(September 13, 2017 at 8:09 am)Anomalocaris Wrote:(September 13, 2017 at 7:59 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: The Republicans have chained themselves to a corpse. They can either go along with his initiatives and suffer at the polls, or stand up to him and arouse his ego to new Twitter-tantrum heights.
And suffer at the polls.
The problem with the "fuck truth, fuck prudence, fuck principles of government and economics, fuck public decorum, fuck science, fuck everyone else to enrich a small constituency" approach adopted by the republicans is people exactly agreeing with them each one of these are not all their their friends, and may have a different idea of who is the small constituency, and who is everyone else.
Exactly. We are witnessing the continued fragmentation of the Republicans, which started in the 90s under Bush the Elder, reached a tipping-point with the Tea Party's rise, and now sees them riven into three camps -- businessmen, religiotypes, and fundamentalist libertarians -- who will sway, or stay away, as they see fit.
No matter how the Republicans in Congress vote, they stand to alienate some supporters, and as a result the candidates up for election will adjudge for themselves the tides at the moment of their campaigns. In so doing they may well (and I think they will) find themselves as fragmented as the Democrats even as the latter are impelled to greater cohesion fighting the dangers they see.
Two years ago, I thought we were seeing their implosion. I was wrong in the short term, no doubt, and may well be wrong in the longer term as well, because pendulums have swing. But Trump's presidency, while it lasts, will do them much harm, for the fact that it has highlighted their divides.