Bleak Prospects for the GOP

It's certainly looking good.

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Trump is an egotistical, obnoxious oaf of a president, most recognize this. I think we as a country are about to give the Democrats control of the house in the upcoming midterm mainly because of the individual's persona of being an uncouth, un-presidential, name calling, temper tantrum thrower via twitter in the white house.

Now this doesn't mean the majority of Americans like the Democrats in congress anymore than they do the Republicans or that they liked Hillary more than they liked Trump. It simply means there is no other choice. Both parties are disliked by America as a whole, if there was a third choice, that third choice would win hands down. We go from devil A to devil B and back to devil A. 2006, 2010 and now 2018.

How does America view the Democrats in congress, 32% favorable, 52% unfavorable. Independents only, the non-affiliated 19% favorable, 55% unfavorable.
Republicans in congress, 28% favorable, 57% unfavorable. Non-affiliated, independents 21% favorable, 54% unfavorable. Questions 91A and 91B below.

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/zq33h2ipcl/econTabReport.pdf

One could say that over half of all Americans don't want either major party in charge of congress. So don't take kicking out Republicans and replacing them with Democrats means we, the non-affiliated actually want Democrats in charge. We really don't, but it does mean we are switching devils once more.

Look at the leaders in congress vs. Trump
Trump 40% favorable, 54% unfavorable, Independents 37% favorable 54% unfavorable
Ryan 31% favorable, 49% unfavorable, Independents 25% favorable, 48% unfavorable
McConnell 22% favorable, 51% unfavorable, independents 20% favorable, 50% unfavorable
Pelosi 25% favorable, 54% unfavorable, independents 16% favorable, 57% unfavorable
Schumer 27% favorable, 44% unfavorable, independents 22% favorable, 45% unfavorable

Questions 73A-F above.

It seems most Americans except those highly partisans are disgusted with both major parties to include the president. Problem is with our two party system, the Republicans and Democrats have a monopoly on our electoral system, process, what have you. A majority of Americans want neither party to rule, but one will and the one who wins the midterms, the Democrats will in my opinion. The Democrats will take that as America giving their support to them. That isn't the case.

The Democrats are as disliked by America as a whole as the Republicans are. This time around they just happen to be the lesser of two evils, the less toxic poison if you will. Toxic nonetheless. I suppose one could say that only Republicans like Republicans. Only Democrats like Democrats, most Americans dislike both. Both major parties are shrinking. Neither party cares about that. Both parties know they have a monopoly and they know regardless of how much each is hated, how small they get, America has to accept or buy one or the other. They have no need to try to get most Americans on their side, to offer a product that most Americans like and want. Both know that America must pick their poison and drink it. There is no other choice.

 

.Yep..you have “babes”.the other news have women

 

While the 63% disapproval of Congressional Democrats and the 70% disapproval of their Republican brethren eloquently expresses the public disenchantment, many who declare "A pox on both your houses!", would simply extend their curse to any viable third party. Once in Washington, the elected answer to masters other than the electorate. (Considerate the death grip Marion Hammer has had on the throats of those purportedly chosen by the people to represent them.)

Transformation of the extant parties is far more viable, imho. Ultimately, that would require a repeal of Citizens United and public financing of campaigns to restore control of politicians to the People. Highly unlikely anytime soon.

Still, if the GOP can blithely abandon the enduring uniting principle of fiscal conservatism and vote to bloat the national debt as they have done, change, however detrimental, is possible.

 

Ok, let’s blame it all on obama....shouldn’t we continue Investigating?

 

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And Hillary was going to win and Texas was going to swing blue.

 

If the people who polled actually voted she would have won.

 

If the Dems do take the House they will have a DIFFERENT agenda.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/500-women-running-office-2018-article-1.3785976

It is worth noting that it was the women in Kansas who formed a bipartisan coalition to defeat the Republican/Libertarian tax policies that were devastating the state and harming the citizens.

If these women are elected to the House and have the majority they will not sit quietly and support "politics as usual". They will be vocal about pushing for changes that they perceive as necessary to right the wrongs of the GOP for the past couple of decades.

They will transform the Democratic Party IMO.

 

So they are becoming more Democrat, then why dont more Democrats vote for them.

 

Well we dont require you to be polled to vote just be a citizen of your state. The citizens in their respective states voted and Trump won.

 

Blame it all one Obama? Let's see. Who was President and the leader of this nation when the hacking occurred?

Who laughed at the Republicans when they specifically told him Russia was our greatest threat and then said while chuckling "the cold war is over"?

Who was caught on a hot mic colluding with Russia to be more flexible after the elections?

Give you a hint, 0% of this has to do with Trump. Yet you're sitting here playing the worn out "but Obama isn't President now" card.

Kremlin trolls need more material.

 

The GOP has always talked fiscal conservatism, but not fiscal responsibility. To Republicans all fiscal conservatism is, is low taxes. Not balancing the budget or paying down the debt. Fiscal responsible folks would make out go match incoming or even revenue be a bit more than overall or total spending. Reagan started the rhetoric all the while adding approximately 1.9 trillion to the debt. He was all for a balanced budget amendment as was and I still am. But it was all talk.

Fiscal sanity went through the roof with Bush II and went through double the roof with Obama. There is no fiscal responsible people in either party. Neither party or their members really give a darn about being fiscal responsible. Both use it only as a campaign tool to hit the other party over the head with. Like with so many other problems this country faces, those problems are far to valuable to use as a campaign issue, tool against the other party then to solve them. To solve or fix the problems would mean you take that issue or problem off the table, one can't use it anymore to fire up one's base or to hit the other party with. Better they go unsolved.

I think there is a reason independents have grown from around 30% of the total electorate 20 years ago to around 45% today depending on the poll. Both major parties have looked inside themselves and done things for the good of their party, not necessarily the nation. In plain English, it is loyalty to political party and not the country.

Neither party takes whatever proposal made by the other party seriously or weighs it on its merits. If a Democrat proposes something, all Republicans are against it. If a Republican proposes something, then the Democrats oppose it en-mass. Neither even looks at the merits of the proposal or if it would be good or bad for the country as a whole. Just to which party proposed it.

Most Americans want the two parties to work together for the good of the country. Both parties totally ignore this. Of course they can being they own the political system lock, stock and barrel. The American people or the voters are just a necessary evil to both parties. Especially those whom don't affiliated with either party. What happens in the future as both major parties continue to shrink although they continue to hold all the power with no fear at all of losing that power? We get more and more extreme candidates, more and more extreme legislation, more power concentrated in Washington and the presidency. More legislation via the phone and the pen than by congress. Both major parties have failed America as they look inward to maintaining their power over the public at large.

 

It doesn't matter as the agenda of either party isn't what most Americans want. Perhaps you hit on it. Both parties view the other party as evil, Americas worst enemy. More of an enemy than North Korea, Iran, Russia, ISIS, terrorist, you name it. Both parties have moved to the extreme left and right leaving most of America in the middle and without a political home.

There are reasons for sea change or wave elections. 2006 we went from Republican agendas to Democratic ones. We were tired of the GOP agenda. Then in 2010 we got tired and didn't want the Democrat agenda anymore and went back to the GOP. In 2018, we will get rid of the Republican agenda and go back to an agenda we didn't want in 2010.

We will probably change parties and agendas again in four or six years as the cycle will continue. What both parties fail to realize as they shrink is most Americans want an American agenda, not a Republican one from the far right or a Democratic one from the far left. We repudiate one agenda, get rid of it, but we don't embrace the agenda that replaces it. Then we once again get rid of the new agenda, repudiate it only to go back to an agenda we didn't want in the first place.

The cycle continues, the wheel turns, as both parties try to force their extreme agendas upon a country that wants neither or the extreme.

 

We agree that what most people want is the compromise in the center.

I have always believed that Liberals need Conservatives to keep them fiscally realistic and Conservatives need Liberals to keep them focused on the needs of We the People.

Neither side, by itself, ever gets it completely right and we have more than enough examples of that to drown both parties forever.

However we also have examples of bipartisanship to do what was right and best for America through compromise.

I know that the term compromise is seen as betrayal by the hard right and yes, there are those on the hard left who would never dream of compromising with the right.

But those are primarily men!

Women are far more PRAGMATIC and are willing to find common ground and get things done.

Which is why I am heartened to see so many women stepping up to fill the gaping void left by the men who have become rigid and incapable of doing what is right for We the People.

Can this current odious cycle be broken? I don't know but if it can it will be done by the women who are running for office in 2018.

 

You make entirely valid points.

Again, true.

Trumpery is, largely, a knee-jerk response to his popular predecessor's achievements. Mindless contrarianism sabotages progress.

Consider how the GOP had once seriously proposed resolving the immigration issue before Democrats made it a featured item in their agenda.

Reagan had signed an amnesty bill. Cruz, in 2013, had proposed a bill that would legalize the undocumented: "They would still be eligible for legal status and indeed, under the terms of the bill, they would be eligible for LPR [Lawful Permanent Resident] status as well so that they are out of the shadows, which the proponents of this bill repeatedly point to as their principal objective, to provide a legal status for those who are here illegally to be out of the shadows." Rubio had been a vocal member of the “Gang of Eight,” a bipartisan group of senators who lead the fight and eventually helped pass (68-32) comprehensive reform that included a path to citizenship.

Democrats should have demanded that millions of law-abiding families be rounded up and summarily deported if they wanted Republicans to back a sensible solution.

It does not follow that being estranged from the duopoly and labeling oneself "independent" predisposes anyone to affiliate with a third party, however attractive in theory. If serious structural reforms that undercut party dependence upon vested special interests were not enacted before an alternative party were formed, many Americans would just remain independent, alienated from an entrenched triopoly.

 

I think what happened and I will use the senate as an example is such party leaders as Mitchell and Dole, Lott and Daschle which would work together and compromise with each other in times past were replaced by party firsters Reid and McConnell with Schumer following Reid. Along with that you had the election of 2006 in which Democrats replaced Republicans in control of congress. Losing were the more moderate, willing to work with the other side Republicans to the extreme very liberal Democrats of the no compromise types. Following 2006 you had Republicans this time in 2010 replace the more moderate willing to work across the aisle blue dog Democrats with extreme right wing Republicans, again of the no compromise type.

This left the middle road empty, a choice of either far left or far right agendas and a congress where neither side was willing to work with the other for the betterment of America. Just their political party. The problem isn't gender. It's the fact both parties has shrunk, losing their moderates and leaving just the hard core right and left to nominate their hard core left and right, hate the other party, no compromise candidates.

For things to change, I think one or both parties have to drop some of their extreme agendas and move back toward the center where most Americans are. To begin attracting those independents, center, center right and center left back into one or the party. But I don't think those left inside the two parties want anything to do with those in the middle. They are more than happy to have just the extremes remaining and I think would fight tooth and nail to keep it that way.

So what do we do? We kick out the R's and bring in the D's, then kick out the D's and bring back the R's only to kick the R's out again in the next election. We do this because we don't want what either party is offering and in our political monopoly of a system, we have no choice.

So we'll welcome the Democrats back in charge of the house in November because we are more angry at the R's than the D's although we are disgusted with both. Then in the next election we will kick out the D's and the cycle continues.

 

I see nothing to disagree with. I think people become independents and thus drop out of the nomination process because the two parties continue to move further and further left and right leaving them without a political home. Neither party represents them, so they drop out, leave whichever party. This leaves the hard core in each party and makes the hard core happy. Now they can nominate their Trump's, Moore's etc. Neither party wants their moderates back. They just want their votes in November, but stay out of the candidate selection process.

There's the problems, those who left the two major parties over the last 20 or so years don't want anything to do with them as they no longer represent them. The two major parties don't want them back either as now they have a strangle hold on choosing whom their candidates are. This is why we had two presidential candidates whom were disliked by 60% of Americans or in which both candidates unfavorable rating was at 60%.

Perhaps in the past when the two parties represented more of America, when independents was a much smaller faction, that wouldn't have happened. But who is going to go back to one or the other party when neither wants them back? When one has to pass a litmus test to become a Republican or a Democrat nowadays. I think the smaller the two major parties become, the happier each is. That means the hard core extreme right and left has more and more control.

 

While I am in substantial agreement, I see the GOP going further and further right (as attested to by their current extremist position on immigration issues vs the centrist position they had previously espoused) whilst Democrats have been fairly consistent, and even moved modestly right on the issue to the point that they had actually agreed to a silly wall in exchange for DACA. Republicans are now even attempting to slash legal immigration, as Democrats support the status quo.

 

I know, a Rhodes scholar is less Important to you. You judge a woman by looks and I judge a woman by intelligence..We just have different values

 

I am not saying Obama isn’t president now.... since you believe that 0% has to do with Trump I suggest that you tell the FBI what you know because they indicted 13 people and four people have pleaded guilty to lying and guess what? None of them were under Obama. But even if this all started with Obama let’s investigate, because this is very serious no matter who the president is. It could all be Obamas fault but don’t you want it stopped? I think you would rather have Russia intrude in our democracy than to fault trump.

 

You are correct. The people who said who they would vote for wanted Hillary. But like so many people they thought that she was shoe in that they did not bother to vote...If you notice now the lesson was learned and Democrats registering are up over 100%

 

1. I have yet to see an indictment for Trump. Something you guys claimed would happen in the 1st 90 days.
2. You keep IGNORING everything I posted lol. Don't expect to be treated with rational discussion when you're too afraid to acknowledge the facts presented to you
3. Yes, of course the Republicans want this stopped. We've been saying it all along while you guys laughed and said the cold war is over! Had Republicans been in charge, this NEVER would have happened.

 

There is no evidence to support your claim that people did not vote for he because they thought ahe was a shoe in fact I would assert quite the opposite the she being the first woman to run on a major ticket it got more votes out than otherwise.

And the Republicans had a record turnout in Texas, the Democrats did not.