2022 MidTerms & State races- who ya got?

[rufus]

If Jill Biden got heckled buying ice cream, then I feel the same way about it that I expressed regarding the earlier heckling discussion. It's boorish conduct that as a society we should neither engage in nor support. I don't know anything about the ice cream incident, but honestly, I didn't know anything about the other heckling incident either until someone on here started posting about it.

Except in this case, you don't immediately come running to the board to express your disapproval, not like when its those mean, uncivil leftists doing it to one of your fine upstanding Republican citizens.


That alone says a lot about what it is about the action that really is the bothersome part to you.

[Jimjamesak]

One of the positives of Alaska’s new RCV system is the Republican on Republican violence we get in the political ads now. The Murkowski v Tshibaka ads have been hilarious.

[Drew S.]

This is about the tories but very applicable to the problems we face here https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...ervative-party

[psych]

I wish our Conservative Party was simply stuck in the past with no fresh policy ideas. Ours want to end democracy as we know it. Do the British Tories? I’m thinking no.

[Kepler]

I wish our Conservative Party was simply stuck in the past with no fresh policy ideas.

Me too. That's what conservatives are supposed to be. Humanity makes progress, then we take a breather while the slow people catch up. That's the cycle of liberalism / conservatism that allows humanity to grow but at a pace that doesn't make the dummies too uneasy.

But conservatism metastasized into fascism here. From an unfortunate but necessary short bus it turned into a rocket launcher.

[dxmnkd316]

Me too. That's what conservatives are supposed to be. Humanity makes progress, then we take a breather while the slow people catch up. That's the cycle of liberalism / conservatism that allows humanity to grow but at a pace that doesn't make the dummies too uneasy.

But conservatism metastasized into fascism here. From an unfortunate but necessary short bus it turned into a rocket launcher.

That really is the difference isn't it? A benign tumor vs. a cancer. Benign ain't great, but it probably won't kill you. Cancer will.

[Kepler]

I wouldn't even call traditional conservatism a benign tumor -- there was a functional utility for conservatism. It was like having brakes. But the Right now is having an open container of TNT sloshing around unsecured in the trunk.

[Handyman]

So the Right is the appendix?

[Swansong]

I think having a democracy-loving conservative bloc is incredibly important. Society progresses, but having a group of people committed to society but that take a "hey now, one moment here..." approach is good. Not all progressive ideas are good, and having the sort of devil's advocate is valuable.


Agree, though, that what passes for modern conservatism is merely "I WANT MY RIGHTS TO BE ABLE TO SUPPRESS YOURS!"

[RaceBoarder]

The right isn't useless.

Like Kepler said, by it's nature, it keeps stuff in check. By themselves, having a position with a POV from the "right" isn't something that is super toxic. My POV on how we should approach trans athletes at the high school level is one that comes to mind from the board here. Sometimes progress needs to be slightly delayed in order to make sure all the bases are covered.

[dxmnkd316]

I guess I'm struggling to see right vs. left in the current context. It's been 50 years since the right employed facts. 70 since they weren't felons.

Conservatism has been dead for a long time. At least in this country. I don't know how it revives itself short of war where (lowercase) liberalism prevails. You can still work with people like Scarborough, Steele, Nicole Wallace, etc. But they haven't been in power for 10+ years.

[RaceBoarder]

I guess I'm struggling to see right vs. left in the current context. It's been 50 years since the right employed facts. 70 since they weren't felons.

Conservatism has been dead for a long time. At least in this country. I don't know how it revives itself short of war where (lowercase) liberalism prevails. You can still work with people like Scarborough, Steele, Nicole Wallace, etc. But they haven't been in power for 10+ years.

I get lumped into the current iteration of the "Right" because I lean towards allowing guns to exist (hunting, protection, etc. but need reform from the status quo.). But almost everyone who has left leaning tendencies basically says "**** your guns" and refuses to acknowledge the depth hunting has as a cultural tradition in this country. That is kind of where I was going with this.

The polarization works on both ends. There is almost no more middle ground to be had and shared with things.

[Handyman]

Conservatism is needed...there hasn't been a true conservative party for most of my lifetime. What The Right has been since Reagan is a power hungry, government expanding, rights denying group that tells everyone what to do and how to do it. That is not what conservatism is all about.

If you talk to a real conservative, you will find their beliefs mirror many of ours. They don't want religion in schools, they don't want religion in government. They dont care if Gays get married or if Black People are cast as James Bond. They just want to be left alone and they will in turn do the same. The differences lie in that they want small government and we want a strong federal government. They believe in baby steps and we believe in big leaps. Those are differences that can be handled quite easily.

The problem is The Right is now in league with a lot of people who hated Republicans as much as they hated Democrats. The Right is beholden to a large group of antiestablishment, antigovernment, anti law terrorists because that is the only way they can make up for the fact that they have no ideas people actually want to elect them on. They are also beholden to Christian Fascists who have a lot of donatable money and and righteous indignation for days.

In my father's lifetime the conservative movement went from "less power, less spending, less government in your lives" to "do what we say, our way is the only way". That is why America is failing.

[Handyman]

I get lumped into the current iteration of the "Right" because I lean towards allowing guns to exist (hunting, protection, etc. but need reform from the status quo.). But almost everyone who has left leaning tendencies basically says "**** your guns" and refuses to acknowledge the depth hunting has as a cultural tradition in this country. That is kind of where I was going with this.

The polarization works on both ends. There is almost no more middle ground to be had and shared with things.

Uh, most people on The Left have zero issue with people having guns for hunting. The issue is the type of gun. The VAST majority of Democrats want nothing to do with banning guns it is a very very very very small and loud minority.

[Kepler]

The right isn't useless.

Like Kepler said, by it's nature, it keeps stuff in check. By themselves, having a position with a POV from the "right" isn't something that is super toxic. My POV on how we should approach trans athletes at the high school level is one that comes to mind from the board here. Sometimes progress needs to be slightly delayed in order to make sure all the bases are covered.

Although the point is that attitude is primarily borne of fear. I hope you realize that 75 years ago you would be having the same considered, conservative response to mixing the races in the locker room.

Moral panic is what occurs when old prejudices and taboos are eroded by the healthy effect of heterogeneity infiltrating a previously closed society. The traditional Muslim world reacts with terror and anger to women's rights. Conservatism, when useful, takes that terror and channels it into mostly harmless reactionary politics which slows down the adoption of inclusive mores in places where the old are deeply scared by it until they die off. Then their children tut tut about how hidebound their ancestors were... and do the same thing with the next moral panic.

Without a reasonable, watered-down conservative excuse for opposing liberation, backwards societies will become vicious and violent. This is what happened with the CSA, the Wahhabists, the Fascists, the Nazis, and now with the Dumpies. When you push animals into a corner they bare their teeth and come for your throat.

We need the GOP as a lullaby to allow these people to cling to their guns and Bibles until enough time passes, and enough demography runs down the drain, that the remaining population is much less homophobic, misogynist, racist, trans-phobic. In a word, less religious. The function of conservatism is to allow the worst people an assisted living facility to live out their last days in a fantasy world, so they don't bother the rest of us.