When historians chronicle the end of the Grand Old Party, they may mark 2024 as the turning point. Something called the Republican Party will surely exist for years to come, like a legacy brand subsumed by a competitor, but it appears to be coming to its end as a functional party. Instead, the Republican Party has become just another subsidiary of Donald Trump Inc.
Yesterday, Trump announced his effective takeover of the Republican National Committee, endorsing Michael Whatley, the chair of the North Carolina GOP, as chair; his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair; and one of his top campaign advisers, Chris LaCivita, as chief operating officer. LaCivita will reportedly also remain with the Trump presidential campaign, splitting time. The current chair of the party, Ronna McDaniel, is stepping down because of pressure from Trump.
Officially, these are only recommendations, but they seem nearly certain to become reality.
Christianity as we know it was canonized shortly after the emperor of Rome converted.
Unsurprisingly, they canonized traditions portraying a divine monarchy for which patriarchal monarchies on Earth were effectively a mirror. The emperor was picked by God to rule and that form of rule reflects the divine.
They excluded texts that had Jesus suggesting a very different attitude towards dynastic monarchies, such as this gem from a text eventually banned from possession on penalty of death (we only have this line because a single person buried a copy in a jar in the 4th century which survived):
Jesus said, "Let one who has become wealthy reign, and let one who has power renounce it."
Gospel of Thomas saying 81
While less progressive by modern stances, if this were said during Pilate's reign it would have been extremely transgressive. Tiberius, the emperor at that time, was the first emperor effectively inheriting the kingdom rather than ruling because of accomplishments and while initially mismanaging it, by the time Pilate was appointed Tiberius had just completely abandoned the role to go party all the time, but never relinquishing the role of emperor to another.
So a statement about how someone should be appointed to rule based on merit and not birth, and that those who rule should relinquish the power rather than hold it indefinitely - was quite the rebellious kind of sentiment. The sort of thing which might even get the person saying it publicly killed by the Roman empire.
Unfortunately, that sentiment wasn't preserved and instead "monarchy is divine" got amplified, which contributed to millennia of human suffering and now today the evangelicals are frothing at the mouth to reinstate a supposed divine monarchy on Earth, and the neo-fascists have co-opted that movement.
Yesterday, Trump announced his effective takeover of the Republican National Committee, endorsing Michael Whatley, the chair of the North Carolina GOP, as chair; his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair; and one of his top campaign advisers, Chris LaCivita, as chief operating officer. LaCivita will reportedly also remain with the Trump presidential campaign, splitting time. The current chair of the party, Ronna McDaniel, is stepping down because of pressure from Trump.
Jesus republiQans. I know y’all are dumb but that’s fucking embarrassing. Still, the only available response to someone desperately shooting holes in their parachute is: okay. Whatever.
They've been a mob of committed traitors since Mitch McConnell staked his claim on Congress during the Obama administration and beyond. They've been a criminal enterprise since Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon.
The Regan era really made it into a nightmare, as did Newt Gingrich with his strategy (later maintained by McConnell) of "Stonewall and obstruct the Democrats at all costs."
And yet it's what half of the population actually want. They are willing to destroy the country by voting in protest, or abstaining to own the libs, and because of what is happening in another country. Go figure. I swear, if these hippies let trump in again, they deserve his fat fiddly hands groping away at the nations pussy.
Nowhere near half, at most a third of the population. Trump was elected in 2016 by just ~27% of the eligible voting population. That year only ~60% of all eligible voters even voted.
So what happens to the Republicans when Trump dies? He's old as shit as despite what fascists are saying about Biden's mental state, Trump has been deranged, like 2nd term Ronnie deranged, for years and years.
It's not like his kids have anywhere near his popularity (I can't believe this is a real fucking sentence) and only his daughter has a shot in hell. But then we're dealing with regressive bigots thinking about voting for a, gasp, woman! I just don't see Trump having a legacy.
I'm thinking a massive power vacuum forms, followed by full party collapse if no one rises to unite the factions. It won't be a trump, for all the reasons you listed. It could have been desantis but trump poisioned that well too. I really hope a sane third party is prepared to step in after the dust settles
Honestly, I think the Dems will just go further right to try and fill the vacuum. Nobody can save the QAnoners now, but ashamed Republicans can be future Democrats as long as the tax cuts and heavy handed border control continues.
Just because they have become something else doesn’t mean their party is not still, inherently, political. At this point, and cannot untie what they’re doing from politics.
Maybe I am missing some obvious third option, but I think there are only two main possible outcomes at the end of all this several years hence:
The GOP ceases to exist as a non-fringe party, with Democratic primaries between the establishment-Democrat wing and the progressive-Democrat wing as the main event politically.
Fascist dictatorship
The normally reliable rate of young people turning Republican as they age and get settled in life has dropped to basically 0, so the GOP is basically stuck with the ones they've got and their election-rigging chicanery, and both situations ratchet a little less to their benefit with every passing year. They haven't won the popular vote for president in 20 years, and if gerrymandering went away they would lose control of congress irrevocably overnight.
The bad thing is that I think a lot of Republican politicians are aware of this. It might be part of why the ones of them that aren't resigning seem so comfortable with accelerating fascism. In the first case, their careers will end in useless humiliation that attaches to them personally, and they'll have to find a real job.
Polling in December 2023 is going to give Biden a massive drop in support, because the Gaza war and Biden's foreign-policy-business-as-usual response to it had just tanked his support among politically aware young people. As much as I personally would wish that wasn't true, it's definitely going to have an impact; I'm surprised his support dropped by only ten points since the middle of the year (maybe representing a depressingly small number of young voters who are politically active enough to realize that support for Israel is a bad thing, or maybe counterbalancing factors).
I think The Economist just likes to spin bad stories about Biden. There's a lot in this story that to me is suspect, e.g. "Americans under 30 did not much trust either probable nominee. But they trusted Mr Trump more on the economy, national security, the Israel-Hamas war, crime, immigration and strengthening the working class."
This year and this mideast war and these candidates notwithstanding, the overall demographics year over year are exactly as I described them. You have to count back to the grouping that is minimum 68 years old before you find even plurality Republican support, and even including the silent generation (!) they are never a majority. That is not as it used to be.
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Political party: a group of persons organized to acquire and exercise political power. They certainly are a political party. And Washington was right to denounce them.
False equivalency. They. Are. Not. The. Same.
Do both parties have some issues in common? Sure. Does our system need reform? Absolutely. But just because there is some overlap in the Venn diagram that is our political system does not make them the same. At least the democrats are trying to govern.
Problem is half of the population sees it as that. And a growing chunk seems to reject the other choice because of what is happening in the other side of the world.
The Democrats still make an attempt at governing; passing bills, doing things that are good and preventing things that are bad. They often do it with a slanted view of which socioeconomic bracket these good things and bad things are going to be defined for, but the Republicans aren't even trying to do that anymore. They're just showing up every day and shitting all over the carpet and telling racist jokes. Fight our geopolitical enemies? Fuck that, we like our enemies. Stop the government from shutting down? Fix the economy? Etc etc, and so on.
We have an entire generation of whiners in voting age now, who care about what is happening outside of the borders more than fixing what lies within. It's gonna be an interesting November. Just saying.