Conservative Ideology 2024: NOTHING BUT LIES AND FEARMONGERING

[Brooklyn]

Conservative Alex Jones pays a price for his treasonous and inflammatory lies:



https://image.politicalcartoons.com/265 ... -spray.png




https://assets.amuniversal.com/c3e92380 ... a9545d.png


Over the years forum right wingers have always been quick to condemn AOC, Ilhan Omar, Obama, BLM, Dems, or whomever for any and every reason. Yet they see lunatics like Jones spewing hate and treason on radio or online each and every day but they fail to condemn these unamerican tinfoil hat elements.

[NattyBohChamps04]

I am not a MAGA type. Fair-weather Republican.

So as a Fair-weather Republican, by definition, you change your fundamental beliefs simply by who is winning in the Republican party?

That's the MAGA types for the past 6+ years.

You're saying you don't have any solid foundational beliefs in how government should be run or what freedoms and responsibilities Citizens should have in our country? You just rely on what the winning dude says we should do?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pipTwjwrQYQ

[jhu72]

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

Do you identify with the current Republican Party, or any party in particular? What are your political ideologies?

I am a republican. You knew the answer to that, why even ask?

Was simply curious, no need to get upset over a simple question. I was also interested in what you believe in, and not just a label. Because Republicans have a wide range of ideologies and beliefs, and a ton of them have changed drastically over the past 6 years and past 60 years respectively. Democrats too, but their ideologies have changed more in the long term and less in the short term..

I am not a MAGA type. Fair-weather Republican.

So as a Fair-weather Republican, by definition, you change your fundamental beliefs simply by who is winning in the Republican party?

That's the MAGA types for the past 6+ years.

You're saying you don't have any solid foundational beliefs in how government should be run or what freedoms and responsibilities Citizens should have in our country? You just rely on what the winning dude says we should do?

I, too, am interested in what 2000 means by "fair-weather Republican"...your interpretation certainly seems likely on the mark, but 2000 what say you?

Please explain your actual views. Fully.
To be helpful, I suggested a bunch of prompts, and Natty Boh has as well.
I like his add "and what freedoms and responsibilities Citizens should have in our country?"

I vote for the person in the Republican Party that I think can best do the job and lead our country. I don't blindly follow what they do or so if it turns out that I was wrong and they weren't the best person for the job. Then I start look within my party to find who I think will be the best person to put forward in the next election. Despite what has been said on this forum, I happen to like a lot of the things DeSantis has done and the energy and ideas he brings to the table. Doesn't mean that he is who I am voting for, I just happen to like a lot of what he does. Is he perfect? Far from it. Is he the threat to society that you have claimed he is? Far from it. This answer was not intended for you to lecture me on DeSantis, FYI. I don't need your opinion on him, I have seen it enough in my first few months here...

Why am I not surprised?

[jhu72]

On the lighter side Cracker Barrel has run into a problem with their customer base. They are trying to update their menu incrementally so as to attract new customers who might have different tastes without doing away with the menu items that have endeared them to their heretofore loyal customer base. Profitability and growth have slipped, from a business perspective Cracker Barrel has tried something that makes sense, expanding their customer base. They added a single menu item as an option to their existing menu items -- veggie sausage patties. The result, their current customer base really hates the move and is pushing back. They aren't just not ordering the option, they are objecting to it even being on the menu!!

I believe this is totally unsurprising given the demographics of the customer base. It is of course totally irrational. They can still order all their old favorites, they object to anyone being able to order something outside their own personal taste.

The Cracker Barrel experience.

[Farfromgeneva]

Make America Hungary!!!

https://miniszterelnok.hu/speech-by-pri ... pac-texas/

He hits on all the big racist, "Christian" nationalist, anti-immigrant and "other" themes. I like the "American Exceptionalism" crowd wanting to parrot a Hungarian strongman. He's like the new Thomas Jefferson!!

Max agrees:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... w-fascism/

"All you need to know about the state of the Republican Party today is what happened at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas on Thursday. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been destroying his country’s democracy, received a standing ovation less than two weeks after he gave a speech in Romania in which he endorsed the white supremacist “replacement theory” and denounced a “mixed-race world.”

One of Orban’s longtime advisers quit over what she described as a speech “worthy of Goebbels” before backtracking a bit. But Orban hasn’t recanted his repugnant views, and right-wingers in Dallas thrilled to his denunciations of immigration, abortion, LGBTQ rights and “the Woke Globalist Goliath.” He even excoriated Jewish financier George Soros, a Hungarian native, as someone who “hated Christianity.” The racist and anti-Semitic signaling was not subtle.

You can trace the current iteration of the Republican Party to the 1990s Gingrich revolution, as my brilliant Post colleague Dana Milbank does in a new book. Or you can go further back to the Goldwater revolution in the 1960s, as I did in my own book. But we must also acknowledge that something profound has changed in recent years.

Ten years ago this month, Republicans nominated a national ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul D. Ryan, a centrist former governor and a budget policy wonk. Now we have the coup-coup caucus cheering Viktor Orban. This is the Trump effect: The former president has made the marginal into the mainstream of the Republican Party, and vice versa.

Some observers were deceived by the success in Georgia of Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in handily defeating Trumpist challengers in May despite certifying President Biden’s victory. That was an aberration. In other races across the country, Republicans are nominating far-right fanatics who claim that the 2020 presidential election — and any election that they lose, for that matter — was “rigged.” By refusing to accept electoral defeat, they embrace authoritarianism.

In four key swing states — Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania — the GOP nominees to oversee state elections deny the legitimacy of Biden’s election. Two of those candidates, Arizona secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem and Pennsylvania governor nominee Doug Mastriano, were outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. If elected, they are no more likely to certify a Democratic victory in 2024 than they are to embrace critical race theory. Meanwhile, most House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting an insurrection are being driven out of Congress. Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer was the latest to lose a primary last week to a proponent of the “big lie.”

Taking a cue from Trump, the winners of Republican primaries traffic in authoritarian imagery and rhetoric. Guns have become a de rigueur accessory in GOP campaign commercials. Arizona U.S. Senate nominee Blake Masters wants to lock up Anthony S. Fauci for trying to slow the spread of covid-19. And Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake wants to lock up her opponent for certifying Biden’s election victory.

Masters and Ohio U.S. Senate nominee J.D. Vance are both bankrolled by tech tycoon Peter Thiel, who has concluded that freedom and democracy aren’t “compatible.” Thiel’s “house political philosopher” is far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin, who is also close to Masters and Vance. Yarvin has mused that we may need an “American Caesar” to take control of the federal government. Trump is auditioning for the role; his henchmen are plotting to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with ultra-MAGA loyalists in 2025.

The libertarian-leaning Republican Party I grew up with in the 1980s is long gone and not coming back. Republicans still use the language of “freedom,” but their idea of freedom is warped: They want Americans to be free to carry weapons of war or spread deadly diseases but not to terminate a pregnancy or discuss gender or sexuality in school.

Republicans, once suspicious of government power, are now eager to use it to impose their agenda. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, next to Trump as the most likely 2024 GOP nominee, is establishing his culture-war credentials by, most recently, suspending an elected prosecutor who vowed not to “criminalize personal medical decisions,” such as abortion or “gender-affirming healthcare.” DeSantis even threatened to investigate parents who take their kids to drag shows.

These Republican extremists are often described as the “New Right,” but the term doesn’t fit. The New Right was the movement in the 1960s-1970s that produced Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. You can argue that the New Right helped lead to the present imbroglio, but it’s hard to imagine Goldwater or Reagan flashing Viktor Orban a thumbs-up, as Trump did.

Some other term is needed. “Christian nationalism” and “nationalist conservatism” have been bandied about, but the most apt phrase for this American authoritarianism is the New Fascism, and it is fast becoming the dominant trend on the right. If the GOP gains power in Washington, all of America will be in danger of being Orbanized."

I think Christian Fascism works as a description

[Farfromgeneva]

On the lighter side Cracker Barrel has run into a problem with their customer base. They are trying to update their menu incrementally so as to attract new customers who might have different tastes without doing away with the menu items that have endeared them to their heretofore loyal customer base. Profitability and growth have slipped, from a business perspective Cracker Barrel has tried something that makes sense, expanding their customer base. They added a single menu item as an option to their existing menu items -- veggie sausage patties. The result, their current customer base really hates the move and is pushing back. They aren't just not ordering the option, they are objecting to it even being on the menu!!

I believe this is totally unsurprising given the demographics of the customer base. It is of course totally irrational. They can still order all their old favorites, they object to anyone being able to order something outside their own personal taste.

The Cracker Barrel experience.

Let them have their heart attacks. It’s not Cracker Barrel if the butter isn’t covered with a heaping portion of butter then some fried lard on top. N

I will say I’m fairly anti vegetarian, a meatatarian which is a lifestyle choice. I did has a couple of impossible burgers a few weekends ago and I finished them. So they weren’t that bad.

[cradleandshoot]

Why do they have to have a certain political lean to think COVID is a hoax? Do you really think that only people with a certain political lean are capable of thinking this? You never thought that maybe there's a myriad of hundreds of other factors. Education, geographical location, religious bent, family influence and the list goes on and on. Life is not as simple as you make it out to be here. As politically convenient as you are making it sound, it's way, way more complex than this...

Because right wing "thinking" is just that ~ delusionalism. I have had debates on other forums where right wingers use profanities to describe anyone who dares to say the covid plague is a reality. There's just something about these people. It's utter insanity. There's no other way to describe it.

That's only representative of an extreme subsection of the Republican Party that is unfortunately amplified via the internet medium. The internet, in particular Twitter, is often quite far from actual reality. It's best to stay away from forums like that, unless you are intentionally seeking out these people so that you can complain about them. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here that you are not doing that. Because you can't be expecting a reasonable discussion on those sites. It just doesn't exist. Same on the far left sites. Unfortunate.

Which is why we do try to have such conversations here, and why those who actively participate here appreciate this environment.

That said, I keep coming across people in my personal "real world" life who believe this garbage, hook line and sinker, swallowed whole.

We also do know that there is much greater belief in some really strange things than we'd like to admit...it's convenient (and perhaps used to be more the case) to think that such was limited to an extreme fringe...but, today that percentage is much, much larger.

Look at the belief in the Big Lie among the GOP today...Biden cheated, Trump actually won... big majority. Not all, but quite marked. Batsh-t crazy, but there we are...

I think that's because of the fragmented information/media world, in which the incentives are to attract and maintain eyeballs, which is most effective by stimulating chemical reactions in the brain and nervous system through telling a 'story' that makes people feel passionately...doesn't need to be true. Indeed, the more incendiary and 'unbelievable' the better...

That strategy earned talk radio on the right huge profits, and there was a concerted political strategy to buy up stations and dominate those airwaves with progressively more and more off the wall claims. With the explosion of cable, this was taken to TV, and then to the web...huge profits. The social media world put this strategy on steroids in terms of impact and 'permission structure'. Colossal profitability.

The left has been slower to adapt to these strategies, and provided less chemical/nervous system stimulation. Much of the mainstream media is certainly liberal leaning, but by and large they believed in journalistic integrity and their job was to uncover uncomfortable truths, as the 4th estate challenging power. But not to make shite up for profit.

Some of that now happens on the left, unfortunately, as well. But the hard right (not actually "conservative") dominates this strategy.

My opinion.

Thanks. Are you a republican? I've thought you have said you were in the past. This post certainly doesn't sound like it comes from someone who claims to be a republican. You are basically stating the right is guilty of this about 95% and the left about 5%. That's not in even close. It's much more prevalent on the left than you claim it to be. Whether you want to believe that is I guess up to you, and you only.

I continue, stubbornly, to the a registered Republican. I've been voting in each election cycle for more than 4 decades, and I have only once voted for the Democrat for POTUS, twice voting for the third party candidate. My default, until recently, was to vote GOP at each level, unless I knew the particular Dem candidate to be a particularly good public servant. I'm not a partisan anything.

But right now, I refuse to vote for any Big Lie Republicans, or anyone that isn't willing to call it out clearly. I'm more progressive socially than the MAGA crowd, so there are a number of other key signals that will turn me off a GOP candidate in much of the current crop. I see DeSantis, for instance, a potentially more competent, thus more dangerous fascist than was Trump. Anyone even remotely flirting with "Christian nationalism" or any such dog whistle is out.

Unfortunately, that leaves very few of the current GOP to support. Just a handful.
The GOP has changed tremendously, I have not changed much.

My wife, also a lifelong Republican, had the same voting pattern as me, though voted for Obama in 2008 while I voted McCain. she voted for Romney, with whom she had worked at Bain. She has now changed her registration to Democrat.

No, the "left" media, much less the mainstream liberal media, does not come remotely close to the same level of outright lying as we have seen grow over the past two decades from the right. Not to say that there isn't a left filter on what's important to cover, or sometimes inflammatory rhetoric used (yes, there's money to be made and power to be gained) but the volume and sheer batsh-ttedness isn't on the same level. Not close.

I dunno whether 95-5, but I'd certainly buy at least 80-20...not close.

I watch plenty of relatively left leaning media to say with confidence that the crazy, crazy stuff doesn't have a viable home in the mainstream media world. Occasionally rhetoric gets hot, but sheer craziness and outright lies get shot down.

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

I'm a moderate. Conservative fiscally and generally, but progressive socially. That used to be comfortable and welcome in the GOP, now it makes me a RINO apparently.

My Dem votes are primarily opposition to Big Lie/MAGA/fascist/racist trend in the GOP...I'd love for the GOP to come to its senses.

If I use your logic YOUR party would be ectatic to have you as a featured speaker at the RNC convention? It could be you speak for the infinitesimally tiny number of rich white liberal Republicans who care less about the country than portraying themselves as social justice warriors for all of the down trodden common folk. If your a fiscal conservative why don't you espouse ANYTHING that remotely points out the chit hole mess our country is in financially? You claim to be a fiscal conservative but talk is cheap. What is our national debt ?? What is the game plan to get it under control???? I would vote for a Fan for POTUS in a heartbeat. As a true blue fiscal conservative.. he is the only one I know of on this forum that understands that. All the social justice in the world means jack chit if your financially watching your country circle the drain.

Ya und?


Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff.

"Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff."

How much of that national debt spending was forced on them by the COVID Pandemic??? Should they just have turned their back and not spent the money? I bet had YOUR party done so you would be whining about their careless insensitivity to human suffering at the top of your lungs. Quite the conundrum for YOUR party... damned when they do and damned if they don't. How much money did trump give King Andy to convert the Javitts Center to a temporary hospital that was never needed?? How much money did trump give to King Andy to bring the Mercy ship to NY harbor to serve as a temporary hospital that was never needed??? How many other billions of dollars were wasted in the knee jerk reaction to COVID. You wonder WHY the Republicans did what you demanded and now your complaining about the tab. FTR, not that YOUR party are a bunch of spend thrifts. They had no other choice but to spend what they had to on the COVID... unless you they should have just blown off the crisis and spent the money on new aircraft carriers and fighter planes??

[MDlaxfan76]

Why do they have to have a certain political lean to think COVID is a hoax? Do you really think that only people with a certain political lean are capable of thinking this? You never thought that maybe there's a myriad of hundreds of other factors. Education, geographical location, religious bent, family influence and the list goes on and on. Life is not as simple as you make it out to be here. As politically convenient as you are making it sound, it's way, way more complex than this...

Because right wing "thinking" is just that ~ delusionalism. I have had debates on other forums where right wingers use profanities to describe anyone who dares to say the covid plague is a reality. There's just something about these people. It's utter insanity. There's no other way to describe it.

That's only representative of an extreme subsection of the Republican Party that is unfortunately amplified via the internet medium. The internet, in particular Twitter, is often quite far from actual reality. It's best to stay away from forums like that, unless you are intentionally seeking out these people so that you can complain about them. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here that you are not doing that. Because you can't be expecting a reasonable discussion on those sites. It just doesn't exist. Same on the far left sites. Unfortunate.

Which is why we do try to have such conversations here, and why those who actively participate here appreciate this environment.

That said, I keep coming across people in my personal "real world" life who believe this garbage, hook line and sinker, swallowed whole.

We also do know that there is much greater belief in some really strange things than we'd like to admit...it's convenient (and perhaps used to be more the case) to think that such was limited to an extreme fringe...but, today that percentage is much, much larger.

Look at the belief in the Big Lie among the GOP today...Biden cheated, Trump actually won... big majority. Not all, but quite marked. Batsh-t crazy, but there we are...

I think that's because of the fragmented information/media world, in which the incentives are to attract and maintain eyeballs, which is most effective by stimulating chemical reactions in the brain and nervous system through telling a 'story' that makes people feel passionately...doesn't need to be true. Indeed, the more incendiary and 'unbelievable' the better...

That strategy earned talk radio on the right huge profits, and there was a concerted political strategy to buy up stations and dominate those airwaves with progressively more and more off the wall claims. With the explosion of cable, this was taken to TV, and then to the web...huge profits. The social media world put this strategy on steroids in terms of impact and 'permission structure'. Colossal profitability.

The left has been slower to adapt to these strategies, and provided less chemical/nervous system stimulation. Much of the mainstream media is certainly liberal leaning, but by and large they believed in journalistic integrity and their job was to uncover uncomfortable truths, as the 4th estate challenging power. But not to make shite up for profit.

Some of that now happens on the left, unfortunately, as well. But the hard right (not actually "conservative") dominates this strategy.

My opinion.

Thanks. Are you a republican? I've thought you have said you were in the past. This post certainly doesn't sound like it comes from someone who claims to be a republican. You are basically stating the right is guilty of this about 95% and the left about 5%. That's not in even close. It's much more prevalent on the left than you claim it to be. Whether you want to believe that is I guess up to you, and you only.

I continue, stubbornly, to the a registered Republican. I've been voting in each election cycle for more than 4 decades, and I have only once voted for the Democrat for POTUS, twice voting for the third party candidate. My default, until recently, was to vote GOP at each level, unless I knew the particular Dem candidate to be a particularly good public servant. I'm not a partisan anything.

But right now, I refuse to vote for any Big Lie Republicans, or anyone that isn't willing to call it out clearly. I'm more progressive socially than the MAGA crowd, so there are a number of other key signals that will turn me off a GOP candidate in much of the current crop. I see DeSantis, for instance, a potentially more competent, thus more dangerous fascist than was Trump. Anyone even remotely flirting with "Christian nationalism" or any such dog whistle is out.

Unfortunately, that leaves very few of the current GOP to support. Just a handful.
The GOP has changed tremendously, I have not changed much.

My wife, also a lifelong Republican, had the same voting pattern as me, though voted for Obama in 2008 while I voted McCain. she voted for Romney, with whom she had worked at Bain. She has now changed her registration to Democrat.

No, the "left" media, much less the mainstream liberal media, does not come remotely close to the same level of outright lying as we have seen grow over the past two decades from the right. Not to say that there isn't a left filter on what's important to cover, or sometimes inflammatory rhetoric used (yes, there's money to be made and power to be gained) but the volume and sheer batsh-ttedness isn't on the same level. Not close.

I dunno whether 95-5, but I'd certainly buy at least 80-20...not close.

I watch plenty of relatively left leaning media to say with confidence that the crazy, crazy stuff doesn't have a viable home in the mainstream media world. Occasionally rhetoric gets hot, but sheer craziness and outright lies get shot down.

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

I'm a moderate. Conservative fiscally and generally, but progressive socially. That used to be comfortable and welcome in the GOP, now it makes me a RINO apparently.

My Dem votes are primarily opposition to Big Lie/MAGA/fascist/racist trend in the GOP...I'd love for the GOP to come to its senses.

If I use your logic YOUR party would be ectatic to have you as a featured speaker at the RNC convention? It could be you speak for the infinitesimally tiny number of rich white liberal Republicans who care less about the country than portraying themselves as social justice warriors for all of the down trodden common folk. If your a fiscal conservative why don't you espouse ANYTHING that remotely points out the chit hole mess our country is in financially? You claim to be a fiscal conservative but talk is cheap. What is our national debt ?? What is the game plan to get it under control???? I would vote for a Fan for POTUS in a heartbeat. As a true blue fiscal conservative.. he is the only one I know of on this forum that understands that. All the social justice in the world means jack chit if your financially watching your country circle the drain.

Ya und?


Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff.

"Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff."

How much of that national debt spending was forced on them by the COVID Pandemic??? Should they just have turned their back and not spent the money? I bet had YOUR party done so you would be whining about their careless insensitivity to human suffering at the top of your lungs. Quite the conundrum for YOUR party... damned when they do and damned if they don't. How much money did trump give King Andy to convert the Javitts Center to a temporary hospital that was never needed?? How much money did trump give to King Andy to bring the Mercy ship to NY harbor to serve as a temporary hospital that was never needed??? How many other billions of dollars were wasted in the knee jerk reaction to COVID. You wonder WHY the Republicans did what you demanded and now your complaining about the tab. FTR, not that YOUR party are a bunch of spend thrifts. They had no other choice but to spend what they had to on the COVID... unless you they should have just blown off the crisis and spent the money on new aircraft carriers and fighter planes??

come on cradle, I'd earlier linked articles with graphs showing the timing and trends of deficit spending. And I explained that I give a pass for deficit spending in extreme situations, indeed that's why we should be fiscally conservative in good times, so as to reserve our dry powder for emergencies.

Trump and the GOP violated that principle, massively, pre Covid.

Don't just flame at me, read the full train of thought.

[cradleandshoot]

On the lighter side Cracker Barrel has run into a problem with their customer base. They are trying to update their menu incrementally so as to attract new customers who might have different tastes without doing away with the menu items that have endeared them to their heretofore loyal customer base. Profitability and growth have slipped, from a business perspective Cracker Barrel has tried something that makes sense, expanding their customer base. They added a single menu item as an option to their existing menu items -- veggie sausage patties. The result, their current customer base really hates the move and is pushing back. They aren't just not ordering the option, they are objecting to it even being on the menu!!

I believe this is totally unsurprising given the demographics of the customer base. It is of course totally irrational. They can still order all their old favorites, they object to anyone being able to order something outside their own personal taste.

The Cracker Barrel experience.

Isn't that the same business philosophy that sank Friendlys?? they chose not to adjust to the wants and needs of a new generation of customers. Simple solution, if you don't like something on the menu... don't order it.. IMO these Cracker Barrel customers, when they are done whining about the new menu, will realize the mistake in acting like a bunch of liberals and will come back to eat. I suppose they COULD look up the address of the owners of Cracker Barrel and protest in front of their homes??

[cradleandshoot]

Why do they have to have a certain political lean to think COVID is a hoax? Do you really think that only people with a certain political lean are capable of thinking this? You never thought that maybe there's a myriad of hundreds of other factors. Education, geographical location, religious bent, family influence and the list goes on and on. Life is not as simple as you make it out to be here. As politically convenient as you are making it sound, it's way, way more complex than this...

Because right wing "thinking" is just that ~ delusionalism. I have had debates on other forums where right wingers use profanities to describe anyone who dares to say the covid plague is a reality. There's just something about these people. It's utter insanity. There's no other way to describe it.

That's only representative of an extreme subsection of the Republican Party that is unfortunately amplified via the internet medium. The internet, in particular Twitter, is often quite far from actual reality. It's best to stay away from forums like that, unless you are intentionally seeking out these people so that you can complain about them. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here that you are not doing that. Because you can't be expecting a reasonable discussion on those sites. It just doesn't exist. Same on the far left sites. Unfortunate.

Which is why we do try to have such conversations here, and why those who actively participate here appreciate this environment.

That said, I keep coming across people in my personal "real world" life who believe this garbage, hook line and sinker, swallowed whole.

We also do know that there is much greater belief in some really strange things than we'd like to admit...it's convenient (and perhaps used to be more the case) to think that such was limited to an extreme fringe...but, today that percentage is much, much larger.

Look at the belief in the Big Lie among the GOP today...Biden cheated, Trump actually won... big majority. Not all, but quite marked. Batsh-t crazy, but there we are...

I think that's because of the fragmented information/media world, in which the incentives are to attract and maintain eyeballs, which is most effective by stimulating chemical reactions in the brain and nervous system through telling a 'story' that makes people feel passionately...doesn't need to be true. Indeed, the more incendiary and 'unbelievable' the better...

That strategy earned talk radio on the right huge profits, and there was a concerted political strategy to buy up stations and dominate those airwaves with progressively more and more off the wall claims. With the explosion of cable, this was taken to TV, and then to the web...huge profits. The social media world put this strategy on steroids in terms of impact and 'permission structure'. Colossal profitability.

The left has been slower to adapt to these strategies, and provided less chemical/nervous system stimulation. Much of the mainstream media is certainly liberal leaning, but by and large they believed in journalistic integrity and their job was to uncover uncomfortable truths, as the 4th estate challenging power. But not to make shite up for profit.

Some of that now happens on the left, unfortunately, as well. But the hard right (not actually "conservative") dominates this strategy.

My opinion.

Thanks. Are you a republican? I've thought you have said you were in the past. This post certainly doesn't sound like it comes from someone who claims to be a republican. You are basically stating the right is guilty of this about 95% and the left about 5%. That's not in even close. It's much more prevalent on the left than you claim it to be. Whether you want to believe that is I guess up to you, and you only.

I continue, stubbornly, to the a registered Republican. I've been voting in each election cycle for more than 4 decades, and I have only once voted for the Democrat for POTUS, twice voting for the third party candidate. My default, until recently, was to vote GOP at each level, unless I knew the particular Dem candidate to be a particularly good public servant. I'm not a partisan anything.

But right now, I refuse to vote for any Big Lie Republicans, or anyone that isn't willing to call it out clearly. I'm more progressive socially than the MAGA crowd, so there are a number of other key signals that will turn me off a GOP candidate in much of the current crop. I see DeSantis, for instance, a potentially more competent, thus more dangerous fascist than was Trump. Anyone even remotely flirting with "Christian nationalism" or any such dog whistle is out.

Unfortunately, that leaves very few of the current GOP to support. Just a handful.
The GOP has changed tremendously, I have not changed much.

My wife, also a lifelong Republican, had the same voting pattern as me, though voted for Obama in 2008 while I voted McCain. she voted for Romney, with whom she had worked at Bain. She has now changed her registration to Democrat.

No, the "left" media, much less the mainstream liberal media, does not come remotely close to the same level of outright lying as we have seen grow over the past two decades from the right. Not to say that there isn't a left filter on what's important to cover, or sometimes inflammatory rhetoric used (yes, there's money to be made and power to be gained) but the volume and sheer batsh-ttedness isn't on the same level. Not close.

I dunno whether 95-5, but I'd certainly buy at least 80-20...not close.

I watch plenty of relatively left leaning media to say with confidence that the crazy, crazy stuff doesn't have a viable home in the mainstream media world. Occasionally rhetoric gets hot, but sheer craziness and outright lies get shot down.

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

I'm a moderate. Conservative fiscally and generally, but progressive socially. That used to be comfortable and welcome in the GOP, now it makes me a RINO apparently.

My Dem votes are primarily opposition to Big Lie/MAGA/fascist/racist trend in the GOP...I'd love for the GOP to come to its senses.

If I use your logic YOUR party would be ectatic to have you as a featured speaker at the RNC convention? It could be you speak for the infinitesimally tiny number of rich white liberal Republicans who care less about the country than portraying themselves as social justice warriors for all of the down trodden common folk. If your a fiscal conservative why don't you espouse ANYTHING that remotely points out the chit hole mess our country is in financially? You claim to be a fiscal conservative but talk is cheap. What is our national debt ?? What is the game plan to get it under control???? I would vote for a Fan for POTUS in a heartbeat. As a true blue fiscal conservative.. he is the only one I know of on this forum that understands that. All the social justice in the world means jack chit if your financially watching your country circle the drain.

Ya und?


Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff.

"Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff."

How much of that national debt spending was forced on them by the COVID Pandemic??? Should they just have turned their back and not spent the money? I bet had YOUR party done so you would be whining about their careless insensitivity to human suffering at the top of your lungs. Quite the conundrum for YOUR party... damned when they do and damned if they don't. How much money did trump give King Andy to convert the Javitts Center to a temporary hospital that was never needed?? How much money did trump give to King Andy to bring the Mercy ship to NY harbor to serve as a temporary hospital that was never needed??? How many other billions of dollars were wasted in the knee jerk reaction to COVID. You wonder WHY the Republicans did what you demanded and now your complaining about the tab. FTR, not that YOUR party are a bunch of spend thrifts. They had no other choice but to spend what they had to on the COVID... unless you they should have just blown off the crisis and spent the money on new aircraft carriers and fighter planes??

come on cradle, I'd earlier linked articles with graphs showing the timing and trends of deficit spending. And I explained that I give a pass for deficit spending in extreme situations, indeed that's why we should be fiscally conservative in good times, so as to reserve our dry powder for emergencies.

Trump and the GOP violated that principle, massively, pre Covid.

Don't just flame at me, read the full train of thought.

I'm not flaming at you or anybody. You made a valid point about YOUR party spending money like a bunch of drunken sailors. How much of that deficit spending was as the result of having to deal with the COVID crisis?? I have no idea and i doubt no one in our government has tabulated what the tab was. I know it wasn't cheap and i know we borrowed a chitload more of money to help pay for it. All of that spending, unless i am incorrect, is all part of the deficit incurred while YOUR Republican party was in charge. I have noticed since Biden and the Democrats are running the show our nation is still spending money like drunken sailors on shore leave. You think for one minute i believe that YOUR party is run by fiscal conservatives?? What a joke that thought is. The era of fiscal conservativism is dead and gone my friend.. dead and gone.

[MDlaxfan76]

Why do they have to have a certain political lean to think COVID is a hoax? Do you really think that only people with a certain political lean are capable of thinking this? You never thought that maybe there's a myriad of hundreds of other factors. Education, geographical location, religious bent, family influence and the list goes on and on. Life is not as simple as you make it out to be here. As politically convenient as you are making it sound, it's way, way more complex than this...

Because right wing "thinking" is just that ~ delusionalism. I have had debates on other forums where right wingers use profanities to describe anyone who dares to say the covid plague is a reality. There's just something about these people. It's utter insanity. There's no other way to describe it.

That's only representative of an extreme subsection of the Republican Party that is unfortunately amplified via the internet medium. The internet, in particular Twitter, is often quite far from actual reality. It's best to stay away from forums like that, unless you are intentionally seeking out these people so that you can complain about them. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here that you are not doing that. Because you can't be expecting a reasonable discussion on those sites. It just doesn't exist. Same on the far left sites. Unfortunate.

Which is why we do try to have such conversations here, and why those who actively participate here appreciate this environment.

That said, I keep coming across people in my personal "real world" life who believe this garbage, hook line and sinker, swallowed whole.

We also do know that there is much greater belief in some really strange things than we'd like to admit...it's convenient (and perhaps used to be more the case) to think that such was limited to an extreme fringe...but, today that percentage is much, much larger.

Look at the belief in the Big Lie among the GOP today...Biden cheated, Trump actually won... big majority. Not all, but quite marked. Batsh-t crazy, but there we are...

I think that's because of the fragmented information/media world, in which the incentives are to attract and maintain eyeballs, which is most effective by stimulating chemical reactions in the brain and nervous system through telling a 'story' that makes people feel passionately...doesn't need to be true. Indeed, the more incendiary and 'unbelievable' the better...

That strategy earned talk radio on the right huge profits, and there was a concerted political strategy to buy up stations and dominate those airwaves with progressively more and more off the wall claims. With the explosion of cable, this was taken to TV, and then to the web...huge profits. The social media world put this strategy on steroids in terms of impact and 'permission structure'. Colossal profitability.

The left has been slower to adapt to these strategies, and provided less chemical/nervous system stimulation. Much of the mainstream media is certainly liberal leaning, but by and large they believed in journalistic integrity and their job was to uncover uncomfortable truths, as the 4th estate challenging power. But not to make shite up for profit.

Some of that now happens on the left, unfortunately, as well. But the hard right (not actually "conservative") dominates this strategy.

My opinion.

Thanks. Are you a republican? I've thought you have said you were in the past. This post certainly doesn't sound like it comes from someone who claims to be a republican. You are basically stating the right is guilty of this about 95% and the left about 5%. That's not in even close. It's much more prevalent on the left than you claim it to be. Whether you want to believe that is I guess up to you, and you only.

I continue, stubbornly, to the a registered Republican. I've been voting in each election cycle for more than 4 decades, and I have only once voted for the Democrat for POTUS, twice voting for the third party candidate. My default, until recently, was to vote GOP at each level, unless I knew the particular Dem candidate to be a particularly good public servant. I'm not a partisan anything.

But right now, I refuse to vote for any Big Lie Republicans, or anyone that isn't willing to call it out clearly. I'm more progressive socially than the MAGA crowd, so there are a number of other key signals that will turn me off a GOP candidate in much of the current crop. I see DeSantis, for instance, a potentially more competent, thus more dangerous fascist than was Trump. Anyone even remotely flirting with "Christian nationalism" or any such dog whistle is out.

Unfortunately, that leaves very few of the current GOP to support. Just a handful.
The GOP has changed tremendously, I have not changed much.

My wife, also a lifelong Republican, had the same voting pattern as me, though voted for Obama in 2008 while I voted McCain. she voted for Romney, with whom she had worked at Bain. She has now changed her registration to Democrat.

No, the "left" media, much less the mainstream liberal media, does not come remotely close to the same level of outright lying as we have seen grow over the past two decades from the right. Not to say that there isn't a left filter on what's important to cover, or sometimes inflammatory rhetoric used (yes, there's money to be made and power to be gained) but the volume and sheer batsh-ttedness isn't on the same level. Not close.

I dunno whether 95-5, but I'd certainly buy at least 80-20...not close.

I watch plenty of relatively left leaning media to say with confidence that the crazy, crazy stuff doesn't have a viable home in the mainstream media world. Occasionally rhetoric gets hot, but sheer craziness and outright lies get shot down.

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

I'm a moderate. Conservative fiscally and generally, but progressive socially. That used to be comfortable and welcome in the GOP, now it makes me a RINO apparently.

My Dem votes are primarily opposition to Big Lie/MAGA/fascist/racist trend in the GOP...I'd love for the GOP to come to its senses.

If I use your logic YOUR party would be ectatic to have you as a featured speaker at the RNC convention? It could be you speak for the infinitesimally tiny number of rich white liberal Republicans who care less about the country than portraying themselves as social justice warriors for all of the down trodden common folk. If your a fiscal conservative why don't you espouse ANYTHING that remotely points out the chit hole mess our country is in financially? You claim to be a fiscal conservative but talk is cheap. What is our national debt ?? What is the game plan to get it under control???? I would vote for a Fan for POTUS in a heartbeat. As a true blue fiscal conservative.. he is the only one I know of on this forum that understands that. All the social justice in the world means jack chit if your financially watching your country circle the drain.

Ya und?


Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff.

"Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff."

How much of that national debt spending was forced on them by the COVID Pandemic??? Should they just have turned their back and not spent the money? I bet had YOUR party done so you would be whining about their careless insensitivity to human suffering at the top of your lungs. Quite the conundrum for YOUR party... damned when they do and damned if they don't. How much money did trump give King Andy to convert the Javitts Center to a temporary hospital that was never needed?? How much money did trump give to King Andy to bring the Mercy ship to NY harbor to serve as a temporary hospital that was never needed??? How many other billions of dollars were wasted in the knee jerk reaction to COVID. You wonder WHY the Republicans did what you demanded and now your complaining about the tab. FTR, not that YOUR party are a bunch of spend thrifts. They had no other choice but to spend what they had to on the COVID... unless you they should have just blown off the crisis and spent the money on new aircraft carriers and fighter planes??

come on cradle, I'd earlier linked articles with graphs showing the timing and trends of deficit spending. And I explained that I give a pass for deficit spending in extreme situations, indeed that's why we should be fiscally conservative in good times, so as to reserve our dry powder for emergencies.

Trump and the GOP violated that principle, massively, pre Covid.

Don't just flame at me, read the full train of thought.

I'm not flaming at you or anybody. You made a valid point about YOUR party spending money like a bunch of drunken sailors. How much of that deficit spending was as the result of having to deal with the COVID crisis?? I have no idea and i doubt no one in our government has tabulated what the tab was. I know it wasn't cheap and i know we borrowed a chitload more of money to help pay for it. All of that spending, unless i am incorrect, is all part of the deficit incurred while YOUR Republican party was in charge. I have noticed since Biden and the Democrats are running the show our nation is still spending money like drunken sailors on shore leave. You think for one minute i believe that YOUR party is run by fiscal conservatives?? What a joke that thought is. The era of fiscal conservativism is dead and gone my friend.. dead and gone.

https://datalab.usaspending.gov/america ... it/trends/

[Farfromgeneva]

Why do they have to have a certain political lean to think COVID is a hoax? Do you really think that only people with a certain political lean are capable of thinking this? You never thought that maybe there's a myriad of hundreds of other factors. Education, geographical location, religious bent, family influence and the list goes on and on. Life is not as simple as you make it out to be here. As politically convenient as you are making it sound, it's way, way more complex than this...

Because right wing "thinking" is just that ~ delusionalism. I have had debates on other forums where right wingers use profanities to describe anyone who dares to say the covid plague is a reality. There's just something about these people. It's utter insanity. There's no other way to describe it.

That's only representative of an extreme subsection of the Republican Party that is unfortunately amplified via the internet medium. The internet, in particular Twitter, is often quite far from actual reality. It's best to stay away from forums like that, unless you are intentionally seeking out these people so that you can complain about them. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here that you are not doing that. Because you can't be expecting a reasonable discussion on those sites. It just doesn't exist. Same on the far left sites. Unfortunate.

Which is why we do try to have such conversations here, and why those who actively participate here appreciate this environment.

That said, I keep coming across people in my personal "real world" life who believe this garbage, hook line and sinker, swallowed whole.

We also do know that there is much greater belief in some really strange things than we'd like to admit...it's convenient (and perhaps used to be more the case) to think that such was limited to an extreme fringe...but, today that percentage is much, much larger.

Look at the belief in the Big Lie among the GOP today...Biden cheated, Trump actually won... big majority. Not all, but quite marked. Batsh-t crazy, but there we are...

I think that's because of the fragmented information/media world, in which the incentives are to attract and maintain eyeballs, which is most effective by stimulating chemical reactions in the brain and nervous system through telling a 'story' that makes people feel passionately...doesn't need to be true. Indeed, the more incendiary and 'unbelievable' the better...

That strategy earned talk radio on the right huge profits, and there was a concerted political strategy to buy up stations and dominate those airwaves with progressively more and more off the wall claims. With the explosion of cable, this was taken to TV, and then to the web...huge profits. The social media world put this strategy on steroids in terms of impact and 'permission structure'. Colossal profitability.

The left has been slower to adapt to these strategies, and provided less chemical/nervous system stimulation. Much of the mainstream media is certainly liberal leaning, but by and large they believed in journalistic integrity and their job was to uncover uncomfortable truths, as the 4th estate challenging power. But not to make shite up for profit.

Some of that now happens on the left, unfortunately, as well. But the hard right (not actually "conservative") dominates this strategy.

My opinion.

Thanks. Are you a republican? I've thought you have said you were in the past. This post certainly doesn't sound like it comes from someone who claims to be a republican. You are basically stating the right is guilty of this about 95% and the left about 5%. That's not in even close. It's much more prevalent on the left than you claim it to be. Whether you want to believe that is I guess up to you, and you only.

I continue, stubbornly, to the a registered Republican. I've been voting in each election cycle for more than 4 decades, and I have only once voted for the Democrat for POTUS, twice voting for the third party candidate. My default, until recently, was to vote GOP at each level, unless I knew the particular Dem candidate to be a particularly good public servant. I'm not a partisan anything.

But right now, I refuse to vote for any Big Lie Republicans, or anyone that isn't willing to call it out clearly. I'm more progressive socially than the MAGA crowd, so there are a number of other key signals that will turn me off a GOP candidate in much of the current crop. I see DeSantis, for instance, a potentially more competent, thus more dangerous fascist than was Trump. Anyone even remotely flirting with "Christian nationalism" or any such dog whistle is out.

Unfortunately, that leaves very few of the current GOP to support. Just a handful.
The GOP has changed tremendously, I have not changed much.

My wife, also a lifelong Republican, had the same voting pattern as me, though voted for Obama in 2008 while I voted McCain. she voted for Romney, with whom she had worked at Bain. She has now changed her registration to Democrat.

No, the "left" media, much less the mainstream liberal media, does not come remotely close to the same level of outright lying as we have seen grow over the past two decades from the right. Not to say that there isn't a left filter on what's important to cover, or sometimes inflammatory rhetoric used (yes, there's money to be made and power to be gained) but the volume and sheer batsh-ttedness isn't on the same level. Not close.

I dunno whether 95-5, but I'd certainly buy at least 80-20...not close.

I watch plenty of relatively left leaning media to say with confidence that the crazy, crazy stuff doesn't have a viable home in the mainstream media world. Occasionally rhetoric gets hot, but sheer craziness and outright lies get shot down.

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

I'm a moderate. Conservative fiscally and generally, but progressive socially. That used to be comfortable and welcome in the GOP, now it makes me a RINO apparently.

My Dem votes are primarily opposition to Big Lie/MAGA/fascist/racist trend in the GOP...I'd love for the GOP to come to its senses.

If I use your logic YOUR party would be ectatic to have you as a featured speaker at the RNC convention? It could be you speak for the infinitesimally tiny number of rich white liberal Republicans who care less about the country than portraying themselves as social justice warriors for all of the down trodden common folk. If your a fiscal conservative why don't you espouse ANYTHING that remotely points out the chit hole mess our country is in financially? You claim to be a fiscal conservative but talk is cheap. What is our national debt ?? What is the game plan to get it under control???? I would vote for a Fan for POTUS in a heartbeat. As a true blue fiscal conservative.. he is the only one I know of on this forum that understands that. All the social justice in the world means jack chit if your financially watching your country circle the drain.

Ya und?


Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff.

"Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff."

How much of that national debt spending was forced on them by the COVID Pandemic??? Should they just have turned their back and not spent the money? I bet had YOUR party done so you would be whining about their careless insensitivity to human suffering at the top of your lungs. Quite the conundrum for YOUR party... damned when they do and damned if they don't. How much money did trump give King Andy to convert the Javitts Center to a temporary hospital that was never needed?? How much money did trump give to King Andy to bring the Mercy ship to NY harbor to serve as a temporary hospital that was never needed??? How many other billions of dollars were wasted in the knee jerk reaction to COVID. You wonder WHY the Republicans did what you demanded and now your complaining about the tab. FTR, not that YOUR party are a bunch of spend thrifts. They had no other choice but to spend what they had to on the COVID... unless you they should have just blown off the crisis and spent the money on new aircraft carriers and fighter planes??

Sure blame Covid (and ignore that an adult with a adult brain would’ve not allowed the problem to be as bad and wouldn’t have attacked solving it as a PR lying festival):

https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-t ... ate-income

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-colu ... he-fed/amp

[cradleandshoot]

Why do they have to have a certain political lean to think COVID is a hoax? Do you really think that only people with a certain political lean are capable of thinking this? You never thought that maybe there's a myriad of hundreds of other factors. Education, geographical location, religious bent, family influence and the list goes on and on. Life is not as simple as you make it out to be here. As politically convenient as you are making it sound, it's way, way more complex than this...

Because right wing "thinking" is just that ~ delusionalism. I have had debates on other forums where right wingers use profanities to describe anyone who dares to say the covid plague is a reality. There's just something about these people. It's utter insanity. There's no other way to describe it.

That's only representative of an extreme subsection of the Republican Party that is unfortunately amplified via the internet medium. The internet, in particular Twitter, is often quite far from actual reality. It's best to stay away from forums like that, unless you are intentionally seeking out these people so that you can complain about them. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here that you are not doing that. Because you can't be expecting a reasonable discussion on those sites. It just doesn't exist. Same on the far left sites. Unfortunate.

Which is why we do try to have such conversations here, and why those who actively participate here appreciate this environment.

That said, I keep coming across people in my personal "real world" life who believe this garbage, hook line and sinker, swallowed whole.

We also do know that there is much greater belief in some really strange things than we'd like to admit...it's convenient (and perhaps used to be more the case) to think that such was limited to an extreme fringe...but, today that percentage is much, much larger.

Look at the belief in the Big Lie among the GOP today...Biden cheated, Trump actually won... big majority. Not all, but quite marked. Batsh-t crazy, but there we are...

I think that's because of the fragmented information/media world, in which the incentives are to attract and maintain eyeballs, which is most effective by stimulating chemical reactions in the brain and nervous system through telling a 'story' that makes people feel passionately...doesn't need to be true. Indeed, the more incendiary and 'unbelievable' the better...

That strategy earned talk radio on the right huge profits, and there was a concerted political strategy to buy up stations and dominate those airwaves with progressively more and more off the wall claims. With the explosion of cable, this was taken to TV, and then to the web...huge profits. The social media world put this strategy on steroids in terms of impact and 'permission structure'. Colossal profitability.

The left has been slower to adapt to these strategies, and provided less chemical/nervous system stimulation. Much of the mainstream media is certainly liberal leaning, but by and large they believed in journalistic integrity and their job was to uncover uncomfortable truths, as the 4th estate challenging power. But not to make shite up for profit.

Some of that now happens on the left, unfortunately, as well. But the hard right (not actually "conservative") dominates this strategy.

My opinion.

Thanks. Are you a republican? I've thought you have said you were in the past. This post certainly doesn't sound like it comes from someone who claims to be a republican. You are basically stating the right is guilty of this about 95% and the left about 5%. That's not in even close. It's much more prevalent on the left than you claim it to be. Whether you want to believe that is I guess up to you, and you only.

I continue, stubbornly, to the a registered Republican. I've been voting in each election cycle for more than 4 decades, and I have only once voted for the Democrat for POTUS, twice voting for the third party candidate. My default, until recently, was to vote GOP at each level, unless I knew the particular Dem candidate to be a particularly good public servant. I'm not a partisan anything.

But right now, I refuse to vote for any Big Lie Republicans, or anyone that isn't willing to call it out clearly. I'm more progressive socially than the MAGA crowd, so there are a number of other key signals that will turn me off a GOP candidate in much of the current crop. I see DeSantis, for instance, a potentially more competent, thus more dangerous fascist than was Trump. Anyone even remotely flirting with "Christian nationalism" or any such dog whistle is out.

Unfortunately, that leaves very few of the current GOP to support. Just a handful.
The GOP has changed tremendously, I have not changed much.

My wife, also a lifelong Republican, had the same voting pattern as me, though voted for Obama in 2008 while I voted McCain. she voted for Romney, with whom she had worked at Bain. She has now changed her registration to Democrat.

No, the "left" media, much less the mainstream liberal media, does not come remotely close to the same level of outright lying as we have seen grow over the past two decades from the right. Not to say that there isn't a left filter on what's important to cover, or sometimes inflammatory rhetoric used (yes, there's money to be made and power to be gained) but the volume and sheer batsh-ttedness isn't on the same level. Not close.

I dunno whether 95-5, but I'd certainly buy at least 80-20...not close.

I watch plenty of relatively left leaning media to say with confidence that the crazy, crazy stuff doesn't have a viable home in the mainstream media world. Occasionally rhetoric gets hot, but sheer craziness and outright lies get shot down.

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

I'm a moderate. Conservative fiscally and generally, but progressive socially. That used to be comfortable and welcome in the GOP, now it makes me a RINO apparently.

My Dem votes are primarily opposition to Big Lie/MAGA/fascist/racist trend in the GOP...I'd love for the GOP to come to its senses.

If I use your logic YOUR party would be ectatic to have you as a featured speaker at the RNC convention? It could be you speak for the infinitesimally tiny number of rich white liberal Republicans who care less about the country than portraying themselves as social justice warriors for all of the down trodden common folk. If your a fiscal conservative why don't you espouse ANYTHING that remotely points out the chit hole mess our country is in financially? You claim to be a fiscal conservative but talk is cheap. What is our national debt ?? What is the game plan to get it under control???? I would vote for a Fan for POTUS in a heartbeat. As a true blue fiscal conservative.. he is the only one I know of on this forum that understands that. All the social justice in the world means jack chit if your financially watching your country circle the drain.

Ya und?


Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff.

"Trumpists and the GOP radically increased the national debt.
For heaven's sake, don't give them the keys to the car, the'll drive us right off the fiscal cliff."

How much of that national debt spending was forced on them by the COVID Pandemic??? Should they just have turned their back and not spent the money? I bet had YOUR party done so you would be whining about their careless insensitivity to human suffering at the top of your lungs. Quite the conundrum for YOUR party... damned when they do and damned if they don't. How much money did trump give King Andy to convert the Javitts Center to a temporary hospital that was never needed?? How much money did trump give to King Andy to bring the Mercy ship to NY harbor to serve as a temporary hospital that was never needed??? How many other billions of dollars were wasted in the knee jerk reaction to COVID. You wonder WHY the Republicans did what you demanded and now your complaining about the tab. FTR, not that YOUR party are a bunch of spend thrifts. They had no other choice but to spend what they had to on the COVID... unless you they should have just blown off the crisis and spent the money on new aircraft carriers and fighter planes??

Sure blame Covid (and ignore that an adult with a adult brain would’ve not allowed the problem to be as bad and wouldn’t have attacked solving it as a PR lying festival):

https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-t ... ate-income

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-colu ... he-fed/amp

Maybe in retrospect our leaders should have understood what the Pandemic was about before throwing money away blindly at it. I gave 2 examples, the money spent converting the Javitts Center to a temporary hospital and the money and RESOURCES wasted bringing the Mercy into the Port of NY. Neither asset was needed and wasted valuable time and money in the process. COVID hopefully becomes a learning experience for what our leaders did right and what they did wrong.

[Farfromgeneva]

Those examples don’t move the needle. The tax cut and bullying a weak knees Powell into lowering rates had ten times the impact of you’re examples in cumulative total.

Read the links to the items that actually blew out the budget long before Covid was denied by a bunch of mouth breathers and their fearless leader.

[LaxFan2000]

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

Do you identify with the current Republican Party, or any party in particular? What are your political ideologies?

I am a republican. You knew the answer to that, why even ask?

Was simply curious, no need to get upset over a simple question. I was also interested in what you believe in, and not just a label. Because Republicans have a wide range of ideologies and beliefs, and a ton of them have changed drastically over the past 6 years and past 60 years respectively. Democrats too, but their ideologies have changed more in the long term and less in the short term..

I am not a MAGA type. Fair-weather Republican.

So as a Fair-weather Republican, by definition, you change your fundamental beliefs simply by who is winning in the Republican party?

That's the MAGA types for the past 6+ years.

You're saying you don't have any solid foundational beliefs in how government should be run or what freedoms and responsibilities Citizens should have in our country? You just rely on what the winning dude says we should do?

I, too, am interested in what 2000 means by "fair-weather Republican"...your interpretation certainly seems likely on the mark, but 2000 what say you?

Please explain your actual views. Fully.
To be helpful, I suggested a bunch of prompts, and Natty Boh has as well.
I like his add "and what freedoms and responsibilities Citizens should have in our country?"

I vote for the person in the Republican Party that I think can best do the job and lead our country. I don't blindly follow what they do or so if it turns out that I was wrong and they weren't the best person for the job. Then I start look within my party to find who I think will be the best person to put forward in the next election. Despite what has been said on this forum, I happen to like a lot of the things DeSantis has done and the energy and ideas he brings to the table. Doesn't mean that he is who I am voting for, I just happen to like a lot of what he does. Is he perfect? Far from it. Is he the threat to society that you have claimed he is? Far from it. This answer was not intended for you to lecture me on DeSantis, FYI. I don't need your opinion on him, I have seen it enough in my first few months here...

Correct, I've been clear about my view about DeSantis, which have only hardened the more I've watched him make decisions in office.

But, "I just happen to like a lot of what he does." seems quite reminiscent of folks' excuse about Trump "I like his policies", "I like his strength"...

Which policies and why?
In your case, what does he do that you like so much that you'd consider voting for him over, say a moderate Democrat?

Or are you GOP all the time, no matter what?

I asked a number of prompts...plenty of opportunity to fully explain your views.
This is a discussion site, you are being invited to discuss.

Expect pushback where people disagree. Again, discussion.

First, is anything I see going to change your mind about him? At all? He can relate to all different types of voters, especially the Latinx. He doesn't back down from a good fight, has strong conviction and plays well to his base. Are you going to vote for Biden? Or Kamala Harris?

[Farfromgeneva]

Relating to a diverse set of voters and playing to the base don’t work together.

[LaxFan2000]

Relating to a diverse set of voters and playing to the base don’t work together.

Works more than you think.

[Farfromgeneva]

Based on what metrics?

[MDlaxfan76]

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

Do you identify with the current Republican Party, or any party in particular? What are your political ideologies?

I am a republican. You knew the answer to that, why even ask?

Was simply curious, no need to get upset over a simple question. I was also interested in what you believe in, and not just a label. Because Republicans have a wide range of ideologies and beliefs, and a ton of them have changed drastically over the past 6 years and past 60 years respectively. Democrats too, but their ideologies have changed more in the long term and less in the short term..

I am not a MAGA type. Fair-weather Republican.

So as a Fair-weather Republican, by definition, you change your fundamental beliefs simply by who is winning in the Republican party?

That's the MAGA types for the past 6+ years.

You're saying you don't have any solid foundational beliefs in how government should be run or what freedoms and responsibilities Citizens should have in our country? You just rely on what the winning dude says we should do?

I, too, am interested in what 2000 means by "fair-weather Republican"...your interpretation certainly seems likely on the mark, but 2000 what say you?

Please explain your actual views. Fully.
To be helpful, I suggested a bunch of prompts, and Natty Boh has as well.
I like his add "and what freedoms and responsibilities Citizens should have in our country?"

I vote for the person in the Republican Party that I think can best do the job and lead our country. I don't blindly follow what they do or so if it turns out that I was wrong and they weren't the best person for the job. Then I start look within my party to find who I think will be the best person to put forward in the next election. Despite what has been said on this forum, I happen to like a lot of the things DeSantis has done and the energy and ideas he brings to the table. Doesn't mean that he is who I am voting for, I just happen to like a lot of what he does. Is he perfect? Far from it. Is he the threat to society that you have claimed he is? Far from it. This answer was not intended for you to lecture me on DeSantis, FYI. I don't need your opinion on him, I have seen it enough in my first few months here...

Correct, I've been clear about my view about DeSantis, which have only hardened the more I've watched him make decisions in office.

But, "I just happen to like a lot of what he does." seems quite reminiscent of folks' excuse about Trump "I like his policies", "I like his strength"...

Which policies and why?
In your case, what does he do that you like so much that you'd consider voting for him over, say a moderate Democrat?

Or are you GOP all the time, no matter what?

I asked a number of prompts...plenty of opportunity to fully explain your views.
This is a discussion site, you are being invited to discuss.

Expect pushback where people disagree. Again, discussion.

First, is anything I see going to change your mind about him? At all? He can relate to all different types of voters, especially the Latinx. He doesn't back down from a good fight, has strong conviction and plays well to his base. Are you going to vote for Biden? Or Kamala Harris?

I'd vote for either over DeSantis, and neither would be my preferred candidate in 2024. I don't like Harris, and Biden is too old IMO to be as sound in 2024-28 as he is in this stretch.

However, I see DeSantis as a competent fascist, but a fascist nevertheless and the GOP is primed to back anything he does in the interest of power.

So, it's back to voting for a piece of wood over the fascist, same calculation as I had in 2020.

I do agree that DeSantis can appeal to some hispanic voters, particularly those for whom "socialist" is really scary, for good reason...but what's scary IMO is an authoritarian, and right wing such are just as bad as left wing ones.

I don't see DeSantis as simply someone who doesn't back down from a fight, rather he's picking unnecessary ones for political gain, and worse, he's using powers of government as. bully that definitely signal the fascist tendencies...gotta remember, that's exactly what the "base" thinks they want, a "Christian nationalist".

So, no, I'm extremely unlikely to change my mind about DeSantis and the stakes at hand.

Give me Hogan or Cheney or...but not a fascist.

[LaxFan2000]

Thanks for clearing up where you stand politically. Sounds like you identify more with the Democratic Party these days...

Do you identify with the current Republican Party, or any party in particular? What are your political ideologies?

I am a republican. You knew the answer to that, why even ask?

Was simply curious, no need to get upset over a simple question. I was also interested in what you believe in, and not just a label. Because Republicans have a wide range of ideologies and beliefs, and a ton of them have changed drastically over the past 6 years and past 60 years respectively. Democrats too, but their ideologies have changed more in the long term and less in the short term..

I am not a MAGA type. Fair-weather Republican.

So as a Fair-weather Republican, by definition, you change your fundamental beliefs simply by who is winning in the Republican party?

That's the MAGA types for the past 6+ years.

You're saying you don't have any solid foundational beliefs in how government should be run or what freedoms and responsibilities Citizens should have in our country? You just rely on what the winning dude says we should do?

I, too, am interested in what 2000 means by "fair-weather Republican"...your interpretation certainly seems likely on the mark, but 2000 what say you?

Please explain your actual views. Fully.
To be helpful, I suggested a bunch of prompts, and Natty Boh has as well.
I like his add "and what freedoms and responsibilities Citizens should have in our country?"

I vote for the person in the Republican Party that I think can best do the job and lead our country. I don't blindly follow what they do or so if it turns out that I was wrong and they weren't the best person for the job. Then I start look within my party to find who I think will be the best person to put forward in the next election. Despite what has been said on this forum, I happen to like a lot of the things DeSantis has done and the energy and ideas he brings to the table. Doesn't mean that he is who I am voting for, I just happen to like a lot of what he does. Is he perfect? Far from it. Is he the threat to society that you have claimed he is? Far from it. This answer was not intended for you to lecture me on DeSantis, FYI. I don't need your opinion on him, I have seen it enough in my first few months here...

Correct, I've been clear about my view about DeSantis, which have only hardened the more I've watched him make decisions in office.

But, "I just happen to like a lot of what he does." seems quite reminiscent of folks' excuse about Trump "I like his policies", "I like his strength"...

Which policies and why?
In your case, what does he do that you like so much that you'd consider voting for him over, say a moderate Democrat?

Or are you GOP all the time, no matter what?

I asked a number of prompts...plenty of opportunity to fully explain your views.
This is a discussion site, you are being invited to discuss.

Expect pushback where people disagree. Again, discussion.

First, is anything I see going to change your mind about him? At all? He can relate to all different types of voters, especially the Latinx. He doesn't back down from a good fight, has strong conviction and plays well to his base. Are you going to vote for Biden? Or Kamala Harris?

I'd vote for either over DeSantis, and neither would be my preferred candidate in 2024. I don't like Harris, and Biden is too old IMO to be as sound in 2024-28 as he is in this stretch.

However, I see DeSantis as a competent fascist, but a fascist nevertheless and the GOP is primed to back anything he does in the interest of power.

So, it's back to voting for a piece of wood over the fascist, same calculation as I had in 2020.

I do agree that DeSantis can appeal to some hispanic voters, particularly those for whom "socialist" is really scary, for good reason...but what's scary IMO is an authoritarian, and right wing such are just as bad as left wing ones.

I don't see DeSantis as simply someone who doesn't back down from a fight, rather he's picking unnecessary ones for political gain, and worse, he's using powers of government as. bully that definitely signal the fascist tendencies...gotta remember, that's exactly what the "base" thinks they want, a "Christian nationalist".

So, no, I'm extremely unlikely to change my mind about DeSantis and the stakes at hand.

Give me Hogan or Cheney or...but not a fascist.

Thanks, guess we will agree to disagree here. I just don't see DeSantis as the same threat that you do. Doesn't make me a bad person. Just have other things that keep me up at night, Ron DeSantis not even remotely being one of them...