Quote (bogie160 @ Jan 31 2021 05:46pm)

Republicans value loyalty. It's what makes them such a powerful counter-party to the Democrats, whose base is undoubtedly larger.

Siding with the Democratic party to impeach the President in a ceremonial vote with zero real world application is a dramatic step. Cheney should have expected this.

Quote (IceMage @ 31 Jan 2021 23:45)

When the only standard for separating the "swampy creatures" from the "Trump heroes" is whether they align in defending Trump's malfeasance

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Cheney wasn't losing any election before she decided to hold Trump accountable. McCarthy and Scalise are not mini-Pat Buchanans... yet they survive. Why is that?

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And I'll just circle back to the reality that you don't care about facts, evidence, or a political party going completely nuts. I don't know what to say to men who don't have a code.

Quote (IceMage @ Jan 31 2021 06:12pm)

So we're in agreement that it has nothing to do with policy, just tribalism and personality cult dynamics to the end.

Cheney understood the situation, yet she voted for accountability anyway. It's not hard to understand why.

It's not like I'm a fan of Liz Cheney, or her father, or George W Bush. I'm just able to acknowledge reality.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 31 2021 12:03pm)

In my view, right-wing politics are about a preservation or restoration of a certain status quo, about protecting and fostering our wealth, safety and way of life. Because of the left's long march through the institutions and its resulting dominance over all cultural institutions (media, press, culture, academia), it has been the left which has enjoyed the strategic initiative for at least the past 25 years and been "on the offense" almost uninterrupted. This has created the false perception that conservatism is only about obstruction, or that it has become outright reactionary just because it seeks to roll back the worst excesses of the left.


The fever pitch reached a boiling point on January 6, and it will take time for it to go down. In the long run, however, Trump has lost all of his platforms. He is banned on social media, he no longer holds public office, and all efforts at establishing a new platform, be it a relaunched parler or TrumpTV, have failed so far. He has left office in disgrace, a majority in both the House and the Senate will vote against him, and he will only barely escape impeachment because of the 2/3rds hurdle. Moderate or untrumpy conservatives want nothing to do with him anymore. The party establishment around McConnell, as well as the donor class, will try everything they can to stop him dead in his tracks should he seek the nomination again in 2024. He will be embroiled in all sorts of legal battles and financial troubles. And last but not least, he's too old, his energy and sharpness have clearly been slipping.

He will just fade away more and more, but this process will take some time. He was the center of the political universe for 5 years, millions of voters projected all their hopes and dreams onto him. It is unrealistic to expect all of that to go away immediately. Yes, he will still have sway over a certain segment of the GOP electorate and be a power player during the primaries, but his own political career is over.

Quote (EndlessSky @ 1 Feb 2021 06:25)

Swamp creature defended her own interests.

Humans without honor defending themselves, nothing else to see here.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 31 2021 03:13pm)

Bullshit. I've been plenty critical of people like Ted Cruz or Lindsey Graham who publicly sucked up to Trump, yet clearly are opportunistic, spineless swamp demons. Likewise, I've blasted Perdue and Loeffler for being horrible candidates who ran a weakass campaign in spite of their alignment with Trump. At least for me personally, the dividing line is not ostensible loyalty to Trump. The primary reason I dislike Liz Cheney are her shitty neocon foreign policy views, not her late distancing from Trump. We're obviously not discussing individual House members too much here on PaRD, so... believe me or not, idc.



Partially wrong. In 2014, she carpetbegged to Wyoming and challenged incumbent Mike Enzi in the GOP primary for the Senate, but got so little traction that she had to withdraw from the race.

McCarthy and Scalise are inoffensive on both a policy and a pro-/contra-Trump scale. Irrespective from her stance on Trump, Cheney has always been out of step with the base on foreign policy. It didnt matter until now because she's coming from a tiny R+40 state where there are no other powerhouse politicians competing for the House seat, so that her connections and name recognition allowed her to prevail against SomeDudes in the primaries. But like I said, the one time she tried to challenge an actual incumbent in Wyoming, she had to withdraw to avoid an embarrassment.




I do have a code, it's just that I'm drawing the line far later than you do. The insurrection Trump incited crossed this line, and as a consequence, I dont want him to run for, let alone hold, public office ever again. I nonetheless disagree with the idea of post-presidency impeachment, and think that Democrats are predominantly pushing for this process so they can drive a wedge between the wings of the GOP and exacerbate their infighting.

Quote (thundercock @ 1 Feb 2021 00:44)

Indeed. The mechanism to do that is through obstruction though which is a GOOD thing. If we implemented every wacky idea that the Left had, we'd be in much worse shape. ALL conservative parties worldwide use obstruction as the main tool for how they operate. In America, that tool is on steroids due to hyperpolarization and our voting system.

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I'm not convinced that Trump (and Trumpism) is going away. There were opportunities to discard him and they simply haven't done it yet. How many moderate or untrumpy conservatives are left in the GOP? Most have been purged or are so afraid of their voters that they can't take a stand publicly. Trump might not be President again but he can still dictate the direction of the party which is pretty damn powerful if you ask me. I don't think you could classify that as "his political career is over."

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jan 31 2021 09:08pm)

The problem is that the left has crossed the Rubicon in some ways and was able to implement shitty policies and to establish shitty ideologies. Further obstruction of their ideas is desperately needed, but no longer sufficient on its own. We've arrived at a point where we need to roll back time by about 10 or so years, politically speaking, to get back on a good track. Given that conservatism has been on the defense almost uninterrupted for the past quarter century, I really struggle to see where this amount of offense is supposed to be coming from.


Fair point, he could become some sort of spiritus rector of the GOP. But why would he want to do that? He's a fundamentally selfish and self-absorbed person, he cant be bothered to spend time and energy on a cause which doesnt directly and tangibly benefit himself. What would benefit himself and feed into his narcissism would be running again - but for the many reasons I listed repeatedly, I really dont think that this would go anywhere.

The Grover Cleveland path might have been viable after the November election, but not anymore, not after he fucked up the pivotal Georgia runoffs for his party and incited an insurrection. At this point, anyone but the hardcore trumpists in the GOP know that he would be an absolutely toxic candidate in the 2024 general election. Even many mild pro-Trump people will know deep down that that's the way it is.

The only way I can see these factors changing in a substantial way is if Trump indeed launches TrumpTV and it becomes a big success. In that case, he might be able to hold on to a large enough platform for 3 years that he can win the primary even against unified opposition by the RNC.

Quote (thundercock @ 1 Feb 2021 06:19)

Can you be specific to the policies you're referring to? It seems to me that conservatives were quite happy until the financial crisis....I think the only big loss conservatives had was gay marriage. Politically speaking, conservatives have an outsized voice in American politics due to redistricting and the Senate.

Rallies where he is helping other candidates and funneling money to his businesses seems like it benefits him quite a lot. Why does Trump need TrumpTV when Foxnews, OANN, etc. are keeping the base angry? All Trump needs to do is have a plurality of the vote like he did last time.

Quote (IceMage @ Jan 31 2021 06:12pm)

So we're in agreement that it has nothing to do with policy, just tribalism and personality cult dynamics to the end.

Cheney understood the situation, yet she voted for accountability anyway. It's not hard to understand why.

It's not like I'm a fan of Liz Cheney, or her father, or George W Bush. I'm just able to acknowledge reality.