The circus came to town in DC for the past four days and did a good job of displaying why the Republicans are in a lot of trouble.
The CPAC clown show, er, I mean shitshow, er, I mean conference, is proof of the difficulty the party will have in keeping their increasingly fractured coalition together for 2024.
A mere 40 years ago, the Republican Party was defined by overall ideological unity on three conservative principles: free markets, a muscular foreign policy and traditional social values.
Those three pillars were the heart of the Reagan revolution. No more.
The MAGA movement, which clearly took over this year's CPAC conference, has moved the party to a protectionist, populist, belligerent outlook. The one issue that appears to still unite the GOP is fighting "wokeness," which even former House speaker Paul Ryan - called a RINO last night and targeted for “removal” by Trump in his Nuremberg Rally speech - cited as his primary reason for continuing to support and be involved with Faux Snooze in a combative interview last week with his formr friend and ally, Charlie Sykes.
No more free markets. For the past year, companies such as Disney and PNC Bank that are proud to publicly showcase their commitment to progressive values that embrace diversity have come under attack, with Governor InSanity declaring he will control the content creatd by Disney to prevent further attacks of “wokeness” on good god-fearin’ patriotic Amurrikins.
What was once the “Party of Lawn Ordure” sees Fraternity Freddie, er, I mean Matt Gaetz, call for defunding the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies if they don't “get back on our side." The goobers at CPAC gave him a standing ovation. Vivek Ramaswamy, a venture capitalist and GOP presidential candidate issued a call for the FBI to be dismantled and replaced with something else.
Trump’s keynote address last night was two hours of a vengeful indictment of the GOP establishment: "We will expel the warmongers, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, we will throw off the political class that hates our country. The Republican Party was ruled by freaks, neocons, open-border zealots and fools. We're never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush.” He then pledged to protect Social Security from any Republicans pursuing reduced benefits.
This from a former president and current leading presidential candidate of one of the two major political parties of this country, who pushes his political campaign with a “music video” that has the “J6 Prison Choir” - the convicted insurrectionists now in the DC jail - singing “The Star Spangled Banner” while he shouts the Pledge of Allegiance.
Can it get crazier?
Well, yes, since you ask, it can.
Friday night, Marjorie Traitor Goon targeted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in her speech, telling him to "leave your hands off of our sons and daughters." When asked about former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, both unapologetic Ukraine hawks, Congresswoman Goon replied "I don't listen to Nikki Haley and I don't think she's going to do well in the primary."
The Goonbimbo is probably right.
For those who think Governor InSanity will be a threat to the Trump Party, a top Trump advisersaid that the governor has "Reagan Republican" vulnerabilities the former president will exploit.
“Reagan Republicans” are now “the enemy” in the looney half of what passes for the Republican Party today.
Trump knows his audience: he dominated DeSantis in the CPAC straw poll, 62%-20%, and saw improvement from his 2022 numbers when he led DeSantis 59%-28%. “Trump has completely remade the party since he’s become president,” a Trump aide said. “He realized there’s a difference between what grassroots activists thought and what Bush Republicans in Washington, D.C., were trying to enact.”
"In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. This is the final battle, they know it. I know it, you know it, and everybody knows it, this is it. Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country." The neverwere’s, the neverwillbe’s, the lifetime losers, the Dilberts who know they’re the geniuses but no one will recognize them, they love this, this is why they support him. He’ll “get” all those people who pointed at them and snickered.
He also knows who the average wingnut moron is: a senile old white male boomer. "We're not going back to people that want to destroy our great social security system. Even some in our own party, I wonder who that might be. That want to raise the minimum age of social security to 70, 75 or even 80 in some cases, and then a route to cut Medicare to a level that it will no longer be recognizable."
“Get your government hands off my social security!” - the battle cry of the drunks in The Villages.
Two other declared GOP candidates, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, garnered 3 and 1 percent of the vote respectively. Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, who ran a Super Bowl ad for his long-shot campaign for the GOP nomination came in third with 5% of the vote. Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, along with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, each had 1% of the vote to round out the tally board.
The straw poll also found 79% of attendees oppose U.S. military aid to Ukraine, while 74% want abortion regulated on the state (not federal) level.
Basically, Trump is prioritizing the 30% of Republicans who consider themselves "Trump-first Republicans," leaving his rivals to compete for backing among the shrinking minority who support the party first.
Trump declared he would run even if he was indicted, and the goobers cheered him. he will, too.
If four or five others enter the race and divide up that 70% who aren’t “Trump first” among them, Trump ends up with a plurality win in most of the coming GOP winner-take-all primaries, just like he did in 2016. And in that 70%, most of them already also agree with the policies Trump is promoting. For anyone else to win, they will have to adopt Trumpism hook, line and sinker, whatever they want to call it.
This morning, “moderate” “sane Republican” former Maryland governor Larry Hogan announced he is NOT running for president in 2024.
The media and the political elites want to find Anything But Trump to write about, unless it is clown shows like this past weekend at CPAC. The fact is that even the people claiming to not be Trump, like Hikki Haley, cannot find anything they disagree with him on when asked by interviewers. They announce that they too are supportive of the most recent Idiot Thing among Republicans, the way Paul Ryan defended Fox because it is “anti-woke,” though even he couldn’t describe was “woke” is and why it should be opposed, when asked. Either all of this, or they want to prove they could out-Trump Trump, as DeSantis is attempting to do with his non-campaign campaign for president.
What we have witnessed and are witnessing is a Republican party on steroids to turn the latest fringe belief or activity into the next mainstream definer of the party. This is because this is now a party bereft of ideas, that likely won’t have a convention and write a platform in 2024 because they don’t have new ideas and know that their old ideas are unpopular; this is why they no longer believe in democracy. It is now a badge of belief in the party that the Jauary 6 insurrectionists are “persecuted political prisoners,” that the footage that has been shown of the insurrection is faked.
The Republican Party is whatever a mentally-deficient, un-educable, lifelong cheat and liar says it is whenever he opens his mouth and words come out. Two hours of mendacity; malevolence; revenge fantasy; willful, chosen ignorance; and free association broadcast last night is today what the Republican Party believes and is about.
Until the next time he lets words fall out of his mouth.
People have asked, how did it happen in Germany in the 1930s - this is how it happened then and is happening now.
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It shocked me when The Times posted my comment about Hogan:
"First, when he describes the republican party he believes in, he is describing the Democratic Party. He should join it and stop consorting with traitors.
"Second, he does not say that he will not vote for the republican nominee if it is someone who is a former republican president or follows in his footsteps--i.e., the governor of Fascistida, or said former president's UN ambassador, secretary of state, or vice-president.
"In other words, Mr. Hogan fits how Eric Sevareid, the CBS News commentator, described another former Maryland governor, Spiro Agnew: He preaches the old-fashioned virtues and practices the old-fashioned vices."
After I wrote that, I saw someone refer to corruption in his administration. Hogan IS a true republican.
The key point is that Cheeto Mussolini (and that's in honor of my father, who died in 2020, who watched one of his speeches, called me, and said, "I saw this as a kid when I watched newsreels. It's Mussolini all over again.") merely said aloud what every single loyal republican either said privately or thought to themselves, except for calling Obama a six-letter word that begins with n and is not nougat--that's the one thing they have kept under wraps. But if you think they don't say it regularly, I have some Florida swampland for you.
'People have asked, how did it happen in Germany in the 1930s - this is how it happened then and is happening now.' wrote TC. Here's another item for our Americana Fascist file, circa 2020s:
'CPAC Speaker Calls for Eradication of ‘Transgenderism’ — and Somehow Claims He’s Not Calling for Elimination of Transgender People'
'There is no separating a ban on “transgenderism” from an attack on transgender people, says activist Erin Reed: “They are one and the same, and there’s no separation between them”
'THE RIGHT’S WAR on queer and trans people took center stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference as Daily Wire host Michael Knowles on Saturday called for the eradication of “transgenderism.”
'During his speech on Saturday, Knowles told the crowd, “For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.” (Rolling Stone)