Quo Vadis GOP?

[Admiral Yi]

It was 12 years of repressed anti PC rage bubbling out.

[Threviel]

And in Sweden openly supporting democracy is best avoided if you don't want to be called evil, which is very different from the situation say 30 years ago.

Huh? What are you mumbling about?

*shrug* I can only report what I see and experience.

I'm intrigued, tell me more.

See above.

Reading comprehension fail

I don't really agree with you, there's no difference from 30 years ago. You have a rose-tinted view of the past. There were the same debates when nazi's ran around on Nov 30th in the early nineties.

What has changed, and that's more of a 70's thing is the consensus politics. The Social Democrats always respected the opposition and let them have influence, but that changed with Palme and that's a loooong time ago. The lack of consensus makes the loser disrespect the decisions and that shit might trickle down. Nowadays they can't even agree on long term defense politics...

[The Brain]

And in Sweden openly supporting democracy is best avoided if you don't want to be called evil, which is very different from the situation say 30 years ago.

Huh? What are you mumbling about?

*shrug* I can only report what I see and experience.

I'm intrigued, tell me more.

See above.

Reading comprehension fail

I don't really agree with you, there's no difference from 30 years ago. You have a rose-tinted view of the past. There were the same debates when nazi's ran around on Nov 30th in the early nineties.

What has changed, and that's more of a 70's thing is the consensus politics. The Social Democrats always respected the opposition and let them have influence, but that changed with Palme and that's a loooong time ago. The lack of consensus makes the loser disrespect the decisions and that shit might trickle down. Nowadays they can't even agree on long term defense politics...

I'm glad your experience is better than mine. 30 years ago I felt that it was possible to defend democracy without being called evil/Nazi. I don't feel that today. And I certainly won't defend democracy in public in Sweden ever again.

[Threviel]

I'm glad your experience is better than mine. 30 years ago I felt that it was possible to defend democracy without being called evil/Nazi. I don't feel that today. And I certainly won't defend democracy in public in Sweden ever again.

Well, I don't live in the silly shrill hysteric world of our royal capital.

[The Brain]

I'm glad your experience is better than mine. 30 years ago I felt that it was possible to defend democracy without being called evil/Nazi. I don't feel that today. And I certainly won't defend democracy in public in Sweden ever again.

Well, I don't live in the silly shrill hysteric world of our royal capital.

My interaction with Swedes is mostly online.

[Threviel]

My interaction with Swedes is mostly online.

Online and offline are very different in my experience. Most sensible people don't post politics on Flashback, Facebook and Aftonbladet. It is a very loud and very small minority I hope.

[The Brain]

My interaction with Swedes is mostly online.

Online and offline are very different in my experience. Most sensible people don't post politics on Flashback, Facebook and Aftonbladet. It is a very loud and very small minority I hope.

Haven't used any of those. My experience is that it's not a matter of online/offline.

[Threviel]

Haven't used any of those. My experience is that it's not a matter of online/offline.

Ok. Try associating with better people.

[The Brain]

Haven't used any of those. My experience is that it's not a matter of online/offline.

Ok. Try associating with better people.

Me living in a bubble wouldn't affect the world outside the bubble.

It's certainly possible that I'm completely misreading the situation in Sweden. But I think it's unlikely.

[alfred russel]

My understanding is that in the Nixon era GOP senators were prepared to tell a GOP president to go over something as trivial as Watergate. Today such a scenario is unthinkable.

I disagree that watergate was trivial. But that said, the context was quite a bit different: Nixon's public support collapsed in a way that Trump's didn't. As Nixon's public support collapsed, so did his congressional support.

Why Nixon's support collapsed is debatable, but it certainly didn't hurt that Democrats had comfortable majorities and could control the process. Republicans either controlled the Senate when Trump was president or, as he left office, the Democrats got control of a 50-50 body with Harris as the tie breaking vote (and ran a much abbreviated trial on a very rushed time frame due to competing priorities).

The House inquiry to begin considering impeachment of Nixon was on October 30 and he didn't resign until August 20 of the following year. That initial House vote was a straight party line vote with no support from Republicans. The House had a month and a half of public hearings. Had the House and Senate moved on the timeframe used with Trump, and without hearings, I suspect Nixon would have served out his term.

Also, 7 republican senators did vote to convict. In a 50-50 senate that is a footnote, but in a 57-43 senate, 7 republican defectors would have left the president a stone's throw from removal.

[The Brain]

My understanding is that in the Nixon era GOP senators were prepared to tell a GOP president to go over something as trivial as Watergate. Today such a scenario is unthinkable.

I disagree that watergate was trivial. But that said, the context was quite a bit different: Nixon's public support collapsed in a way that Trump's didn't. As Nixon's public support collapsed, so did his congressional support.

Why Nixon's support collapsed is debatable, but it certainly didn't hurt that Democrats had comfortable majorities and could control the process. Republicans either controlled the Senate when Trump was president or, as he left office, the Democrats got control of a 50-50 body with Harris as the tie breaking vote (and ran a much abbreviated trial on a very rushed time frame due to competing priorities).

The House inquiry to begin considering impeachment of Nixon was on October 30 and he didn't resign until August 20 of the following year. That initial House vote was a straight party line vote with no support from Republicans. The House had a month and a half of public hearings. Had the House and Senate moved on the timeframe used with Trump, and without hearings, I suspect Nixon would have served out his term.

Also, 7 republican senators did vote to convict. In a 50-50 senate that is a footnote, but in a 57-43 senate, 7 republican defectors would have left the president a stone's throw from removal.

Thank you.

Two comments: I think Watergate was trivial compared to the January coup. And the fact that Trump still had support after the coup seems to me to indicate a significant weakening of the support for democracy in the US.

[Threviel]

Me living in a bubble wouldn't affect the world outside the bubble.

It's certainly possible that I'm completely misreading the situation in Sweden. But I think it's unlikely.

I was politically active at the turn of the century in Moderaterna and a lot of my circle of friends were leftists.
I was threatened with actual murder in an actual threatening way and I was a nobody.
I went to parties with friends and could find that someone had written death to rightists on the bathroom mirror.
I had people not talking to me at parties due to my politics.
People screamed fascist after me.
At a job meeting a girl almost screamed fascist after me when my activism came up.
My party comrades went around in a constant stupor of arrogance and metoo-moments, an absolute parody of brats.
At the Euro-referendum we watched the leftists No-group clash aggressively with rightist No-groups and we just looked on and felt smug. And lost.
and so on, and so forth...

What I'm trying to say is that lots of intolerant bastards is not a new thing, perhaps you are just now noticing them.

[alfred russel]

Two comments: I think Watergate was trivial compared to the January coup. And the fact that Trump still had support after the coup seems to me to indicate a significant weakening of the support for democracy in the US.

Nixon was legitimately evil, and legitimately smart and cunning.

Trump...

My opinion is that Watergate was more serious -- the state using its power to try to stack the deck in an election, and then cover up what they did. Versus Trump firing up the dumbest people on the planet to storm the capital and get arrested within an hour.

I do get the perspective on why people would feel otherwise though.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I think Trump is more dangerous because he doesn't accept the system applies to him at all. He would never accept losing an election - including the GOP primaries - and I think democracies on the loser's consent. It sort of relies on both sides saying if we lose that's fair and we accept the legitimacy of the victory by the other side.

Trump has significantly weakened that on one side of American democracy - and, if you genuinely think the other side has stolen the election, as many Republicans do, you can take almost any measures to stop that from happening again.

I think Nixon attacked the "free and fair" bit of elections. Trump attacked the legitimacy of the elections themselves.

I don't know the solution/way back from there. I suspect it's probably something like a set of catastrophic results for Republicans - like 64 - but that's not happened yet.

[The Brain]

Me living in a bubble wouldn't affect the world outside the bubble.

It's certainly possible that I'm completely misreading the situation in Sweden. But I think it's unlikely.

I was politically active at the turn of the century in Moderaterna and a lot of my circle of friends were leftists.
I was threatened with actual murder in an actual threatening way and I was a nobody.
I went to parties with friends and could find that someone had written death to rightists on the bathroom mirror.
I had people not talking to me at parties due to my politics.
People screamed fascist after me.
At a job meeting a girl almost screamed fascist after me when my activism came up.
My party comrades went around in a constant stupor of arrogance and metoo-moments, an absolute parody of brats.
At the Euro-referendum we watched the leftists No-group clash aggressively with rightist No-groups and we just looked on and felt smug. And lost.
and so on, and so forth...

What I'm trying to say is that lots of intolerant bastards is not a new thing, perhaps you are just now noticing them.

I don't think lots of intolerant people is a new thing. My experience is that the ideal has changed and is still changing in Sweden, away from an open democratic society.