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0 pointsdkarl1y ago0 comments

I think you're describing a part of the Republican Party that is now almost irrelevant, one that kept expecting the voters to turn against Donald Trump. They're the ones who thought, what the hell is Trump doing sucking up to Putin? Our voters are patriots who have no hesitation about calling the United States the greatest nation on earth. Surely they're going to be shocked at Trump fawning over a sad sack country like Russia. Surely patriotic voters are going to be offended at the president of their precious eagle scream U! S! A! showing open admiration for an ex-superpower with a ruined economy, zero cultural capital, a laughingstock of a democratic system, and a crumbling military with zero global reach.

That point of view still exists in the Republican Party, but it has been eclipsed by something sadder and smaller-minded. Liberal progressives have long used national greatness as a lever on patriotic conservatives, telling them, look, our "national greatness" comes from our embrace of education, cultural change, new people, new ideas. If conservatives love our supposed national greatness, they should embrace the progressive liberal ideals that built it. Now, it's like the Republican Party has been taken over by conservatives who... decided the liberals were right? It's like they gave up and said, y'all are right, national greatness requires education, continual learning and self-criticism, openness to new ideas and new people, and acceptance of creative destruction, both economic and cultural. They accepted that, grieved, faced the choice with clear eyes, and decided that national greatness isn't worth the cost. They look at Russia and see a country that is marinating in its own chauvinism, and they want that instead.

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scoofy1y ago· 3 in thread

The Republican party is, in fact, a coalition. When parts of that coalition become alienated enough, and that is very much happening right now, then we have a chance to coordinate with our coalition.

You sound like you don't know any decent Republicans who are really upset at what's happening. I do. They ought to be encouraged to speak up.

busyant1y ago

> The Republican party is, in fact, a coalition.

It really isn't anymore. I agree that there are many decent "old-time" Republicans, but they've been neutered and/or they've "self-deported" themselves from politics.

Romney might've been able to run and split the vote.

Bush the younger could've put his thumb on the scale, too.

Murkowski says "we are all afraid" [of MAGA].

Many traditional Republican congressmen have simply bowed out and not sought re-election.

McCain is dead.

The only one that I can think of that actually stood up is Liz Cheney.

To use a programming phrase, the country is in an "error state" and has been since 2017.

I don't know what the re-set is.

dralley1y ago

A lot of the "alienated" Republicans already split from the party. They're no longer in the coalition. The fundamental demographics of the party are different than they were 10-20 years ago. And this is a continuous process.

The fact of the matter is that "the party" is MAGA now, there is effectively no internal resistance, and mounting one is basically intractable. Trump won the primary with 80% of the vote despite "strong" opposition.

dkarlOP1y ago

Sorry, we've been hearing that since before Trump clinched the nomination in 2016, but political parties change, and there's no enduring Republican norm that is going to imminently reassert itself. I do know some "decent Republicans," though they've been voting Democratic for a while now. When I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, a lot of people saw the Republican Party as a party of educated, foreign policy-savvy, business friendly elite pragmatists. For some people I know, that brand is cemented in their minds as the soul of the Republican Party, regardless of 30+ years of various radically different factions dominating the party since then.

But now those "decent Republicans" vote Democrat. Their feeling about it, to repurpose a saying from a different context, could be summed up as, "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." They never wanted to be Democrats and still have a sentimental attachment to the Republican Party, but here they are.

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