• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Ongoing US GOP Debacle Thread: Seditious Republicans march toward authoritarianism

Whaaaa? No way.

I expect to see some of this Republican elitism in the FL gov race. DeSantis went to Harvard and Yale and Gillum went to FAMU.
 
Whaaaa? No way.

I expect to see some of this Republican elitism in the FL gov race. DeSantis went to Harvard and Yale and Gillum went to FAMU.

I definitely expect rubes to more associate with the local FAMU.
 
Whaaaa? No way.

I expect to see some of this Republican elitism in the FL gov race. DeSantis went to Harvard and Yale and Gillum went to FAMU.

I'm not that up on FL politics. But I've read that Nelson has a Latino problem, and Scott has been courting arrivals from Puerto Rico. I've been viewing that race as the least likely Dem win of the senate toss-ups (below TN, MO, AZ and NV). Do you think this governor's race will have any up ballot effect on the senate race?
 
I'm not that up on FL politics. But I've read that Nelson has a Latino problem, and Scott has been courting arrivals from Puerto Rico. I've been viewing that race as the least likely Dem win of the senate toss-ups (below TN, MO, AZ and NV). Do you think this governor's race will have any up ballot effect on the senate race?

I agree with that assessment of Nelson vs. Scott. Nelson is old. He's never been particularly outfront considering he's a swing state senator. Yet he's dismissed his challengers pretty easily over the years. Rick Scott is a much tougher opponent than the others he has faced. He's been very prominent as governor. He's slipped past centrist attempts to damage him based on his record.

Nelson seems to be running an old school campaign. The head of the local Indivisible chapter said that Nelson turned down their help and the national Indivisible chapter's help. Gillum running as governor kind of forces Nelson to embrace progressive politics if he wants to take advantage of Gillum's ground game and new prominence. Gillum is also going to hit Scott's record much harder and probably more effectively than Nelson. I think Gillum will definitely help Nelson because Gillum will bring younger voters and diseffected progressives to the polls. I'm not sure Nelson will embrace Gillum as he should. Conventional wisdom in FL politics is that Dems should run as centrists, but it's a failed strategy that has resulted in complete Republican rule.

I think if the first polls come out and show Gillum running ahead of where Nelson is running, Nelson may come around.

I definitely expect rubes to more associate with the local FAMU.

I actually think it may help. To my knowledge, Gillum hasn't even really campaigned in rural FL yet. His campaign was rooted primarily in Duval (Jacksonville), Tampa Bay, and South Florida. He's got a good message for rural voters who don't think government is working for them. He's talking about bringing our federal tax dollars back to the state. He can ask them what 20 years of Republican governors have actually done for them. He doesn't have any ground to lose in rural FL. DeSantis has to earn their votes too. Rural FL went for Putnam who has a similar profile to Gillum in terms of his FL roots and political service. I don't think Gillum will hit DeSantis on Harvard and Yale, but Gillum can talk about staying in-state and working for Floridians.
 

Jesus, what a fucking argument. "You see these super hardcore neo-Nazi skinheads? Those are called racists. Anyone that is less racist than them can't be called a racist."
 
 
Doesn’t look like it’s up now.
 
This is a good piece. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/gop-ideas-billionaires-donors-tax-cuts-one-percent-paul-ryan.html

To the extent that Alberta’s piece offers a compelling answer to this question, it is an entirely inadvertent one: Namely, that some putatively neutral reporters are happy to pretend that the source of the GOP’s intellectual bankruptcy is a mystery — and that the party is not transparently beholden to reactionary plutocrats whose idea of a “21st century” problem is the possibility that the estate tax will outlive them.

The Republican Party’s largest shareholders don’t want novel answers to public problems — they want to maximize the returns on their political investments. This leaves the GOP incapable of offering voters credible solutions to contemporary challenges, and thus, requires them to lean on “visceral issues” (a.k.a. white racial panic) to retain and mobilize a mass base. And you don’t need policy wonks to make aging white people feel aggrieved and alienated by intimations of demographic change — racist reality stars are more than capable of fulfilling that function.

Of course, the Trumpist solution creates its own problems, not least, that it renders the hideous reality of modern conservatism too conspicuous for many a “college-educated white” to ignore. Fortunately for Republicans, there are plenty of reporters who will gladly help them obscure that reality, by pretending that the Grand Old Party has no sickness that a fresh-faced thought-leader with rolled-up sleeves, nifty charts — and a talent for feigning concern for the poor while plotting their immiseration — can’t cure.
 
Thanks for posting. That’s a good read.
 
you mean to tell me Trump doesn't love having to fly to bumfuck Indiana, Iowa or Idaho to find a big enough crowd to shout at?

No surprise with this one. Trump has always been a man filled with prejudices of all kinds - racial, class, regional, etc. It's only fitting that we learn that he also disdains and holds his own rural, small-town white base in contempt. As a guy who grew up in big cities with all the conveniences his family's wealth could provide, it shouldn't be a shock that Trump doesn't enjoy traveling to places that often lack those amenities, and being forced to hobnob and grovel to people that he no doubt privately dismisses as gullible, easily conned and manipulated white trash rednecks. He loves their adoration, but regards them as his social inferiors (including Jeff Sessions, apparently).
 
Back
Top