I'm just here to admire your restraint. I couldn't have resisted making a little fun of Nate Silver's "well if you watch with the sound off, Trump is taller throughout" analysis.
Ever since Reagan, the Moses of modern conservatism, pointed to s shimmering city on a hill and said "See that? See that illusion in the distance? That is America, and I will take you there." the Republican party was destined to wind up here. The Republicans flourished for decades by doubling down on promoting and inciting feelings, adding in gerrymandering, voter supression, and norms busting as needs must to maintain their position. And the Republican elites were fine with all of this, because they were in control.
Then Trump. I will go to my grave maintaining there is a hell of a story trapped in the bowels of the Republican party about how Trump could glide down an escalator, surrounded by a paid-for crowd, and completely take over the Republican party root and branch, to the point where the only option the Cheneys have is to publicly endorse a Democratic woman of color for President. This is far more insane than the babble coming from Trump. And still. Still! He has an absolute floor of 45%. The American Dream, Reagan style, dies hard.
I think you're misreading Reagan. Here is the closing line of his 1980 speech: "They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still… a shining city on a hill." For Reagan the City upon a Hill was not a place he was going to take us; it was the America of his here and now. If anything, he was defending it against what he saw as its detractors. TBH, that sounds a lot more like something you would hear from the Harris campaign than anything I've heard from Republicans in the past ten years or more.
It's also worth noting that the City upon a Hill metaphor wasn't unique to Reagan. John F. Kennedy used it, as did Barack Obama (more than once). Mitt Romney used it in a speech attacking Donald Trump, arguing (I'm obviously paraphrasing here) that Trump was the kind of person who would tear down the city on the hill and drag it into the muck. The metaphor has been pressed into service all across the political spectrum, but as far as I can tell, the intended context was always the same, namely, that we have something special here, and we need to take care of it.
I don't want to defend Reagan too much. You can surely lay some of the blame for where we are now at his feet, especially when it comes from the ascendency of the religious right. But this Trumpian schtick that America is a decaying hellscape is about as far away from Reagan's City upon a Hill as you can get.
Part of it is that while the main purpose of the GOP has always been tax cuts and dismantled regulations, the party used to have ideas it could reasonably claim to represent, and they all failed. Neoconservatism broke against the failures of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, neoliberalism did the same in the GFC, Christian conservatism died out of many places as the country secularized and liberalized. The post-Romney party didn't have any core ideals, so it was ripe for takeover by the Perot/Buchananite sector of the electorate represented by Trump that was always there powering the GOP but politicians decided to pretend weren't that numerous.
Of course, I would also love to read a history of how the Democrats allowed their state-level parties to collapse so thoroughly between 2010-2016 that the GOP was within a hairs breath of getting a new constitutional convention.
A fair cop. Reagan was their leader, and he led them to a place they already were, Morning in America, just showing them with fresh eyes that there's no place like home. Though a product of the Hollywood Dream Factory, he was grounded in reality, but know how to sell a story. He could have been a model for what the Republican party could present to the voters as a governing ideal, but that's not the road they chose. The whiplash of going from the humiliation of Nixon to the cost-free embrace of the wildly popular Reagan convinced them all they needed was a movie star or its equivalent, and they could go on as before with Nixon. Nixon was the seed of everything the Republican party is today, the racism, paranoia, fixation on enemies. He gave us Roger Stone, among others. At least Nixon cared about foreign policy as a Great Game to play. But one Reagan left the scene (I count GWHB as his coda, though the old spook started dismantling that sunny optimism), there was no moderating influence grounded in reality. Instead, we got GWB, an amiable dry drunk that Cheney played like a cheap fiddle. And then Trump, who apparantly played Cheney like a cheap fiddle. The question is why was Reaganism so easily abandoned. From what little I know, Thatcherism was also dropped pretty quickly by the Tories.
My biggest fear for October is Netanyahu taking military action to intentionally strain the U.S. Democratic coalition and help to justify his continuity in office despite his string of failures.
Trump is that grabby Uncle who wants to sit with the nieces at Thanksgiving while Kamala is the organizer Aunt coming out of the kitchen and ordering telling him to take out the trash.
No. Trying to “debate” an irrational person is exhausting. I was exhausted from the lies. I would not wish further “debates” or interaction on her. The more I think about it, the more I appreciate her suggestion that his rallies be attended. Probably hit him harder than anything else.
Best line in the post-debate commentary I've been reading all morning: "The guy seems to have prepped for the debate by bingewatching Newsmax."
I'm just here to admire your restraint. I couldn't have resisted making a little fun of Nate Silver's "well if you watch with the sound off, Trump is taller throughout" analysis.
Ever since Reagan, the Moses of modern conservatism, pointed to s shimmering city on a hill and said "See that? See that illusion in the distance? That is America, and I will take you there." the Republican party was destined to wind up here. The Republicans flourished for decades by doubling down on promoting and inciting feelings, adding in gerrymandering, voter supression, and norms busting as needs must to maintain their position. And the Republican elites were fine with all of this, because they were in control.
Then Trump. I will go to my grave maintaining there is a hell of a story trapped in the bowels of the Republican party about how Trump could glide down an escalator, surrounded by a paid-for crowd, and completely take over the Republican party root and branch, to the point where the only option the Cheneys have is to publicly endorse a Democratic woman of color for President. This is far more insane than the babble coming from Trump. And still. Still! He has an absolute floor of 45%. The American Dream, Reagan style, dies hard.
I think you're misreading Reagan. Here is the closing line of his 1980 speech: "They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still… a shining city on a hill." For Reagan the City upon a Hill was not a place he was going to take us; it was the America of his here and now. If anything, he was defending it against what he saw as its detractors. TBH, that sounds a lot more like something you would hear from the Harris campaign than anything I've heard from Republicans in the past ten years or more.
It's also worth noting that the City upon a Hill metaphor wasn't unique to Reagan. John F. Kennedy used it, as did Barack Obama (more than once). Mitt Romney used it in a speech attacking Donald Trump, arguing (I'm obviously paraphrasing here) that Trump was the kind of person who would tear down the city on the hill and drag it into the muck. The metaphor has been pressed into service all across the political spectrum, but as far as I can tell, the intended context was always the same, namely, that we have something special here, and we need to take care of it.
I don't want to defend Reagan too much. You can surely lay some of the blame for where we are now at his feet, especially when it comes from the ascendency of the religious right. But this Trumpian schtick that America is a decaying hellscape is about as far away from Reagan's City upon a Hill as you can get.
Part of it is that while the main purpose of the GOP has always been tax cuts and dismantled regulations, the party used to have ideas it could reasonably claim to represent, and they all failed. Neoconservatism broke against the failures of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, neoliberalism did the same in the GFC, Christian conservatism died out of many places as the country secularized and liberalized. The post-Romney party didn't have any core ideals, so it was ripe for takeover by the Perot/Buchananite sector of the electorate represented by Trump that was always there powering the GOP but politicians decided to pretend weren't that numerous.
Of course, I would also love to read a history of how the Democrats allowed their state-level parties to collapse so thoroughly between 2010-2016 that the GOP was within a hairs breath of getting a new constitutional convention.
A fair cop. Reagan was their leader, and he led them to a place they already were, Morning in America, just showing them with fresh eyes that there's no place like home. Though a product of the Hollywood Dream Factory, he was grounded in reality, but know how to sell a story. He could have been a model for what the Republican party could present to the voters as a governing ideal, but that's not the road they chose. The whiplash of going from the humiliation of Nixon to the cost-free embrace of the wildly popular Reagan convinced them all they needed was a movie star or its equivalent, and they could go on as before with Nixon. Nixon was the seed of everything the Republican party is today, the racism, paranoia, fixation on enemies. He gave us Roger Stone, among others. At least Nixon cared about foreign policy as a Great Game to play. But one Reagan left the scene (I count GWHB as his coda, though the old spook started dismantling that sunny optimism), there was no moderating influence grounded in reality. Instead, we got GWB, an amiable dry drunk that Cheney played like a cheap fiddle. And then Trump, who apparantly played Cheney like a cheap fiddle. The question is why was Reaganism so easily abandoned. From what little I know, Thatcherism was also dropped pretty quickly by the Tories.
My biggest fear for October is Netanyahu taking military action to intentionally strain the U.S. Democratic coalition and help to justify his continuity in office despite his string of failures.
Trump is that grabby Uncle who wants to sit with the nieces at Thanksgiving while Kamala is the organizer Aunt coming out of the kitchen and ordering telling him to take out the trash.
No. Trying to “debate” an irrational person is exhausting. I was exhausted from the lies. I would not wish further “debates” or interaction on her. The more I think about it, the more I appreciate her suggestion that his rallies be attended. Probably hit him harder than anything else.
https://open.substack.com/pub/slyle/p/welcome-swifties?r=tax3g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
She has: 'in court' is where these skills were honed.
Regardless of the election outcome, it’s clear that Trump has ceded the lead he had after the assassination attempt. We shall see how this plays out.