Subhuman, in other words. This was where Donald Trump started joining in, and from there, it made sense that each of those desecrations of truth led to Trump. I feel like an idiot today for thinking in the summer of 2015 that he’d fade in a few months. I didn’t understand how many millions of people had been persuaded to embrace unreality.

Now, it turns out the most important anti-truth of recent vintage was the one about voter fraud. This is what Trump will use to steal the election if he can.

If current polls hold, Joe Biden will win by maybe 6.5 or 7 points nationally, which could be as many as 10 million votes, and The Economist as I write these words predicts a 333-205 Electoral College majority for Biden. Trump and Bill Barr and Fox News and all the rest of them will call even this illegitimate—10 million votes, and 128 electoral votes. And they’ll pull every trick they can, from Nov. 4 to Jan. 20. That Barton Gellman piece The Atlantic posted Wednesday covered much of the grim territory.

They’ll say then the most outlandish things they’ve ever said, things that will shock us (even though we think we’re beyond shocking), because fascists know: The clearer the factual truth, the louder and more outrageous must be the anti-truth.

I can’t believe I’m writing this way about the United States. But then again, I’ve seen this coming for a long time. I just never really thought we would end up all the way here. But it’s where Donald Trump has brought us.

 

That is fucking terrifying - mostly because it's become clear that this is where we're heading ... 

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13 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

 


Imagine having to resign in 2020 for pretending to grab a tit.

How far we’ve fallen.

 

there were a few other fake accusations.  One was that he was groped a woman during a picture that her husband took at the fair.  They waited about 30 years, give or take, to report it but it happened with apparently no other witnesses in a public place.  My guess is that gropings probably don't happen with politicians in public places in front of spouses but who am I to challenge a setup. Maybe Al wanted to fight the man and commit lewd acts on the woman at the fair.   

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On 9/24/2020 at 9:09 AM, Gap03 said:

That is fucking terrifying - mostly because it's become clear that this is where we're heading ... 

Mitch and a few other Senate Rs have put out statements to the contrary.  And Roberts won't swear in Trump if he loses.  

Trump ceases being President come inauguration time - there is nothing he can do to extend that, and his rage tweets and his tweet storms and retweet storms show he knows things aren't going well.  Trump is hell-bent on forcing things to come to a head, but he only cares about himself and his family/fortunes and plenty of Republicans know that.

I have no doubt that Trump will burn the GOP down on the way out.  He's already torched plenty of Republicans who didn't kiss his ring/publicly show him the loyalty he thinks he deserves, simply because he has an (R) next to his name.  Some Republicans in Congress still have a long game as well, where they are around and with some kind of power for years to come.   They know that if Trump tries to go down that rabbit hole, that the GOP is finished.  Might as well fire up the Whigs 3.0 party at that point.

That's where the fight for the GOP will get interesting - you have those like Graham, Blackburn, Mitch, etc. who have decided they are going down on the S.S. Trump when it sinks, and you have the Rubios and Romneys and some of the others who are trying to ride the line and that think they will be able to pick up the ashes out of the dumpster, and rebuild the GOP the way they want it.

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1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

 

Connect the dots, sheeple. Ken Jeong was a judge on the show. And he's a licensed doctor. Not only that, his family is from South Korea. Now get this, I just did a little research on Wikipedia and I found out that Korea is real close to China. How much clearer do I have to make it? Ken Jeong worked with the Chinese government to release the Wuhan virus on our country. They knew it would force President Trump out of the White House. Without Trump in the news, the ratings for the lamestream media would collapse. What would people start watching during a quarantine if they were no longer watching MSDNC and lame CNN? Obviously, The Masked Singer.

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So "the media" created a tv show a year and a half prior to covid, in order to make people more comfortable wearing masks? And because of that, they're "demonic"? Do I have that right? 

Imagine the stupidest theory possible. Triple it. Wrap it in idiocy. Then quadruple it.

Nope, that’s still way more sane than modern republican thinking.
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1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:


Imagine the stupidest theory possible. Triple it. Wrap it in bacon, sandwich between two butter sticks and then deep fry it, twice. Then quadruple it and order a dozen while complaining about healthcare after voting Republican.

Nope, that’s still way more sane than modern republican thinking.

My interpretation.

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6 hours ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

Connect the dots, sheeple. Ken Jeong was a judge on the show. And he's a licensed doctor. Not only that, his family is from South Korea. Now get this, I just did a little research on Wikipedia and I found out that Korea is real close to China. How much clearer do I have to make it? Ken Jeong worked with the Chinese government to release the Wuhan virus on our country. They knew it would force President Trump out of the White House. Without Trump in the news, the ratings for the lamestream media would collapse. What would people start watching during a quarantine if they were no longer watching MSDNC and lame CNN? Obviously, The Masked Singer.

Animated GIF

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yeah they have been living in their war bubbles for the last 12 years growing angrier and dumber by the day. 
just gonna accelerate in the coming months. which of course we all know. 

The bottom line is that a shit load of them just can’t wait till they have an excuse to shoot an evil socialist libtard in the war they’ve been fighting inside their heads for at least 12 years.

And some of them won’t be waiting.
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  • Hugo Stiglitz changed the title to The GQP: Trumpist Death Cult


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