Quo Vadis GOP?

[Barrister]

Senator Tommy Tuberville

Three words that encapsulate the decline of a once great nation.

I'm not sure senators from Alabama have often been a source of pride for the US.

I'll admit I don't know a lot of Alabama Senators, but Richard Shelby, despite his flaws, was no Tommy Tuberville.

I'll raise you this piece of shit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Claiborne_Clay

And this cretin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T._Morgan

No sir, I don't like those guys.

20th century examples might have worked better for your thesis however.

[Sheilbh]

Like Jeff Sessions?

[Barrister]

Like Jeff Sessions?

The same Jeff Sessions who appointed an independent counsel, then recused himself from interfering with the independent counsel, which ultimately led to Trump firing him?

Again - plenty to criticize, but he's no Tommy Tuberville.

[garbon]

Senator Tommy Tuberville

Three words that encapsulate the decline of a once great nation.

I'm not sure senators from Alabama have often been a source of pride for the US.

I'll admit I don't know a lot of Alabama Senators, but Richard Shelby, despite his flaws, was no Tommy Tuberville.

I'll raise you this piece of shit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Claiborne_Clay

And this cretin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T._Morgan

No sir, I don't like those guys.

20th century examples might have worked better for your thesis however.

The comment was about it as a sign of decline of a once great nation. I showed Alabama was rotten from early on. I don't think it would be hard to post links to senators from Alabama who did racist things during the Civil rights era but I started from the beginning.

[Barrister]

The comment was about it as a sign of decline of a once great nation. I showed Alabama was rotten from early on. I don't think it would be hard to post links to senators from Alabama who did racist things during the Civil rights era but I started from the beginning.

Focusing in on the "once great nation" idea - a lot of those confederates, or even pre-civil-rights Senators, were kind of evil.

But Tommy Tuberville is just plain dumb.

Lets go back to Jeff Sessions.  Guy had an interesting but fairly distinguished career.  He was a US Attorney, a failed judicial appointment, Alabama Attorney General, a US Senator, and ended up as US Attorney General.

Tommy Tuberville is a football coach.

I leave it to you if that's a sign of decline.

[The Minsky Moment]

Right.

Tuberville may not be openly promoting resegregation but there is no question that if you time machine him back to 1950, he'd be all in on segregation forever. 

But even back in those bad old days, when it came to the Senate, the southern states would try to make some effort to send someone a little more polished than the Rufus Cornpones that often dominated state politics - the Fulbrights or Longs that could talk about serious ideas and foreign policy, even as they torpedoed civil rights bills in the cloakroom.  Tuberville is just a fool out to demonstrate that the Peter Principle was severely understated.

[garbon]

Right.

Tuberville may not be openly promoting resegregation but there is no question that if you time machine him back to 1950, he'd be all in on segregation forever. 

But even back in those bad old days, when it came to the Senate, the southern states would try to make some effort to send someone a little more polished than the Rufus Cornpones that often dominated state politics - the Fulbrights or Longs that could talk about serious ideas and foreign policy, even as they torpedoed civil rights bills in the cloakroom.  Tuberville is just a fool out to demonstrate that the Peter Principle was severely understated.

I guess that is one limited, elitist way to look at it. Why is it superior to be represented by a privileged, elitist senator who is denying you basic human rights? Though I guess as head coach at a college he actually is probably quite privileged himself - but just not credential in the right way.

I doubt Black Alabamans from the 40s-70s were saying it is terrible how John Sparkman wants to keep us segregated but at least he isn't a football coach!

Was Alabama more of a beacon of greatness when it had properly cultured bigots in charge?

[Sheilbh]

Yeah also I just hate that sort of credentialism (I think it's quite snobbish). We've had many great leaders from less "qualified" backgrounds than a football coach (and a lot of incredibly disappointing lawyers - I mean, in the current Senate, Tom Cotton, say).

FWIW I think football coach could actually be a good background for a political leadership - they sort of embody and represent a community, they're leaders etc. I think the issue with Tommy Tuberville is not his CV, but him.

Similarly I don't think Sessions background excuses him - if anything I think it's an interesting one that tells us something more corrosive about the Republicans than electing football coaches. Because Sessions background was to be a judge, as you say, and he was I think one of the very few judicial nominees at that point rejected by the Senate. Following that Sessions transitions into electoral politics at state level and then the Senate. I think it is an interesting example of the effective fusion of the conservative legal movement's tests to become a judge and electoral politics. The entire purpose of that (and many other institutions) is to ensure that there is an appropriately credentialed pipeline of judges, staffers, cabinet secretaries etc filled with people like Sessions.

And the interesting thing is the role Sessions then plays. It's fair to remember how his time as Attorney General ended. However he was also the only Senator to endorse Trump. He was established, credentialed imprimatur. Not only that but he provided a pipeline of staffers, most notably Stephen Miller, who would go on to work for Trump - and Miller is very likely to come back again in a very senior position. There's lots of thought going on in the MAGA right about how to better staff a Trump administration in order to deliver on what policies they want - their narrative (which they have to couch appropriately to avoid enraging Trump) is that the failure of Trump 1 was because of personnel. There were too many Republican flunkies and people who weren't committed to Trump or MAGA-ish politics etc.  They've set up institutions, or taken them over to pump out appropriately credentialed smart young people from good universities to staff a Trump administration - because the whole party is Jeff Sessions now.

[The Minsky Moment]

The issue with Tuberville isn't that his CV is weak; Lincoln had no formal education to speak of.  The issue is that he is an idiot.  I don't think it is elitist or credentialist to say that a United States Senator should not be an idiot. Not being an idiot should be a basic pre-requisite.  That is isn't - and that it may even be a electoral benefit as some bullshit mark of faux authenticity - is an indication of political decadence.

[Sheilbh]

Fair - I agree.

I meant that more at BBoy's distinction because I'm not sure football coach v someone groomed to be a partisan judicial hack is necessarily the relevant point.

I'd possibly even say that ultimately Tuberville is an idiot. Sessions was a signed up participant in the conservative movement's really naked politicisation of judicial appointments. I'm honestly not sure which I'd say is worse - although idiots are just idiots, Sessions had a choice.

[The Minsky Moment]

I guess that is one limited, elitist way to look at it. Why is it superior to be represented by a privileged, elitist senator who is denying you basic human rights?

It isn't.
But the deep southern states weren't going to put non-bigots and pro-integrationists into the Senate in the 1930s.  That wasn't an available option.

The option was someone like Russell vs Talmadge in Georgia.  Both racists who suppressed civil rights.  But Russell backed the New Deal, established the national school lunch program and supported anti-poverty programs that benefitted all. Talmadge on the other hand suppressed labor and opposed poverty relief, when he took spare time from cheerleading lynchings.  You can argue they were both the same because they both opposed civil rights with equal force, but they did differ in other respects, and those differences had real impact on people's lives.

[The Minsky Moment]

I meant that more at BBoy's distinction because I'm not sure football coach v someone groomed to be a partisan judicial hack is necessarily the relevant point.

I don't have anything against football coaches per se. That said, when people allow their sports fandom to unduly influence their view of someone as a candidate, you get unfortunate results like TT and the Herschel Walker Senate campaign.

Wresting coaches OTOH I think we should avoid going forward.  Admittedly the sample size is small but early returns are really bad.  Why take more chances?

[Sheilbh]

I don't have anything against football coaches per se. That said, when people allow their sports fandom to unduly influence their view of someone as a candidate, you get unfortunate results like TT and the Herschel Walker Senate campaign.

Yes - or possibly vice-versa too.

There's an upcoming book which I'm looking forward to on looking at politics with ideas of "fandom". I think it's largely thinking in terms of online "fandoms" but with Trump (and Corbyn for that matter) I've thought for a while about sports fans in how their strongest supporters are. It seems more like fans than supporters of a political ideology or political issues.

Similarly you look at the level of attachment, the intensity of emotion, distrust of the media v "official" channels, the conspiracies and almost fanfiction about what's really going on behind the scenes - and it's all quite different from earlier political movements (even other populist ones). But it is like fandoms. I think a lot about football/soccer journalists who think that the day is coming pretty soon when the big clubs just refuse to engage with the media - they'll release interviews and content on their own social channels, they'll set up their own TV stations or (inspired by the US) a football club owned football TV channel - and can't help but think of the right-wing media/politics/entertainment complex as a similar path.

And in Europe, I think you also see aspects of this in the rise of more personalist politics and it's possibly part of that - whether it's Macron or Melenchon basically destroying traditional parties with traditional party structures for personal "movements", or, say, Geert Wilders whose party has one member (Geert Wilders) and otherwise has supporters, or even the early days of M5S - and in the US with Trump.

Wresting coaches OTOH I think we should avoid going forward.  Admittedly the sample size is small but early returns are really bad.  Why take more chances?

Fair. Still don't fully understand how that sexual abuse scandal hasn't brought him down.

[The Minsky Moment]

There's an upcoming book which I'm looking forward to on looking at politics with ideas of "fandom". I think it's largely thinking in terms of online "fandoms" but with Trump (and Corbyn for that matter) I've thought for a while about sports fans in how their strongest supporters are. It seems more like fans than supporters of a political ideology or political issues.

There is historical precedent for this - the political role of the blue and green chariot racing factions in Byzantium.  That's a precedent that should scare us.

[Jacob]

Fair. Still don't fully understand how that sexual abuse scandal hasn't brought him down.

American right-wingers care about sexual abuse only as a political tool, not on its own terms. Therefore they're comfortable ignoring any abuse that's inconvenient for their politics.