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Musicmystery -> RE: President Trump, Melting Under Criticism (7/16/2017 6:57:16 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: mnottertail
thats why nutsuckers call them RINOs? Nutsuckers wouldnt know a republican or a conservative unless they met them in a motel room and swapped their little boys with each other.
You know, this continues to amaze me.
The Conservatives started the long, slow, push back to the New Deal, starting with slow accumulation of media, roping Eisenhower into the Family's national Prayer Breakfast because he felt he owed them.
But then Reagan embraced the nutty side -- Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority, selling his soul (probably unnecessarily) to win the White House. And instead of a moral, intellectual movement, he ushered in a simplistic movement, things are just this simple, government is the problem (missing the irony, quadrupling the national debt, changing the largest creditor nation in the world to the largest debtor nation in the world, wholesale embracing the trickle-down hypothesis with no testing, ramping up the military-industrial complex again) self-destructive mentality. And these economic policies created the two-tiered economy, exacerbating economic strata.
Bush I was't dumb, just a war-monger, who fell to the economic savvy of the Clinton team.
But then Gringrich arrived with his "Contract with America" and adopted a "no-compromise" stance which larger froze government from not only solving any real problems, but also from effectively implementing conservative ideals. At this point, I think, is where he real sold-out conservatives, and the pendulum never swung back.
He used to complain that Clinton was "stealing our issues," instead of being glad and helping to take credit for what he claimed originally was his own agenda. Instead..he started the practice of nearly automatic opposition, slowing government effectiveness to a crawl (his main frustration was that Clinton was so good at working through the cracks in small ways to enact his agenda -- including turning the tide on rapidly rising debt.)
Bush II called himself a "compassionate conservative," but was neither. Lying, deceitful, and reckless, he ramped up the structural deficit tremendously and simultaneously cut taxes (doubling down on the now proven failure of the trickle-down hypothesis), creating an economic disaster staved off only by the fed's continually lowering interest rates until they were so low that this was no longer effective, and the recession hit. The debt rapidly climbed again. To help stave off disaster, he and his Treasury Department pleaded for Quantitative Easing, ballooning the deficit.
Obama largely continued Bush policies, with the exception of health care, and McConnell doubled down on the opposition at all costs approach, including his scheme to first starve and then later pack the courts (incidentally, a very dangerous precedent). Obama, largely through going around Congress, managed to move the economy along, especially by increasing net exports, but this really only benefited the top of the two-tiered economy (the DOW went from until 8000 to over 21000), the bottom one essentially flat. And...unwilling to work anything out, Congress survived by borrowing more and more money.
And with Trump, we have a buffoon who doesn't understand the issues, doesn't want to, can't concentrate for five minutes, and is pursuing an agenda that helps Trump family industries. The GOP Congress, now in a position of power, finds it has no compass, its various factions unable to agree on even simple things they long claimed they were for, like repealing health care and cutting taxes -- ignoring the impact these would have on debt.
Initially, the GOP turned to Conservatives for help winning elections, selling out their principles of sound foreign policy in particular in the process. It was a deal that bit 'em in the ass.
But Conservatives need to wake up and realize that the GOP has likewise sold out conservative values. The GOP (and the Democrats in imitation) have become about installing oligarchy, believing that the wealthy and what is best for them will spill out into what's best for the nation (a doubling down of the doubling down of the proven false trickle down hypothesis). They continue to borrow, they continue to spend, they continue to ignore budget issues in favor of what will economically benefit the oligarchy and remove safeguards and obstacles in the way of their activities.
About 40 Conservatives in Congress get this, and have been instrumental in shooting down poor legislation and policy.
But the rest of Conservatives must wake up, realizing their backing of the GOP was a poor choice, that they need to either step up and take over the party or to step away and form a new party, one that used to be a Grand Old Party, but that today has become a hypocritical farce.
Maybe the most stunning development is the railing against the "intellectual elite," a proud movement of the deliberately dumb, insisting facts are just one option, replacing sound opinion with reactionary opinion -- when originally, Conservatives were the Intellectual Elites, pointing out the errors in policy and proposing ways forward.
If they're ever going to reclaim fiscal soundness and sensible government, they're going to have to divorce the GOP.
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