The future of the Republican Party.
- Thread starter Yevetha
- Start date
My opinion? The GOP has allowed itself to be shaped by the extremes of right wing opinion and media, and while it heads on that course, it's fate is that of Limbaugh's audience.
Predominantly old, white, male and dying. Increasingly irrelevant.
Predominantly old, white, male and dying. Increasingly irrelevant.
Knight Templar
Commodore
Wars will come and go regardless of who is president or in charge of the govt. Neither Presidents Clinton or Obama showed much desire to discontinue airstrikes in the Middle East and elsewhere as needed.
No. He's not. He's a pragmatic liberal-left Democrat who's 1.)spearheaded and managed to get through Congress the single largest and most earthshaking piece of social legislation since LBJ's Great Society...the Affordable Care Act. 2.) repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell and made it possible for gay Americans to serve openly and without fear of legal retribution in the military. 3.)openly delayed or even opposed projects such as the Keystone petroleum pipeline, which 99.9% of Republicans would have greenlit in a heartbeat. 4.)publicly proposed raising income taxes on top 1 or 2 percent of earners in this country, something that runs totally anathema to what the vast majority of Republicans would want or do. 5.)taken a somewhat slower, more diplomatic and pragmatic approach to relations with many foreign countries, and when he HAS taken military action as in Libya he has done so as part of a mutlitiered alliance/coalition. 6.)strengthened federal regulations over certain sectors of the economy in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown and the resulting Great Recession and economic crisis. The vast majority of Republicans were, are now and will always be opposed to more federal regulations.
I've just given you six examples and I'm sure I and my fellow posters can come up with even more if given the time. I wanted to do this in TNZ, but there ya go. You got the answers you were asking for.
Is Barack Obama a Republican and just like George W. Bush?
Survey says: Not a chance.
I've just given you six examples and I'm sure I and my fellow posters can come up with even more if given the time. I wanted to do this in TNZ, but there ya go. You got the answers you were asking for.
Is Barack Obama a Republican and just like George W. Bush?
Survey says: Not a chance.
Obama isn't actually opposed to the pipeline, just the proposed route they were pushing due to EPA concerns. I understand he's actually fast-tracked approvals for the non-controversial portion of the route.
^^^ From Oklahoma down to southern Texas, yes. The northern half to connect with the Canadian source is still under review. I expect it should be approved before the end of the year. I think the big drive to get this done came from the threat of the Canadians selling oil to the Chinese, who started swooping in when the first pipeline proposal was vetoed earlier in the year.
7.) Ending the war in Iraq. Bush didn't do it, nor did he ever really, honestly want to. And John McCain would have just doubled down even after we knew it was largely a waste of time and resources.
Knight Templar
Commodore
Actually that is not correct. President Obama pretty much followed the Bush timetable for removing U.S. forces from Iraq. The U.S. portion of the war was already won in 2007 and U.S. fatalities in 2008 had fallen to but a tiny fraction of the years before.
Correction. It seemed as thought the right didn't want to end the war nor agree with ending it. Bush received a lot of criticism from within his own party's right wing for "surrendering" or "giving up on" Iraq. If some Republicans would have had their way we'd be stuck in Iraq indefinitely to keep "fighting them there so they won't come over here."
I actually supported Iraq at first so when my opinions changed I gradually built up a resentment for our presence in the country when much, much bigger threats existed elsewhere in the Middle East or the world at-large. In my mind, W. didn't draw down soon enough nor did he do it with enough enthusiasm. Deep down I think he wanted to stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future to placate the neocons, but public opinion and any hopes for the Republicans to keep the White House in 2008 depended led to Bush taking a different, more pragmatic tack.
Bit dramatic there aren't ya? Unless you are ssuming the world will end under republican leadership?
PR stunt. The President has absolutely nothing to do with the part of the pipeline being built. The permits were issued before he took office and because that part is completely inside of the US the State Department has no say.
Whoa Nellie
Knight Templar
Commodore
Are you channeling Keith Jackson?
No. But the Administration has nothing to do with the part of the pipeline being built because it is completely within the United States. Those permits came from state authorities, the Army Corp of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. (Hubby works in the Engineering field, so I know a little of how this stuff works.) The Obama Administration used the State Department to halt the part of the pipeline that crosses the border into Canada. To me it seems like they couldn't stop the rest of the pipeline so decided with gas prices on the rise 'if you can't beat em join em.'
Whoa Nellie
Edited to add: I usually don't talk politics on here because that's not what I come here for. I simply knew of certain inaccuracies due to my husband's line of work. I will now leave you all to your quasi TNZ debate.
Last edited:
I disagree with 5) and 6).
The war in Afghanistan and Pakistan with drone strikes has become horrible for the population, Gitmo is still open and the POTUS has now the right to kill American citizens. Torture camps and executive killing is not a turn around on the road towards the police state onto which the previous President put the US.
About financial regulation, it is not a quantitative question of how many rules there are. Shadow banks still exist which is unsurprising as Wallstreet pours enough money into both political parties. One partial solution to this systemic problem would be public party financing.
About boosting demand during the financial crisis, the Fed had done what it could via its quantitative easing programs whereas the Obama's deficit spending program has been insufficient. He is now like virtually anybody else in the world a Hooverite, an austerity fan. Thirties all over again. Over here austerity lead to fascism so as European I consider this economic issue to be the most important one.
Last edited:
Well said horatio.
To add to the financial regulations piece, Dodd-Frank completely missed the mark in regard to what caused the 2008 collapse and steps to prevent it.
The Volcker provisions which would have reinstated Glass-Steagall type regulations were so watered down, they're practically useless. Same is true with derivative reforms and there is absolutely no regulations for the ratings agencies. All of these were components of the crash.
As an example of how little Dodd-Frank accomplished, consider this: The new law requires banks to have some "skin in the game", in regard to mortgages. The law stated that banks have to retain 5% holdings of the loans they package and sell. There is an exemption, if banks sell the loans to Freddie or Fannie. Well 90% of the loans are already sold to the GSEs, thus 90% of the loans are exempt from the Dodd-Frank rule.
Dodd-Frank would not have prevented the 2008 crisis and won't do shit to prevent another.
I absolutely agree, without separating ordinary and investment banking and dealing with the corruption of the rating agencies, a "who watches the watchers" problem, it will happen again.
To be frank, I cannot stand the bullsh*t of liberals who pretend that such fairly ineffective measures constitute a giant reform just in order to be able to play the "it would be worse with right-wingers in power" card. Of course it would be but only party soldiers care about this.
And I think that this liberal hypocrisy is one reason for the emergence of figures like Ron Paul who seem to offer solutions (obviously he is economically incompetent but the "small man" capitalism rhetoric does the trick) while the liberal betrayal of the working class fuels right-wing populism and hopefully a reemergence of the left. We need the latter to make liberals do the right thing again, kinda like during the thirties when the power of the left did not lead to socialism but made Roosevelt save capitalism from itself.
On a personal note, my political position is basically somewhere in this tension. Essentially I am a fairly moderate social democrat who wants moderated capitalism but I am also a lefty because without pressure from the left this position is not achievable or stable. Love your 'They Live'-ish avatar by the way.
To be frank, I cannot stand the bullsh*t of liberals who pretend that such fairly ineffective measures constitute a giant reform just in order to be able to play the "it would be worse with right-wingers in power" card. Of course it would be but only party soldiers care about this.
And I think that this liberal hypocrisy is one reason for the emergence of figures like Ron Paul who seem to offer solutions (obviously he is economically incompetent but the "small man" capitalism rhetoric does the trick) while the liberal betrayal of the working class fuels right-wing populism and hopefully a reemergence of the left. We need the latter to make liberals do the right thing again, kinda like during the thirties when the power of the left did not lead to socialism but made Roosevelt save capitalism from itself.
On a personal note, my political position is basically somewhere in this tension. Essentially I am a fairly moderate social democrat who wants moderated capitalism but I am also a lefty because without pressure from the left this position is not achievable or stable. Love your 'They Live'-ish avatar by the way.
