The American Politics Thread

I don't consider trump a real republican, he's just a con artist that hijacked the party for his own purposes. He was going to run for president as a democrat in 2008 (with Jesse Ventura, who I think turned him down). In the following election he ran under some small party that I don't recall the name of.
Unfortunately he has dragged the repub party down and attracted some real nut cases. Compare him to previous candidates like McCain or Romney, all the difference in the world.

Edited by Easy Money - November 04 2021 at 15:24

Easy Money wrote: SteveG wrote: Easy Money wrote: I don't consider trump a real republican, he's just a con artist that hijacked the party for his own purposes. He was going to run for president as a democrat in 2008 (with Jesse Ventura, who I think turned him down). In the following election he ran under some small party that I don't recall the name of. Unfortunately he has dragged the repub party down and attracted some real nut cases. Compare him to previous candidates like McCain or Romney, all the difference in the world. The problem with an non Trumper repub as president is that he will still have a brainwashed Trumpian congress. I don't know if you recall when the 60s repubs had to purge themselves of the John Birch Society that was trying to take over the party. William Buckley led the charge on that. Then a few years later Goldwater was speaking out against the growing religious right in the party such as Pat Buchanan and Oral Roberts and trying to encourage the party not to go that route. Seems the economic conservatives are always having to deal with the paranoid religious social conservatives, its an ongoing ordeal in that party.

True on all counts. It was Newt who drove me out of the party. Now I miss him. 

Atavachron wrote: I miss Buckley a lot, and watching his old Firing Line show.   Goldwater not so much--  he said, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice", and made Richard Nixon look like Mr. Rogers.

Goldwater was referring to Communist expansion which was a big deal in the mid-60s. I'm hardly a fan of Goldwater in all of his aspects, but at the time of this quote he was taking a political stance against international communist expansionism, hoping for electable political advantage. He certainly wasn't advocating something like the jan 6 riots. He would have hated that nonsense.

His resistance to the civil rights bill of the mid sixties was reprehensible.

But, compared to today's trumpateers, his understanding of government guided by constitutional restrictions and his resistance to religion based ideology is sorely missed in today's repub party.

Edited by Easy Money - November 06 2021 at 08:17

^Actually, that would be Lindsey Graham

Apparently the infrastructure bill finally passed in the House. Now the centrists are agreeing to vote on the domestic programs bill later in November after the CBO sees if its costs line-up with what the WH estimates.

There are 2 ways to stop our current world lunacy.  Through the court systems, of which there are many cases pending not just in the United States but all over the world.  This is somewhat of a slow process and will take some time.

The other way to end the insanity is through mass non-compliance.

 

U.S. federal appeals court freezes Biden's vaccine rule for companies

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-federal-appeals-court-issues-stay-bidens-vaccine-rule-us-companies-2021-11-06/

So, the infrastructure bill was signed. Yay. So, I think there's a lot of good things in there. I especially like funding for charging station infrastructure, electrical grid improvements, replacing lead pipes, and broadband upgrade. This kind of bill was long overdue.