From the Washington Post:
“Republicans in general tend to be a group of people who like to view themselves as serious, having decorum, being orderly, being thoughtful,” said Roger Porter, who served as a senior policy official in the White Houses of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and who is now a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
But, he said, Thursday’s debate “was the culmination of a long process of the people running for president this year finding themselves drug into a maelstrom in which they look anything but serious and calm and thoughtful and responsible. That’s very distressing for most Republicans. How did we get to this situation?”
More urgent, many Republicans say, is the question of how they get out of it.
1. Does this description fit members of the Republican party?
2. Can they get out of this maelstrom and if so, how?
When I was a young woman I had the view expressed in the first paragraph of Republicans. They were the grown ups. The Democrats were the party boys and girls. The Democrats had to sit things out for a while. It wasn’t until Bill Clinton ushered in a new era. It looks like the GOP didn’t learn from the mistakes of their arch enemies.
I personally think this is what happens to political parties when there is one set group-think. when people are ridiculed and all required to think alike, things break down.
Americans weren’t made to do group-think. That’s why I won’t belong to a political party. I don’t have one belief system that matches everyone else.
It’s an accurate description and the best way to get out of the maelstrom is to lose catastrophically this year. The only thing they have had in common the past seven years is they dislike Obama. That’s not enough to build a party around. Obama is leaving office for sure in less than a year. They need to find a new identity.
Those Republican poobahs with their so-called decorum and seriousness forgot to pay attention to the base down there where the real people live and often struggle. Now the poobahs are paying the price of their foolishness; and no amount of false promises from the mouths of the politicos nor cash from the usual money bag types nor advice from the self-appointed campaign “experts” appears to be able to overcome the anger in the ranks. The base is looking for the proverbial man on a white horse. Today the pissed off crowds. Screw with them again, and tomorrow comes the real battle.
And, from the numbers of youthful and apparently dissatisfied supporters pulled in by Bernie, it looks like the Dems also were not paying enough attention. Instead of a contest, it looks like they were planning a coronation based on (1) It’s my turn; and (2) I am a woman. But, as a Bernie supporter name Susan Sarandon announced recently, she is not voting her vagina.
Its a good thing she has Trump. If she isn’t voting her vagina, then she can vote his penis, since we know too much about it already. Oh wait, you said Bernie. Thank goodness he has enough good taste not to talk about it with us.
All kidding aside, Wolve, was it their base? Those serious Republicans with good decorum did appeal to their base. I think a different base came along, hopped on board, and more or less took over the party.
Those people I see out there now screaming, bellowing and making obnoxious fools of themselves certainly aren’t the Republicans who voted in George H. W. Bush. They didn’t vote in Ronald Regan Eisenhower or Nixon.
I don’t know where they were in those days. They were probably voting for George Wallace or not even voting. Some of them hadn’t been born. Some of them hadn’t realized that old white men were no longer running the show and the rest of us must shut up.
@MoonHowler
Those are the people who feel they have been betrayed by Bush and by both Republican-controlled houses of Congress. They went along with Bush twice, with McCain, and with Romney,; and have been left holding the bag on the economic, security, immigration, and cultural fronts. None of the Establishment Repubs have done anything they promised to protect the base from Obama and the radical left Dems. The base went to the mat twice — in 2010 and 2014 – and handed the GOP poobahs two big prizes in the House and Senate. And their reward for that was zip. Boehner or Pelosi. McConnell or Reid. It didn’t seem to make much difference.
Now they are fed up and no longer willing to play lemmings to the GOP poobahs. It’s that simple. As the numbers tell you, they are looking for that man on the white horse and to hell with the Establishment jokers like Jeb Bush or Kasich or even Rubio. If they don’t get Trump, they will likely take Cruz. If the poobahs try to screw them over, those poobahs will pay the price. Eisenhower, Nixon, and even Reagan are in the past. Now is now, and the dissent and anger are now. It’s a large cry of “Enough already!” And I’ll bet there are plenty of independents and dissident Democrats in those crowds. And look more closely at those Trump crowds. Lots of women and lots of youth. Those are not “old peep” gatherings.
The last two times out, they were asked to support two candidates in McCain and Romney who both proved to be lame powder puffs on the campaign trail and in presidential debates. It does look to me like they now want someone who will not hesitate to hang all of Obama’s and Hillary’s sins and lies around their necks in front of God and everybody and not make any apologies for doing so. Your side can scoff and insult all you want; but they are spoiling for a real fight this time — a fight for all the marbles.
I don’t know what they want. There are certainly things I would like to have seen happen in the past 8 years that haven’t happened. I don’t go around angry all the time and I certainly don’t think someone who acts like Hitler is the answer.
Tell me 5 things they are angry about. Please. Help me understand acceptance of hideous behavior. Please make it something that isn’t a political sound byte.
I want to defend McCain and Romney. They couldn’t go far right. They would have lost even worse. I would say 20% of people on either side are far left and right. That leaves about 60% of the people in the murky middle. That’s the area where elections are won. No extremist is going to win.
I guess it depends on what you consider an extremist. Compared to Ted Cruz, I am an extremist.
Back when Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan ran, every voter didn’t have access to cable news attempting to warp the minds of the American people. In general, I think voters were far more accurately informed than they are today. Nowadays, everyone fancies him or herself to be an expert on politics.
But, thank you for giving an answer that wasn’t a sound bite.
BTW, I like Jeb Bush. I suppose that is the problem.
@Wolve
I think Wolve’s analysis pretty much nailed it. Can’t add much to it.
The base is looking for a sheeple-herder who will magically restore the 1950s for them. They were dumb enough to vote for the party which broke their unions, exported their jobs, and replaced them with cheaper labor. In return the Republican Party tolerated them for their votes when they should have said “start and fund your own party”. Now they’re stuck with them.
No candidate has yet to explain -sans soundbite – how the jobs are going to re-appear, how the wages are going to rise, or how people are going to become educated without being saddled with debt.
This election cycle is a farce and perhaps some thinking candidates will arise before the next cycle. I think people on both sides are tired of the political class. But mob rule by the dumbest isn’t the solution.