Are Democrats ashamed of Michael Dukakis?

[BootmanLA]

3 hours ago, JimInWisc said:

@Mattsdarkside I would agree if you phrased it "The republican party".  The distinction between party and members of that party are worth making.  As a party, it will only come back to center if we encourage members who are more centrist to become more vocal within that party.  

With all due respect, Jim, I don't think the GOP can ever come back to the center. The base of the party is now what the GOP caters to - they sowed the wind, and now reap the whirlwind - and I don't think it can be rehabilitated. About the only thing I think that will work is a long series of crushing defeats in national elections, which will cause the party implode so that a new center-right party might emerge.

As it stands, because of our party primary system - where in most states, the GOP party candidate with the most votes in the primary wins, even if they lack a majority - means that the most extreme candidate wins. Not only is the "base" of the party the largest contingent within it, but they're also considerably more likely to vote in primaries than moderates are. And with Emperor Angry Dorito's iron grip on most of the party's testicles, people who buck his populistic bullshit get spurned by the party almost immediately. Ask Liz Cheney - Liz Fucking Cheney, daughter of one of the most powerful and right-wing VP's we've ever had - how opposing Trump works out.

In the Democratic party, while we have that same issue in a few jurisdictions, our "base" is fairly diverse. It's church-going Black Americans, secular Jews, higher-educated Whites, LGBT people and their allies, and so forth - with no one group's issues dominating things the way the GOP base's cultural issues dominate theirs. So we get a handful of far-left people and a lot more center-left ones.

[PozBearWI]

On 2/18/2023 at 12:23 PM, BootmanLA said:

With all due respect, Jim, I don't think the GOP can ever come back to the center. The base of the party is now what the GOP caters to - they sowed the wind, and now reap the whirlwind - and I don't think it can be rehabilitated. About the only thing I think that will work is a long series of crushing defeats in national elections, which will cause the party implode so that a new center-right party might emerge.

As it stands, because of our party primary system - where in most states, the GOP party candidate with the most votes in the primary wins, even if they lack a majority - means that the most extreme candidate wins. Not only is the "base" of the party the largest contingent within it, but they're also considerably more likely to vote in primaries than moderates are. And with Emperor Angry Dorito's iron grip on most of the party's testicles, people who buck his populistic bullshit get spurned by the party almost immediately. Ask Liz Cheney - Liz Fucking Cheney, daughter of one of the most powerful and right-wing VP's we've ever had - how opposing Trump works out.

In the Democratic party, while we have that same issue in a few jurisdictions, our "base" is fairly diverse. It's church-going Black Americans, secular Jews, higher-educated Whites, LGBT people and their allies, and so forth - with no one group's issues dominating things the way the GOP base's cultural issues dominate theirs. So we get a handful of far-left people and a lot more center-left ones.

We'll see.  If R's stay so far right then I imagine we'll finally see a viable third party emerge.  But of course, this is only conjecture.  

Obviously the R's are recognizing their pattern of defeat in popular elections.  Will they do something or does the orange clown have to pass away first?  Again, we'll see.  

Both parties actively court me as I am a locally elected official.  I am not inclined to join either one although I do vote for more Democrat leaning candidates than not.  Locally the choice is sometimes R or nothing.  I am thankful every day to live in a municipality where parties are not allowed in.  We are incorporated as a non partisan municipality - I suspect influenced by the early 20th century Teddy Roosevelt trial.  

[BootmanLA]

7 hours ago, JimInWisc said:

We'll see.  If R's stay so far right then I imagine we'll finally see a viable third party emerge.  But of course, this is only conjecture.  

Obviously the R's are recognizing their pattern of defeat in popular elections.  Will they do something or does the orange clown have to pass away first?  Again, we'll see. 

I partly agree. But I think there are a few problems prohibiting the R's fixing their problems.

First, there's a hard core of support for Mango Mussolini that will not turn out to vote if he's pushed out of the running - ESPECIALLY if he continues ranting that he's been cheated by machines or mail-in vote fraud or stuffed ballot boxes or whatever. Call that chunk of the R electorate the "Trump Chumps". They didn't vote before 2016 and probably won't vote if he's not on the ballot.

Second, there's a divide between those in the party who think the problem is their positions - a minority within the R's - and those who think the problem is just Trump being Trump. These latter ones are the ones who try to placate Trump while also boosting DeSantis, Haley, or whomever - hoping another far-right candidate without Trump's criminal baggage will be able to defeat a Democrat. The former - those who recognize the party has lost its collective mind - aren't in sufficient number to see that a more moderate nominee gets the nod.

The base is composed of far-right fascist types - who earnestly push for extreme positions - and the Trump Chumps, who don't have much of an opinion on anything except that Trump is their guy, regardless of what his positions are. What that tells me is that no one but Trump is going to unify that base; anyone else taking the lead is going to see a big chunk of the base stay home - the millions of older, first-time voters in 2016 and 2020 who voted for Trump and only Trump.

That's why I think the party has to die in order for a new party to arise on the right. The Whigs had to die after the 1852 election debacle which they lost, 254-42 in the electoral college, in order for their remnants, the Free Soil Party, and others to create the new Republican Party. We're coming up, I think, on something similar - not necessarily by 2024, but in my lifetime.

[NWUSHorny]

4 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

hat's why I think the party has to die in order for a new party to arise on the right. The Whigs had to die after the 1852 election debacle which they lost, 254-42 in the electoral college, in order for their remnants, the Free Soil Party, and others to create the new Republican Party. We're coming up, I think, on something similar - not necessarily by 2024, but in my lifetime

I hope you are correct. As someone who leans lower case l libertarian, I've given almost given up hope that it will occur in my lifetime.

[PozBearWI]

12 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

I partly agree. But I think there are a few problems prohibiting the R's fixing their problems.

First, there's a hard core of support for Mango Mussolini that will not turn out to vote if he's pushed out of the running - ESPECIALLY if he continues ranting that he's been cheated by machines or mail-in vote fraud or stuffed ballot boxes or whatever. Call that chunk of the R electorate the "Trump Chumps". They didn't vote before 2016 and probably won't vote if he's not on the ballot.

Second, there's a divide between those in the party who think the problem is their positions - a minority within the R's - and those who think the problem is just Trump being Trump. These latter ones are the ones who try to placate Trump while also boosting DeSantis, Haley, or whomever - hoping another far-right candidate without Trump's criminal baggage will be able to defeat a Democrat. The former - those who recognize the party has lost its collective mind - aren't in sufficient number to see that a more moderate nominee gets the nod.

The base is composed of far-right fascist types - who earnestly push for extreme positions - and the Trump Chumps, who don't have much of an opinion on anything except that Trump is their guy, regardless of what his positions are. What that tells me is that no one but Trump is going to unify that base; anyone else taking the lead is going to see a big chunk of the base stay home - the millions of older, first-time voters in 2016 and 2020 who voted for Trump and only Trump.

That's why I think the party has to die in order for a new party to arise on the right. The Whigs had to die after the 1852 election debacle which they lost, 254-42 in the electoral college, in order for their remnants, the Free Soil Party, and others to create the new Republican Party. We're coming up, I think, on something similar - not necessarily by 2024, but in my lifetime.

I observe those things as well.  As I wrote, "We'll see".  Odd that you would "partly agree" with that...

[ellentonboy]

Does your republican/democratic statius remember all that much?

 

all that much?    I know I am going to get killed over this comment, but I am too young to remember Dukakis, but to young to remember his  opponent?   So I digress, I know Duikakis remember flying into Key West but that is all my family remembers?  So what is going on and what should I remember or should I NOT  remember?

[hntnhole]

On 2/19/2023 at 1:53 PM, JimInWisc said:

or does the orange clown have to pass away first?

He doesn't actually have to die .... Rikers for the extent of his wretched miserable life would be fine with me.  Of course, at some point his lord and master will come for him .... that clown with too many sixes in his moniker, I mean ...

[BootmanLA]

8 hours ago, JimInWisc said:

I observe those things as well.  As I wrote, "We'll see".  Odd that you would "partly agree" with that...

By "partly" I mean that I don't think the Republican party can reform itself the way you hope. I think it's an impossibility at this point. 

[viking8x6]

On 2/18/2023 at 9:55 AM, JimInWisc said:

As a party, it will only come back to center if we encourage members who are more centrist to become more vocal within that party.  

Not to mention members who are leftist, like myself, but registered Republican to ensure our voice in the political debate within our (very red) states.

[NEDenver]

On 2/20/2023 at 5:25 PM, BootmanLA said:

By "partly" I mean that I don't think the Republican party can reform itself the way you hope. I think it's an impossibility at this point. 

It probably has one chance,  because the orange ferret stool is old and sick and probably going to die fairly soon of natural causes.  Once that happens, if the Republicans and the country are lucky, the power centers will fight amongst themselves and hopefully remove each other from the political map with no real successor remaining.  (See the aftermath of the death of Alexander the Great.) 

[hntnhole]

On 2/19/2023 at 9:44 PM, BootmanLA said:

They didn't vote before 2016 and probably won't vote if he's not on the ballot.

Fine with me .... let them all stay home.  The fewer rabid R votes the better.  

 

On 2/19/2023 at 9:44 PM, BootmanLA said:

That's why I think the party has to die in order for a new party to arise on the right

Clearly, the remnants of what used to be the fairly competent Conservative party have ditched their intellectual capacities in favor of a fevered, self-absorbed, corrupted view of how Democracy works.  The only real question remains, is whether the Republic can withstand that inevitable event, or will the event of the death-throes of the current neo-Fascist R's wash the whole kit and kaboodle away too.  

I'm not entirely sure that the wanna-be fascists would be content to return to living under the rocks they've been hiding under for past 2+ centuries.  I don't think that will be enough for them; they're going to want much more now.  

[ErosWired]

On 2/19/2023 at 8:44 PM, BootmanLA said:

First, there's a hard core of support for Mango Mussolini that will not turn out to vote if he's pushed out of the running - ESPECIALLY if he continues ranting that he's been cheated by machines or mail-in vote fraud or stuffed ballot boxes or whatever. Call that chunk of the R electorate the "Trump Chumps". They didn't vote before 2016 and probably won't vote if he's not on the ballot.

This is likely true, and thus potentially worrisome. They may not take their grievance-based political attitudes to the ballot box, but they’re not going away. Instead, they’ll see themselves as (yet again) deprived of a voice, downtrodden by elites, intellectuals, etc., except now they will have no outlet for their uncertainty, insecurity, fear, xenophobia and bigotry, so it will lie underground and fester.

Which is exactly the vein of populist pus that Donald Trump found and tapped into. Until the gaping wealth disparity, educational, and other social inequalities in this nation are addressed, this unrest will continue, and probably worsen. And the chances of wealth inequality ever being meaningfully addressed in America are slim, because we are based on a fundamentally flawed national premise - that Capitalism is virtuous, and money is what matters in the end.

If I could wave a wand and do one single thing to try to improve the nation’s fortunes at this stage, I would ban all money from politics, and see how radically the conversation changes.

[hntnhole]

12 hours ago, ErosWired said:

Call that chunk of the R electorate the "Trump Chumps". They didn't vote before 2016 and probably won't vote if he's not on the ballot

From your fingers to Whatever's ears.  The more depressed the R vote is, the better (particularly down-ballot races).  Repeating that moniker, btw, was very generous of you.  

 

12 hours ago, ErosWired said:

money is what matters in the end

The odd thing about "money" is, it seems that some folks simply can't have enough of it.  A million only incites the rich to even greater grasping for the second million.  This craven grasping for a "false god" - superbly embodied in their hero, the king of circus barkers, fraudsters, con-men, inveterate liars - is supported by the major media flooding the communications machinery with what they think are the most beautiful men/women, living the most beautiful lives because they've "made it" financially.  Some of these models are even a bit porky, to reassure the fat people that they too can follow the siren song of rapacious grasping for money that will give them "happiness". 

Orange Jesus embodies everything these self centered folks are focused on, and not one scintilla of anything else.

[ErosWired]

9 hours ago, hntnhole said:

Repeating that moniker, btw, was very generous of you.  

Just to note above, that quoted section should have been attributed to @BootmanLA, not sure how it got tagged to me.

[hntnhole]

16 hours ago, ErosWired said:

Just to note above, that quoted section should have been attributed to @BootmanLA, not sure how it got tagged to me.

ooops .... mea culpa ... thanks for the correction 😵