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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
If we're gonna use tropes, Ryan (and maybe others like Pence) have a better Mask of Sanity. But it's still just a mask.
@Wryte: And I really can't agree with that. Because that's fighting for the wrong thing. We don't want one sane party and one 100% crazy party, we want two sane parties. Jettisoning what sanity is left in the GOP just ensures that the next time they win an election (and there will be a next time) it'll be with somebody just as bad as Trump at the helm.
edited 26th Mar '17 9:09:38 PM by Gilphon
Paul Ryan is not a 'sane' voice in the usual definition of the word.
Paul Ryan is terrifying to me. He is an Ayn Rand devotee whose ultimate goal is to make life for the wealthy as comfortable as humanly possible while denying basic services to the poor. His whole philosophy is based around this. He will sell out to anyone, do anything and ally with whoever he has to fulfill his lifelong dream of fucking over the poor and destroying all government services towards them.
That is who he is.
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With the way the Republican party is acting, that only Baby Boomers are accepting the Republican Party in any substantial way, how Trump and the Republican Party in General are despised by almost everyone younger then 50, and combined with the Party's deteriorating financials (even Trump's victory left them huge wholes in their pockets) and inter-party relations, there may not be another victory for them. This wouldn't be the first time a Party deteriorated from within to the point that it just dies; the Federalist Party suffered many of the same problems and died off in the 1820's (The Whigs died for different reasons).
But just because the Republican Party 'dies' doesn't mean we'll have another "Era of Good Feelings". I'm personally expecting a French style of Elections, where 1 Stable Party (The Democrats) has to compete with 2 or more Smaller Parties (The Libertarians, the Greens, whatever faction the Alt-Right and the Tea Party form) whose influence waxes and wanes over time and from one state to another. At least until one of these Smaller Parties gains enough foothold to take the place of the Republicans "permanently". This sort of happened after the Whigs died, with both the American (Know-Nothings) and Republicans vying for power against the Dems. If it weren't for the Slavery Issue, we could've still had a 3 Party system.
edited 26th Mar '17 9:20:15 PM by DingoWalley1
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How do we accomplish that, though? There are clearly enough people in this country to continue voting R even when it becomes clear that they have lost it.
I want a sane right-wing party as much as anyone, even if I am not a right-winger myself. In the meantime, though, the country has to be wrested back into sane hands, which for now lie almost entirely on the Democratic side. The question is...how do we accomplish such a grand feat?
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison![]()
I'd rather the Filibuster remain protected. I know it can be abused and it has been recently by both sides, but I think it's absolutely necessary; it'd keep a major party from railroading everything they want to do through the Senate, and if another Trump is elected, we're gonna need it. Perhaps a limit on Filibustering could be introduced, I wouldn't be against that. Say Senators can only Filibuster once per Term?
Also, what I wouldn't be against is finishing what FDR wanted to accomplish; to pack the Supreme Court with 6 additional Judges. Since there is no limit on Judges in the Constitution, with America's growing population, and with only a law saying the max number of Justices is 9, having more Justices, especially 'liberals' would be a good thing.
edited 26th Mar '17 9:28:48 PM by DingoWalley1
@Wryte: And I really can't agree with that. Because that's fighting for the wrong thing. We don't want one sane party and one 100% crazy party, we want two sane parties. Jettisoning what sanity is left in the GOP just ensures that the next time they win an election (and there will be a next time) it'll be with somebody just as bad as Trump at the helm.
I don't want one sane and one insane party, either, but that's what we have right now, and since I see no way of restoring sanity to the insane one, I'm not getting in the way of their self-destructive purging of the mask. At least without the facade of legitimacy guys like Ryan give the party, we can try to attract the moderate voters that abandon them as their madness becomes apparent on the surface.
The Republican Party is beyond salvaging at this point, and it's a grave they dug themselves. They consciously bred fanatics to bolster their ranks, and now the fanatics are turning on them and they have no way out. Even if we wanted to save them, I don't see any way of accomplishing it. The best we can do is to be ready to snatch up the moderate votes the crazies drive away, and once the party has lost all pretense of rationality, hopefully we can sweep them out of power to wither and die in the backallies of 4chan, and be replaced by a new party of rational actors.
Why would I drop it? It doesn't matter how legitimate it was. It was actively hurting her to Bernie and then Trump's benefit. That's fact.
The email scandal cost her the election (along with stupid campaign mistakes)
Not necessarily. When it comes to the Democrats, filibusters are an essential means of buying time and stalling like their lives depend on it, and often their only real means of combating whatever BS the Republicans are trying to implement this week. Whereas if a Republican ever does it, then I'd guess it's because they really are just an asshole.
The email scandal cost her the election (along with stupid campaign mistakes)
Because it's dishonest? When Clinton was named the nominee, the FBI investigation was closed with absolutely no evidence to her being guilty of violating the law. It should not have been a bar to nominating her and constantly harping about that when a number of Bernie fans tried their best to pin it to her like a scarlet letter is rewriting history a bit.
Hell, one of Bernie's best moments in the primary was defending her from how ridiculous and stupid the affair was.
edited 26th Mar '17 10:54:49 PM by Lightysnake
Eh? That's not really relevant. I'm just saying that the whole thing hurt her tremendously. It doesn't matter that it was stupid or that it was closed when she was nominated because it already did its damage although the media kept talking about that even after that which kept making it worse.
I'd even say the media did more damage.
Because even normally liberal people I knew who weren't on Team Bernie felt uncomfortable about her and asked about the email scandals.
Yeah that was a good moment.
Still I prefer that time Hillary said Henry Kissinger was her friend and a source of counsel to her (ewwwww) and he replied that Kissinger was not his friend and he wouldn't be seeking counsel from him.
It also ignores the fact that the FBI actively intervened in the election to support the Republican Party, why assume that that would have only been done in the case of Clinton as the nominee? Can we honestly say we trust Comey enough to say that he wouldn't have fabricated a reason to launch an investigation into either Biden or Sanders?
edited 27th Mar '17 3:09:33 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThere is the going theory that this wasn't done at the behest of Russia (though it played into their hands) but because a bunch of assholes at the New York FBI branch really hate the Clintons. They even based their investigation on the bullshit Clinton Cash.
Comey's still to blame even if he wasn't behind this because he was too ineffectual to rein in his own subordinates.
edited 27th Mar '17 3:16:01 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised

I also wouldn't call Ryan a voice of reason. Sure, he's composed, compared to some of his more openly antagonist or racist colleagues, but he's still just as disconnected from reality as they are.