GOP dilemma — how to keep Trumpers yet regain anti-Trumpers

[skeeter]

What did Reagan build? The biggest deficits we'd ever seen up to that point.

Nothing Reagan did lasted.

That charge works on ANY president.

[libertybele]

Nothing Reagan did lasted.

That charge works on ANY president.

Unless bills are passed and signed into law. Most changes are happening via e.o., and all the next prez has to do is undo the e.o.

[roamer_1]

What did Reagan build? The biggest deficits we'd ever seen up to that point.

And a boom that lasted all the way into the Clinton era. Some would argue beyond.
And almost literally Reagan handed the Republicans the Bible Belt, and the South... Virtually ALL of which were Democrats. I do believe that to be the biggest sea-change ever, and any success thereafter had Reagan to thank.

And as a point of order, I did not like his spending either - But neither do I count it as dire for points already reckoned upthread. Conservatism as a political power was for all intents and purposes, nascent in Goldwater and Reagan - When was the last Conservative president before Reagan? And how many years had the Democrats been in control of Congress? That's a helluva lot bigger machine than Tumpy had to reckon with. So I find less fault in mistakes made early on - But thirty YEARS later without moving the ball to the right *at all* - In fact, moving the ball leftward (in the name of Conservatism)...

Well let's just say my patience and my treasure no longer have the elasticity to cover egregious error with a twenty-five dollar smile and hope for the future. The rubber's been hitting the road for better than two decades... The situation has moved well past dire. Candy from the front of the parade just ain't going to do it anymore. If y'all don't start hitting the marks, and hitting them every_time, there is no future.

[roamer_1]

What did Reagan build? The biggest deficits we'd ever seen up to that point.

And by the way, I don't think the whole story is being told in that - Inflation went way DOWN under Reagan (something like 10% in Carter, down to somewhere around 4% at the end of Reagan... Taxes went down, but so did spending - I think deficit was 4% in Carter and 2 or 3% in Reagan, largely because the boom brought in taxes, and since spending didn't go up with it...

I don't rightly remember, and I could be wrong. But downward inflation and downward spending leaves me wondering where the fault was. Because printing money means inflation. Borrowing money should raise interest which also was stable , trending downward... The only thing that makes sense is long bonds that others failed to pay off later. Dunno. Like I said, I don't remember.

[Bigun]

The GOP should start by making this column required reading!

Democracy and Tyranny

During President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial, we’ll hear a lot of talk about our rules for governing. One frequent claim is that our nation is a democracy. If we’ve become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny. In fact, the word democracy appears nowhere in our nation’s two most fundamental documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The founders laid the ground rules for a republic as written in the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 4, which guarantees “to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”

John Adams captured the essence of the difference between a democracy and republic when he said, “You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.” Contrast the framers’ vision of a republic with that of a democracy. In a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. As in a monarchy, the law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not represent reason. They represent power. The restraint is upon the individual instead of the government. Unlike that envisioned under a republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and permissions that are granted by government and can be rescinded by government.

Here are a few quotations that demonstrate the contempt that our founders held for a democracy. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, wrote that in a pure democracy, “there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.”

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said that “in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” Alexander Hamilton agreed, saying: “We are now forming a republican government. (Liberty) is found not in “the extremes of democracy but in moderate governments. … If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.”

John Adams reminded us: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

John Marshall, the highly respected fourth chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court observed, “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”

Thomas Paine said, “A Democracy is the vilest form of Government there is.”

The framers gave us a Constitution replete with undemocratic mechanisms. One constitutional provision that has come in for recent criticism is the Electoral College. In their wisdom, the framers gave us the Electoral College as a means of deciding presidential elections. That means heavily populated states can’t run roughshod over small, less-populated states.

Were we to choose the president and vice president under a popular vote, the outcome of presidential races would always be decided by a few highly populated states, namely California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, which contain 134.3 million people, or 41% of our population. Presidential candidates could safely ignore the interests of the citizens of Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Delaware. Why? They have only 5.58 million Americans, or 1.7% of the U.S. population. We would no longer be a government “of the people.” Instead, our government would be put in power by and accountable to the leaders and citizens of a few highly populated states. It would be the kind of tyranny the framers feared.

It’s Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties. The framers’ distrust is seen in the negative language of our Bill of Rights such as: Congress “shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, and shall not be violated, nor be denied.” When we die and if at our next destination we see anything like a Bill of Rights, we know that we’re in hell because a Bill of Rights in heaven would suggest that God couldn’t be trusted.

And the next SOB who refers to the USA as a "democracy" in my presence is going to get popped in the mouth even if I have to go to jail for it!

[christian]

The framers of the Constitution openly told us of rights given by God and therefore cannot be taken away by government without government oppressing the people.  Our government acknowledged God on many occasions in many ways.  Soros stooges destroyed a great deal of public records confessing to God and His presence in government.

[sneakypete]

And the next SOB who refers to the USA as a "democracy" in my presence is going to get popped in the mouth even if I have to go to jail for it!

t i
@Bigun

Calm down. Most of the people who say that don't know what it means,they are just repeating what they learned in our schools and from our news people.

If ya wanna go after the right people,go after the politicians and the reporters,who surely know the difference and don't mind lying about  it.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Nothing Reagan did lasted.

That charge works on ANY president.

Actually, Reagan's deficit has been built upon and upon and upon since he left office.

[skeeter]

Actually, Reagan's deficit has been built upon and upon and upon since he left office.

Yes it has. But outside of what was needed to fulfill a major first term campaign promise, rebuilding the post VN war military, it wasn't Reagan's deficit. It was congress's, just like congress owns it today. Reagan was a strong proponent of the line item veto.

[christian]

Peel the onion to get the real agenda.  There is no real Conservative, never will be, therefore only democrats have the 'right' to win.  The NeverTrumper lock-steps with the liberal democrats, they have the same agendas, and the same out look, and defy you to be smart enough to see it.  They desire the same results, and get them, but explain it all differently.
This is an I.Q. test, pass fail.  You saw how it works last election, THE RESULTS ARE IN!
HOW CAN YOU 'KNOCK' A CONSERVATISM that doesn't exist (so it will never win an election, either)  Its all so sneakily clever.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Yes it has. But outside of what was needed to fulfill a major first term campaign promise, rebuilding the post VN war military, it wasn't Reagan's deficit. It was congress's, just like congress owns it today. Reagan was a strong proponent of the line item veto.

@skeeter   There are a handful of (more so than anyone) "principled conservatives" who have insisted for four years that the deficit is the only issue that matters; until this is fixed there is no hope.  Any other issue always returned to the deficit as our problem.

For them, President Trump was a "northeast liberal" because of his spending.  No grace was given for cause or effect.

Yet the conservative icon, Ronald Reagan, is the President who blew the lid off the deficit ... but somehow this only makes him more conservative in the eyes of the "principled".  I'm not looking to slam Reagan, I'm asking for help reconciling this contradictory position.

[txradioguy]

And a boom that lasted all the way into the Clinton era. Some would argue beyond.
And almost literally Reagan handed the Republicans the Bible Belt, and the South... Virtually ALL of which were Democrats. I do believe that to be the biggest sea-change ever, and any success thereafter had Reagan to thank.

And as a point of order, I did not like his spending either - But neither do I count it as dire for points already reckoned upthread. Conservatism as a political power was for all intents and purposes, nascent in Goldwater and Reagan - When was the last Conservative president before Reagan? And how many years had the Democrats been in control of Congress? That's a helluva lot bigger machine than Tumpy had to reckon with. So I find less fault in mistakes made early on - But thirty YEARS later without moving the ball to the right *at all* - In fact, moving the ball leftward (in the name of Conservatism)...

Well let's just say my patience and my treasure no longer have the elasticity to cover egregious error with a twenty-five dollar smile and hope for the future. The rubber's been hitting the road for better than two decades... The situation has moved well past dire. Candy from the front of the parade just ain't going to do it anymore. If y'all don't start hitting the marks, and hitting them every_time, there is no future.

@roamer_1 funny how the some of the "conservatives" here will trash Reagan for the very thing they give Trump a pass on.

And yet when it came to freedom...security...military superiority and a beacon of freedom and democracy...Reagan still beats Trump hands down.

The very man that Trump once compared to a Soviet Dictator while testifying to congress at the invitation of the House Democrats..

[Right_in_Virginia]

@roamer_1 funny how the some of the "conservatives" here will trash Reagan

Asking President Reagan's conservative accomplishments is not trashing him.  So far, bring the Christian Right into the political tent is on the list.

What are you additions?

[skeeter]

@roamer_1 funny how the some of the "conservatives" here will trash Reagan for the very thing they give Trump a pass on.

And yet when it came to freedom...security...military superiority and a beacon of freedom and democracy...Reagan still beats Trump hands down.

The very man that Trump once compared to a Soviet Dictator while testifying to congress at the invitation of the House Democrats..

I defended Reagan from the exactly the same charges about ‘his spending’ the left made in the eighties you are accusing Trump of today, using exactly the same terms.

[Hoodat]

Nothing Reagan did lasted.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact lasted.  This resulted in a sizeable reduction in our defense budget for the last 30 years.  Our defense budget represents less than half the fraction of GDP that it did before the Berlin Wall fell.  Reagan did what Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter could not.

[txradioguy]

I defended Reagan from the exactly the same charges about ‘his spending’ the left made in the eighties you are accusing Trump of today, using exactly the same terms.

I defend Reagan to this day for the spending in the 80's...largely at the hands of a Dem controlled House and Senate and after they screwed him over on the agreements to cut $3 in spending for every $1 in raised taxes.

All I'm pointing out is that there are those here that rip Reagan for spending while ignoring Trump's profligate spending.

I think we're more on the same page than you realize.

[skeeter]

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact lasted.  This resulted in a sizeable reduction in our defense budget for the last 30 years.  Our defense budget represents less than half the fraction of GDP that it did before the Berlin Wall fell.  Reagan did what Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter could not.

Yet here we are, Bolsheviks at all levels of our government, and losing our liberties faster than I previously thought possible.

My point wasn’t to bash Reagan. It was to point out how ridiculous it is to wave off Trump’s accomplishments because the left has found a way to eliminate them.

[txradioguy]

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact lasted.  This resulted in a sizeable reduction in our defense budget for the last 30 years.  Our defense budget represents less than half the fraction of GDP that it did before the Berlin Wall fell.  Reagan did what Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter could not.

The Reagan economic boom lasted into the early years of the Bush administration.

[skeeter]

The Reagan economic boom lasted into the early years of the Bush administration.

Yes it did. However wages were stagnant almost the entire time. Ironically they made their most significant gains in the past 40 years under Trump.

[Hoodat]

My point wasn’t to bash Reagan. It was to point out how ridiculous it is to wave off Trump’s accomplishments because the left has found a way to eliminate them.

The Left wouldn't have been able to eliminate them had the Republicans gotten behind them and enacted them into law.  But the only thing more rare than a snipe roaming about after midnight is a Republican with balls enough to stand up to Democrats.

[skeeter]

The Left wouldn't have been able to eliminate them had the Republicans gotten behind them and enacted them into law.  But the only thing more rare than a snipe roaming about after midnight is a Republican with balls enough to stand up to Democrats.

We voters have to finally come to grips with the fact that our party lives by an entirely different set of principles - their patriotism extends only as far as it continues to make regular deposits into their personal account.

[sneakypete]

@skeeter 

There are a handful of (more so than anyone) "principled conservatives" who have insisted for four years that the deficit is the only issue that matters; until this is fixed there is no hope.  Any other issue always returned to the deficit as our problem.

@skeeter

And I am one of them. Wish I was smarter or had more patience so I could go into detail about why I think that way. There HAS to be a simple sentence that will cause the light bulb to start shining above everyone's head,but I just can't write it.

For them, President Trump was a "northeast liberal" because of his spending.  No grace was given for cause or effect.

I am most definitely NOT one of those simpletons. No matter how good some slogan sounds,the reality is very different. It is a very complex issue,and some people will swear by some parts as being essential,and other people,equally sincere,will tell them they are nuts and it is THEIR pet issue that is important.

It can't be both ways.

[roamer_1]

Nothing Reagan did lasted.

That charge works on ANY president.

REALLY? Built modern Conservatism, Turned the South and Midwest Republican, won the cold war at the expense of Soviet Russia, Overtures of peace with Gorbachev for the first time,  Hauled us out of Carter's Malaise, invigorating our economy for TWENTY YEARS, Unemployment WAY down, Inflation WAY down.

Sure... None of that lasted.

[roamer_1]

@roamer_1 funny how the some of the "conservatives" here will trash Reagan for the very thing they give Trump a pass on.

They HAVE to tear him down in order to legitimize Tumpy.

And yet when it came to freedom...security...military superiority and a beacon of freedom and democracy...Reagan still beats Trump hands down.

More than anyone in my lifetime. By a VERY long way.

The very man that Trump once compared to a Soviet Dictator while testifying to congress at the invitation of the House Democrats..

You're not supposed to remember that. 

[skeeter]

They HAVE to tear him down in order to legitimize Tumpy.

*sigh* its ALWAYS about 'Tumpy'.