Disgusted Scared Hopeful Proud Angry

[Mr.Obvious]

That was my reaction a year ago, but I got desensitized to the absurdity of it after awhile.  Probably because it's real.

I can dig that.

Smallest of differences in pov: you found The absurd to be reality. I found reality to be absurd.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

40% amused
60% schadenfreude

[Mermaid]

I don't think any of it is amusing.

[Munch]

I don't think any of it is amusing.

sure it is! It creates such entertaining prospects.

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[Hydra009]

40% amused
60% schadenfreude

What percentage is masochism?

[trdsf]

During the attempted coup d'état against Bill Clinton 20 years ago, I promised myself that I would never vote for another Republican until the last one who'd voted to impeach in the House, and the last one who'd voted to convict in the Senate, were out of the halls of Congress.  I have so far not.  I have not always voted Democratic, but I have never voted Republican since.

In the last 20 years, and especially these past eight years, and most especially the past two, the only thing the GOP has done is convince me to delete the condition beginning 'until'.

[Cavebear]

During the attempted coup d'état against Bill Clinton 20 years ago, I promised myself that I would never vote for another Republican until the last one who'd voted to impeach in the House, and the last one who'd voted to convict in the Senate, were out of the halls of Congress.  I have so far not.  I have not always voted Democratic, but I have never voted Republican since.

In the last 20 years, and especially these past eight years, and most especially the past two, the only thing the GOP has done is convince me to delete the condition beginning 'until'.

I haven't voted for a Republican for ONLY those reasons, but the last non-democrat I voted for was John Anderson in 1980.  And it's not like I'm dedicated to the Democratic Party.  They just don't offer the fanatical lunatics the Republicans do.

I was a Republican in the 70's.  There were progressive ones then.  Then they left me in favor of the bigoted Southerners and Mid-Westerners who thought "White Was Right" and the best times were in the late 1800s.

[Baruch]

Yes, that Southern Strategy is a gift that keeps on giving ;-(

But John Anderson was a pretty liberal choice, as was McGovern and Mondale.  I see Ford and Carter as more centrist.  Because of the failures of McGovern, Carter and Mondale, is why we have the Right-wing Democratic party today (back to LBJ).

[Cavebear]

Yes, that Southern Strategy is a gift that keeps on giving ;-(

But John Anderson was a pretty liberal choice, as was McGovern and Mondale.  I see Ford and Carter as more centrist.  Because of the failures of McGovern, Carter and Mondale, is why we have the Right-wing Democratic party today (back to LBJ).

A "right-wing" Democratic Party? 

When the Republicans refer to their party as "the party of Lincoln", I gag.  The parties have switched ideologies since then (by Nixon after Goldwater).  Today's Republicans claiming Lincoln as their model is like Swedes claiming they are a world military power (as they once were).

[Baruch]

A "right-wing" Democratic Party? 

When the Republicans refer to their party as "the party of Lincoln", I gag.  The parties have switched ideologies since then (by Nixon after Goldwater).  Today's Republicans claiming Lincoln as their model is like Swedes claiming they are a world military power (as they once were).

Yes, but I don't believe the Republicans aka Whigs ... were ever liberal to begin with.  Lincoln was more useful to them as a martyr, than as a chief executive.  And LBJ wasn't liberal either, he was an Asian killer, and cynically cemented Black-American second class citizenship to his own party with deliberately broken welfare.  There was a brief Greening of the Dems from McGovern to Dukakis ... but the Clintons et al are cut from LBJ's coat-tails.  And no, approving Gay marriage doesn't make you liberal ... just makes you guilty of identity politics.

[Cavebear]

Yes, but I don't believe the Republicans aka Whigs ... were ever liberal to begin with.  Lincoln was more useful to them as a martyr, than as a chief executive.  And LBJ wasn't liberal either, he was an Asian killer, and cynically cemented Black-American second class citizenship to his own party with deliberately broken welfare.  There was a brief Greening of the Dems from McGovern to Dukakis ... but the Clintons et al are cut from LBJ's coat-tails.  And no, approving Gay marriage doesn't make you liberal ... just makes you guilty of identity politics.

Imagine how shocked I am that we disagree on this...  Go ahead, imagine my shock; I have time.  Duh De Doh, De Da...

Ok, that's enough time.

The Whigs divided into Southern and Northern Whigs after Clay and Webster died before the 1852 election.  The Southern Whigs joined the Southern Democrats and the Northern Whigs joined the emerging Republican Party that eventually elected Lincoln in 1860. 

Lincoln was never a martyr before his death, of course; he only became one later.  He was "liberal" for his time.  He was one of the first Presidents to never own a slave, for example, and he foreswore the retribution that was common in his time. 

But I constantly see the modern day Republicans  claiming Lincoln as one of their own, and that annoys a crap out of me.  Today's Republicans are yesterday's Dixiecrats, and todays Democrats are yesterday's Republicans.  It all changed with Goldwater taking over the Republican Party in 1964 and Nixon completing the shift in 1968.

Nixon didn't give a rat's ass about the ideology; he merely saw a winning electoral strategy.  But it stuck, and today we have the conservatives playing to a bigoted base while the Democrats becoming a party of progressive social actions.

So stop the nonsense about the Republicans being "the party of Lincoln", please...

[trdsf]

I haven't voted for a Republican for ONLY those reasons, but the last non-democrat I voted for was John Anderson in 1980.  And it's not like I'm dedicated to the Democratic Party.  They just don't offer the fanatical lunatics the Republicans do.

I was a Republican in the 70's.  There were progressive ones then.  Then they left me in favor of the bigoted Southerners and Mid-Westerners who thought "White Was Right" and the best times were in the late 1800s.

Oh, sure -- while Democrats still had conservatives (usually from the South) in the 70s, Republicans still had liberals: Lowell Weicker, John Anderson, Nelson Rockefeller,  others that I can't place off the top of my head.  And then they decided they'd rather have the southern conservatives than the big-tent party they once were.  Plant that one at Nixon's feet, he of the Southern Strategy.  In the words of his political strategist:

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

The difference now, of course is that now they're so confident in their political hegemony through gerrymandering, they're going after the Voting Rights Act.

Democrats had the decency to repudiate their racist past.  Republicans, on the other hand, consciously embraced a racist present and future.

[Cavebear]

Oh, sure -- while Democrats still had conservatives (usually from the South) in the 70s, Republicans still had liberals: Lowell Weicker, John Anderson, Nelson Rockefeller,  others that I can't place off the top of my head.

Those were MY heroes!

[trdsf]

Those were MY heroes!

Weicker was my favorite to watch during the Senate hearings.  The 'R' after his name probably stood more for 'Really fed up with this bullshit'.

And even the moderate conservatives, like Howard Baker.  You could disagree with them honorably and civilly, and then bang out a compromise that might not make everyone happy, but at least got the job done.

[SGOS]

I haven't voted for a Republican for ONLY those reasons, but the last non-democrat I voted for was John Anderson in 1980. 

I voted for that guy too.  If memory serves there are only two Republicans I have voted for, John Anderson was one, and I voted for a county commissioner as the lesser of evils because the Democrat opponent was a total asshole.  The Democrat won because the county was heavily democrat.  He switched parties right after he won the election and became a Republican, and he was voted out in the election after that, even though the democrats had lost support as the mills closed down and the demographic changed.