There is no hope of saving the Republican Party

[aubiefifty 18,238]

Opinion: There is no hope of saving the Republican Party

Mark P. Painter

Wed, February 23, 2022, 9:30 AM

Deputy Views Editor Matty Mendez writes about the Republican National Committee’s censure of two representatives, and its impact on the party.

As of February 2022, it is now official and incontrovertible: the Republican Party is the party of sedition.

The official governing board, the Republican National Committee declared that January 6, 2021, rioters who attacked the Capitol were "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse." So the rebels and thugs breaking into our Capitol, by hitting, choking, and smashing police officers in the head with fire extinguishers, shouting "Hang Mike Pence," were engaging in the same activities as a high school debate club.

These "ordinary citizens" had just been whipped into insurrection by the Big Lie – by Donald Trump, the execrable Jim Jordan, and others who wanted the mob to forcibly stop Congress from doing its duty to certify the results of an election that Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security called "the most secure in American history."

We have since learned that the insurrection was planned. Not a "demonstration" that went too far, but an attempted coup. The plan was to intimidate Mike Pence to refuse to certify the duly elected electors, have the Republican House pick bogus electors from states that voted for Joe Biden, and keep Trump in office.

FILE - Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Nov. 30, 2021. Pence said Friday in a speech in Florida that the former president is simply “wrong" when he says Pence had the right to unilaterally “overturn the election.” (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File) ORG XMIT: WX309

Fortunately, this scheme was devised by idiots like Rudy Giuliani, Jim Jordan and Sidney Powell.

But even that brain trust came closer than it should have. Pence, knowing that he had no power to do what Trump insisted, held firm. After four years of groveling at Trump’s feet, treason was a bridge too far – he followed the law. But later in the day, the sedition caucus of 147 Republicans in Congress, sadly including our own Steve Chabot, voted to overturn a free and fair election.

Most sane Republicans were shocked.

But in the year since the insurrection, when even more proof of the plot has come out, the Republican leadership has continued to insist, against all evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen – Big Lie One.

Now we have Big Lie Two – that the rioters’ coup attempt was just a bunch of Rotarians visiting the Capitol.

Surely, most Republican office holders are not so stupid as to believe either lie themselves. But they still parrot it to the gullible. Because these people know better, they are both liars and hypocrites.

A rally calling for the decertification of the 2020 presidential election at the state Capitol in Madison, Wis., Feb. 15, 2022. More than 15 months after former President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin by 20,682 votes, a scheme to decertify the results of the 2020 presidential election in hopes of reinstalling Trump in the White House is dividing the stateÕs Republican Party. (Taylor Glascock/The New York Times)

The GOP I proudly was a part of for over four decades has become not the party of Lincoln, freedom and civil rights – but of voter suppression and outright racism; not of Teddy Roosevelt, national parks and trustbusting – but of slashing taxes on billionaires; not of William Howard Taft, Robert A. Taft and principled conservatism – but of worship of an authoritarian sociopath of no beliefs except in his own rantings of the day; not of Dwight Eisenhower, Stan Aronoff, John Rhodes and effective bipartisanship – but of hate and disruption; and the party of sane and measured foreign policy has become I know not what.

Until about last week, some of us thought that possibly, just possibly, the GOP could be saved. Perhaps when Trump and his ilk were gone, sanity could be restored. But when Mitch McConnell said of the GOP Big Lies, "We saw it happen. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That’s what it was," he was not praised and honored for defending truth. He was excoriated by most other Republicans for contradicting the Big Lies.

Former President Donald Trump addresses a rally on Jan. 29, 2022, in Conroe, Texas.

If there was a time when the GOP breathed its last dying breath, this was it. The Republican Party became the Big Lies Sedition Party, mandating that its members believe the obvious lies. (I would term it Treason Party, meaning the common definition, but someone will counter that the Constitution has a specific definition.)

There is no hope for resurrection. Everyone associated with the present GOP who has supported what the party has become must be driven from office. A new party must be formed, based on some of the principles above. Trump may comment from prison for countless felonies.

GOP delenda est. What’s to be done with the ashes I must leave to others.

Mark P. Painter served as a judge for 30 years. He is the author of six books including “Write Well” and “The Legal Writer.” He is with the Cincinnati law firm of Helmer Martins, and a member of the Enquirer’s Board of Contributors.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Opinion: There is no hope of saving the Republican Party

[I_M4_AU 8,939]

Let’s see what happens in November.

[aubiefifty 18,238]

4 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

Let’s see what happens in November.

i never underestimate you guys when it comes to stupid.

[PUB78 1,413]

21 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

i never underestimate you guys when it comes to stupid.

When you are back on your medication, get back with us.

[aubiefifty 18,238]

1 hour ago, PUB78 said:

When you are back on your medication, get back with us.

i cannot take it because it makes me suicidal. i am sure you would like that. thanks anyway............

[PUB78 1,413]

13 hours ago, AUBwins said:

We basically did, but we didn't.  We easily left .200 on vault

 

18 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

i cannot take it because it makes me suicidal. i am sure you would like that. thanks anyway............

No, I would never want that.

[icanthearyou 4,468]

3 hours ago, PUB78 said:

 

No, I would never want that.

Please, with that mindset, stop believing that anything left or liberal is your enemy.  In reality, politics is more like driving a car.  Sometimes you need to go left, sometimes right.  It depends upon where you are.

[PUB78 1,413]

3 hours ago, icanthearyou said:

Please, with that mindset, stop believing that anything left or liberal is your enemy.  In reality, politics is more like driving a car.  Sometimes you need to go left, sometimes right.  It depends upon where you are.

IKEY!!! You back??

[icanthearyou 4,468]

2 hours ago, PUB78 said:

IKEY!!! You back??

Never left.  Just felt that if another adult needed to take punitive action to moderate my behavior then, I needed to think about my actions.  Took much longer than I ever thought.  Heck, I still might not be ready to return.  Still learning, still growing,,,, hopefully.

 

 

[PUB78 1,413]

6 hours ago, icanthearyou said:

Please, with that mindset, stop believing that anything left or liberal is your enemy.  In reality, politics is more like driving a car.  Sometimes you need to go left, sometimes right.  It depends upon where you are.

Good points IKEY. I have several liberal friends and professional associates. I really enjoy their company and conversations. We just focus on the common issues, values and beliefs we share rather than the ones that divide us.

[homersapien 12,237]

A MAGA gala, a far-right rally, and a plea for Jan. 6 justice: Trio of summits tests GOP’s future

At the Conservative Political Action Conference and two alternatives, the question was how much the American right should stress cultural grievances harnessed by Trump

By Isaac Stanley-Becker

and 

Josh Dawsey

 

Today (2-25-22) at 4:18 p.m. EST

ORLANDO — At a conservative conference that drew thousands to this city known for mouse ears and amusement rides, a top Republican in the Senate on Saturday labeled the left a domestic enemy.

Just across town, a speaker at a far-right summit suggested subjecting political adversaries to the electric chair.

Worlds away in D.C., Republicans at odds with their party’s direction warned of the pernicious effects of disinformation and hate.

Clashing visions of the GOP’s future were on offer this weekend as elected officials, candidates and activists convened at three different events to chart the party’s path to the November midterms and the 2024 presidential campaign.

Most of the party’s attention was trained on Orlando, where GOP faithful flocked to the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. In the shadows of the four-day festival, a destination for presidential aspirants to measure their appeal and road-test their messaging, far-right influencers gathered to denounce the GOP’s mainstream. And at a remove in D.C., figures who once occupied that mainstream met to urge the party to set aside its veneration for former president Donald Trump.

All three summits featured Republican officeholders. All three promised guests the unvarnished truth. Otherwise, there were vast differences, which boiled down to how much the American right should orient itself around the kind of cultural grievances harnessed by Trump.

CPAC, whose main theme was the threat posed by left-wing elites and where Trump was widely embraced, took place at a luxury resort with Spanish Revival-style architecture. Delegations came from at least three continents. Scarcely anyone wore a mask, except servers and other staff.

The intensifying war in Ukraine was not a major focus of speeches or panel discussions, which were planned before the Russian invasion and had titles such as “Woke, Inc.” and “The Moron in Chief” and “Fire Fauci.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), charged with overseeing the party’s plans to retake the Senate, said the country was most threatened by the “militant left wing,” which he labeled the “enemy within.”

Signs of the enduring influence of Trump’s personal brand were everywhere. He had the prime speaking slot Saturday evening. The conference’s closing attraction Sunday planned to feature the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., whose fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, also spoke, hinting at Trump “returning to the Oval Office.”

A life-size cutout of the former president showed him wielding a machine gun. One man shaved the number 45, Trump’s place in the presidential lineup, on the back of his head. Leaflets left around the conference carried the heading: “Please Help Defend Jan. 6 Defendants: They are Defending Your Freedoms.” Below were directions for donating to a crowdfunding campaign.

The highly choreographed event is also a notable commercial proposition. General admission cost about $300, while premium tickets went for upward of $7,000, offering access not just to speeches in the 95,000-foot ballroom festooned with CPAC insignia but also private audiences with speakers and a VIP ticket to the America UnCanceled Town Hall Dinner, among other benefits.

The enthusiasm for Trump, even though he currently holds no office and is running no specific campaign, “shows the way the party has been going for a long time,” said former congressman Douglas A. Collins, a Georgia Republican who mounted an unsuccessful primary campaign for Senate in 2020. Riding an escalator to an interview with pro-Trump One America News, Collins said it was Trump, but also the party’s policies, that excited crowds at CPAC. Those policies, he said, came down to “freedom.”

Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the conference, said in a text message, “Trump’s appeal to conservatives was a response to the desperation we felt as we witnessed the radicalized leadership of the Democrat party making the country unrecognizable to Americans.”

As CPAC positioned itself against the left, a challenge from the right was mounted at a hotel across town. A dueling conference was staged by Nicholas Fuentes, a 23-year-old far-right organizer and online provocateur who has promised a “tidal wave of white identity.” He stormed a CPAC event last year in Dallas, shouting “America first” and “white boy summer.” His contention, which has found some purchase among activists, is that CPAC, first held in 1974 with a keynote from Ronald Reagan, is too moderate.

Fuentes’s alternative, called the America First Political Action Conference, brought together right-wing media personalities and tech entrepreneurs. It also welcomed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), the far-right firebrand whose presence at both Orlando conferences signaled a measure of overlap between the two. She later told reporters she attended to “address [Fuentes’s] very large following,” claiming not to know him personally. “It was to talk about getting everyone together to save our country.”

Otherwise, speakers at the CPAC substitute heaped scorn on the main gathering. Right-wing commentator Stew Peters took the stage to decry what he called “useless own-the-libs conservatism” dominant at CPAC, where he said speakers were satisfied to ridicule the left.

“It’s basically just standing up and saying, ‘I have no ideas at all,’” Peters said. He went further than ridicule, suggesting that a Republican congressional candidate “belongs in an electric chair.” He asked why Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, who was made into a villain at CPAC, too, was not “hanging from a noose.” The question prompted cries of, “Hang him up.”

In a statement, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel distanced the party from the far-right summit.

“White supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party,” she said.

But part of what motivated a two-day “Principles First” conference in downtown Washington, D.C., was a perception among organizers that the two groups gathering in Orlando have too much in common.

“CPAC is an embodiment of the intellectual degradation of the party,” said Heath Mayo, a New York corporate attorney who organized the event. He said he identifies as a conservative but opposes Trump, having supported Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in 2016. “The slow dissent away from ideas toward personalities — it doesn’t really matter what you’re saying — ‘Can you entertain me? Are we going to own the libs?’”

At the anti-CPAC, vaccine cards were required to enter, temperatures were taken by a computer outside the check-in area and everyone in the room wore a mask. It was held at the National Press Club, an organization devoted to promoting and protecting the free press.

About 460 people registered for the event, Mayo said, from 41 states, and tickets cost $35. The “Principles First” event cost about $20,000 and does not make money, Mayo said. “We don’t have a Matt Schlapp that does this and charges from $300 to $5,000,” he said, referring to the CPAC organizer. “It’s all volunteers.”

None of the major television networks seemed to be in attendance, and no prominent would-be 2024 candidates, members of Congress or governors were in the room.

Mayo said the conference had drawn “disgruntled Republicans and independents frustrated with CPAC who believe in reality, the Constitution and the rule of law.” Organizers distributed an 11-page “Truth Advocates Handbook” that encouraged people to “eat your veggies” by reading “reliable news,” to battle conspiracy theories and to engage respectfully with family members who believe in disinformation. Take the “C.A.L.M” approach, the booklet said, focusing on “community” and “listening.”

Discussions on the agenda included “Should We Stay or Should We Go: The Practical Politics of Principle” and “Defending Democracy: Principles of Protecting Elections.” Biden was not the focus, according to presentations heard by a Washington Post reporter, and the president’s name was not mentioned in the detailed schedule and agenda of the event.

The main attractions on Saturday were Rep. Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican and fierce Trump critic recently removed from GOP House leadership, and Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state of Georgia who rebuffed Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud. Both spoke via prerecorded videos. Other crowd favorites included Olivia Troye, a former national security aide to former vice president Mike Pence who now appears frequently on MSNBC as a fierce Trump critic, and Bill Kristol, the columnist, who socialized outside the ballroom and was slated to speak.

Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman from Virginia who is now working for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol, drew guests to their feet by acknowledging Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police officer standing in the back of the room. Outside the room, Riggleman told attendees that he had just received promising new phone records of those involved in the pro-Trump riot but declined to say whose they were.

At CPAC, some of those under investigation by the committee were defiant, even wearing hats that said “SUBPOENAED,” while other speakers and guests railed against the committee.

“It is all about money,” Riggleman said of conspiracy theorists and those he is investigating. “I’m going to rip apart their ecosystem.” And he hinted at tantalizing findings, while offering few specifics. “I wish I could tell you about it,” he said of the data he was reviewing for the committee. “If I did, you’d be more shocked than you could imagine.”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a Trump critic and member of the Jan. 6 committee who is not running for reelection, was slated to speak Sunday. A keynote address from David Frum, the commentator and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, was scheduled for the same day with the title, “The Future of Conservatism.”

But conservative media cast their lot with CPAC. A crowd of outlets arranged outside the hotel’s main ballroom offered live interviews and commentary, as speakers brought memes from right-wing message boards to the main stage. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.), a former White House physician, called the White House an “assisted-living facility,” a dig at President Biden’s age and mental acuity that drew applause from the crowd.

Upstart networks made a bet that the conference was their ticket to broader audiences. Tim Fox, an anchor on Victory News, said CPAC was an opportunity to meet people and make connections necessary for the growth of his show, part of a Christian television network that debuted a news channel about a year ago.

The dominant news presence was Fox Nation, a streaming spinoff of the cable channel whose visibility at the conference — including a mammoth poster illuminated by floor lights — was not lost on attendees. Some cast it as a sign that the network had internalized criticism from Trump, who inveighed against Fox for not being supportive enough of his reelection campaign, and was making amends.

“It’s a mea culpa,” said John “Wolf” Wagner, a former Trump political appointee at the Food and Drug Administration.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/26/cpac-trump-republicans/

[icanthearyou 4,468]

1 hour ago, PUB78 said:

Good points IKEY. I have several liberal friends and professional associates. I really enjoy their company and conversations. We just focus on the common issues, values and beliefs we share rather than the ones that divide us.

That is good.  It has always puzzled my as to why someone has a friend who is of the other political persuasion and then, talks about how much they hate Rs/Ds.  Doesn't make sense unless they are brainwashed.

We all need to ingest less of the tabloid media and, reengage with our neighbors in the real world.  I still believe that if there is any conspiracy, it is that we are systematically divided as a society in order to negate our political power as the majority.  In reality, I still believe the only two political interest are, capital and, society at large.  In other words, those with $100 million or more and, those with less.  And, the upper middle class is one of the most over-taxed in the world while, the capital class is the most under taxed in the world.

Oh yeah, if you can find any media that isn't tabloid.  PBS News Hour is good but, dry as dust (dryer actually).  BBC World News is only a little better.  I have to admit, there are times when I would rather be entertained than informed so, I watch the big 3 cable networks.  Still, we all have to learn to do a better job seeing what is information, what is opinion.  Are they giving me something to think about or, telling me what to think.  Worse, are they asking me to think with my emotional mind or, my logical/rational mind.  We all enjoy having our biases fed.  We should not enjoy the anger they attempt to feed us.  We blame them but, they have learned that the more outrageous they are, the more we consume, the more money they make.

Back to your point though, yes, I think more true principles are shared.  I think we get distracted by too many "issues" that aren't so important and, are a big part of the tabloid media diet.  I think the real discussion of what the government should do and, how do we fund that is largely obscure to most of us.  Our government has been "for sale" for so long that, I am afraid there is no going back short of world war or, economic collapse.  If China and Russia form a strong economic coalition, there will be a large shift in world order.  The dollar will take a big hit.   I hope Biden is talking more with Xi than Putin.  I would guess Xi will continue to sit on the fence until we force him to do otherwise or, he clearly has the upper hand.  Starting to ramble.  Take care.