What's puzzling is that they're not willing to put up with what they would consider short-term pain for long-term gain. They crashed the economy in 2008, and we got ACA. If they crash the economy again this year, who knows what kind of nightmarish help-the-poor legislation the Democrats will pass.
One one hand there's there general incompetence, ineptitude, and blinding stupidity. OTOH they have a once in a lifetime chance to destroy the poor and working class.
Stupid and evil.
Yeah, stupidity and evil are different phenomena, but there's a significant correlation between them, and Republicans can't afford to alienate either constituency.
And heebie is, of course, correct. Republicans do this because it's what they want to do. And they have had a lot of success grabbing every policy win they can without heed to consequences. At one time, a president like Donald Trump would have been inconceivable, but Republicans have shown us that if you can dream it, you can do it.
They crashed the economy in 2008, and we got ACA.
I seriously doubt any Republican feels like they misplayed the aughts and thus are responsible for a chain of events culminating in the ACA. That kind of self-flagellation only occurs on the left.
They could protect the economy by getting people to wear masks, too, but they won't do it. How much better would reopening have gone if people just wore fucking masks?
I'm sure that part of it is that no one wants to go first. And no one wants the eye of Trump upon them. So even if they would prefer to rule a merely unequal and immiserated country instead of a heap of ashes, they are afraid to take any action.
How can you pwn the libtards if you capitulate on mask-wearing?
...but really, that's the calculus. Take cue from science and protect people or pwn the libs? [head explodes]
The mask/shutdown fight makes grim sense. If you block sensible policy for long enough, people are going to have to go for the "herd immunity" option because Covid is less deadly than being homeless in America. Then you can say you were right all along and people who don't acknowledge anything from the rest of the world will agree.
Some smart person at the time described the theory of Reaganomics as the conviction that the poor won't work because we're giving them too much money and the rich won't work because we're not giving them enough money. Obviously, this is way convenient for rich people to think, but how they got non-rich folks to buy it . . . well, I'm thinking of a 6 letter word that begins with an R.
Modern Republicanism is rooted in denial of reality and decency, not as a byproduct of other goals, but as an end in itself.
When people tell you that support for Trump isn't about racism, it's true in an important sense. Trumpism is about the right of his constituents to say and do whatever the fuck they want without being subject to judgment and without regard to consequences. Racism -- contradicted by facts and basic morality -- just happens to be one of the obvious byproducts of that view. So is creationism. So is climate science denial. So is supply-side economics.
Being opposed to masks is correctly regarded as a product of selfishness -- but again, at the heart of that is an ideological indifference to one's fellow man and a rejection of factuality.
alternative theory: the Republicans are aware they have to give away lots of money to poor people, so now their goals are (1) to take credit for it, and (2) for checks or debit cards to arrive as close to election day as possible. They prefer that the $600/week supplement unemployment benefits stop for August and September, and $5000 back payments go out in October.
Two months of economic collapse won't be easy to undo in less than a month.
At this stage, what usable information do we get out of any conversation starting "why do national-level Republicans [do anything they do]?"
They're shitbirds, that's sufficient. They're not going to change by some kind of clever triangulation. They must be opposed; if they change it will be after bitter defeat. (Setting aside questions about base voters, or swingable voters, or whatever.)
12: In the end they will pass something, yeah. But this is hard for them. The delay isn't because of some plan, but because of a problem reaching a consensus. As time passes and pressure increases, the opportunity for the Republicans to reach an understanding increases.
I do think there's a fundamental disconnect from reality in addition to the death cult part. The idea that increasing the deduction for business meals will help restaurants much is just absurd from where I sit. We haven't been allowed to travel or go to a business dinner since weeks before any state shutdown.
12 I've advanced the possibility before that Trump is hoping for 5k payments in the last week of October to all people making under 50k. The legislative calendar is tough for that. I can see that they would think that back payments of enhanced unemployment would do some of that, but then they still have to contend with the fact that people who are working -- 'essential' people -- are on reduced hours, and not getting this money. It would be naive to think that there isn't some resentment building up among people who might be generally prone to resentment. I think, then, that Trump needs this to be more like the 1200 everyone below an income threshold gets it, rather than people who aren't working get it.
I'm not sure about 15. Republicans don't have many incentives to help people, now or at any time. Who's putting pressure on them? Just the looming election, but maybe they've given up already.
Their constituencies seem to benefit in many ways from the mass death and economic collapse under current policies. Big companies will all survive and be able to buy up the resources / hire the employees of small companies that go out of businesses. Women will have to quit their jobs to take care of kids. Public schools will be weakened severely. Universities will go out of business. The air of crisis lets them change the rules indefinitely and create a new normal for immigration, the postal service, etc that helps their friends. The stock market obviously is doing great, with most big businesses doing fine and the tech companies getting most of their revenues from the rest of the world anyway.
It seems like landlords and small business owners would be upset that people who usually pay them money won't have any money or will be sick or dead, but they never lobby for anything beyond "we need more freedom". And most Republican politicians, in order to sleep at night, have convinced themselves the government can't help people anyway, and it's actively bad (for business) to give people money who are unemployed. Why would that change just because there's suddenly way more poverty and misery than there was a couple months ago?
What are Republicans thinking? It's simple.
Plan A: dictatorship.
Plan B: lose the upcoming elections. Pivot seamlessly to obstructionism, deficit hawkishness, and the slightly more coded kind of race-baiting. Try again at plan A in 2024/2028.
Plan C: There is no plan C. Why do they need one? Their plan A might have changed over the years but their plan B has been exactly the same through the past four or five economic downturns and worked pretty well each time. And my wife likes pointing out that a lot of recent events make it easier for them to hold onto power even though they're becoming less popular. If people get evicted, it's harder to vote - not impossible, but harder. People are getting charged with felonies for protest-related things, and if they get convicted, felons can't vote in many states. It doesn't seem excessively conspiratorial to think leading Republicans have made those connections.
There's also a faction, among the following, that's not even interested in that. To them it's all entertainment, and it's either own the libs or be owned by the libs. They'll never admit that they were conned in 2016.
To them it's all entertainment, and it's either own the libs or be owned by the libs. They'll never admit that they were conned in 2016.
These two sentences are contradictory. They got all the lib pwnage* they were promised, and that's why they still support him. They weren't conned.
*Have the Kids Nowadays gone back to spelling it with an "o"? I can't keep up.
Question: What's the Matter With Kansas?
Answer: They're a bunch of assholes.
It's a house of cards, though. If it turns out we were right all along, they didn't get any actual pwnage. Hence, they have to keep doubling and tripling down.
Trump really would be doing a whole lot better if he'd approached the coronavirus differently, and his people know it. They bet on drawing to an inside straight, when the might well have had 3 7s or some such if they'd had him consistently acting like he cared.
His people know it, but the question is whether they will now respond by saying "Oh well, it's too late, better make the best of it. Actually, make the most of it. Look at all these silver linings! The libs in universities and teachers unions have never been sadder!"
They've got to keep white women over 60 in the fold.
I agree with you, Ned and Cyrus, that Trump losing isn't the end of the world to the people actually in charge. However, the upside of a Trump victory is just so great, I think we'll be kidding ourselves if we ever start thinking they're giving up on him. Even when they tell journalists they're giving up on him.
The pain will really hit home if Herman Cain doesn't make it.
In Texas, it is extremely likely that many of the conservative school districts open on time, and many of the center or progressive ones go remote for the first month. It is really kind of them to fall on the sword and provide such good data for the rest of us, but I do worry about the teachers in those districts.
Apparently the U of Florida radiology residents had a party and all got Covid. Which is probably much more fun than the way medical personnel in other states are getting sick by treating sick people.
Trumpism is about the right of his constituents to say and do whatever the fuck they want without being subject to judgment and without regard to consequences. Racism -- contradicted by facts and basic morality -- just happens to be one of the obvious byproducts of that view.
The racism in that is more than a byproduct. It's about defending the rights and privileges of "real Americans," i.e. the God-given entitlement of white men to be more equal than others.
John Kenneth Galbraith said something witty about how the right believe the poor do not work because they have too much money and the rich do not work because they have too little.
I'd like to think that vulgar Marxism explains 90% of everything. It isn't consistent with this theory to point out that republicans are willfully stupid, vicious, vile, and so on. The question is why these traits come out like this now. I am puzzled. I think thinking about what checks will come out at the end of October shows too much calculation.
31-last Well, they are paying people who are supposed to be pretty clever to be thinking about the exact things Trump can do in the second half of October that will dramatically change the race. Can the NYT be convinced that some feint or another is the pivot they've so desperately wanted to report? The answer is certainly yes, and it can be something really minor. The question is whether it sticks: none of the other 'pivots' has, and this is only partly because the guy is uncontrollable. He also needs to be seen as not pivoting.
There are rubes who think it'll be Durham, but I think the window is maybe even already closed on getting something from that.
My guess with Durham, actually, is that nothing he's found adds anything to the cultists' understanding of what went on, and it would mostly subtract. The cultists have such an outsized view of the Conspiracy Against Trump that his report can never validate.
That's not to say he hasn't found some sort of procedural lapses by minor folks.
I believe (or at least fear) a fair chunk of the 2016 Trump would-be defectors to Biden would be amenable to anything that creates a permission structure to vote for Trump. Agree that is probably not Durham. I'd say combo of economy picking up a bit, some subsidence of the pandemic and Something Else (TBD). But yes, the NYT and Chuck Todd''s of the world will likely fall in line. Amd like Repub leaders I think most potential voters really don;t give that many hoots about preserving a democracy as long as they get to do whatever they want, when they want and rive there and get good parking.
Not sure about the Portland/Seattle/other protests on that front if they continue unabated. Marginal, probably. However, the images are dark and scary and it does not look like it would be easy tor safe to park.
I know it is useless to complain about things like the following but sometimes I still do.
The freaking Trump admin request to include the FBI building money in the middle of dicey and time-sensitive negotiations on the Covid bill should on its own* be enough to ensure a drubbing. Bu tit will hardly raise notice as the media (and I sadly agree**) all assume it would not dissuade one potential Trump voter. Still should be hammered and made front and center.
*Yes, I know; along with eleventy-seven other things.
**OK, maybe it's one more stick on the bonfire that might really take off.
Still should be hammered and made front and center.
As should many things. And yet, by definition, many things can't be made front-and-center. Even with Nixon, the media chose one focus among his many crimes: a third-rate burglary.
Trump has, entirely without conscious intent, exploited bugs in the American media system. That system is completely unable to separate falsehood from opinion, and is unable to focus on the overall outrage in the face of a million separate outrages.
Is there anything particularly sinister going on with the FBI building beyond it being the FBI building?
Right now their building is another awful remnant of the Federal Government's unfortunate brutalist phase, and I'd love to see it gone.
37 I gather Trump is worried if it's not the FBI building it's likely to be converted into a hotel which would compete with his hotel. So he wants it renovated rather than moving
Locations even if moving locations makes more sense.
38: Yes. Way back early in the admin he met with some low-level functionary to review the plan at the time to move it.
At one level a minor indirect thing, but illustrative. McConnell is not bothering to give them a shred of cover on this one so far. (does not mean it will not end up in the bill of course.)
Many more "substantive" issues with the Repub proposal of course, such as lack of support for Post Office, reductions in payments, lack of support for essential public health measures, lack of support for funding voting accommodation 9and on and on).
His hotel is pretty much fucked if he loses, isn't it? Once there's no bribery, it's only his fans and they won't have much reason to visit D.C.
Maybe the watersports community can save it?
38: Can you imagine how hard it would be to falsely undermine the integrity of another Democratic presidential candidate during the chaos of an ongoing renovation?
I hate to say this, but the FBI thing may be less overt and impunitous* than his background radiation level? Like, they already flat out ignored the contract that said he couldn't be in government and lease the hotel from it at the same time. And all the barely-masked hotel-room-mediated bribery from foreign governments and interests. On the fiscal side, exploiting the crisis for other agendas? - well, meet Republicans.
*better adjective welcomed
I don't think I want a hotel to be built on that spot either. Federal Triangle should be for federal buildings, not tourist/lobbyist facilities.
Oh hey, police confirm AutoZone window smashing man was indeed a white supremacist provocateur.
If his name is "Chad", Trump can find him a job.
47: But not a cop, so we can look forward to the New York Times both-sidesing him.
"Who can say what a member of the Aryan Cowboys biker gang might have been thinking when he smashed windows and spray-painted an invitation to loot during a Black Lives Matter protest? Like Dylan Roof, Anders Brevik, and Elliot Rodger, his true motivations will forever be a mystery."