On The Trail: The first signs of a post-Trump GOP

[brooklynite]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: The Hill

For four years, President Trump has held an iron grip over the Republican Party, basking in the warm glow of adulation from a base that follows his direction to punish critics and reward allies.

But with polls showing an increasingly perilous path to reelection, there are new signs that his grip is loosening, as some Republicans begin to explore what the future of the Grand Old Party might look like once Trump becomes a lame duck or an ex-president.

In interviews with more than a dozen strategists, party leaders and current and former members of Congress, Republicans said their party is searching for a new direction even before Trump leaves the stage.

“His weaker poll numbers and off-the-wall tweets plus his flexible, day-to-day ideology empower and in some cases encourage dissent,” said Tom Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Politics is, above all, a game of survival, and his off-message remarks do not inspire confidence.”

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/510088-on-the-trail-the-first-signs-of-a-post-trump-gop

[Joinfortmill]

1. GOP is dead.

[calguy]

3. The GOP was "dead" after Nixon too

Jimmy Carter won a very narrow victory and it was 12 years before we saw another democrat in the white house.
Political parties are never dead. The GOP might be down, but they're not out. And I won't even count trump out until Nov 4th says he is. I take nothing for granted.

[not fooled]

14. Yep

I always remember that after we had the previous unqualified, installed, worst president--who lied the nation into war and crashed the economy...after the disaster that was the chimpy regime--I thought no way the GOPee would get back within stealing distance of the White House for at least 25 years...yet a mere 8 years later, here we are, with an even worse puke president.

Unlimited donor money + total lack of scruples in pursuit of political office + faux and RW radio + 1/3 nutz voters = don't count the GOPee out, ever.

[Hortensis]

15. Yes. Trump is an extreme, early symptom of what it's

become, which in voters is a very dangerous far-right base plus other cons who'd support anything a very bad leader calls for; factionally are anti-democratic authoritarianism, kleptocratic, Christian dominionism, libertarian, nativism, and racism; and in leadership are extreme corruption, which has created a new kleptocracy, determination to impose their power on the population, and even treason as they scrabble for more power against the opposition of the people.

In a way Trump's election, not part of their plans, may have done us a favor by forcing awareness of what was happening among the rest of the national leadership. Such a short time ago it was really inappropriate to actually call them fascists and refer to them as Nazis because of a little whiff of what they might become...

But those who imagine getting rid of their current leader will eliminate what created him are deluding themselves, and trying to delude us. They have to redirect those who elected him to better leaders and, in that process, get rid of those who use his power to continue their subversive agendas -- and will continue if left in power. People who would deliberately let pandemic disease loose on our people by refusing to stop it would absolutely do worse, better directed cleansings of those in their way.

“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”

— Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

[Blue Owl]

2. Clint Eastwood called...

He wants his empty chair back

[vlyons]

4. With or without Trump

The GOP is nothing but a bunch of greedy depraved corrupt bums.

[diva77]

6. Exactly. They just want someone more respectable looking & sounding while they pick the public

coffers clean.

[BlueIdaho]

5. Any chance they will be less bigoted, cruel, or sexist after Trump?

Nah... I didn’t think so...

[cstanleytech]

10. They were already all of those things and they will still be those in the end and

Trump simply caused more of them to be willing to flaunt it once they saw that there was no real consequences for what he said or did.

[SunSeeker]

7. The GOP lost their soul in 1964 and can never get it back.

They sold their soul to the devil when they conjured up the Southern Strategy to keep themselves in power for their rich donors. The GOP is a parasitic disease on our democracy that must be defeated and disbanded.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

8. This☝️

[Progressive Jones]

9. GOP. The P is for Parasite. Gang Of Parasites. nt

[cstanleytech]

11. Forgot to add treason to the list of crimes they have committed because frankly actively seeking

the help of foreign countries to do things like dig up dirt on a candidate (or protecting a politician that is guilty of doing so) or to try and hack a states voting machines to win elections is imo an act of treason.

[SunSeeker]

13. Or to hold up peace talks to hurt your Democratic opponent, as our boys died in a jungle.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/06/nixon-vietnam-candidate-conspired-with-foreign-power-win-election-215461

Republicans have been committing treason for decades. Once you sell your soul, treason is as easy to do as putting babies in cages.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

12. The Republican Party whole heartedly jumped on the Trump train, let them go down with him.

[Omaha Steve]

16. After a review by forum hosts....LOCKING

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