slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Forbes/Jan 28, 2018

The Republican Party Had To Get Worse Before It Could Get Better

(Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.)

Adam Ozimek , Contributor

In the age of Trump, Bill Kristol has become a voice of reason in the Republican party. In a recent interview I think he proves something I've been saying for a while: the Republican Party had to get worse before it could get better.

I'm not a Democrat, and I'm really not a partisan by nature. I h**e teams and the feeling of being on one. So full disclosure, I don't really enjoy writing this. But I believe the fact that the problems with the GOP started years and years ago. Quite frankly I think the sharp denial of reality started with the Iraq war. Remember how mad Republicans were that reporters "weren't telling the good stories" out of Iraq? They wanted to blame the insurgency on biased reporting while journalists died over there.... sorry, I'm getting annoyed just remembering it, so I'll move on.

The next really bad sign in my telling of history is the Tea Party that wished for a completely unrealistic vision of small government that would actually do great harm the rural and struggling places that they claimed to be supporting. Then you had Sarah Palin, death panel hysteria, birthers, Obama as a secret socialist radical, Glenn Beck... It's been downhill for awhile from my point of view.

And yet smart conservatives over this time failed to notice how severe and widespread the problem had become. They wanted to focus on the problems with liberals, and either sweep their own problems under the rug as a fringe or stretch and strain to tease out some semblance of coherence or reasonable thoughts from them. Like trying to argue that, actually, if you stand on your head and close one eye and look through a pinhole camera, the Tea Party actually has some good ideas buried deep in there.

And even electing Trump wasn't enough to wake them up to the depths of the problem. Here is what I wrote last year:

'The farther the republican party falls the better in some ways. It is important for reasonable people on the right to have the scales fall from their eyes about their ideological allies. The worse it gets, the more will finally accept the magnitude of the rot... A team mentality is poisonous to clear thinking, and I think a willingness to see how bad some ideological allies are will help broadly improve the quality of conservative thought.'

And now with Bill Kristol's recent interview with Vox I think this has proven true. Here he is explaining how it's much worse than he thought, with my emphasis:

I am personally surprised by the amount of rationalizing and enabling of Trump. I think I underestimated the power of rationalization as a human psychological fact. They start with a very hardheaded look, [saying] he’s not good and the tweeting is horror, he’s a jerk, and the tweeting is distasteful, but you know, we’ll get this and this. He’ll be better than Hillary and we can live with it, but we’ll have to control him.

And then a month later it’s, “The media is being very unfair in their attacks. He’s getting more done than you realize.” And a month later it’s, “Some of the stuff you think is vulgar is probably necessary to really break though.” And then a month later it’s, “I kinda think he’s saying some things that other people haven’t said.”

Within six months, people I know personally, they started off with a very hardheaded, limited defense of Trump. And they’re now all in and saying that Robert Mueller is some partisan hack who wants to destroy Trump and no other Republican has ever fought for anything. It’s just kind of i***tic Trumpy talking points. That slippery slope is more slippery than I realized.

This is very good and healthy, and the degree of rationalizing is not surprising to someone with a more negative view of the GOP. But for Kristol, it really had to get this bad to make him realize how bad it was. This realization is already improving his view of recent history. Elsewhere in the interview, here is Kristol also grappling with how things were worse than he realized in the recent past:

'There was a kind of, in retrospect, excessive tolerance of things that should have been denounced more firmly. I mean, I thought we denounced them. I will say, you know, the Weekly Standard was pretty unapologetically anti-birther and anti-Buchanan and anti-Ron Paul, and anti-so many things that Trump exploited. Pretty liberal on immigration, but maybe in retrospect we didn’t take those things serious enough.

Again, this is good and healthy. I would like Kristol to write a whole book about the Republican party post 2000 with his blinders now off.
Hopefully in the age of Trump more smart conservatives will wake up not just to how bad things are, but how bad they were and why their focus on the problems with liberals were misplaced. The Republican party and conservatives broadly need broad and fierce internal debate, not kid gloves with ideological allies and vitriol and hysteria with liberals. There are allies across the aisles, and enemies on your side.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

One thing I've been saying for years is that the Republican party needs a strong Democrat Party in order for itself to stay strong.

A football team like Bama doesn't stay great by playing weak opponents. They gets sloppy. They get lazy.

The Republicans have atrophy. They've had no competition.

Republican supporters are starting to get lazy also. They expect to win without having good candidates.

We were very lucky that the Democrats picked Hillary. Hopefully we learned our lesson with a nominee like Roy Moore.

Republicans better get their crap together or they are going to lose. The tax cuts and deregulations has been great. But they're really weak on immigration.

vernon

Slat you know most of that stuff is either out right lies or innuendo.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

One thing I've been saying for years is that the Republican party needs a strong Democrat Party in order for itself to stay strong.

A football team like Bama doesn't stay great by playing weak opponents. They gets sloppy. They get lazy.

The Republicans have atrophy. They've had no competition.

Republican supporters are starting to get lazy also. They expect to win without having good candidates.

We were very lucky that the Democrats picked Hillary. Hopefully we learned our lesson with a nominee like Roy Moore.

Republicans better get their crap together or they are going to lose. The tax cuts and deregulations has been great. But they're really weak on immigration.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Vernon, I try to present articles/columns that offer food for thought. Since this one is from Forbes, a conservative magazine and includes much input from Bill Kristol...a long-time conservative spokesman, I suggest you blame them. Judging by his comments, Super Dave seems to appreciate and understand the point of the article, regardless of wh**ever "out-right lies or innuendo" may or may not be in it.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

As is usually the case, Dave, you 'get it.'

Bad Bob Loc: Virginia

Hemiman Loc: Communist California

Why don’t you pull find an article by a Democrat listing all the corruption in the party of liberals even just Obama corruption would be nice.

Manning345 Loc: Richmond, Virginia

I will make a few points here and run!

1. The Republican Party is not a monolith: I believe (guess, really) that some 30% to 40%, or maybe more, are Conservatives; another 20% or so are Libertarians, and the rest, amounting to 40% or 50% are Hard-shell Republicans.

2. Conservatives are not in the majority, although they are growing in number, and may wield more power in the later years of the Trump era.

3. I believe Trump set forth promises that most Conservatives agree with; and, so far, he has pursued his commitments religiously, despite the attacks, the Twitters, and the Special Council Mueller. He followed my own list of priorities that I set forth in a letter to the Richmond Times-Dispatch early in 2016 practically verbatim. (If anyone is interested I will post it here.)

4. Would I prefer Trump to cut out the Twitters? No! The reason being that he is operating in a media environment and Democratic Party that is totally hostile to him, bitter, and obstructive for their own sake, and he is certain that he cannot get out his whole story effectively without Twitter. Unfortunately, he also runs off on trivia far too much for my taste, and shows an unpleasant side of his character. So, yes, if you want the agenda, and I do, then there is no other option to be had.

5.We dodged a great big shell when we elected Trump over Clinton, and it seems to be paying off as the situation evolves, with the Deep State being exposed, and the Clinton escapades being examined. Trump seems to relish the combat with the Deep State and with Hillary: he appears to be able to hold his own in this arena. There is a lot more that could be said, but it is very late...

Peewee Loc: San Antonio, TX

Love you Slat but can't agree with you on this one. Hope you get well soon.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

That's okay, Peewee. Even the best-est of buddies have disagreements. Having said that, you can read my above response to Vernon.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

The following is just one of many threads I have previously posted that were critical or joking with regard to the Clintons, primarily Hillary. A thorough search would find around two dozen thread posts that did as much. I suspect you never really seriously checked out my claim of having done so. Let go of that locked mindset, Hemiman. A person's mind is like a parachute....it doesn't work unless it is opened up. Do not be afraid, as inquiring minds are allowed to filter what settles in.

http://www.onepoliticalplaza.com/t-75618-1.html

As an extra bonus, Snowflake*, go out and buy 'The Democrats,' a book reviewed in the following.....

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/431-the-democrats

Are ya' satisfied I doubt it.

* 'Snowflake.' A very sensitive person. Someone who is easily hurt or offended by the statements or actions of others.

This has nothing to do with politics. Snowflakes can be liberal or conservative. Whether it is a compliment or an insult is a matter of opinion and depends on the context.

Peewee Loc: San Antonio, TX

I did, I like food for though sometimes, but I prefer cheetos. And I think your surrounded by your best buds.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

I'm comforted by my hope that you are one of those surrounding me.

Peewee Loc: San Antonio, TX

Got you and yours in my prayers. If you ever want it to be specific, I'd appreciate the honor.