The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

The Republican Party Is Not “Broken”

There are a great number of stories about how Trump is “destroying” the Republican party.

Bullshit.

That Trump is most likely to lose the Presidency badly does not make the Republican party broken.  There is some down-ballot effect, but:

  • Republicans will certainly hold the House;
  • Republicans will still control majority of State Governorships; and,
  • They might lose the Senate but if they do it will be barely.

Does that sound like a broken party?  No, it sounds like a largely ordinary election result: in fact, in 2008, the Republicans did far worse.

There will be blow-on effects from the Trump candidacy, but they will no more “destroy” the Republican Party than the Tea Party did.


If you enjoyed this article, and want me to write more, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

Previous

Some Comments on the US Elections and that Which Is and Isn’t Said

Next

You Can’t Scream Holocaust or Fascist Without Consequences

51 Comments

  1. shargash

    Yes, the Republican party is doing just fine. I would say it is the Democratic party that is in serious trouble. The decline from 2008 is pretty remarkable. They will make very few inroads in 2016, despite winning the presidency. And watch what happens in 2018. The party of the president almost always loses seats in an off-year. IMO, Clinton’s off-year election will be epic. And 2020 will likely go Republican as well (there has never been a multi-term president of the same party as a previous multi-term president).

  2. Whim

    I’ve been reading your blog now for several years, and this may be the first time I feel like I have something to share with the readership. Reading both the posts and the comments have been enlightening, and hopefully I can engage in some of the discussions here.

    I’m currently running a Republican State Senate race in a blue state. I’m a socialist but I somehow ended up working in Republican politics. Very long story, but the short of it is that there is such a dearth of young talent in the ranks of R politicos they almost don’t care. I’ve been trying to drag certain members of leadership from my small corner of the world kicking and screaming into the new century, to mixed success.

    That being said: the party is fucked if they don’t pivot and try to bring in the young and minorities, and cut the religious right from the herd. Trump has helped bring in some younger voters, but minorities still don’t show up. The fact of the matter is, the ‘grassroots’ of the party is almost entirely a retirement community. If you’re 55+ and a local Republican, I’ll probably see you in volunteering. Maybe not doing important things like phone calls and canvassing, but at least you’re in the office. I have seen maybe five volunteers in the last month who are 40 or younger.

    That is a huge problem for the R’s demographically. The fact is that maybe Trump isn’t destroying the party right now, but he is repugnant to a large enough percentage of groups the Republicans NEED to stay relevant… So now the task of bringing black, latino, youth voters into the ranks has become that much harder. So it’s a slow motion destruction that was already in motion, but has accelerated in the sense that more people will likely be unable to swayed to the party. Which is unfortunate, because one of my hobbies in the office is pitching socialist ideas to Republicans under the guise of their rhetoric. And the funny thing is, they’re almost always pretty receptive. Then five minutes later you hear them complaining that Obama and Tim Kaine are Marxists… I digress.

    Once the bulk of those who are currently in this 60+ demographic die off, we’re talking about a rump party that does not represent enough people to be relevant. So you’re likely looking at a realignment of the parties before all too much longer. That is, of course, if American politics continues on a normal trajectory. Which I feel is becoming increasingly unlikely.

  3. Ron Showalter

    But the Trump disaster that is about to culminate in a Hillary landslide will – thanks, PTB, you’ve fooled/embarrassed the fake-left yet again! – GUARANTEE that any of the sensible/truthful things that Trump has uttered – e.g., we shouldn’t antagonize Russia, the US created ISIS, etc etc – will forever be associated w/ his disastrous candidacy and therefore be radioactive for any other Republicrat to merely utter much less espouse.

    Gee, are the fake-lefties NOW appreciating how much more savvy TPTB are than they are? That being ruthless, bloodthirsty murderers does NOT mean that they are also not brilliantly clever especially at playing a game they completely control?

    Just to reiterate: for every racist/rapist/sexist/misogynist crazyass thing Trump has said throughout the campaign there are a few areas where it seemed almost as if he was taking a direct page from the left-leaning/Bernie playbook: an end to US intervention, detente w/ Russia, etc.

    An astute observer might wonder just how a thoroughly Establishment billionaire w/ a history replete w/ jingoistic militarism could ever arrive at positions that mimic those on the left in the US. How could this possibly be?

    Now with the Hindentrump in full flame – aside: one of my favorite parts of this whole Spectale/charade has been the Bernie/Trump supporters bemoaning all the negative press that Trump has gotten b/c it seems like all the revelations about his past were “timed” to destroy him!! Gee, ya think?!!! – the fake-left can now pat themselves on the back for once again being outwitted by TPTB as they see their sane and rational expectations about the world tied to the dirigible of Trump doom.

    Grabbing pussy = Not fomenting/creating terrorist groups throughout the ME and the world

    Ogling nude 15 year olds = dealing rationally with Russia

    Go ahead, you fill in the equivalencies the Clintons et al having been creating for the common brainwashed US peon. Take your time.

    See how easy it was fake-lefties?!! Why the psyop of the Trump candidacy was created in the first place?

    That’s right, to take your ideas – truthful as they may be – and tie them to the despicable piece of shit that is Donald Trump as he goes down in one of the worst electoral trouncings in decades.

    Sure, as Ian says, the Republicans – as so the other half of the fake “party”, the Democrats – will survive but they will be completely shorn – thanks to your help in supporting Trump – of any the pesky ideas/causes that may have been gaining any traction among the populace.

    Since, fake-lefties in the US just love their megamedia garbage, I’ll leave this quote which they’ll all recognize:

    It’s a trap!

    Bravo, suckers, bravo.

  4. Ron Showalter

    NOTE: the first real tell of Donal Trump being a psyop whose mission was to co-opt many of the issues of those in the reality-based community was a subtle, limited hangout: when he said he witness dancing “arabs” in New Jersey on 9/11 when any one who has done 5 minutes of research into 9/11 knows that in fact these “dancers” were truthfully Israeli Mossad agents who were part of a larger Mossad spy ring discovered operating in the US prior/during to 9/11 and who had – at the very very least – documented foreknowledge of the attacks but were whisked away back to Israel never to be heard from again.

    And remember, the MSM didn’t scream “But those were Israeli Mossad agents, Mr. Trump!!!”.

    Nope, they screamed, “Those must have been arabs celebrating somewhere else like Palestine” or they wrote the ENTIRE story off as an ubarn myth.

    There goes the dancing Israeli Mossad agents story, truth-seekers!!

    Oh well.

    See how it works?

    Oopsie

  5. S Brennan

    Gotta Disagree Ian;

    If Trump wins, and that is a pretty big if, what with MediaCorp pushing so hard on the scale, then Trump will have won with almost no support from those who matter in the Republican party. Just as Bernie could have won the election if he took Jill’s Stein’s offer and created a viable 3rd party, Trump’s victory could do the same.

    Those who support Hillary are desperately trying, [whether wittingly or not], to ossify the facists aspects of neoliberalism, neocolonialism and to create a toxic political environment of neo-McCarthism that forever stymies those who try to revert the system back to the working model of FDRism circa 1932-1978.

    *Trump is a vengeful man and one would logically presume he would try to exercise his executive prerogative in hiring to eliminate those parasitic lifetime loafers that inhabit the internal organs of DC that have opposed him and supported the neoliberalist, neocolonialists that defines the Clinton/Bush/Obama/Hillary years.

  6. Peter*

    Oversimplification with sound-bite tags may serve the KISS principle but do nothing to illuminate the real change that has occurred among the voters on the Right. Angry conservative voters seized the opportunity that Trump offered them to undermine the power of the elite republican party apparatus and because the republican primary process is still somewhat democratic, unlike the democrat system, they were able to break the party hold over who would be the winner no matter how much elite support and money they had. This is an unprecedented shift in power down to the voter and it has created panic in high places as is demonstrated by the almost universal elite attacks on Trump and their slime trails leading to the Clintonist camp.

    Trump may want to destroy the elite control of the party but he wants to represent the new populist oriented party that might actually listen to and represent the rubes not just lead them for their elite masters.

    The facts about the House/Senate and governorships are secondary issues and if by some altered reality Trump did become president these political parasites would have to run the same primary voter gauntlet, as Trump singled them out for their service to the elites.

  7. Orbital Debris

    There are other interpretations of the word “broken” you realize.

    You are arguing that people will still vote for “R’s” regardless of the obvious fracturing and disintegration of the leadership. I would contend that this is entirely due to the Fox Effect….a substantial fraction of people would never vote for a Democrat/Liberal under any circumstance; in fact, their one purpose is to vote against them. The only current, well-known alternative on the ballot is R, so that is the lever they will pull. Those people are the tenuous threads that hold any semblance of a R party together, nothing more.

    If the Dems were smart (and they are not), they would seek to ensure that no one steps in to piece the fractured party back together; they can and should be tarnished for at least one or two election cycles by The Orange Mussolini, at every level of government. This should in theory allow fair redistricting and an end to minority rule.

  8. S Brennan

    A substantial fraction of people would never vote for a [insert party here], because, well because that’s the way they’ve voted and they don’t want to rethink the process or admit error.

    Both parties have this, put a sack of shit neoliberalist/neocolonialist war criminal in a pantsuit with a [D] behind her name and Democrats will en mass against everything they believe in.

  9. Wyoming

    Well the word ‘broken’ can have different interpretations. I have serious disagreements in how to look at this situation.

    Both parties are clearly broken..just in different ways. Now since holding onto power is their main way of measuring, this election is going to be sort of a draw I would say. The future, however, looks really dark for the old guard main stream Republican Party and its leadership. The Republican party is fracturing badly; to wit the Tea Party, the Libertarians, the evangelicals, and the Trumpists (for want of a better word). None of those factions actually have deep roots into what the old guard wants to happen. Their electoral failures over the last 3 presidential elections have put huge strain onto the coalition. What is transpiring now is just not going to be forgotten and then it is back to BAU as you imply. There are going to be repercussions. Trump’s supporters are almost certainly going to harbor deep anger at the mainstream republicans and will seek to punish them and/or push them out of the way. All of the republican factions feel like the others have failed them and everyone is pretty much as far along the road of cooperation as they will ever travel.

    Additionally the demographics of the US play heavily against the Republican party and its constituent parts as time goes on. With the two major parties constituted as they are today, and with a BAU future as you implied, there is little chance that the Republicans could ever again win the presidency and over the next two election cycles would lose control over the Congress and most State houses. Their deepest supporters are significantly older and whiter than those who support the Democrats. The natural aging process and the growing ethnic population will overwhelm them in just a few years.

    The Republican party as it exists today is a dead man walking.

    I speculate that by the time we roll around to 2024 the make up and policies of what we now call the Republican party will be dramatically different than today. This is likely to also be somewhat true for the Democrats, but less so than for the Republicans as the Democrats are playing a winning hand right now while the Republicans are playing a losing one. In such circumstances those on the losing side generally evolve and adapt to survive while those on the winning side mistakenly think they can continue on their merry way. Time catches up to them eventually as well.

    Republicans, to thrive, must find traction with many that they ignore or dislike today. Likely their best option would be to make much deeper inroads into the Hispanic population – as we are seeing in some areas of the country already. A significant percentage of Hispanics do not see themselves as people of color but as a part of the white ethnic categorization. They also tend to be more religious than the general makeup of the Democratic party and thus can be drawn away along those lines as well. They will have trouble making this happen though I expect as they trip over their ‘issues”.

    Working class and lower middle class Americans have been very badly served by both parties and there is a giant potential sitting there for a new approach from one side or the other to galvanize those parts of the population to move from their political divisions towards each other – as one would have expected them to do long ago. For these people have far more in common with each other and have similar needs unfulfilled. We see these folks in the big surge for Sanders on one side and for Trump on the other. The parties have done well in exaggerating their supposed differences and trying to conceal from them their much bigger joint needs. The rise of the populist is here as we saw with Sanders and Trump. Now we await to see if there is someone of serious political skill married to the requisite ambition and charisma to meld them together and dump the political system on its head. I see this path as the future and today as anything but a flash in the pan.

    So bring this up again in four years and we will see who’s vision was clearer.

  10. Karl Kolchack

    It’s the Democratic Party that is “broken.” Hillary has destroyed the party’s support among young liberal voters while pandering to “moderate” Republicans, neoconservatives and Wall Street. Assuming she wins, ever worsening economic conditions will cause the Democrats to get blasted again in the 2018 midterms, and by 2020 enough of her baby boomer base will have died off that any Republican who can walk and chew gum at the same time will beat her soundly.

  11. nihil obstet

    The Republican Party was thoroughly discredited by George W. Bush’s presidency, so the leaders of the Democratic Party went all out to rehabilitate it. Obama was very clear that there would be no good Democratic programs that would benefit the people — the highest goal was bipartisanship. Civility and joining together, the good Republicans and the good Democrats, trumped all policy considerations.

    Already, the Democrats are separating that horrible foul-mouthed fascist Trump from the Republican Party. He’s an aberration, not like the good Republicans, many of whom support Hillary.

    Even if the Republican Party were broken, the Democratic Party’s first priority would be to repair it.

  12. Z

    Brennan 2016:

    the neoliberalist, neocolonialists that defines the Clinton/Bush/Obama/Hillary years.

    Wow! You sure changed your tune. Six years ago you were foaming at the mouth, yelling “liar liar liar”, and calling on reinforcements to go after someone that had the audacity to compare Big Bill Clinton to Obama.

    Z

  13. Lisa

    The GOP is getting a lot of help from the Dem elites, whose dream is a Clinton president with a Republican Senate. That means they can use it as an excuse to fob off the left for not doing anything while getting all their neo-liberal, neo-conservative policies through.

    The Clinton/etc Dems dream is a centre right party that combines conservative Dems and ‘moderate’ Republicans, de-facto at least, to preserve the illusion that there is ‘choice’..
    So they will work hard to maintain it, as the Establishment Republican elites know full well…..

    “Senate Update: Clinton Is Surging, But Down-Ballot Democrats Are Losing Ground”
    “Indeed, the races for Senate control and the White House have split. ”

    “To put this in mathematical terms, the correlation between the Democratic chances in the Senate and Clinton’s chances was a very high +0.87 in the 74 days before the first debate.2 In the 16 days since, it’s been -.23, indicating that they’re moving in opposite directions.”

    http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/senate-update-clinton-is-surging-but-down-ballot-democrats-are-losing-ground/

  14. Z

    Clinton, just like Obama and her corporate lap dog husband, would love a Republican Congress. Better to better “compromise” with.

    Z

  15. Z

    Hillary will “save” us from having abortion rights taken away from us, while working with the Republicans … and corporate Democrats … on economic policies that will shorten the lifespans of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people.

    Z

  16. Hugh

    Ian’s point that the Republican party’s position currently and for the next few years will be largely unchanged is correct.

    It is difficult to overstate how much the Establishments of both parties, and the rich and elites in general, loathe (and fear) anything that smacks of populism. All the pearl clutching, “Trump destroyed the party” talk is coming from the party’s Establishment, and we need to see this as part of their attempt to wrest back control of the party from Trump in the event of his election defeat.

    Whim is correct about the demographic challenges to the Republican party but the effect of these shifts will be slowed by pervasive gerrymandering and the deeply unrepresentative and anti-democratic nature of the Senate and electoral college. We need also to remember that both parties have been morally and positionally bankrupt since Reagan ushered in the era of the “empty suit” President. What sets the current election cycle apart so much from its predecessors is that both parties had 8 years to groom candidates for it and the result in both cases is an insult to the intelligence of all Americans. What this election illustrates is not just that the Republican party is broken, or that the Democratic party is equally broken, but that the political process is broken, and even more profoundly the country itself.

    Finally, the Republican party may have a demographic crisis but that doesn’t mean those voters have another place to go to. The same could be said of the Democratic party. Beyond this, we need to recognize that both parties ceased to represent the interests of their respective bases a long time ago. And that these two bases, and the millennials, have a lot in common. If ever there was a time to organize a third party based on the shared hopes and concerns of these groups it is now. Will this happen? I would like to think so as people look beyond Trump and Sanders and experience the dismal reality of a likely Clinton Presidency.

  17. Z

    nihil obstet,

    Exactly. They’re dancing partners.

    Z

  18. different clue

    My merely-intuitive feeling is that if Trump loses, the R leadership will think that the R party might have won the Presidency with one of its brand name nomination-seekers. The Trump alternative can’t pretend it hasn’t failed if in fact it does.

    Which side of the R party was second most powerful after the Trump uprising? The Movement Conservatives and Christian Militants. Cruz got the second most primary votes. So if Trump loses, I think Cruz will be the R nominee for 2020.

  19. V. Arnold

    I suppose I could agree that the republican party is not broken, in the same way the democratic party isn’t broken.
    But then, that’s hardly the point; the whole political system is dysfunctional beyond fixing.
    The entire CCM is nothing but a psyops operation aimed squarely at the Usians with the full blessings of the U.S. government.
    False flag operations are rampant in all aspect of life in the U.S. and in every aspect of U.S. foreign policy.
    The deep state is at war with the citizens and the rest of the world; and Orwell wouldn’t blink at what he would see today: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

  20. Z

    It is difficult to overstate how much the Establishments of both parties, and the rich and elites in general, loathe (and fear) anything that smacks of populism.

    Damn right! They don’t want us knowing that we can change this shit.

    Z

  21. Z

    Hillary Clinton’s heroic carbon plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:

    Hillary will “save” us from having abortion rights taken away from us, while working with the Republicans … and corporate Democrats … on economic policies that will shorten the lifespans of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people.

    Z

  22. Z

    Brennan 2010:

    Me: “There are strong similarities in the economic teams of clinton and obama.”
    Brennan: “Untrue, Clinton started with a Rubin whose views were far different than where he is now.”

    Me: “There are strong similarities of clinton and obama … in philosophy, action.”
    Brennan: “What shit, what utter shit, you either know nothing of history or you are liar.”

    Me: “They both have also made balancing the budget a big priority at the expense of social programs and have heavily favored corporate and wall street interests.”
    Brennan: “What complete bullshit …”

    http://www.correntewire.com/call_progressives_stfu_and_be_good_little_obedient_democrats

    Congratulations on your evolvement …

    Z

  23. EmilianoZ

    Locker-room banter is mostly empty boasts. He probably never grabbed no woman’s p.

    A dem presidency and a rep congress is the ideal configuration for the oligarchy. $hillary will be able to privatize social security and claim that the mean mean reps made her do it.

    Not that Trump wouldnt do it. The only difference is that the oligarchy would have to pay him more for the same. But I believe they would just pass on the costs to us.

    Either way we lose.

  24. different clue

    @Ron Showalter,

    In your theory, is Trump a fully informed witting knowing participant in the Psy Op, acting out the role he knows full-well he is acting out?

  25. S Brennan

    Year one Obama Vs Year one Clinton:
    S Brennan’s picture
    Submitted by S Brennan on Sat, 01/16/2010 – 8:36pm

    Year one Clinton:

    signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993

    Clinton’s attempt to allow gays to serve in the armed forces garnered criticism from the left (for being too tentative in promoting gay rights) and from the right who opposed any effort to allow gays to serve).

    On July 17, 1996, President Clinton issued Executive Order 13011 – Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to fully utilize information technology to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public. [And if you don’t know why this matters..perhaps you should ask]

    Clinton controversially supported ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement [BIG BIG BAD AND PISSED ME OFF ROYALLY Z]

    Clinton signed the Brady Bill into law on November 30, 1993

    In August 1993, Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote.

    A] It cut taxes for fifteen million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses,[48] and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers

    Oh yeah, Travelgate controversy Counsel Kenneth Starr investigated the firings and found no evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons.

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    Year one Obama:

    Obama accomplished a lot, that Bush tried to do, but failed.

    There’s FISA, AFTER HE WON, as the newly elected President Obama voted for a Bill he said he was against, then quit the Senate to avoid helping Dems with other votes.

    TARP, Dead in the water under Bush, but revived by Obama.

    Tax Cuts for the wealthy [called stimulus],

    3 separate expansions of the AF-PAK War,

    Continuation of the Iraq war,

    Keeping Guantanamo open, expanding the Bagram prison complex,

    Successfully arguing before the Supreme Court for the destruction of Habeas Corpus,

    Expanding our rendition program,

    Health Insurance Bailout Bill,

    Cutting Medicare,

    Cutting Medicaid,

    Another Bailout bill [4 Trillion this time],

    The right to seize citizens funds until financial institutions can be made whole

    …and I believe he is on track for the big take down of Social Security next year.

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    So let’s give Obama a little credit where it’s due, he’s been far more effective implementing Bush programs than Bush ever was…and people just love the way he talks.

    Anybody comparing these two first years is beyond deranged Z

    Log in or register to post comments

    Thanks for the facts … I sincerely do appreciate them
    Z’s picture
    Submitted by Z on Sun, 01/17/2010 – 12:07am

    I don’t like either one of them, but I agree that obama is on his way to becoming a worse president than bill clinton.

    There are strong similarities in the economic teams of clinton and obama … in philosophy, action, personnel and influence (robber rubin). And that is not the only area where there are similarities in personnel … podesta and emanuel come immediately to mind. They both have also made balancing the budget a big priority at the expense of social programs and have heavily favored corporate and wall street interests.

    Thanks,
    Z

  26. S Brennan

    And Z;

    FYI:

    S Brennan permalink
    October 12, 2016

    a] I agree with Ian’s point; “Unfortunately I was wrong in 08 about how unhinged she was in relation to foreign affairs. She has since proved she’s a foreign policy “uber hawk” (aka: monster).” – me too.

    b] And I agree with Tom permalink; “But Trump won’t start a nuclear war with Putin…”

    And given that Bernie in the end was the “shlepp-dog” Bruce Dixon so accurately predicted, My support of Jim [who’s he] Webb looks [again] correct.

    But for reason’s a&b I will vote for Trump.

    Trump will have no effect on domestic policy, no loyalty to the Republican hierarchy and will have some control over foreign policy [that which the deep state will allow].

    The dumb thing I am doing by voting for Trump is, as I have pointed out before, the deep state has every incentive to do a dallas on Trump because, Pence is a neocolonialist [aka neocon] of the 1st order. Trump should have picked Gen [ret] Mike Flynn if he wanted some life insurance.

    I’ll add, never have I seen the CorporateMedia so blatantly hamfistedly pushing a candidate, it’s the real obscenity of this race and will have a longer effect on the Republic [in name only] than either Trump or Hillary…that is, if we survive Hillary’s coming world war.

  27. Dave R

    I’d humbly suggest that, given the GOP’s recent proclivity towards voter suppression and gerrymandering, that perhaps their presence in Congress and various statehouses isn’t the only – or even the most significant – metric for whether they’re ‘broken’ or not.

  28. Z

    Different crowd, different Brennan. Back in ’10 on that blog … and by the way, the article that that post referred to had to do with Obama carrying on Clinton’s 3rd term, not about comparing Clinton’s 1st year to Obama’s 1st … you were in with the “Hillary-caught-a-bullet-in-her-teeth-on-a-tarmac” crowd.

    Watch the company you keep, mate … you more so than most.

    I am not surprised that Hillary was a “uber hawk” as SOS.

    Trump would be better with Russia than her … for one, she’s much more subservient to Israel, which has had an underrated role in how the Obama Administration has dealt with and provoked Putin.

    Bernie was what many knew he’d be: ultimately disappointing, with not enough guts and energy to align his movement against the Democratic party.

    “I’ll add, never have I seen the CorporateMedia so blatantly hamfistedly pushing a candidate …”
    Completely agree with that. The NY Times has become an arm of the Clinton campaign.

    I’ll vote for Stein, but if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to vote between Trump and Clinton, I’d take Trump with the belief that instability in our political system is much preferable to stability at this point.

    Z

  29. realitychecker

    @ Z

    ” . . . but if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to vote between Trump and Clinton, I’d take Trump with the belief that instability in our political system is much preferable to stability at this point.””

    When one honestly and carefully nets out all the many pros and cons in play in this election and with these candidates, it seems to me that this is the most reliable bottom line one can come up with, and I am in total agreement.

    If one wants to break down an intolerable status quo system, then the first step has to be to destabilize that status quo system in any way possible, knowing as adults that we cannot expect anyone to come up with one magic button that will fix the whole thing expeditiously and painlessly.

    Additionally but separately, if a Trump presidency proves to be terrible for regular people, then that should just bring us closer to the political climate required to make a real revolution possible, according to classical revolutionary theory.

    Good enough for me, given the unappetizing menu we are presented with.

  30. S Brennan

    Z;

    I quoted fully from your link. You may succeed with your attacking post if this crowd to reads only your interpretation of my “tone”, not my actual words above. You might be right, who knows. If you are right, you”ll be able to turn this place into the bitter shithole you found so much solace in.

    And no, I had no idea Hillary was the radical extremist she’s turned out to be, but neither did I know that Obama would be far worse than I had predicted in 2008. I’ve apologized many times for this error.

    The date of my post that Z using to attack my person is Sat, 01/16/2010 – 8:36pm which is prior to the when the Hillary’s support of racist terrorists in Libya was widely known and before the Libyan Bombing Campaign. I think Z’s wild interpretation aside, my words stand up fairly well for the year 2010, indeed, if you read the next comment by Z [of the time], he agrees with my points. So it’s odd that he’d try to say otherwise today and leave a link proving him to be a liar.

    FYI, Lambert turned his site into a shithole, by banning writers who did not support him on all his issues, in doing so, his site denigrated into sycophants with only one view. As a consequence, Currante lost any currency, driving traffic into the toilet. Having fouled his own nest, bitter Lambert took his show [and his personal grudges] on the road over to Naked Capitalism and had me banned there within days of his appearance.

    Z; thanks for the memory, your distorted interpretations of others peoples words and the pretzel logic you used to ascribe motives to those other than your self…bring it all back.

  31. anon

    WikiLeaks biggest revelation: Citigroup executives selected Obama’s Cabinet one month BEFORE the 2008 election, then received the largest bailout during the financial crisis!!

    “The most important revelation in the WikiLeaks dump of John Podesta’s emails has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. The messages go all the way back to 2008, when Podesta served as co-chair of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. And a month before the election, the key staffing for that future administration was almost entirely in place, revealing that some of the most crucial decisions an administration can make occur well before a vote has been cast.

    Michael Froman, who is now U.S. trade representative but at the time was an executive at Citigroup, wrote an email to Podesta on October 6, 2008, with the subject “Lists.”

    Froman used a Citigroup email address. He attached three documents: a list of women for top administration jobs, a list of non-white candidates, and a sample outline of 31 cabinet-level positions and who would fill them. “The lists will continue to grow,” Froman wrote to Podesta, “but these are the names to date that seem to be coming up as recommended by various sources for senior level jobs.”

    The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money….

    read more:

    https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2016/10/16/the-most-important-wikileaks-revelation-isnt-about-hillary-clinton-but-then-again-it-really-is-since-she-is-a-continuation-of-the-obama-administration/

  32. Z

    Brennan,

    “I quoted fully from your link.”
    You took an excerpt from the post in which we had numerous exchanges … an excerpt in which you created a metric to favorably compare the Big Dawg, who you were so eager to defend in front of a rabid pro-Clinton audience, to Obama. And then you say that that proved that the points that I made about Clinton’s and Obama’s similarities were lies. What lies? I never made a comparison about Clinton’s and Obama’s first year.

    “If you are right, you”ll be able to turn this place into the bitter shithole you found so much solace in.”
    What the hell are you talking about?

    “I think Z’s wild interpretation aside, my words stand up fairly well for the year 2010, indeed, if you read the next comment by Z [of the time], he agrees with my points.”
    Wild interpretation? Let me break this down for you, mate: you were defending Bill Clinton, not Hillary Clinton. Okay? Got that? Now what has happened since 2010 that changes anything that I wrote about Bill Clinton?

    “So it’s odd that he’d try to say otherwise today and leave a link proving him to be a liar.”
    What lies?

    I completely agree with you about Lambert. Yves Smith has her faults … and I’ve had some exchanges with her about them … and one of those is intense loyalty to the wrong people at times. Yves is much more to the positive than to the negative, but to hear her constantly harp on about Lambert says this and Lambert says that in her posts is enough to cause nausea. Who cares what that intellectually dishonest idiot thinks? People largely go there for her valuable insights … we can all see the value of Lambert’s in his sad website and the overall intelligence and objectivity of the people left that he allows to post there. She has picked a very poor, and unfit, steward for her site.

    I’m sorry to hear that you had a falling out with Lambert though … heck, you used to call his name to gang up on posters who had the audacity to call out Bill Clinton and his very damaging presidency. But I suppose shared delusions are not a solid basis to support a healthy, long-term relationship.

    Z

  33. Carla

    @Whim — Sorry, Ian’s right. Ever heard of 50 state legislatures? Republicans own almost all of ’em:

    https://stateinnovation.org/2016endofsession

    Scroll down for the map.

    Ever heard of the American Legislative Exchange Council? ALEC has remade state law in most of those red-colored states on that map. It’s a coup, and most Democrats have no idea it even happened. But public services at the state and local level are being madly privatized a la the ALEC playbook.

  34. Synoia

    Carla

    Yes republicans how the majority of state houses, but the demographics of republican part members appears to make it difficult for this to continue.

    They are majority baby boomers (which says much about baby boomers and the fall of the hippies).

    What does the map look like population adjusted?

    What do the map look like 10 years in the future?

  35. S Brennan

    Z; you’ve been childish, obsessive and most importantly…dull, your high opinion of yourself you put on full display with your off topic posts. People can go read the thread for themselves, they don’t need your interpretation. But your overarching take on history, that things have always been equally bad and that the FDR years 1932-1978 were just more of the same, is just as dumb as when you first elucidated it.

    I have misjudged Hillary’s capacity for evil…and for that matter Bill’s too…and I have repeatedly said so, indeed as I showed above, unprompted, just a few days ago. I’ve never seen you do as much…oh that’s right, you’re never wrong, or if you are, you just keep arguing. Having said that, much of Bill & Hill’s evil has only come to light since Hillary became secretary of state and used her office to sell to the highest bidder, not to mention, making war the love of her life.

    I never liked Clinton, I supported Bob Kerry in the 92 primaries, but to say Bill’s administration is as evil as either Bush or Obama’s as you have, is bullshit. Bill did evil, but nothing like the work of the Obama/Bush administration. Bill might be a neoliberal piece of shit, but he was not a neocolonialist…while in office…although, he has become a mouthpiece for the neocolonialists since.

    As for claim for claim I was friends with Lambert, you are full of prunes little one, provide the links and quotes and it better be a good deal more than I agree with him twice the same time every day.

    You should stop your childish, obsessive and most importantly…dull posting. I’ve been posting for years here under my name which I haven’t changed since I start posting comments in 2000. I find your chest beating that I was wrong about Hillary tiresome. I’ve been right on the vast majority of policy issues and since I’ve used the same name and your obsessed enough, go prove me wrong, find the links…it’s easy enough.

  36. Ché Pasa

    Democratic pooh-bahs have an uncanny ability to resuscitate the rotting corpse of the Republican Party and give it new life, full of vim and vigor, no matter what disasters strike.

    It’s almost like there’s one political party with two cooperative branches.

    Amazing.

  37. ks

    “EXCLUSIVE: Donald Trump’s son-in-law has held talks to set up Trump TV after the presidential election https://t.co/fTiqGNFF9q pic.twitter.com/xtbWPpBqsd

    — Financial Times (@FT) October 17, 2016″

    Now what was I saying the other day? Sure let’s talk about Trump’s “positions” some more. As Ron Showalter might say….suckers!

  38. Peter*

    Good point, Che and now with the instillation of the Red Queen nearing many of the superficial differences within the one party will fade as the shared core agendas are exposed. The ease with which many prominent right wing personalities moved into the Extreme Corporate Center that Clintonism has staked out makes me wonder if the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy bent on destroying the Clintons ever really existed or if it was another political distraction to keep the rubes stirred up. The PTB know they will get most of what they want from Clinton they just have to accept a little Liberal lipstick applied to the pig so the Clintonoids can strut and gloat over their victory.

    Trump forced this shared core agenda into the open when he attacked the shibboleths both sides hold sacred, Liberal or neocon Imperialism in all their forms.

  39. Z

    Brennan,

    In this instance, the only thing you can debate effectively with are your self-constructed simplistic strawmen. You yell “lies lies lies” while you constantly put others in people’s mouths that they never ever said. When one asks for specifics, all you can provide are dishonest vague generalities of your own creation. You ain’t changed at all.

    Z

  40. Z

    Brennan,

    “But your overarching take on history, that things have always been equally bad and that the FDR years 1932-1978 were just more of the same, is just as dumb as when you first elucidated it.”

    Where do you come up with this nonsense?

    Z

  41. Z

    That “elucidation” is entirely of your own creation.

    Z

  42. Z

    Brennan,

    “So it’s odd that he’d try to say otherwise today and leave a link proving him to be a liar.”

    Again, simple and slow this time: what lies?

    Z

  43. anon

    Ché Pasa: “It’s almost like there’s one political party with two cooperative branches.”

    Not almost like, there’s no question about it. The US has one political party with two cooperative.

    Or as Gore Vidal put it:

    “There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”

    WikiLeaks has revealed that Citigroup executives selected Obama’s Cabinet in Oct 2008, one month BEFORE the election.

    Citigroup went on to receive a $472 billion bailout (that we know of, it’s probably over $1 trillion by now) and this was supported by BOTH wings of the ONE Party

    Both parties supported the war in Iraq and the wars in Libya, Syria, Yemen, in other words both wings of the one party support endless neocon war in the Middle East, etc etc …………….

    What would they have to do to make this any more obvious?

  44. We have had our share of ” one party two branches” people. while there is something to save this, there are distinct differences – as there are with many parties who still represents the “in” party. that is not to say that the ” out” party is even more different – but the “in” parties are markedly different in the way they approach things.

    For example, Donald Trump could not even begin to run as a Democratic candidate – women are simply disliked in the Republican party. So, while there are similarities between the Democratic and Republican parties – there are huge differences as well. And an important point is that either one can the taken over – as the Republicans have have have have been. there is a wedge between the people voting a party, and the ones running the party. This can be exploited.

    But Ian misses an important point, what the elite Republicans are talking about is, they cannot say that they do not know. this is important, because up until this point, they have managed to take out people who clearly did know, and run people could claim that they did not know. it was of course a lie, but they only have to keep ordinary people, even with an advanced degree, fooled. As long as this population can lie to themselves, that is all that is important. Given how many of them were willing to go along with Trump – this was a high barrier, though not high enough for Trump. they were willing to leave that Bush did not know, when it was completely obvious. but completely obvious is not where Trump is, he is far beyond that. The elites are worried about this exposed lie, they will maintain control of the house, probably, and have a 50/50 shot at keeping the Senate – but it is an exposed line, because they have to kiss goodbye Latinos, the young, and college educated women.

    Also, on another topic, the next section of my nonfiction novel is up:
    https://symbalitics.blogspot.com/2016/10/godel-12-cohen-ii.html

  45. realitychecker

    @ Stirling

    Oh, I thought that was your novel . . .

    Look, the duopoly is easily understood. The parties differ on social issues only. On money and power issues (which are all the elite Establishment types ever really care about), they are always identical.

    Thus endeth the lesson.

    Maybe try writing some poetry? Just sayin’ . . .

  46. Tom W Harris

    Pssst….Z, you might wanna do yer jagging off in private.

  47. anon

    Stirling Newberry: “We have had our share of ” one party two branches” people. while there is something to save this, there are distinct differences…”

    Then it’s kind of funny how all the Neocon Architects of Illegal War in Iraq (who call themselves Republican) are Standing with Hillary Clinton

    Paul Wolfowitz (aka, the Prince of Darkness), William Kristol, Elliot Cohen, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Dov Zakheim, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Alan Dershowitz, Elliot Abrams, David Frum, Michael Chertoff, Michael Grossman, John Podhoretz

    https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2016/10/15/neocon-architects-of-illegal-war-in-iraq-stand-with-hillary-clinton/

    The neocon war-mongers not 100 percent certain that Trump will support their endless neocon wars, but they have no doubt about Hillary, especially after that video that shows her celebrating when she learns that Qaddafi (of Libya) has been sodomized with a bayonet, then murdered.

    Also all the major Wall Street bankers such as Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs are with her…

    Along well as most of the Republican Establishment, who call themselves “NeverTrump”

    Good luck continuing to find these “distinct differences” between the two parties!

  48. realitychecker

    @ anon

    “Paul Wolfowitz (aka, the Prince of Darkness), William Kristol, Elliot Cohen, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Dov Zakheim, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Alan Dershowitz, Elliot Abrams, David Frum, Michael Chertoff, Michael Grossman, John Podhoretz”

    Nice list ya got there, amigo. Just about all of them folks I thought needed to be dead a dozen years ago, when I was proud to call myself a strong progressive lol.

    Didn’t The Who do a song about this kind of thing?

  49. RJMeyers

    @ anon:

    Good luck continuing to find these “distinct differences” between the two parties!

    He listed a difference, you listed a similarity. Clearly, they overlap in many ways, but are different in some ways too. This isn’t hard…

  50. Carla

    @Synoia — Sorry, I guess I failed to make my point. ALEC has remade states and municipalities across the country by privatizing services that until ALEC, had been provided by the public sector. The damage is done. And it is radical damage. “Progressives,” for the most part, don’t even know about it. Once a state or city service has been privatized, it’s the very devil to get it back into the public sector, because national and multi-national corporations have constitutional rights and access to unlimited funds to spend on lawyers to sue the pants off of municipalities, counties and even state governments.

    The American Legislative Exchange Council was a Republican plot to privatize the shit out of the country and it has succeeded brilliantly. It has indeed been a quiet coup. THAT’s what that red map I linked to in my previous comment really illustrates.

    Have I made this more clear, do I still need to work on this explanation?

  51. Ché Pasa

    In effect, Hillary is running as The Responsible Republican in this election, and for all intents and purposes, the hierarchy of the Democratic Party has chosen to transform the Party into a version of the Rs c. 1959 or so.

    That’s one of the reasons for the apparent collapse of the Republican Party apparatus in this election. It was one of Bill’s tricks, too, and they hated him for it. He stole their policies!

    Hillary is taking it a step further and stealing their Party’s lifeblood.

    If Hillary and the DNC are successful this transformation and election — stay tuned — there will be a vacuum where the Democratic Party once was (btw, it was never as progressive or liberal as the common understanding makes it out to be) which could even be an opening for a genuine Left political party. There’s little sign that anyone intends to exploit the opportunity — Bernie excepted, though his “political revolution” has been neutered and pretty much silenced.

    But while the Dems reconstitute as the Responsible Republicans, that leaves a vacuum on the right as well, and it’s obvious that Trump fully intends to exploit it to the max. He sees money, but he also sees power, almost unlimited power if he plays it right. Trumpism could turn into the real revolutionary rallying point, and it looks like media is busy preparing the groundwork.

    I suspect we will not recognize the USofA in ten years.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén