The Biden Presidency

[thombergeron]

Thom, I'm sorry, I severely over-estimated you. You're simply way too far under my level for me to enjoy humiliating you. Have a nice day.

Run bitch.

[thombergeron]

It's going to whip ass when the NRCC tries to win control of Congress by running on an agenda of doing absolutely nothing for two years.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...ire-senate-bid

[Stavros]

It's going to whip ass when the NRCC tries to win control of Congress by running on an agenda of doing absolutely nothing for two years.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...ire-senate-bid

I don't really know who Sununu is, but my question to you follows on from his pained complaint that his GOP colleagues in DC told him their aim is to do nothing for two years but object to whatever Biden and the Democrrats offer them.

What I don't understand is why the Republican Party seems to have turned its back on politics as policy, and become obsessed with Trump, and a list of complaints about CRT, the management of Covid and Trans issues, to name just three on which they are ignorant, misguided, and offensively wrong. It is as if they have circled the wagons and created an existential crisis that can only be resolved through the re-election of Trump and the 'completion' of 'unfinished business' even though the 'business' they did manage before led to their defeat in 2020.

There are not many exact comparison to make between the GOP and the Conservative Party here, but one of the reasons why the Conservatives have dominated British poiticis is due to their ablity to review and reform both the party organization and their policies, through which they win elections (though one must also admit Labour has the knack of losing them).
For a long time it was inconceivable that a Black or Asian MP would ever represent the Party in the House of Commons -when a Black man was selected to run for the Cheltenham consitutency in the 1990s (imposed by Central Office) he was all but disowned by his own party, who then lost the seat to the Liberal Democrats. Since then, and with Cameron's reforms, Black and Asian MPs are not only common, but have been and are occupying senior positions in Government as well as Junior positions, something that is unthinkable in the US under a Republican, with Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell the only prominent Black Republicans (and consider the typically nasty comments Trump made when Powell died) I can think of, if we agree Carson was an insignficant nobody, and a corrupt one.

Given that the Republicans fail to record a majority of votes but hold power as minorty parties, why have they failed to grow by offering a sufficiently broad package of policies to widen their apppeal to the voters? It seems strange to the point of being a form of self-harm that they insult and abuse minorities and immigrants in particular, many if not most of whom are more attracted to the low-tax, market-based individualism one associates with the GOP rather than the Democrats.

It may just be a phase, but with the Republicans now flirting with New Wave Fascism and repudiating the Constitution and the Separation of Powers, notably by treating Congress with contempt, the question is can people like Sununu, and Liz Cheney, save the Party from what appears to be its death-spiral-?

[thombergeron]

It's not a phase. The Republican Party is a fascist party, and it has been since the Reagan Administration. It can't broaden its appeal because it's pursued a white-grievance agenda for the past 45 years.

Chris Sununu is governor of the state of New Hampshire and the son of John Sununu, who was NH governor during the 1980s and then President George HW Bush's Chief of Staff. So he's very much a product of the institutional Republican Party, and while he says he's not interested in keeping a chair warm in the Senate, he does say that he's a "Trump guy through and through."

[Stavros]

It's not a phase. The Republican Party is a fascist party, and it has been since the Reagan Administration. It can't broaden its appeal because it's pursued a white-grievance agenda for the past 45 years.

And right on cue the Attorney General of Texas, responding to a Court of Appeals decision that stops him wasting tax-payers money investigating voter fraud that doesn't exist, has said

“We’re done in Texas if anybody can vote".
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/texas-gop-...202932177.html


Reminds me of Brecht's poem in which he notes that complaint of a party official in Berlin after the 1953 riots that the people had lost the confidence of the Government, concluding-

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-solution/

[filghy2]

Given that the Republicans fail to record a majority of votes but hold power as minority parties, why have they failed to grow by offering a sufficiently broad package of policies to widen their appeal to the voters? It seems strange to the point of being a form of self-harm that they insult and abuse minorities and immigrants in particular, many if not most of whom are more attracted to the low-tax, market-based individualism one associates with the GOP rather than the Democrats.

The simple answer is that they can't do it because their base would hate it. After the 2012 election loss the party did a post-mortem which recommended that they do more to appeal to minorities and present a less intolerant and less pro-rich image.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/6-b...e-2012-autopsy

It went nowhere because the reaction from their supporters was so negative. (For most politicians this is all that matters because they face far more risk of losing in a primary than in a general election.) Instead, they went big-time for a guy who did the opposite. And now they can't have a post-mortem on 2020 because nobody is allowed to admit that Trump lost. So they have left themselves with no choice but to double down on appealing to their existing base and relying on electoral manipulation to ensure minority rule.

[thombergeron]

Here again, Senate Minority Leader McConnell confirms that the contemporary GOP doesn't have an agenda that it can state publicly:

https://www.businessinsider.com/mitc...omments-2022-1

These and other comments are echoes of the 2020 Republican Party Platform, which was, in its entirety, "Donald Trump should be President of the United States."

A lot of people interpret this lack of specifics as evidence that the Republican Party doesn't believe in anything. But this is too cute by half. Everybody knows what Donald Trump's vision for America is. He talks about it all the time. And it's a vision shared and endorsed by long-time establishment Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan: Donald Trump should have complete and unquestioned authority over a state apparatus that ensures the privileges of white people over all others. Any Republicans who deviate at all from the party line are immediately ostracized from the party.

[filghy2]

A lot of people interpret this lack of specifics as evidence that the Republican Party doesn't believe in anything. But this is too cute by half. Everybody knows what Donald Trump's vision for America is. He talks about it all the time. And it's a vision shared and endorsed by long-time establishment Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan: Donald Trump should have complete and unquestioned authority over a state apparatus that ensures the privileges of white people over all others.

Is that really the party's primary objective, or is white identity politics mainly a cynical device to get the white working class to vote for a party the prioritises the interests of the rich? The best clue seems to be what they focussed on when they controlled both both houses in Trump's first two years: tax cuts for the very rich, deregulation and cutting social programs (Obamacare). They don't want to talk about it because they know it's unpopular.

[thombergeron]

Is that really the party's primary objective, or is white identity politics mainly a cynical device to get the white working class to vote for a party the prioritises the interests of the rich? The best clue seems to be what they focussed on when they controlled both both houses in Trump's first two years: tax cuts for the very rich, deregulation and cutting social programs (Obamacare). They don't want to talk about it because they know it's unpopular.

It's not really clear what distinction you're trying to make here. A political party that pursues racist policies in order to appeal to the racism of its rank-and-file members is a racist party. That the GOP favors economic hierarchies doesn't obviate the fact that it also favors racial hierarchies.

[thombergeron]

In a nod to this thread's original topic, let's note that in the first year of Joe Biden's presidency, US GDP grew at 5.7%. The Q4 annualized rate was 6.9%, the strongest US economic performance since 1984.

This follows a 3.4% contraction during the final year of Trump's presidency, the worst decline since WWII