The Coming Obselescence of the Republican Party

First, yes I'm a liberal Dem, so this is a biased op-ed. I think most of our members lean liberal, but it's fascinating to me as an amateur anthropologist to see the party of Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves, be perverted into a lobbying group for right wing, white, male, NRA supporting Christian extremists. They are so stuck in 20th Century politics, I honestly think a lot of them don't see it coming. The party will implode, and probly split into a more centrist Reps, and the extremist Tea Party. Remember , we used to have the Whigs is this country, and Ross Perot was basically his own party at first. So third parties are nothing new, but a forgotten part of America's political past. Enough gabbing, here's the article that spells it out fairly well IMO.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5650490?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

I'm tired of the dominant two-party system in general. All I care is what's in the best interest in the majority of the people - not just in the US, but throughout the world. But I'm fighting the temptation to go on another political diatribe, so I'll stop here.

And fuck Mitch McConnell's baggy turtle face, I'm sick of it.

I think a good amount of leftists have seen the hollowness of their party lately, the dogmatism of certain aspects of the ideology, and are beginning to defect toward the new methods, and I also believe many on the right are doing the same. As far as I can tell, both parties are generally one and the same, with alternative options as of recent showing their appeal to most of those who are capable of thinking for themselves.

this country desperately needs campaign finance reform. it's the root of much of our political problems. in the meantime, who knows how much crazier the gop can get? they're led by people like ted cruz who have no interest in legislating, and just want to bleed their fellow republicans for as much money as possible.

  On 8/6/2014 at 5:44 AM, vamos scorcho said:

As far as I can tell, both parties are generally one and the same...

no. one is batshit insane. the other is not.

why are most music enthusiasts ignorant liberals? or at least here on watmm

i can see where liberals would have a problem with the social side of what some tea partiers think but imo theyre the only chance at striking a blow to the corrupt pay to play system in washington, which has become imo the biggest problem the country faces.

the 'extremist' tea party, i dont think are any more extreme than your average person who calls themselves a liberal dem. so what's funny to me is, anyone resembling a tea party type, is not going to get the big money backing of the RNC or from big corps. look at the recent primaries. anyone who is concerned about big money corrupting american politics, you'd think they'd actually see that the tea party types are going into primaries with chicken scratch compared to a dickhead like john boehner spending tens of millions (against tea party rival's tens of thousands) to make sure he can keep his seat and stay in his gravy train career of being a politician. that's all it is to most of these people. a career that keeps them in gravy by allowing them to pull favors and get favors in return. it's pretty clear to anyone with eyes that the establishment 'centrist' republicans are getting money thrown at them by corporations who are afraid. theyre afraid because they know tea party types are the only significant group that's making moves into politics and who might actually change things and threaten their power structure/back door into washington. why else are they contributing tens of millions on primaries now, to keep them out?

oh but hey lets criticize those guys without that big money backing who keep talking about change, and not even generic bullshit 'change' like obama talked about, but actually going into specific details about how the government itself is too big and bloated and corrupt. but of course, they threaten the very same rigged game/system that the filthy rich elite democrats are also part of. government is like a mafia now and these 'establishment' politicians on both sides are the mobsters. so those dems are going to get word out through their media minions, to paint the the tea party as crazy extremists, to get in the minds of the liberals out there that these teabaggers are the worst thing around and should be blasted and ridiculed as often as possible. and those non-thinking liberals, who went to occupy protests to protest big money (when big money soros used media to tell them to do so to distract from the fact that the real root of the problem is the corruption in washington, not wall street), will do exactly as theyre told and blast the tea partiers every chance they get, doing their part to help make sure that big money continues ruling the day, at the behest of their own big, huge money backed overlords (what do you think these speaking fees bought?).

if a liberal actually believes what they say about money as a force of corruption in washington, i'd at least think they could temper their criticism of the tea party's social ideas with some respect for the fact that they are pretty clearly the biggest enemy of big money in the game. millions spent in primaries against them is proof.

"If there is anything to say for the Conservatives I didn’t hear it. They are an unpopular minority of ugly looking shits." -W.S.B.

The point of this thread is not to start an ideological red vs blue flame war. We are talking about the current Republican Party, their responsibility for the current deadlock in congress, their responsibility for deregulating the housing market under GWB, and the subsequent financial meltdown. For which not one executive has been prosecuted or served jail time. They suck the dick of Wall Street, who will turn on them in an instant when the shit hits the fan.

Congress was not created to work this way. It was not created to use filibustering, like the republicans have, to bring legislature to a halt and keep bills from reaching the floor. The current immigration bill has enough support in the House, I believe was passed by the Senate, but Boehner won't let it come to the floor. It was not created to let the Speaker of the House frivolously file lawsuits against the president, and consider impeachment action over Executive Orders? That is the President's right, and I don't think he uses it lightly. Lastly, this Congress has been the least effective in our nation's history, and I see no solution to the impass.

but i was on topic. the republican party likely may split and i was just asserting my opinion that the 'centrists' are the same people who have been in there running things into the ground, along with the democrats. it's not red vs blue. they're both parties of the rich who are for themselves, at the expense of everyone else. the idea that only one party (Rep) caters to the rich is such a stupid joke at this point that its gone from being laughable to being sad because it continues to frame so many debates and its a completely fabricated hoax of an idea.

besides that here's another angle to think about this. do you, as a self described liberal democrat, think that it would be a good thing for the US to recede from being a two party system, down to a one party system? even if the party is the one which you favor currently? do you think if democrats had free undisputed reign for however long into the future, that that would really be a good thing?

i think if either/any party grasped that kind of power it would basically amount to us taking 10 great leaps towards being a dictatorship.

not only that but you're absolutely wrong in asserting that congress was not designed to have the ability to contest the president. it's called checks and balances, look it up (although i'll agree with you that the lawsuit is totally stupid). a graphic about bills being passed means pretty much nothing. who's to say that we need to constantly be making more and more and more new laws to govern the people by? why do we need that? this idea that we need to constantly be 'progressing' without attention on whether or not the progress is good or even differentiating or acknowledging that there is such a thing as bad progress, is also pretty ridiculous. to some degree, more bills means more money we don't have being spent on more free goodies for whoever's votes they're trying to buy or whoever they owe favors to.

btw you could post a similar graphic that shows how the early presidents barely used any executive orders and claim that the presidency wasn't 'made to function this way' based on that graphic. it proves nothing. the question is about legal authority. filibusters are legal. but that can be changed and maybe next time the dems take over both houses they'll do that. executive orders would have to be judged on a case by case basis to ascertain their legality. that's where the judicial branch comes in, and they've unanimously ruled against obama's admin on several occasions, including liberal judges he appointed himself.

you're also entirely wrong about the 'current immigration bill'. there is a bill that was conceived in the senate, which passed senate, and that one definitely does not have 'enough support in the house'.

We can go round & round on this, the only way to know is to bring it to a vote, which Boehner won't allow.

http://fusion.net/leadership/story/obama-house-pass-senate-immigration-bill-12231

- from 2013

Yes that's my party's President, but he doesn't usually make unsubstantiated remarks about his own party without talking to it's House leaders first. I'm sure you'll google evidence to contradict that assertion. Yes there are checks and balances, which are fundamental IMO, no one is arguing against that, but when the Reps became the party of "NO" they IMO betrayed their own constituents, at least the sane ones. Two parties are essential to a democracy (I wish we had more viable 3rd parties myself). But back to Congress, Boehner is a prisoner of his own party, and Ted Cruz is a buffoon looking for attention, and probly a book deal or radio show once his career has ended. When you have loud mouth elected members telling the public that Hispanic children are bringing Ebola into the US, you have lost control of your membership.

http://aattp.org/indiana-congressman-fuels-illegal-fears-claims-central-american-children-may-have-ebola/

Yes we need two parties, it fuels debate as well as compromise. But they need to be led by real politicians, ones who represent their constituents, not their church. Freshmen ideologues who come in with no other plan than to gain publicity & cause chaos have no place in this Congress. We are so polarized as a population already, we don't need more idiots trying to divide by every demographic possible & turn us against each other. America was built on people of different backgrounds working together.

Reverting to racism, sexism, prejudice against LGBT & gay marriage, the war on women (yeah I said that), has been a huge mistake for the Reps, and they will pay for it in the long run.

Feel free to disagree. Then I will laugh at you.

gerrymander

noun

What a fucking racist piece of shit "you do understand English don't you?" Rand Paul runs away FLOL these are the cowards elected by the Republican party...

Here's the full video:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/adriancarrasquillo/dreamers-confronted-the-most-hardline-congressman-on-immigra?s=mobile

  On 8/6/2014 at 7:55 AM, Franciscus said:

why are most music enthusiasts establishment peddling neo-liberals? or at least here on watmm

fixed

yeah i basically disagree with you. something obviously needs changed and to do that you would need someone with new ideas. the establishment in both parties are a huge problem, they've cemented their own power and that's really the main thing they care about. obama is going to come out of his presidency much more wealthy than he was when he went in, then parlay his fame into lucrative speech tours making tens of millions just like the clintons have, and remaining in the game as a power broker just as they have. it seems to most people, getting into politics is a way to get rich and powerful. if the ideal job of a politician is to do things that improve the country, it shouldn't be viewed as a career. career politicians have no idea what it's like to be in the real world outside of politics. so how can they represent that real world? they live in a completely fictional universe that only exists for them, just like celebrities out in hollywood have their own world with it's own rules. in fact congress get to write the rules for everyone else and not follow them, which is exactly what they've been doing, but you seem to think that that status quo needs to be maintained.

playing up to specific demographics and keeping them at odds with each other is a game the democrats pretty much invented, the war on women is a totally fake thing, and you can laugh at me all day but i can't really bring myself to laugh at you for going along with everything your democrat heros spoon feed you.

Cowards.

WTF the insanity never ends. Now a Republican claims Democrats are waging a "War on Whites". Can they be any more blatantly racist? What fucking universe are they living in? E, you sound intelligent, but some of your elected officials sure don't reflect that.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rep-brooks-charges-war-whites-democrats-205420796--politics.html

Republicans also seem to be very conspiracy minded, it's always someone else's fault.

While I despise the Republican ideology as much as Rubin, I have to go with E on these points

  On 8/6/2014 at 8:26 AM, MisterE said:

oh but hey lets criticize those guys without that big money backing who keep talking about change, and not even generic bullshit 'change' like obama talked about, but actually going into specific details about how the government itself is too big and bloated and corrupt. but of course, they threaten the very same rigged game/system that the filthy rich elite democrats are also part of. government is like a mafia now and these 'establishment' politicians on both sides are the mobsters.

  On 8/6/2014 at 2:51 PM, MisterE said:

it's not red vs blue. they're both parties of the rich who are for themselves, at the expense of everyone else. the idea that only one party (Rep) caters to the rich is such a stupid joke at this point that its gone from being laughable to being sad because it continues to frame so many debates and its a completely fabricated hoax of an idea.

I consider myself to be a rational human being equipped with an ample supply of common sense and a formidable bullshit detector, and consequently I have nothing but disdain for the current state of politics and bullshit politicians of all stripes. Greed, lust for power, and corruption rule the day and are the head of the beast that must be destroyed before any real societal progress gets made. Campaign finance reform, term limits, ending corporate personhood and PACs, outlawing gerrymandering, abolishing the winner-take-all electoral college, running civil services honorably & efficiently etc. all make too much sense so they'll never happen, and it's a failure of the system (and not one party or the other) that's to blame. I actually envy people who believe in hell because I'd sleep a lot easier at night knowing satan is keeping a seat warm for these fukkaz:

Lastly, I'd like to point out that neither party is a government entity, so both need to get their heads out of the trough and pay for their own fucking conventions.

Lol at all you partisan twinkle boys.

The future is post partisan. The future is about what you can do.

edit: wow, just saw that the thread started from a huff post op-ed. fantastic.

"check out this list, check out this list, ooo an op-ed reinforcing my default so-i-can-fit-in politics, check out this list."

So what is your infallible source for unbiased news? Please tell me it's Fox. I'd like to know where the hipsters go to feel more superior about themselves.

All news is mediated by large, unknowable interests. I hate fox just as much as huff.

Exactly, there's no such thing as a reliable source anymore. I read the op-ed, thought it was well written & to the point, and decided to do my own op-ed on the subject. I stated that in the OP, and never pretended it was anything else. I love political discourse, it means we live in a Republic where free speech is of import to a lot of citizens.

You guys do strike me as master debaters. Lol

I am starting a new party. Every Friday night on the top of a very tall highway interchange bridge. Like this one:

We will just talk, have some music, drinks (non alcoholic) and watch the sunset.

That is actually a dope photo.