Quo Vadis GOP?

[DGuller]

Maybe objectively it's better, but it's also more depressing when a big minority in a democracy goes "I'd like more rot, please".  At least in Russia and China you can have the illusion that it's a "good people, bad politicians" situation, because technically people don't decide anything.

I mean there's a mechanism for fixing the problem, compared to China and Russia where it's going to be much more free for all if the air ever goes out of the balloon so to speak.

Doesn't mean the US can't fuck it up and not use the mechanism. But at least it's there. If China gets to a point with the CCP has so little credibility that it can no longer function, it's going to be a massive MESS (and that's part of what keeps the CCP in power). Same thing with Russia and Putin-esque oligarchs. In the US, there's a mechanism for the GOP to fade (and potentially be replaced), should it come to that.

That is, IMO, separate from the ability of the corrupt plutocrats to string along x% of the population. My statement is more about what happens when that x becomes too small for the party to continue functioning.

I see your point now, I agree with that.  Authoritarian countries are always one bad leader or one bad succession plan away from a dark age.

[Syt]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/26/gops-strategy-retaking-power-is-uglier-than-you-think/

Opinion: The GOP's strategy for retaking power is uglier than you think

Opinion by Greg Sargent

By now, it should be clear to even the most committed both-sides commentators that Republicans are rerunning their 2009 scorched-earth strategy. Back then, Republicans correctly calculated that if they denied the Democratic president any and all support, he'd bear the blame for a sluggish recovery and they could pillory him for failing to achieve bipartisan cooperation.

But what if the strategy is even more radical this time? What if Republicans have calculated that they can take back at least one chamber of Congress, grinding President Joe Biden's agenda to a halt, even if Biden largely succeeds?

Republicans may well be fully expecting Democrats to pass a series of economic rescue and stimulus proposals — all on their own — that actually do get the economy booming again, even as the vaccine rollout and other policies successfully tame the pandemic.

Yet in this scenario, Republicans still know that even if this happens, they still have a good chance at recapturing the House at a minimum, helped along by a combination of voter suppression and other counter-majoritarian tactics and built-in advantages.

On Friday, House Democrats are set to pass Biden's $1.9 trillion package, which includes $1,400 payments to individuals, extended unemployment assistance, tens of billions of dollars to fight the pandemic and facilitate reopening schools, and much more.

By all indications, virtually every House Republican will vote against the plan. It will move to the Senate, where there are complications, but much of the package will probably pass in a similar form. And just about all Senate Republicans will vote against that, too.

Obviously, Republicans can genuinely oppose this package on principle. But what's striking is that many Republicans aren't even trying to make a strong, intellectually grounded argument.

It's as if they know they don't have to — and know they can recapture power without doing so.

Republicans cede the economic debate

There are numerous signs of this. First, who is today's Paul Ryan? Back in 2009, the then-congressman made a very public case against a stimulus a fraction this big, making an actual argument (if a fraudulent one) about what debt Armageddon would mean for American society.

These days it's harder to make that case. Republicans blew up the deficit with a huge tax cut for the rich, and cheered along as the pre-covid economy was rocket-fueled with stimulus. Economists no longer fear the long-term risks of massive deficit spending amid big crises.

As a result, there's nothing close to the same kind of public argument this time. As Paul Krugman points out:

Who's the face of Republican opposition to the American Rescue Plan? Nobody comes to mind.

Put it this way: Republicans appear to be losing the economic argument in part because they aren't even bothering to show up.

Again, it's as if they know they don't have to.

Republicans punt on child tax credit

Now consider the battle over the child tax credit. The Biden package includes a provision that will send at least $3,000 per child to most families, in monthly installments for one year.

In this case, one Republican — Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah — has seriously engaged the debate, offering his own child tax credit that would be universal and permanent (but offset by spending cuts elsewhere).

The Romney proposal is perfectly tailored for congressional Republicans to adopt. They could use it to negotiate to put their own big stamp on the Biden package — and take credit for it.

But they aren't doing this. Even the supposed populist Republicans have dismissed it as "welfare," reverting to Ryan-esque arguments that cast safety-net programs as debilitating.

As Samuel Hammond and David Koggan point out, Republicans are squandering a major opportunity to demonstrate how "conservative principles" can co-opt the "pro-family, pro-working class high ground." Running on this could be a "huge winner" for GOP candidates in 2022.

Say it with me this time: It's as if they know they don't have to. Why might this be?

A more radicalized opposition

As all this is happening, Republicans are racing forward with an extraordinary array of new voter suppression efforts. Such measures are advancing in Georgia, Florida and Iowa, and in many other states.

In a good roundup of all these new efforts, Ari Berman notes:

After record turnout in 2020, Republican-controlled states appear to be in a race to the bottom to see who can pass the most egregious new barriers to voting.

On top of that, Republicans are openly boasting that their ability to take back the House next year will gain a big lift from extreme gerrymanders. Some experts believe they can do that even if Democrats win the national House popular vote by a margin similar to that of 2020.

It's hard to know how direct the relationship is between the GOP's ceding of the field in the economic debate on one hand, and the party's increasing commitment to rigging electoral maps and making it harder to vote on the other.

But this confluence does suggest a more radicalized approach to opposition than in 2009. As I recount in my book, it wasn't until after the GOP's 2010 sweep of state legislatures across the country that Republicans undertook the massive spate of voter suppression efforts that characterized the past decade.

Since then, we've seen Republicans again win the White House while losing the popular vote; the installation of two Supreme Court justices via scorched-earth procedural warfare; widespread GOP support for an effort to overturn a national election; a GOP president trying to make that happen by fomenting mob violence; and in the aftermath of it all, a large doubling down on counter-majoritarian tactics.

So is there any reason to doubt that they're primarily counting on more of the same as their path back to power this time?

[Syt]

Apparently this golden calf statue of Trump at CPAC was made in Mexico.

[crazy canuck]

Something about a golden calf comes to mind.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Something about a golden calf comes to mind.

Prosperity protestants have been doing shit like that for years.  It is OK for them when they do it.

[Eddie Teach]

Something about a golden calf comes to mind.

Well, Syt did subliminally plant the idea in your head. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Yes a golden idol holding a fairie wand and sporting shorts violating the flag code.  An appropriate mascot for devoutly Christian limited government patriot constitutionalists.

[jimmy olsen]

Yes a golden idol holding a fairie wand and sporting shorts violating the flag code.  An appropriate mascot for devoutly Christian limited government patriot constitutionalists.

It's literally beyond parody.

[Jacob]

Though I read somewhere it was made by an American artist living in Mexico (with Mexican assistants). He rolled it in there in the hopes of getting someone to buy a stainless steel version for Trump's presidential library for $1 million. The artist has, apparently, also gone on the record as saying that while he voted for Trump he's not really a big fan.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/540841-artist-behind-golden-trump-statue-at-cpac-says-he-made-it-in

[crazy canuck]

Something about a golden calf comes to mind.

Well, Syt did subliminally plant the idea in your head. 

Ha! you are right.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I do wonder if Covid was our Chernobyl

Of course the fascinating thing is many people, including me, thought it might be China's. And yet, one year on, can people think of any weaknesses in the Chinese system that's been revealed by this pandemic? I can't to be honest - which is not what I expected or thought this time last year. It is certainly a form output legitimacy in some way.

The picture looks quite different in Europe and the Americas.

I think the west has frankly become too democratic and too egalitarian. I have little doubt 1950s or 1960s America would have performed much better than China on handling covid (even 1950s America vs modern day China.) The reason has nothing to do with technology, legal differences or etc. It's entirely cultural. We had a culture in America where most people respected authority back then. We were a democratic society, but one in which a system of experts and elites kinda ran things, and ordinary people participated in selecting leaders but mostly understood "there's people far smarter and far more capable than myself who should run things and make most of the important decisions, and on most issues I'm going to do what they say." Everyone is their own expert now, their own constitutional scholar, their own pastor, their own scientist etc. This makes us incredibly sensitive to viral disinformation efforts.

China actually has a lot of viral disinformation efforts too, but they have a unifying understanding that you listen to and do what the government says. And the government's coronavirus response was largely ran by experts willing to do what was necessary to halt the virus's spread. In the United States (and I'll extend this to much of the west) we have a bunch of people who have gotten out of the habit of doing what they're told.

[crazy canuck]

Surprising no one, Otto thinks democracy is a weakness.  Ah the good old days of the 60s, when the US Government could lie about foreign wars and sort of get away with it.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Modern American democracy is absolutely a weakness. In most respects I think the Chinese system far, far superior to the modern forms of democracy utilized in much of the West. I think there are forms of free society that would rectify many of these weaknesses, but I don't believe that we have the political will to go in that direction.

Going back 250 years, a big advantage of non-democratic systems of government is the people were abjectly unsuited and incapable of managing their affairs. In theory someone like a monarch, decently educated and supporting various norms, who then delegates most decision making to elites who have specific competencies in day to day affairs, is a lot better than letting a bunch of imbeciles run the country. As we started to see post-Enlightenment democracies develop I think we started to see we could do a lot better than that, but it was always tied to a more limited franchise. The franchise was expanded (throughout the West) in the 19th century and into the early 20th, and frankly--things got better. Corruption was lessened, economic growth improved, while never perfect the political process seemed to be better in many cases. The worst countries in the early 20th century were the ones who had failed to establish democratic traditions. While by the mid-20th century democracy was very broadly participatory all throughout the West, some of the cultural safeguards that kept the imbecile masses from running things were still in place. Most of those safeguards have been eroded now by generations of shitty talk radio, the Internet (particularly social media), and 24 hour cable news.

[crazy canuck]

Modern American democracy is absolutely a weakness. In most respects I think the Chinese system far, far superior to the modern forms of democracy utilized in much of the West. I think there are forms of free society that would rectify many of these weaknesses, but I don't believe that we have the political will to go in that direction.

Going back 250 years, a big advantage of non-democratic systems of government is the people were abjectly unsuited and incapable of managing their affairs. In theory someone like a monarch, decently educated and supporting various norms, who then delegates most decision making to elites who have specific competencies in day to day affairs, is a lot better than letting a bunch of imbeciles run the country. As we started to see post-Enlightenment democracies develop I think we started to see we could do a lot better than that, but it was always tied to a more limited franchise. The franchise was expanded (throughout the West) in the 19th century and into the early 20th, and frankly--things got better. Corruption was lessened, economic growth improved, while never perfect the political process seemed to be better in many cases. The worst countries in the early 20th century were the ones who had failed to establish democratic traditions. While by the mid-20th century democracy was very broadly participatory all throughout the West, some of the cultural safeguards that kept the imbecile masses from running things were still in place. Most of those safeguards have been eroded now by generations of shitty talk radio, the Internet (particularly social media), and 24 hour cable news.

As Grumbler would say, quoting this for future reference.

[Josquius]

As Grumbler would say, quoting this for future reference.

Pascal's OVB's Wager.
If the Chinese take over the world then he has proven his reliability to our new overlords.
If they don't....well, free country innit? :p