Author Topic: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down  (Read 3832 times)

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Offline endicom

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Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« on: August 13, 2018, 01:57:06 pm »
National Review
Jay Cost
Aug. 13, 2018

The most extreme of the Never Trumpers are ignoring Trump’s achievements and distracting from the work real party reform.

Appearing on MSNBC on Thursday, former Republican political consultant Steve Schmidt, one of McCain’s key advisers in 2012, called for the total destruction of his old political party:

The Republican party of Teddy Roosevelt and John McCain and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is dead. It’s over. It doesn’t exist anymore. It has been taken over, lock, stock, and barrel. For there to be any redemption of a right-of-center conservative party in the United States of America means the party of Trump must be destroyed politically.

It’s like a fire. Fires are a part of the ecosystem, part of the natural progress. And when the forest burns, it’s purified. There can be new growth. For there to be new growth of a conservative movement, of a right-center party, the one that I joined in 1988, it needs to burn to the ground.


In other words, Schmidt is calling for a purgative defeat of the Republican party. Knowing full well that this will give the Left vast leeway to shape public policy, he is calling for the destruction of the GOP so that, in its place, an anti-Trump conservative coalition can be reformed.

More... https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/republican-party-reform-mend-gop-dont-burn-it-down/


Offline endicom

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2018, 01:57:24 pm »

Cost goes on to say why burning it down wouldn't work.


Offline aligncare

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2018, 02:03:20 pm »
Schmidt appears one angry, bitter man...

Offline sneakypete

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2018, 02:07:32 pm »
Schmidt appears one angry, bitter man...

@aligncare

Anybody so confused they consider the "Republican Party of  John McCain  and George W. Bush is the same as the Republican Party of Reagan is bound to be angry and bitter.

This is what happens when the dumbest kid in class is promoted to positions beyond his ability to understand.
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Offline Bigun

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2018, 03:15:51 pm »
When conservatives start following the advice of people like Jay Cost they have truly gone round the bend!
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline endicom

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #5 on: August 13, 2018, 03:20:13 pm »
When conservatives start following the advice of people like Jay Cost they have truly gone round the bend!


You want to burn it down?


Offline Bigun

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #6 on: August 13, 2018, 03:26:48 pm »

You want to burn it down?

As it currently exists yes I do!
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline INVAR

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #7 on: August 13, 2018, 04:36:15 pm »
I wouldn't piss on the Republican party to put the fire out.

Let it burn itself to ashes.  It's not even useful as ashes.
Fart for freedom, fart for liberty and fart proudly.  - Benjamin Franklin

...Obsta principiis—Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon [the] American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour." - John Adams, February 6, 1775

Offline Cyber Liberty

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #8 on: August 13, 2018, 05:46:00 pm »
Steve Schmidt?  Eff him.  Burn it down with him in it.
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Offline Sanguine

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #9 on: August 13, 2018, 07:15:21 pm »
Those replies elicit the age old question - what are you going to replace it with?  While it's very emotionally satisfying to envision "burning it down with them in it and the horse they rode in on", we have to have a viable alternative.  I've got kids and grandkids, siblings and in-laws and parents and friends - how responsible is it to just say to hell with them, let it burn with no plan for the after the burning part?

Offline INVAR

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #10 on: August 13, 2018, 07:39:54 pm »
Those replies elicit the age old question - what are you going to replace it with?

Ideally an actual culturally and socially conservative/Constitutional/limited government liberty party.

But sadly - there are not enough in the population that want any of that.

Most want a bigger, meaner, more decisive and intrusive government leveling playing fields, punishing their enemies and creating the illusion it is getting things done 'for the people' when the Beast is just growing exponentially larger, along with our debt. 

That fact applies to the Marxist Statist Left, as well as the neo-populist Trump "Right".

Fart for freedom, fart for liberty and fart proudly.  - Benjamin Franklin

...Obsta principiis—Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon [the] American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour." - John Adams, February 6, 1775

Offline endicom

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #11 on: August 13, 2018, 07:51:11 pm »
Those replies elicit the age old question - what are you going to replace it with?  While it's very emotionally satisfying to envision "burning it down with them in it and the horse they rode in on", we have to have a viable alternative.  I've got kids and grandkids, siblings and in-laws and parents and friends - how responsible is it to just say to hell with them, let it burn with no plan for the after the burning part?


Yeah, he mentions that.

Burning down the GOP is equivalent to opening the borders. In either case we become a socialist slave state and I think we've seen how torturous it is to recover from that.


Offline Bigun

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #12 on: August 13, 2018, 07:57:14 pm »
Those replies elicit the age old question - what are you going to replace it with?  While it's very emotionally satisfying to envision "burning it down with them in it and the horse they rode in on", we have to have a viable alternative.  I've got kids and grandkids, siblings and in-laws and parents and friends - how responsible is it to just say to hell with them, let it burn with no plan for the after the burning part?

I have a plan.  I'm going to vote for the most conservative candidate I can find in every race on the ballot and I don't give one hoot in hell what letter is behind that persons name.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline Axeslinger

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #13 on: August 13, 2018, 08:06:08 pm »
Those replies elicit the age old question - what are you going to replace it with?  While it's very emotionally satisfying to envision "burning it down with them in it and the horse they rode in on", we have to have a viable alternative.  I've got kids and grandkids, siblings and in-laws and parents and friends - how responsible is it to just say to hell with them, let it burn with no plan for the after the burning part?
.
Very responsible...because right now youre saying to hell with them by supporting more of what has gotten us to this point:  a one party system cloaked in the guise of dual representation.

Right now there are about 15% of our representatives in both houses of Congress who do anything more than give us lip service.  And we are fighting the other 85%...but that is not abundantly clear to the masses who have not caught on to the con.  So burn it down...nature abhors a vacuum...until the masses see what our “betters” have actually wrought, we will not be able to turn the tide. 

Downside:  it will probably take another civil war and a generation to actually sort it out.
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Offline INVAR

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #14 on: August 13, 2018, 08:07:32 pm »

Yeah, he mentions that.

Burning down the GOP is equivalent to opening the borders. In either case we become a socialist slave state and I think we've seen how torturous it is to recover from that.


Your Republican party wants no borders and wants to keep them open and to make third world squatters citizens.  Those are there fruits of your party and it's leadership.  We were/are being made into a Socialist slave state under Republican stewardship.

I'm done practicing insanity and lying to myself and pretending that electing a failed and corrupted party into power is going to slow, stop or reverse where they have helped to drag us.  The fruits of this are self-evident to anyone willing to be honest with themselves.

It's time to do something different with a group that is not fully corrupted and infiltrated by statist liberal Democrats pretending to be Conservatives.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2018, 08:08:14 pm by INVAR »
Fart for freedom, fart for liberty and fart proudly.  - Benjamin Franklin

...Obsta principiis—Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon [the] American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour." - John Adams, February 6, 1775

Offline Absalom

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #15 on: August 13, 2018, 08:09:41 pm »
Our only Principled Conservative Party was the Southern Agrarian
and Rural Democrats of Henry, Jefferson, Madison, Rutledge, Calhoun,
among many; sadly fatally tarred by slavery which caused their demise.
The Republican Party emerged w/Fremont in 1856 as an anti-slavery party
and the representative of the New England mercantile class.
It never had anything to do w/conservatism, ever; not for a day!
Its legacy was:
* protectionism never free trade,
* centralized government never states rights,
* judicial overreach via SCOTUS,
* concentrated regulatory interference,
* the imposition of taxation on incomes.
Cost badly needs a reality check.

Offline Maj. Bill Martin

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #16 on: August 13, 2018, 08:14:34 pm »
Those replies elicit the age old question - what are you going to replace it with?  While it's very emotionally satisfying to envision "burning it down with them in it and the horse they rode in on", we have to have a viable alternative.  I've got kids and grandkids, siblings and in-laws and parents and friends - how responsible is it to just say to hell with them, let it burn with no plan for the after the burning part?

Well said.

People see what they want to see.  There is the NeverTrump crowd from the right that wants to destroy the GOP because they are convinced a viable, more conservative alternative will take its place.  At the opposite end, then there is the McCain/Kasich/Yeb crowd that believes destroying Trump will mean result in a more "moderate" GOP.  They both can't be right.  In fact, both are probably wrong.

We're plagued by an epidemic of Sore-Loserman disease, where too many people simply can't go "Well, looks like we lost that one.  We'll have to do better next time."  The truth is that political parties are necessarily based on a bunch of internal coalitions coming together to form a large enough group to win elections.  Different parts of that coalition are in ascendance at different times.  If people want to insist on purity, they have to recognize that means the chances of forming a winning coalition vanish, and you end up conceding the entire process to those who are much worse.

Offline Maj. Bill Martin

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #17 on: August 13, 2018, 08:21:53 pm »
One really insightful bit from that editorial:

And who is to say that, when the GOP is “burned to the ground,” we will like what emerges in its place? In my experience, it is often only after hard knocks that individuals are capable of learning lessons. But groups of people? I would say almost never.

That is dead-on.  There are so many people who use protest votes for candidates who cannot win to "send a message".  But to whom is that message being sent?  If you don't like someone who is running, the problem isn't the candidate.  It is the people who vote for him/her.   Those are the people whose minds you have to change so they vote differently next time, and they're never going to get that "message" from a protest vote.  They won't think they were wrong -- they'll think the people who didn't vote the way they wanted who are the problem.

Offline INVAR

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #18 on: August 13, 2018, 08:34:59 pm »
We're plagued by an epidemic of Sore-Loserman disease, where too many people simply can't go "Well, looks like we lost that one.  We'll have to do better next time." 

Played that game for almost 3 decades with little to show for the effort.   And after all the promises made by the Republicans in the last 8 years, they have deliberately reneged on every single thing they ran on to win power - and it has nothing to do with building coalitions.  They had no intention whatsoever to do what they said they were going to do.

Roots. Branches.  And all.

Your party is corrupted beyond redemption and it is just another flavor of all-intrusive Statism.

If people want to insist on purity, they have to recognize that means the chances of forming a winning coalition vanish, and you end up conceding the entire process to those who are much worse.

Oh well.  The coalition of Republicans working with Democrats has gotten us to this point - might as well vote Democrat if government Statism is what the goal is.

Besides, we were told to our faces, to shut up, sit down, vote for whom they tell us to vote for or get the hell out of their party.  The Establishment rewrote the convention rules to make sure the grassroots can NEVER field a national candidate not groomed by their leadership.

So much for your leadership 'building coalitions' because based on the evidence, the ONLY coalitions the Republican is interested in building - are with Liberal Democrat/Statists/Marxists if it gets their pet lobbyists and causes funded.  Big intrusive, debt-ravenous Government but just different beneficiaries than the Democrats.

I wasted nearly thirty years in the trenches for traitors to the cause.

Never again. 

You can call it 'purist' as the day is long and I will smile and say 'You betcha".
Fart for freedom, fart for liberty and fart proudly.  - Benjamin Franklin

...Obsta principiis—Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon [the] American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour." - John Adams, February 6, 1775

Offline endicom

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #19 on: August 13, 2018, 08:39:51 pm »

Your Republican party...

I've never been Republican or Democrat and was fifty years ahead of you in realizing the Republicans weren't as advertised.

Quote
I'm done practicing insanity...

Irrational is as irrational does.


Offline sneakypete

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #20 on: August 13, 2018, 08:41:10 pm »
Those replies elicit the age old question - what are you going to replace it with?  While it's very emotionally satisfying to envision "burning it down with them in it and the horse they rode in on", we have to have a viable alternative.  I've got kids and grandkids, siblings and in-laws and parents and friends - how responsible is it to just say to hell with them, let it burn with no plan for the after the burning part?

@Sanguine

Nature abhors a vacuum,and you can bet your bippy a new party will arise to replace it if it ever dies. Chances are it will be a VERY conservative party,too.

At least at first. Once it becomes socially acceptable and starts to gain power,the same weasels that left the Dims to become Republicans after Reagans first win will start showing up to look for wealth and power. It's who they are and what they do,and it's up to the others to keep them reigned in or even refuse to let them join.
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Offline Night Hides Not

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #21 on: August 13, 2018, 09:20:45 pm »
Schmidt appears one angry, bitter man...

It’s the only way he’s able to keep his job at MSNBC.
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Offline Sanguine

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #22 on: August 13, 2018, 10:11:34 pm »
.
Very responsible...because right now youre saying to hell with them by supporting more of what has gotten us to this point:  a one party system cloaked in the guise of dual representation.

Right now there are about 15% of our representatives in both houses of Congress who do anything more than give us lip service.  And we are fighting the other 85%...but that is not abundantly clear to the masses who have not caught on to the con.  So burn it down...nature abhors a vacuum...until the masses see what our “betters” have actually wrought, we will not be able to turn the tide. 

Downside:  it will probably take another civil war and a generation to actually sort it out.

You obviously misread what I said.  I said it was irresponsible to not have a plan for "after the burning", and asked what your plan was.  So.....?

And, I agree with your last paragraph.  Assuming we have the guts for it.  Easier for many people to just roll over.

Offline DB

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #23 on: August 13, 2018, 10:30:52 pm »
Those replies elicit the age old question - what are you going to replace it with?  While it's very emotionally satisfying to envision "burning it down with them in it and the horse they rode in on", we have to have a viable alternative.  I've got kids and grandkids, siblings and in-laws and parents and friends - how responsible is it to just say to hell with them, let it burn with no plan for the after the burning part?

The party is already burnt. They didn't think about what to replace it with when they demanded it burn. They just wanted it burned. The void is being filled...

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Mend the GOP, Don’t Burn It Down
« Reply #24 on: August 13, 2018, 10:57:22 pm »
Consider: After getting trounced in 1964 it was logical to consider the GOP a lost cause.

Yet from 1968 until 1992, it held the Presidency for 20 out of 24 years.

The "GOP" is the sum of the people the voters elect.

The GOP today is much stronger, than in 1964.

Either run, help somebody that runs, or get out of the way.

"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln