Whither the GOP? (post-Trump edition)

[Jennifer]

Every time I think "the GOP has gone completely off the rails," I swear, they climb back on just long enough to derail themselves again.

[Hugh Akston]

This is the most unkindest cut for Donald Trump: Republican convention draws 17 million TV viewers, down 26% from 2016

The audience figure from Nielsen was also below the opening night of last week’s Democratic National Convention, which averaged 19.7 million viewers. The audience for the Democrats on the first night of their convention was down about 24% from 2016.

[Eric the .5b]

Every time I think "the GOP has gone completely off the rails," I swear, they climb back on just long enough to derail themselves again.

You were warned that it was a Crazy Train.

[thoreau]

This is the most unkindest cut for Donald Trump: Republican convention draws 17 million TV viewers, down 26% from 2016

The audience figure from Nielsen was also below the opening night of last week’s Democratic National Convention, which averaged 19.7 million viewers. The audience for the Democrats on the first night of their convention was down about 24% from 2016.

Those are the pre-sharpie ratings numbers. Once he's used his marker, the ratings will be the most amazing ever.

[Number 6]

This is the most unkindest cut for Donald Trump: Republican convention draws 17 million TV viewers, down 26% from 2016

The audience figure from Nielsen was also below the opening night of last week’s Democratic National Convention, which averaged 19.7 million viewers. The audience for the Democrats on the first night of their convention was down about 24% from 2016.

Those are the pre-sharpie ratings numbers. Once he's used his marker, the ratings will be the most amazing ever.

Don't look for signs that the insanity is going to end. it isn't. It's going to continue, but harder.

[Aresen]

If the 'wide-spread mail voting fraud' conspiracy that Trump bleats about is true, I really hope it takes out Mitch McConnell.

[thoreau]

This is the most unkindest cut for Donald Trump: Republican convention draws 17 million TV viewers, down 26% from 2016

The audience figure from Nielsen was also below the opening night of last week’s Democratic National Convention, which averaged 19.7 million viewers. The audience for the Democrats on the first night of their convention was down about 24% from 2016.

Those are the pre-sharpie ratings numbers. Once he's used his marker, the ratings will be the most amazing ever.

Don't look for signs that the insanity is going to end. it isn't. It's going to continue, but harder.

I helped a third year physics student today after he kept making a basic algebra mistake.

[Warren]

This is the most unkindest cut for Donald Trump: Republican convention draws 17 million TV viewers, down 26% from 2016

The audience figure from Nielsen was also below the opening night of last week’s Democratic National Convention, which averaged 19.7 million viewers. The audience for the Democrats on the first night of their convention was down about 24% from 2016.

Those are the pre-sharpie ratings numbers. Once he's used his marker, the ratings will be the most amazing ever.

Don't look for signs that the insanity is going to end. it isn't. It's going to continue, but harder.

I helped a third year physics student today after he kept making a basic algebra mistake.

You see how that makes you part of the problem right?

[Hugh Akston]

Why There Are So Few Moderate Republicans Left

As political scientist Danielle Thomsen has shown, more and more would-be moderates are opting out of Congress altogether, choosing not to run because they no longer see a place for themselves. This is true in both parties, Thomsen found — but especially among Republicans. Moderates increasingly feel as if they just don’t “fit.”

This swing toward more radical candidates may sound surprising — after all, shouldn’t party leaders want to nominate moderates to win? But considering that the overwhelming majority of legislative elections are now safe for one party, most parties can win regardless of who they nominate. In fact, there’s even evidence that the long-standing electoral price of extremism has all but vanished.

As a result of these groups’ efforts, elected Republicans are confronted with messaging and advocacy that paint the electorate as more conservative than it really is. This, too, has had the effect of moving the party further to the right. To be sure, the more libertarian business conservatives and more populist social conservatives maintain an uneasy partnership in forming this coalition, but the more they both occupy unpopular positions, the more they must stick together around the shared proposition that the biggest threat to their joint interests is the Democratic Party.

Finally, there are the Republican voters. The GOP is more and more a party of disaffected non-college-educated white people — especially men and those over age 50. And as the Republican Party has traded its younger, college-educated white people — especially women — for the Democrats’ non-college-educated, older white people — especially men — the Republican party’s primary electorate has shifted in ways that make anti-establishment, pro-Trump candidates more prevalent than they were even four years ago, and certainly eight years ago.

[lunchstealer]

I'm really starting to hate the primary process with a fiery passion. Multi-representative districts with ranked-choice voting or similar would fix a lot of this, but would also remove both parties' safe districts so it will never happen.

[dbcooper]

Patriotic Americans playing with perfect, glamorous Perky Pat on beautiful Mars.

[Jennifer]

The Trump Family Celebration -- I mean Republican National Convention -- was absolutely appalling.

[Aresen]

The Trump Family Celebration -- I mean Republican National Convention -- was absolutely appalling.

Jennifer, you have taste. The Trumpenproletariat, not so much.

[Jadagul]

I was tempted to walk down near enough to the National Mall that I could see the fireworks last night. (Now that that's an option for me!)

But that sounded like it was nearly guaranteed to turn into a complicated mess. And also I was tired.

[Eric the .5b]

Team Red spent a generation demonizing Clinton, culminating in the "Crooked Hillary" label.

Biden chooses Harris, someone with actual documented ethics violations and abuses as a prosecutor, and the Team Red's response is to go, "Uhhhhh.... Oh, right, she's dark-skinned, so not a natural-born citizen." with a side of suggesting she's soft on crime.

Really, that alone shows how fucked they are, in multiple dimensions.

[Number 6]

If they said that Harris suborned prosecutorial misconduct, and kept innocent people in jail, Magas would take that as an endorsement.

[thoreau]

If they said that Harris suborned prosecutorial misconduct, and kept innocent people in jail, Magas would take that as an endorsement.

Yep.

[Jake]

Really, that alone shows how fucked they we are, in multiple dimensions.

FIFY.

[Eric the .5b]

Really, that alone shows how fucked they we are, in multiple dimensions.

FIFY.

I'm more optimistic than that.

[thoreau]

Really, that alone shows how fucked they we are, in multiple dimensions.

FIFY.

I'm more optimistic than that.

I was optimistic until Kenosha. But riots in a swing state? Rationally, I know it should turn people against the ineffective incumbent, and I know that AG Harris and Crime Bill Sponsor Biden are not exactly short on lawn order cred, but I know Wisconsinites. And this isn't the sort of thing that inclines people to support the librul.

[Jennifer]

The law and order types are making a hero out of Kyle RIttenhouse. It's okay to break the law, up to the point of mass shootings, when it's pro-police guys killing people who protest police killings.

[Highway]

That's not exactly a change. The supposed "law and order" types are the ones who always seem to end up making excuses or downplaying mass shootings, because of their huge fear of "they're coming for our guns!" So that's how we end up with fairly popular ideas about Sandy Hook being a hoax, or Parkland "crisis actors", and the myriad "lone wolf, we can't do anything about that" excuses. It's not exactly a stretch to go from dismissing shooters as being a problem to "well, it's actually a good thing" as long as the shooters are the 'good' kind of people shooting the 'wrong' kind of people.

[thoreau]

The fetish for guns will destroy America. I'm only sort of exaggerating. Once rioters start fighting each other with guns the thin veneer of civilization is almost gone.

[Number 6]

The fetish for guns will destroy America. I'm only sort of exaggerating. Once rioters start fighting each other with guns the thin veneer of civilization is almost gone.

You’re not wrong.

[dead_elvis]

That's not exactly a change.

Via twitter, about Kent State from "Nixonland"

Screen Shot 2020-08-30 at 11.40.06 AM.png (533.68 KiB) Viewed 2640 times

Screen Shot 2020-08-30 at 11.40.12 AM.png (284.59 KiB) Viewed 2640 times