Rank and file conservatives within the GOP have been to the GOP establishment what black and Hispanic groups have been to the Democrat Party … they have only been given attention when the election rolls around. Afterwards the conservatives throughout red state America are forgotten while the GOP elite wine and dine while outsourcing American jobs to our “good friends” to the South, and to countries that hate us, like the People’s Republic of China. The GOP elite have been doing this in tandem with the Democrat Party.
As for more civility in politics … that is long gone. But I would strongly put forth that it is the Democrats and the Left who have been injecting toxicity into the body politic for decades. I can distinctly remember the outrageous attacks and slander leveled against then POTUS Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, with even despicable slogans and leftist memes blaming Reagan for the HIV epidemic and depicting Ronaldus Magnus with full blown AIDS.
Democrats and their leftist ilk have routinely slandered conservatives and Republicans as fascists and Nazis (btw … collectivist ideologies that are anti-capitalist, anti-religion, anti-gun ownership, and anti-individual freedom) throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Does anybody remember the slanders against then Speaker Newt Gingrich and the later BusHitler signs and slogans at the leftist “anti-war” rallies?
Conservatives were later derided as “teabaggers” (a vulgar sex act spawned by Howard Stern) during the Tea Party movement among other vile epithets. That takes us up to the Trump MAGA movement; in which Democrats and the Left resurrect their fascist, racist, chauvinist chants and tropes against this newer and bolder Conservative grass roots movement.
The difference now is that while the Left continues its trench warfare attitude against their political opposition, the opposition (i.e., Trump and MAGA) have responded to the Left’s tactics in kind. The conservative movement has grown tired of the milquetoast responses by past standard bearers like John McCain and Mitt Romney.
Too many conservatives are sick and tired of being told that the border will be secured and that our nation’s economic policies will bring more jobs home, only for none of this to happen because of weak and gutless GOP leadership. Trump, despite all of his brashness and rudeness, is the 800 lb. gorilla that the rest of flyover country wants so that we can bring back American sovereignty, prestige and national pride.
I don't disagree with you that it was never Trump who was the sole source of the vulgarization of American politics... And I remember the abuse of Reagan and the calumnies against Bush too. My point here is that, to quote Michelle Obama, it has been the Ds' claim that Donald Trump is the one dragging us into the gutter -- that they go high while we go low. And you may disagree, but I believe Donald Trump has taken things to a new level in the way he talks about his adversaries. (I can't imagine you think it's cool to talk about a woman being ugly in a political debate, but he has...). So my argument here is that far from being the cause of the vulgarization of American politics, he has been that transformative power that has brought everyone along. Open season on kids, wives, husbands, illness, the whole nine yards. It's a Pandora's box, and we can hate it, all the while recognizing that yes, this slide began long ago. Sigh.
Our politics is in the gutter because the electorate buys it. The power of government is so vast that there is no recourse to its plunder. So people have chosen to use the coersive power of the state to further their ends- right or wrong. Trump's winning of the presidency sent a bad signal that his style wins. Sad because Reagan's example was effective in demolishing his opponents with style, grace and humor.
Bush/Cheney did this—they played into the worst excesses of the right wing echo chamber to win re-election…and then average Republicans realized while their sons and daughters were fighting overseas their jobs had been shipped to China as the economy was driven into the ground. Trump is the enema the GOP needed.
Rank and file conservatives within the GOP have been to the GOP establishment what black and Hispanic groups have been to the Democrat Party … they have only been given attention when the election rolls around. Afterwards the conservatives throughout red state America are forgotten while the GOP elite wine and dine while outsourcing American jobs to our “good friends” to the South, and to countries that hate us, like the People’s Republic of China. The GOP elite have been doing this in tandem with the Democrat Party.
As for more civility in politics … that is long gone. But I would strongly put forth that it is the Democrats and the Left who have been injecting toxicity into the body politic for decades. I can distinctly remember the outrageous attacks and slander leveled against then POTUS Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, with even despicable slogans and leftist memes blaming Reagan for the HIV epidemic and depicting Ronaldus Magnus with full blown AIDS.
Democrats and their leftist ilk have routinely slandered conservatives and Republicans as fascists and Nazis (btw … collectivist ideologies that are anti-capitalist, anti-religion, anti-gun ownership, and anti-individual freedom) throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Does anybody remember the slanders against then Speaker Newt Gingrich and the later BusHitler signs and slogans at the leftist “anti-war” rallies?
Conservatives were later derided as “teabaggers” (a vulgar sex act spawned by Howard Stern) during the Tea Party movement among other vile epithets. That takes us up to the Trump MAGA movement; in which Democrats and the Left resurrect their fascist, racist, chauvinist chants and tropes against this newer and bolder Conservative grass roots movement.
The difference now is that while the Left continues its trench warfare attitude against their political opposition, the opposition (i.e., Trump and MAGA) have responded to the Left’s tactics in kind. The conservative movement has grown tired of the milquetoast responses by past standard bearers like John McCain and Mitt Romney.
Too many conservatives are sick and tired of being told that the border will be secured and that our nation’s economic policies will bring more jobs home, only for none of this to happen because of weak and gutless GOP leadership. Trump, despite all of his brashness and rudeness, is the 800 lb. gorilla that the rest of flyover country wants so that we can bring back American sovereignty, prestige and national pride.
G’day …
I don't disagree with you that it was never Trump who was the sole source of the vulgarization of American politics... And I remember the abuse of Reagan and the calumnies against Bush too. My point here is that, to quote Michelle Obama, it has been the Ds' claim that Donald Trump is the one dragging us into the gutter -- that they go high while we go low. And you may disagree, but I believe Donald Trump has taken things to a new level in the way he talks about his adversaries. (I can't imagine you think it's cool to talk about a woman being ugly in a political debate, but he has...). So my argument here is that far from being the cause of the vulgarization of American politics, he has been that transformative power that has brought everyone along. Open season on kids, wives, husbands, illness, the whole nine yards. It's a Pandora's box, and we can hate it, all the while recognizing that yes, this slide began long ago. Sigh.
Our politics is in the gutter because the electorate buys it. The power of government is so vast that there is no recourse to its plunder. So people have chosen to use the coersive power of the state to further their ends- right or wrong. Trump's winning of the presidency sent a bad signal that his style wins. Sad because Reagan's example was effective in demolishing his opponents with style, grace and humor.
Sadly, you are spot on.
Bush/Cheney did this—they played into the worst excesses of the right wing echo chamber to win re-election…and then average Republicans realized while their sons and daughters were fighting overseas their jobs had been shipped to China as the economy was driven into the ground. Trump is the enema the GOP needed.