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SPF, the group seems legit. Clearly, they want to make an bipartisan appeal on voting rights. Naturally, they had to go down the “both sides” path to do so but the truth is that voter suppression and gerrymandering are vital tools the GOP won’t easily surrender. They are motivated by White fright and concerns over demographic drift towards a non-White majority.
The problem for the GOP is that gerrymandering has created safe seats for them as if the Democratic Party didn’t exist. But the real electoral contests have become the GOP primaries. Fewer voters generally turn out for primaries, so the extremists can overpower the moderates. First, the Tea Party ran amok. Then Trump was able to intimidate moderate Republicans into pledging fealty to him or get primaried. Moderates like Jeff Flake, former Senator for Arizona, didn’t even bother trying to hold their seats as a result. Republicans in safe seats felt the need to become ever more extreme to avoid right-wing nut jobs outflanking them. But even so, 2 QAnon conspiracists were able to make it to Congress.
Cruz, Hawley, and Rubio have all swung hard right. Cruz and Hawley are both highly credentialled lawyers (top students from Ivy League Law Schools who clerked for Supreme Court Justices) who have little in common with Trump’s base but know they have to play to them to get where they want to go. Rubio was one of the “Gang of 8”, a bipartisan group of lawmakers who almost pushed through Immigration Reform under President Obama but he’s now a Trumper on this topic.
If voting reform killed off gerrymandering and ensured that the real contests were in duels between Republicans and Democrats, GOP primaries would be much more likely to advance candidates who could appeal to moderates. And when extremists did manage to push through extreme candidates, the Democrat challenger could put them to the sword in the Congressional elections.
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If the US was in Europe, Trump, Cruz, Hawley etc. would be locked in a sanatorium in the Pyrenees, and spend their days playing bilboquet, and Sanders would be a boring, run of the mill centrist.
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Only our ruthless best, from Board to bootstudders will get us no. 17
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Trump will soon realise how transactional his political power is. While he’s been top dog, he has been surrounded by sycophants. When he loses all power in a day’s time, he’ll lose all of those sycophants in the political class.
Stupidly, he has organised a massive farewell at the Andrews Air Base on the morning of the Inauguration. The email invitations he sent out almost begged the recipients to bring 5 friends with them to fluff out the crowd. Even Scaramucci got an invitation despite the fact he has been a caustic critic of his since leaving the White House.
Mitch McConnell and other Republican politicians have already declined, preferring to attend the inauguration. Reportedly, the insurrection killed off any desire to pander to him. And Trump has handed the Senate Republicans the ability to kill off his remaining political influence.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if his farewell falls flat? Will he cancel it rather than appear in front of an underwhelming crowd?
He reminds me of Bob Hawke. Remember when he secured a role as a presenter on 60 Minutes on the promise he’d be able to work his friendships with world leaders to obtain exclusive interviews? He was humiliated when he couldn’t get through to Maggie Thatcher and was left in the press gaggle calling out to her while she turned her back on him. He failed to understand that he left those friendships behind him when he retired from politics. As someone said, “If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog”.
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(01-20-2021, 02:28 AM)Mav link Wrote:Trump will soon realise how transactional his political power is. While he’s been top dog, he has been surrounded by sycophants. When he loses all power in a day’s time, he’ll lose all of those sycophants in the political class.
Stupidly, he has organised a massive farewell at the Andrews Air Base on the morning of the Inauguration. The email invitations he sent out almost begged the recipients to bring 5 friends with them to fluff out the crowd. Even Scaramucci got an invitation despite the fact he has been a caustic critic of his since leaving the White House.
Mitch McConnell and other Republican politicians have already declined, preferring to attend the inauguration. Reportedly, the insurrection killed off any desire to pander to him. And Trump has handed the Senate Republicans the ability to kill off his remaining political influence.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if his farewell falls flat? Will he cancel it rather than appear in front of an underwhelming crowd?
He reminds me of Bob Hawke. Remember when he secured a role as a presenter on 60 Minutes on the promise he’d be able to work his friendships with world leaders to obtain exclusive interviews? He was humiliated when he couldn’t get through to Maggie Thatcher and was left in the press gaggle calling out to her while she turned her back on him. He failed to understand that he left those friendships behind him when he retired from politics. As someone said, “If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog”.
Transactional you suggest?
The flaw with your argument is Trump has the people. Outside a dozen leftie centric major cities, in their hoardes.
And if any of you have any interest in the evidence of this massive fraud (most of you won't obviously)
hereistheevidence.com
Finals, then 4 in a row!
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Does he have the people? He assured them he’d stop the steal. He didn’t. He incited an insurrection, calling on his supporters to walk with him to fight as patriots. But he didn’t go with them; he went home and watched the mayhem on TV. But that’s OK as he could protect them by pardoning the insurrectionists. He hasn’t as yet. If he does, that’ll perhaps seal his fate in the Senate trial. If he doesn’t, the patriots will feel betrayed. How are the QAnon fanatics going to react now their all-powerful Messiah is revealed to be just a naughty boy?
As Paul Keating said, let’s do him slowly. Leave him with some shreds of dignity for now so we can rip them off one by one in the coming months  8)
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Is that site you referred to a parody site Flyboy. It’s a riot (pun intended) whether it means to be or not.
The Trump election fraud claim can be summed up this way:
Quote:The huge number of Black votes is proof of fraud given the GOP has spent decades making sure they wouldn’t be able to vote in those numbers.
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Quote:“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.”
Surely, Mitch McConnell wasn’t saying that Trump’s election fraud claims were lies? If only Flyboy had sent him a link to that website ...
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(01-20-2021, 07:50 AM)flyboy77 link Wrote:Transactional you suggest?
The flaw with your argument is Trump has the people. Outside a dozen leftie centric major cities, in their hoardes.
And if any of you have any interest in the evidence of this massive fraud (most of you won't obviously)
hereistheevidence.com
In terms of actual votes, Hilary Clinton got more than Trump in 2016, and Biden got more than Trump in 2020. He seems to have the loudest, most devoted, most attention getting voters, and I think frankly they tend to inflate how popular he really is. Losing the vote count in two consecutive elections appears to back that up.
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(01-20-2021, 10:22 AM)PaulP date Wrote:In terms of actual votes, Hilary Clinton got more than Trump in 2016, and Biden got more than Trump in 2020. He seems to have the loudest, most devoted, most attention getting voters, and I think frankly they tend to inflate how popular he really is. Losing the vote count in two consecutive elections appears to back that up. Excuuuuuuuuuuuse me, ...................... there is no room for facts when discussing a Trump! ;D
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"
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