The GOP was once feared for its ability to unite and win – but Kevin McCarthy’s demise shows a party deeply divided
  • flossdaily@lemmy.world
    83·
    1 year ago

    “They didn’t stand up to Trump” makes it sound like Trump is something that happened to them.

    No. They welcomed Trump with open arms. They bent over backwards to defend Trump.

    They changed their entire identity to become all about Trump.

    When Trump cozied up to Russia, they started loving Russia.

    When Trump tried to overthrow the election, they stormed the capital for him, and protected him from impeachment.

    They are all as culpable as Trump.

  • hogunner@lemmy.world
    56·
    1 year ago

    Titles like this make it seem like Trump is the problem but he’s not, he’s a symptom. No fully functioning, rational party would have someone like Trump as a serious contender for POTUS.

    The GOP has been on this path for decade’s now going back at least as far as Nixon. We’re honestly lucky they picked someone as lazy and dimwitted as Trump; if they’d picked someone just as morally bankrupt and corrupt but with actual intelligence and cunning we’d already be living in a dictatorship.

    We might still end up there but the sheer stupidity of the GOP and its leadership is giving us a second chance to reclaim our country before it’s too late. Vote in every election you’re eligible for from your state on down to you local county; they all count!

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
    573·
    1 year ago

    People. Voted. For. Trump.

    You can try to blame the leadership all you like but fact of the matter is that 30-40ish percent of Americans like the guy and voted for him.

    And they are voting for people like him down ballot as well.

    Trump is the symptom. We’ll be dealing with this shit when he’s dead.

    • timicin@kbin.social
      291·
      1 year ago

      And one of the root causes is propaganda passed off as affordable education to school districts whose budgets are bieng intentionally choked off in favor of for profit education all across this country for the last 5 or so decades

    • cybersandwich@lemmy.world
      23·
      1 year ago

      Yes they did, but if Republicans had actual leadership,principles, values, ethics, etc they could have easily boxed in Trump and /or boxed him out.

      They could have impeached him and voted to remove him after Jan 6. It was their get out of jail free card. And they cowardly chose not to.

      They let the rot fester and not it’s going to kill them or the country or both.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
      13·
      1 year ago

      People voted for the republican candidate, as they were raised to do. They don’t like trump. They like “who they’ve been told trump is”, often the exact opposite of what he is.

      A tidal wave of russian propaganda and money, and a complicit corporate news swept this piece of fraud into office, and the fox news cult machine has been chewing on them since. They have no other options. That they’re aware of.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
        7·
        1 year ago

        They have no other options. That they’re aware of.

        That’s because they’re dumb. There’s really no other way to state it at this point. Maybe it’s innate, maybe it’s conditioned, I don’t think it matters. The fact is that they’re dumb as shit and they honestly can’t tell.

  • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
    50·
    1 year ago

    As someone who lived through the 90s, none of this is surprising. Starting with AM radio, they’ve courted people in the vast emptiness between cities because that’s where the cheapest political power exists in America. In the 90s it was the “Religious Right” In the 00’s and 10’s it was “The Tea Party.” Past that you’ve got the various alt-right groups like Qanon.

    I’m reminded of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, where the apprentice creates a bunch of automatons to carry water for him and is almost drowned by it. Except the wizard is Mitch fucking McConnell.

    • Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca
      5·
      1 year ago

      Haha that’s an amazingly accurate analogy I’ve never thought of with the mop buckets. I give you metaphorical Lemmy Gold 🥇

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
      4·
      1 year ago

      Before the 1990s, ’ the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine’ kept one person/company from owning too many radio stations and forced broadcasters to air both sides of the argument. Reagan started the push to kill it, and eventually it passed away.

  • 30mag@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    The GOP was once feared for its ability to unite and win

    Yeah, when they they nominated Eisenhower instead of MacArthur.

    They are fresh-faced, suited and booted, the National Mall behind them and the world at their feet. Congressmen Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan smile out from the cover of Young Guns, their co-authored 2010 book about the next generation of conservatives. “This isn’t your grandfather’s Republican party,” said publicity material at the time.

    Thirteen years later, the trio is neither young nor the future. Cantor (“the leader”) became Republican leader in the House of Representatives but lost his seat to a nascent rightwing populism. Ryan (“the thinker”) became speaker but retired early to escape a toxic political relationship with President Donald Trump. And this week McCarthy (“the strategist”) was ousted by some of the extremists he helped elect to Congress but could not tame.

    “Hey can I copy your homework?” “yeah but change it a bit so it’s not obvious you copied”.

    In the hours after the House of Representatives’ historic vote to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, a photo began circulating online of the cover of Young Guns, the splashy policy treatise authored by then-Reps. Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy in 2010. The irony of the photo was clear enough: The book, which featured a gleaming group portrait of the three self-declared standard-bearers of the Republican Party, was intended to introduce the rising stars of the GOP to the American people — but now, just 13 years after its publication, the book had become a visual obituary for the party’s past.

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/05/mcarthy-tea-party-theda-skocpol-00120009

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Such a scene would have been unthinkable two decades ago when Republicans were effective at wielding power and pushing through laws relating to everything from foreign wars and domestic surveillance programmes to Medicare and the No Child Left Behind schools policy.

    Republicans at the time such as Tara Setmayer, a former communications director who worked on Capitol Hill for seven years, believed the party needed to reach young voters, women and minorities to survive.

    Critics say Gaetz is taking advantage of an era in which, instead of working their way up the ranks one committee at a time, politicians can build their brand, “go viral” and raise money by flaunting their extremism in the rightwing media ecosystem.

    Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of National Review magazine, wrote: “Republican backbenchers used to be people such as Jack Kemp and Paul Ryan, who became something by promoting ideas that they carefully developed, sincerely believed, and persuaded their colleagues to embrace.

    Steve Scalise, the majority leader, and Jim Jordan, the judiciary committee chairman, are the two leading candidates to succeed McCarthy and frantically chasing endorsements ahead of a vote among Republicans expected on Tuesday.

    Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “We now see [that] the kind of authoritarian populism that talks about taking control, bringing order and strongman rule is an utter fiction.

    The original article contains 1,348 words, the summary contains 231 words. Saved 83%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!