Jump to content

US Politics: Borrow And Spend Conservatism Marches On


Mr. Chatywin et al.

Recommended Posts

4 minutes ago, Fez said:

Even a sacrificial lamb campaign costs money, and the Illinois GOP needs all the money it can get for their doomed campaign to re-elect Gov. Rauner (He's even less popular than Trump in the state).

Except Rauner isn't going to be helped at all if one of the 18 congressional districts is running an actual Nazi, which will certainly depress turnout of Republicans in that district, if not statewide.  And how much money are we talking about here?  $10k?  That's not going to buy you a lot of advertising in Illinois. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What makes it even more frustrating is that the party in control of government actually does want to pass legislation to protect DACA recipients. You could put a clean DREAM Act on the floor in both chambers and it would pass. But Republicans won’t do this for two reasons, (i) they want to extract as many concessions as possible from Democrats and (ii) they’re terrified that the most radical part of their base will revolt against them. They’re literally letting a small faction dictate their party’s policies.

Ryan promised that as speaker he would never put an immigration bill on the floor that didn't have the support of the majority of Republicans.  A clean DREAMer bill has 50 House Republican votes at most.  And the 2006 Immigration bill got torpedoed when Republican Senators filibustered.  While there are a few Republican senators in favor of helping the DREAMers, the list is short, and I'm not sure there are 11 of them such that a bipartisan bill could pass. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I disagree. Polling consistently shows that a majority of Republicans want the dreamers to be protected. That said, protected means different things to different people. And on top of that, the main problem is that while a majority of people want to protect dreamers, for most it’s a low priority issue, while it’s a high priority issue for those who want to deport them. Trump won the primary because of his hard line stance on immigration, and the Republican party is well aware of that. That’s why it’s so hard to make a deal.

Yes, but it also shows only a small minority supports shutting down the government to get those protections. Even among Democrats only a plurality, 49%, support a shutdown over DACA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: the religious right and Trump. You guys do remember Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? Jimmy Swaggart? All the other scandal-ridden televangelists whose audiences were happy to forgive their adultery, corruption and hypocrisy so long as they gave those audiences the cover they needed to indulge their bigotry and hatred and feel like good Christian Americans while doing it?

Basically the only difference between those guys and Trump is that Trump makes less effort to pretend he's read a bible recently. It's no mystery why evangelicals would support him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Sword of Doom said:

Wasn't some sea lion trying to convince us that Nazis will never be influential or powerful enough to be a threat? I guess that's true, as long as you're a mediocre middle-aged white Trumpkin. The rest of us may need to be a little more alert to the racism in police departments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, mormont said:

Re: the religious right and Trump. You guys do remember Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? Jimmy Swaggart? All the other scandal-ridden televangelists whose audiences were happy to forgive their adultery, corruption and hypocrisy so long as they gave those audiences the cover they needed to indulge their bigotry and hatred and feel like good Christian Americans while doing it?

Basically the only difference between those guys and Trump is that Trump makes less effort to pretend he's read a bible recently. It's no mystery why evangelicals would support him.

I'm sorry, Mormont, but this is a gross overstatement. Both Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart were defrocked by the Assemblies of God denomination because of their scandals, and they certainly have nowhere near the influence they did before them. They are just not major players at all in the world of televangelists anymore. It just isn't true that the majority of their audiences "forgave" them because if that was true you'd still be hearing as much about them as you hear about Pat Robertson, the main Christian right TV personality who is of their generation who is also still alive and active. The American media still pays attention to what Robertson says (unfortunately) but they don't hardly ever mention Swaggart or Bakker at all, which they would if they had anywhere near the influence they used to. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Ryan promised that as speaker he would never put an immigration bill on the floor that didn't have the support of the majority of Republicans.  A clean DREAMer bill has 50 House Republican votes at most.  And the 2006 Immigration bill got torpedoed when Republican Senators filibustered.  While there are a few Republican senators in favor of helping the DREAMers, the list is short, and I'm not sure there are 11 of them such that a bipartisan bill could pass. 

And some such as Marco Roboto were burned by past immigration reform attempts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, mormont said:

Re: the religious right and Trump. You guys do remember Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? Jimmy Swaggart? All the other scandal-ridden televangelists whose audiences were happy to forgive their adultery, corruption and hypocrisy so long as they gave those audiences the cover they needed to indulge their bigotry and hatred and feel like good Christian Americans while doing it?

Basically the only difference between those guys and Trump is that Trump makes less effort to pretend he's read a bible recently. It's no mystery why evangelicals would support him.

Well, yeah I am from the 80's, so I remember them. Doesn't mean I understand why they think this way. It is quite alien to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I'm sorry, Mormont, but this is a gross overstatement. Both Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart were defrocked by the Assemblies of God denomination because of their scandals, and they certainly have nowhere near the influence they did before them. They are just not major players at all in the world of televangelists anymore. It just isn't true that the majority of their audiences "forgave" them because if that was true you'd still be hearing as much about them as you hear about Pat Robertson, the main Christian right TV personality who is of their generation who is also still alive and active. The American media still pays attention to what Robertson says (unfortunately) but they don't hardly ever mention Swaggart or Bakker at all, which they would if they had anywhere near the influence they used to. 

Because of their sex scandals, perhaps. But Swaggart and the Bakkers, and Robertson and many others, were and are allowed with absolute impunity by their flocks to engage in grift and corruption and live lives of immodest wealth on church donations, so long as they preached that hatred and bigotry were OK with God.

Even with the sex scandals, all of them used their TV shows to beg for forgiveness and many of their flock did forgive them, even if their church didn't. Jim Bakker went back to televangelism after prison (where, he admitted, he read the Bible all the way through for the first time in his life) and made a good living at it.

So, is Trump more successful than those guys in some ways? Yes. Does the history of the religious right suggest that many of them are suckers for charismatic con men, so long as those con men pander to intolerant views? Absolutely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's a new generation of religious hucksters preaching even more naked greed than Bakker and Swaggart anyway. And they have bought in on the thrice-married philandering swindler and vulgarian from New York. They have provided cover for him with their flocks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

There is speculation that she may be aware of things she wants no part of, like say certain upcoming firings that would have promoted her.

That would be the most logical reason for her leaving - she doesn't want to be next in line.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...