Quote (thesnipa @ Jan 19 2018 08:57am)
Judging on the verbal sparing Rand Paul and Chris Chistie did in debate #1 on that issue I disagree. I think the Paul/Cruz wing of the GOP are staunchly against it, and the more authoritarian east coast GOP members are very in support of it. I think it could be argued that the libertarian wing of the GOP has almost no power and very little influence on the GOP leadership compared to the more authoritarian wing however. My point is that the GOP politicians and base seems deeply split on the issue, but leadership may be locked in on it.
this could be true, but it also begs the question of how deep those convictions run. Remember that the dogmatic tea party crusaders didn't require any herculean cajoling to drop $1.5 trillion because they got boners as soon as the words 'tax cuts' were spoken. They might dance the dance for their constituents, but can we really say Rand Paul's impotent filibuster is anything but for show? I can't name a single republican I'd trust to be an civil libertarian iconoclast against the spy programs. Or democrat for that matter. Maybe if the whole senate was 99 other clones of Rand Paul they'd flip, but whether or not they're powerless, they're willing to roll over in the meantime. I can't even trust the ACLU to stick up for civil liberties in 2018, I'm more likely to find true believers in the NRA
This post was edited by Goomshill on Jan 19 2018 09:09am