The real problem is that Republicans are deeply afraid of Democrats

[Hayabusa Rider]

First of all, define perpetuity. I mean, even if the Republican party completely collapsed it would quickly be replaced by something else or Democrats would split into 2 parties.

That would be ideal.

 

[Viper1j]

They should be afraid... VERY afraid..

 

[dank69]

Oh, you suggested it remember? It's weird to suggest that one party having control forever is a great thing. That's a bigliest brain who endorses that.

For NOW, the Dems need to be in the drivers seat. Some other party may emerge which is worthy of consideration and power corrupts over time.

It's the nature of humans and politics.

I didn't suggest it. That is you putting words in my mouth. There are plenty of possibilities in between one party rule being a disaster and being great.

 

[Jhhnn]

Nonsense. When has one party rule in perpetuity been a good thing? Never.

Your suggestion that Dems will ever achieve that is dishonest concern trolling.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Your suggestion that Dems will ever achieve that is dishonest concern trolling.

It won't happen because people, not the party, will make it so. Of course you'd apologize away if that was presented because that is your nature.

 

[Jhhnn]

It won't happen because people, not the party, will make it so. Of course you'd apologize away if that was presented because that is your nature.

That's scurrilous innuendo. The way to achieve one party minority rule is to reduce the eligible electorate & gerrymandering, not by expanding the electorate & eliminating gerrymandering. If Dems ever achieve one party rule it will be through democratic means. The same can't be said for the GOP.

 

[HurleyBird]

I think you're basically correct OP, but specifically, I imagine Republicans are afraid because of the perception that the Dems are shifting to appease the far left minority ultra-woke Twitter crowd, and this fear is amplified in the primary season where to a certain extent you need to pander to the extremes.

But it's not a blanked fear, and depending on the eventual nominee it could dissipate. Biden is easy to ridicule, but isn't very frightening. Tulsi Gabbard will never be the nominee, but she's not a candidate that would evoke much fear for right leaning individuals at all. Even Yang, who is in some ways more economically left than the rest, isn't that frightening because he comes across as this authentic somewhat socially awkward, well-meaning nerd. That last thing from an evangelical leftist.

But the thing is that we're stuck in a positive feedback loop. The right goes further right, the left gets angry and goes further left, the right gets angry and goes further right, and so on. I don't care who is to blame for starting it... but it needs to end. Both teams need to start looking at more moderate candidates, not ones with religious zeal, not ones that fire up the base. And it's not even really so much about policy as much as it is about presentation and perception. The alternative is that we'll forever be divided and at each other's throats.

 

[Jhhnn]

I think you're basically correct OP, but specifically, I imagine Republicans are afraid because of the perception that the Dems are shifting to appease the far left minority ultra-woke Twitter crowd, and this fear is amplified in the primary season where to a certain extent you need to pander to the extremes.

But it's not a blanked fear, and depending on the eventual nominee it could dissipate. Biden is easy to ridicule, but isn't very frightening. Tulsi Gabbard will never be the nominee, but she's not a candidate that would evoke much fear for right leaning individuals at all. Even Yang, who is in some ways more economically left than the rest, isn't that frightening because he comes across as this authentic somewhat socially awkward, well-meaning nerd. That last thing from an evangelical leftist.

But the thing is that we're stuck in a positive feedback loop. The right goes further right, the left gets angry and goes further left, the right gets angry and goes further right, and so on. I don't care who is to blame for starting it... but it needs to end. Both teams need to start looking at more moderate candidates, not ones with religious zeal, not ones that fire up the base. And it's not even really so much about policy as much as it is about presentation and perception. The alternative is that we'll forever be divided and at each other's throats.

That's ridiculous. The battling slogans in 2016 were "Stronger Together!" vs "Crooked Hillary!" & "Fuck You, Libtards!" The whole schtick of Making AOC the face of the Democratic party is also extremely dishonest. She's not. And if Democrats are shifting left it's only back in the direction of their New Deal & Great Society roots they strayed from in the past. If you think about it much at all you'll realize that Clinton was the best Republican President since Eisenhower.

 

[UNCjigga]

If you think about it much at all you'll realize that Clinton was the best Republican President since Eisenhower.

Then Obama was the 2nd-best Republican President. He gave us Heritage Foundation-based Romneycare, reduced deficits, and ramped up deportation and detention of illegals.

 

[Jhhnn]

Then Obama was the 2nd-best Republican President. He gave us Heritage Foundation-based Romneycare, reduced deficits, and ramped up deportation and detention of illegals.

So what are they afraid of, other than the misattributions of Limbaugh & a whole constellation of right wing talking heads? They've been progressively gaslit for decades until they finally got goofy enough to elect Trump.

Obama did reverse course on deportations & issue an EO protecting the Dreamers. The latter was extremely popular, even across across party lines.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Have you read this thread?

What should we do with the 60 million people who voted for trump?

They clearly don’t has the wisdom to be entrusted with real responsibilty. But when trump is gone what do we do with them?

forums.anandtech.com

 

[Moonbeam]

Since this thread regards both an attempt to explain political behavior and has raised the question of human nature regarding power and corruption, I will throw my two cents in with my usual explanation.

When we study the psychology of people, we study man as he is but not as he can be. This is because, in my opinion, only a very few people have evolved to their full potential and thus only a few people know what it means to be human. This is because humanity suffers from the disease of self hate, doesn't know it and doesn't want not only not to know it but not to know they don't. This is because what we feel but do not know we feel is our deepest truth and what unconsciously motivates our behavior.

Se what we really fear is the truth of how we feel and the enemy can't be seen to be us so the enemy must be out there. What Republicans fear is that Democrats will make them feel worthless because it is what they do feel and unconsciously they will create the Democrat that will do that to them. We create what we fear. We cause our own destruction.

The reason that power always corrupts is that power will always corrupt people who hate themselves because it is power that gives the ability to create what we fear. Power, in other words corrupts those who are corruptable. It does not affect those whose self worth derives from having rooted out all self hate. God is the mirror of human potential and this makes God real.

Republicans are holy warriors who fight for the good but do not know what the good is. This is the root of all blind bigotry. We know there is a good and a God as just described, but we are terrified to know who or what that good is. The ego is our external bluff that we do not fear and everything it touches and creates is self flattery. What we call knowing is just another face of ego, a story we believe to keep from feeling.

 

[Moonbeam]

Have you read this thread?

What should we do with the 60 million people who voted for trump?

They clearly don’t has the wisdom to be entrusted with real responsibilty. But when trump is gone what do we do with them?

forums.anandtech.com

Everything you fear has already happened.

 

[dawp]

if ya drop the last 2 word of the thread title it would be much more accurate.

 

[Moonbeam]

if ya drop the last 2 word of the thread title it would be much more accurate.

The effort needs to be on understanding what fear actually is. Republicans are afraid, we know from neuroscience they are focused more on issues of fear than liberals are. We know they are more likely to rationalize away their fears than liberals. But none of this tells us what fear really is. We know that what conservatives fear is feeling, taking in, considering data that causes ego anxiety, that threatens comfortable opinions they have about reality. We know that fear is irrational and we avoid it like the plague. So what is this emotion we call fear. it isn't an emotion at all in my opinion. It is the suppression of feeling, numbness to the point of psychic death, a massive effort to suppress some sudden tidal wave of feeling that threatens to come into consciousness. Fear is the onset of those events of suppressed memory when we were forced to go to sleep, to deny our real selves in order to survive our conditioning. We saved ourselves by surrendering, by ceasing to really be. We bottled up our rage and hate for those who caused us to die or they would have really killed us had we not. What we fear is to awaken and take back our life, to love again.

The addition of Democrats tells us on whom conservatives project as cause what was done to them. What they articulate as being wrong with Democrats tells us a bit about what happened to them. Whether you say this is or isn't more accurate, it is more useful psychologically.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

This is a reptilian brain fear response to "not self" which has not been much changed in those who adopted the Republican's fear as a basic core value.

 

[pmv]

I'm always intrigued by how US and UK politics seem to march in lockstep, with parallel, but also sligihtly different and localised, developments occurring at the same time. From Thatcher/Reagan through Clinton/Blair it's been that way. There are just so many parallels, even the wanna-be-despot's hair is similar.

The Johnson-apologist squad (aka the amalgamated union of cap-doffers and forelock-tuggers, desperate to find an old Etonian whose boots they can shine) are just exasperating in the transparency of their dishonesty. They are all currently reiterating the same talking points in their attempt to excuse his recent verbal thuggery. But they aren't very sophisticated about it, it's just too obvious that they are just all cribbing the same whataboutery from each other to try and distract from the fact that Johnson's clown mask has slipped, revealing the opportunist thug beneath.

But a curious thing is how they aren't quite on the same page as the corporate classes. Some of the traditional capitalist class seem to be more afraid of the Brexiters than of Corbyn. On both sides of the Atlantic there are clearly mutliple different factions manoeuvring around each other - the resurected left, the corporate right, the centrist technocrats, the angry thugs, etc. This is not the traditional neo-liberal right, it's mutated and spawned something new.

The fact that this is an international, even global, phenomenon suggests to me it can't be explained by purely psychological factors.

 

[Perknose]

I'm always intrigued by how US and UK politics seem to march in lockstep, with parallel, but also sligihtly different and localised, developments occurring at the same time. From Thatcher/Reagan through Clinton/Blair it's been that way. There are just so many parallels, even the wanna-be-despot's hair is similar.

The Johnson-apologist squad (aka the amalgamated union of cap-doffers and forelock-tuggers, desperate to find an old Etonian whose boots they can shine) are just exasperating in the transparency of their dishonesty. They are all currently reiterating the same talking points in their attempt to excuse his recent verbal thuggery. But they aren't very sophisticated about it, it's just too obvious that they are just all cribbing the same whataboutery from each other to try and distract from the fact that Johnson's clown mask has slipped, revealing the opportunist thug beneath.

But a curious thing is how they aren't quite on the same page as the corporate classes. Some of the traditional capitalist class seem to be more afraid of the Brexiters than of Corbyn. On both sides of the Atlantic there are clearly mutliple different factions manoeuvring around each other - the resurected left, the corporate right, the centrist technocrats, the angry thugs, etc. This is not the traditional neo-liberal right, it's mutated and spawned something new.

The fact that this is an international, even global, phenomenon suggests to me it can't be explained by purely psychological factors.

Excellent analysis!

 

[interchange]

I'm always intrigued by how US and UK politics seem to march in lockstep, with parallel, but also sligihtly different and localised, developments occurring at the same time. From Thatcher/Reagan through Clinton/Blair it's been that way. There are just so many parallels, even the wanna-be-despot's hair is similar.

The Johnson-apologist squad (aka the amalgamated union of cap-doffers and forelock-tuggers, desperate to find an old Etonian whose boots they can shine) are just exasperating in the transparency of their dishonesty. They are all currently reiterating the same talking points in their attempt to excuse his recent verbal thuggery. But they aren't very sophisticated about it, it's just too obvious that they are just all cribbing the same whataboutery from each other to try and distract from the fact that Johnson's clown mask has slipped, revealing the opportunist thug beneath.

But a curious thing is how they aren't quite on the same page as the corporate classes. Some of the traditional capitalist class seem to be more afraid of the Brexiters than of Corbyn. On both sides of the Atlantic there are clearly mutliple different factions manoeuvring around each other - the resurected left, the corporate right, the centrist technocrats, the angry thugs, etc. This is not the traditional neo-liberal right, it's mutated and spawned something new.

The fact that this is an international, even global, phenomenon suggests to me it can't be explained by purely psychological factors.

I actually draw the opposite conclusion. The parallel highlights how the labels Republican and Democrats and their underlying platforms have nothing to do with why humans end up organizing in this way.

 

[pmv]

I actually draw the opposite conclusion. The parallel highlights how the labels Republican and Democrats and their underlying platforms have nothing to do with why humans end up organizing in this way.

Hard to say whether I disagree without being clearer what the argument is. I mean, yes, political disputes always involve psychology, in a way, but people's psychology depends on the conditions they are in. Material conditions form their psychology and also determine where that psychology takes them.

I suppose I just always incline to see things more sociologically than psychologically, but they might not be exclusive/contradictory.

Just that right now, people the world over seem to be experiencing something common in terms of those conditions, hence thuggish strongmen coming to the fore all over the shop. But with local variations (our opportunist amoral egotist spouts Latin and classical Greek while yours... can barely manage English). I don't think global human psychology has suddenly changed, seems to me it's more that something in the wider conditions has bought certain psychological traits to the fore.

 

[hal2kilo]

I'm always intrigued by how US and UK politics seem to march in lockstep, with parallel, but also sligihtly different and localised, developments occurring at the same time. From Thatcher/Reagan through Clinton/Blair it's been that way. There are just so many parallels, even the wanna-be-despot's hair is similar.

The Johnson-apologist squad (aka the amalgamated union of cap-doffers and forelock-tuggers, desperate to find an old Etonian whose boots they can shine) are just exasperating in the transparency of their dishonesty. They are all currently reiterating the same talking points in their attempt to excuse his recent verbal thuggery. But they aren't very sophisticated about it, it's just too obvious that they are just all cribbing the same whataboutery from each other to try and distract from the fact that Johnson's clown mask has slipped, revealing the opportunist thug beneath.

But a curious thing is how they aren't quite on the same page as the corporate classes. Some of the traditional capitalist class seem to be more afraid of the Brexiters than of Corbyn. On both sides of the Atlantic there are clearly mutliple different factions manoeuvring around each other - the resurected left, the corporate right, the centrist technocrats, the angry thugs, etc. This is not the traditional neo-liberal right, it's mutated and spawned something new.

The fact that this is an international, even global, phenomenon suggests to me it can't be explained by purely psychological factors.

It's called Russian disinformation.

 

[Moonbeam]

Hard to say whether I disagree without being clearer what the argument is. I mean, yes, political disputes always involve psychology, in a way, but people's psychology depends on the conditions they are in. Material conditions form their psychology and also determine where that psychology takes them.

I suppose I just always incline to see things more sociologically than psychologically, but they might not be exclusive/contradictory.

Just that right now, people the world over seem to be experiencing something common in terms of those conditions, hence thuggish strongmen coming to the fore all over the shop. But with local variations (our opportunist amoral egotist spouts Latin and classical Greek while yours... can barely manage English). I don't think global human psychology has suddenly changed, seems to me it's more that something in the wider conditions has bought certain psychological traits to the fore.

Humanity faces extinction. The conditions you see are the result of the fact that everywhere among men of intelligence and self reflection this fact is becoming more and more obvious necessitating a stronger and stronger reaction among those so deeply frightened or reality they are desperate in searching for ways to stay asleep. To be or not to be. It has always been the question.

 

[pmv]

It's called Russian disinformation.

I've said before I just don't buy that. Not as a total explanation. That becomes a conspiracy theory, and the world doesn't work that way, it's far too simple/glib an explanation. Which isn't to say Putin isn't playing his part in trying to foster the global trend, but it would still be there without him. It's just the same trend developing independently all over the place.

No way is 'Putin' the explanation for Trump, Johnson, Erdogan, Modi, Bolsonaro, Orban, whichever ultra conservative anti-democrat is currently in charge of Poland (can't be bothered to google the name), the current Italian government, Duturte (who maybe not quite the same phenomenon, as the Philippines have had a long line of anti-democratic rulers, but I'm lumping him in there anyway)

By all means investigate Trump's Russian (and Ukrainian) connections (and it wouldn't surprise me if the Tories dont' have connection also - their treasurer, who bailed them out as a party, seems to have had connections to Russian businesses) but Putin is just not all-powerful, he can only barely maintain control of Russia, he's not determining the course of the politics of the whole globe.

 

[Jhhnn]

Nonsense. When has one party rule in perpetuity been a good thing? Never.

"In perpetuity" is jumping to conclusions, don't you think? The GOP morphed themselves into what they are today & they can morph into something else as they please.

 

[JEDIYoda]

The GOP are afraid of the Democrats because the GOP treat everybody like SOB`s and they know that their behavior is catching up with them!!