What is going on with today's GOP?

The primary system keeps electing crazier and crazier people as their political base shrinks. There are only so many angry racist old white folks out there, and they’re getting angrier, more racist, more homophobic and older as they see that the Culture War they spent decades waging doesn’t mean shit to the rest of society.

The Vanna White Veto is so amazingly stupid it gives the Governor an unreasonable power.
Wisconsin doesn’t just need a change in government, it needs a rewrite of their Constitution.

Hey, I’m from California, so I can easily recognize a fucked-up state government and Constitution

The extremes exist on both sides of the isle and glaring examples of blue or red stooopidity are not hard to find….never has been and always will.

@Cruiser True, but it seems to be more blatant these days.

There is no schism, you just need to see the connections. They have always wanted to control you while having the freedom to do as they please. It’s a corporate goal.

The Republican party was bought by corporate interests long ago. They foment extremist views all over the place to raise fear of others amongst their base, meanwhile crying “fascism” at any attempt to make things better for the people.

There were articles ten years ago that the strategy of the Neo-cons was to spend on defense and reduce taxes as far as possible, so that the government would have to essentially end all regulatory programs. Sounds like it is working

@zenvelo Seems like they are quite fond of regulating things other than business though.

@Jaxk I see you typing and I can’t wait to hear what you have to say :)

They’re giving our country to the corporations.

@jerv

Wow, that’s quite a jumble of nonsense. Why would you blame the veto on Walker when it was passed in 1930? Where has your outrage been for the past 80 years? And where in the hell would you get the idea that Powell is a traditional conservative? Hell, he supported Obama, there’s not a conservative alive (or dead) that would have done that.

As for your homosexual laws, I assume your referencing the ban on gay marriage in traditional Republican states like California. Whoops, a very Democratic state.

As for stupid statements would you consider “we have to pass the law to find out what’s in it” stupid (Pelosi)? I would. Or how about (paraphrasing) ‘We use 25% of the worlds oil and only have 4% of the reserves’ and ‘we are producing half our our domestic usage’ (Obama). Stupid again. There are plenty of stupid statements out there. And you don’t have to drill down to a state senator to find them.

@Jaxk I was actually referring more to the anti-sodomy laws in the South, but c’est la vie. I think that the lack of outrage may have to do with the fact that Gov. Walker is up to other things and thus people are more worried about him abusing that power than they were with past governors, though that is just a guess.

You are correct that neither party has a monopoly on stupid statements, and I think you’ve known me long enough to see me make a few of my own.

@jerv

Interesting list. Not surprisingly, I would agree with most of it just on the brief synosis given by the author. Things like sourcing the nuclear plants. If they need major upgrades, why not have that done by the private sector rather than the state pouring money into them.

As with most liberal tirades, this is a list of reasoable measures that the democrats assign some horrible motive and then proceed to talk about how bad the motives are without really addressing the issues.

@Jaxk
“If they need major upgrades, why not have that done by the private sector rather than the state pouring money into them.”
Because they might explode because the private sector is more concerned about cutting costs than safety. Oil platform anyone?

I believe the technical term is “batshit crazy”.

No, “batshit crazy” is thinking that you’re not going to cause inflation by printing trillions of dollars.

The Republican party has always been the party of big bushiness. Its problem has always been that it really represents the interests of abou 2% of the nation’s people, but it takes over 50% to win elections. So it has manufactured and exploited divisive issue after divisive issue, and stoked hate and found “otherness” to demonize in order to keep a loyal base willing to vote Republican when their economic interests are directly harmed by doing so.

But in the last 30 years or so, a few billionaire financiers have been funding and directing the right-wing think tanks. They have been funding the PR firms that developed the bumper stickers and shaped the national conservative memes. It seems their aim is to build a party and a conservative ideology that will give them an absolute corporatocracy. I think they aim to establish one party rule and eliminate democracy once and for all.

I think the GOP is heading toward fascism. Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

Rather than write all the indicators I see that lead me to this conclusion, I will wait for our right wingers to savage me for saying this, and respond to their objections.

@Jaxk I find it best to assume the worst when dealing with politics and politicians anyways. However, there is a difference between incompetence and malevolence, and like most things, the two major parties seem to fall on opposite sides of that line as well.
Of course, that list also illustrates why you can’t make informed decisions without looking at multiple sources, preferably with enough disagreement between them to figure out what the real truth is.

One of my good friends from my forgotten youth, Ryan Sager, wrote an amazing book called The Elephant in the Room. Written a couple of years ago, it’s sadly prescient – even though it’s humorously written.

I suggest everyone read it, as it pretty much shows kind of what very well show what the reasons are for what is going on with the GOP today.

@jerv

BY THE WAY, it was a REPRESENTATIVE, not a SENATOR who made those comments.

@CaptainHarley – I don’t know if all the shouting was necessary, or even really relevant, considering that @jerv has already admitted to imperfections. ;-)

Plus, considering NH has two of each – relatively, they aren’t really as different from each other to their constituency as is the standard.

@iamthemob He had to shout; you know how hard of hearing those old people get! He probably didn’t hear his own voice :D

@CaptainHarley Sorry, but I’m feeling a little punchy today.

@jerv

Yeah, me too. My bad. Sorry!

@CaptainHarley So long as you don’t get mad at me for poking fun at you, that is apology enough. All in fun :)

It usually takes a great deal to make me angry. I get irritated once in awhile, but hardly ever “mad.” : )

@filmfann Heard this joke from Conan O’Brien: “Arnold Schwarzenegger has been offered a role in a sequel to ‘The Terminator.’ In this one he travels back in time and kills the person who suggested he run for governor”