At 1/27/22 05:13 PM, PigLice wrote:
At 1/27/22 03:52 PM, EdyKel wrote:
There is just so much going on in the Republican party right now that I thought I would just create a general topic for it.
As a registered Republican, I find the party fractured by Trump, and aimless, with a sizable portion of it going further to the extreme, driven mad by the perpetual outrage machine they create in the current culture war that seems to be their only campaign platform. To keep the party unified, the more Trumpian Republicans, use a heavy hand approach on any disobedience, or criticisms of the party, from within their own ranks, who stray to far from Trumpism, to keep them in line by canceling them out of positions of power and censuring them.
The party seems to delight in prompting vaccine hesitancy, and making the pandemic worse, leading to a lot of unnecessary deaths, and which seems to have made the supply chain problems worse right now by all the sick people who are unable to work to get things to stores or provide services.
Many Republicans still promote the big lie over the election, which led to Jan 6th, with a lot of the Republican base only willing to vote for candidates who support that lie. While Republican controlled states spend a lot of their legislature energy to cement their power by growing govermnet over voting, making it harder for poorer people to vote, who are less likely to support their party. Or some governors of those states trying to creating hotlines to go after anyone who is suspected of teaching CRT or providing abortions.
For a party that is riding the perpetual wave of of outrage and self victimization over claims of being canceled, they certainly are busy going "bat shit insane", and extreme, by going out of their way to cancel out anything that offends them - be it it in their own party or at other groups they hate.
I believe it is important to consider the racial aspect of modern Republicanism. Republicanism has intentionally or unintentionally branded itself for the last 30 years as the party of the white man. You see it becoming more extreme and fractured naturally as the white population of the United States dwindles. Desperation.
What I believe is most fascinating is the emerging appeal to ancient Rome among the more extreme sects of conservatives. Conservatism on it's own is no ideology. Nostalgia over 1950's America is no basis for something that is effective or helpful to anyone. Republican adoption of SPQR signals that white "conservatives" are beginning to get a clearer picture of what they want to fight for.
Well, conservatism, at it's base level has always been about traditions, and not changing things (and has a lot to do with culture, and preserving it), while often being very exclusive on who is considered part of it. And while it's often not clear what political meaning it currently has, as it's constantly being defined, and redefined, by those who describe themselves as one, or those who criticize those of it, at any point in time....
It has evolved, and changed, overtime, but the base definition hasn't, even though it's become very politicized in the last 60 years, and is now pretty much a needed credential to be part of the Republican party. A party that has become a lot more extreme, where moderate Republicans are a dying breed in it, as the more extreme parts of it take over it with their ideas of conservative puritanism, with the majority of them promoting some lie over the 2020 elections, spreading covid misinformation, and this leading to the growing violence from the rigt due to all of this rampant, and intentional, partisan misinformation, while beating the drums of white culture identity politics to foaming of the mouth levels
I don't find any of this interesting, just deeply concerning. Plus, I'm not quite sure what you mean by SPQR, unless you mean how not everyone was allowed to participate in the Roman democracy based on their social standing.