In reply to: It is not rational to say all GOP Congressmen posted by ACross
She needs them to win. Plain and simple. It’s like a Democrat bashing a crooked black politician. It ain’t gonna happen if that Dem wants to win. Someone rational and mature needs to unseat Trump before any good can be done. If that means not offending the deplorables, so be it.
general election. The problem is how do you keep those voters and then no go along with what they want once you are in office. I dont think the defeat of Trump in and of itself with lead to the defeat of Trumpism. Do you think Hawley or Cruz or a host of others are going to change if Trump loses and the Senate is supposed to be the adults in the room. Over in the House MAGA is in full control.
Many of these officials walked away from Trump after 1/6 only to come back when they decided they needed him. If you have not already seen what Stefanik said about 1/6 and the need to prosecute the people she now calls political hostages. How does a President Haley who is indebted to those politicians and voters take a different path?
Haley would have to accommodate some of the MAGA agenda (if that’s even possible depending on their representation in Congress), but she would steer away from the extreme positions in an effort to move the nation forward. I don’t know if she could end the MAGA movement but it’s better than the alternative.
The far left has no where near the power over the Dems that the MAGA has over the Republicans. McCarthy had to pander to them to win the Speaker’s chair and then promptly lost it. The new Speaker was happily referred to as MAGA Mike Johnson until he realized he needed to govern and the Freedom caucus immediately started talking about dumping him.
I will grant you the college loan issue. Other than that Biden has not been controlled by the left and even that they got less than they wanted and it may be he actually believed it was the right thing to do. He has stayed strong in support of Israel despite complaints from the left. The WH and Senate Dems have engaged in good faith negotiations on the border without appearing to demand anything for dreamers in order to obtain funding for Ukraine. And Israel. That would not make the left wing happy but he is still doing it. Meanwhile the MAGA caucus said they would not agree to those without border policy changes but won’t take yes for an answer.
I will make another plug for Adam Kinzinger's sub stack. This from his piece today the full link is below
The GOP no longer negotiates in good faith, at least once the former President speaks up. How many times do they move the goal posts? I saw this many times over my 12 years in the house, the Freedom Caucus makes a demand that seems unreasonable, and once it’s met they then withdrawal that demand to an even more extreme position until alas, the demands cannot be met, the deal collapses, and they can then blame the “RINOS and Democrats.” Democracy cannot function when one party consistently negotiates in bad faith. This is governing by children..
sides!
MAGA is absolutist: do it our way or be cast into outer darkness.
The rest of the voting public should feel the same: reject MAGA or be cast into outer darkness. Letting all those GOP politicians who say "but I'm not part of that, wink, wink" get away with it allows the GOP as a whole to drift further into MAGA's clutches every day.
Quit barking at the moon and flipping MAGA voters the bird on the highway. Trump has a short shelf life. He may beat Biden, and Biden and Democrats bear some blame.
I would encourage more constructive engagement that vomiting emotion all over the place about Trump bringing the world to an end.
Support local and state GOP candidates like Marine Domer who will be charged with the responsibility of cleaning up this mess.
Plenty of good GOP candidates have been caught up in the flotsam, jetsam, and excrement of bad timing. Cheney and contemporaries for starters. Matt Ryan. Mark Green.
Send a check to Julie Raque Adams in KY.
Say Biden won by 3 more points and taken NC/Florida and the dems took 2 more senate seats I can guarantee you the Republicans would have dumped MAGA/impeach Trump. Instead they (McConnel types) made the calculation that they could win with MAGA more easily than without and kept playing footsie with them. Beating Biden in 2024/keeping the tax cuts in place/preserving the balance in the SCOTUS were seen as more important than stopping a literal insurrection lead by a Strong Man.
These people should be punished at the ballot box until they decide they've been in the political wilderness for too long and change.
My quibble, and it may not even be that, is the word "punished." That seems to be about something in the past. I prefer "coerced" or some such because I want to change future behaviors.
They have to be convinced that their political fortunes are toast with MAGA. All the way down to dog catcher.
To mean seeing negative consequences. The only thing these guys care about is winning. They won't change until MAGA is seen as a way to ensure you lose.
The thing is, with the makeup of the party and the way we draw districts, most of these guys see more danger in losing a primary than a national blow out election. Most Republican House/Senate members are in R plus 10 seats. Some I'm concerned the MAGA doom loop is just going to continue and worsen as the McConnel types are replaced by the JD Vances of the world.