Really? The dude has already been on record pushing for nationalized healthcare and defaulting on the debt. Does any part of you really think he’s a staunch conservative with principles that couldn’t be changed at a whim? Do you agree that him saying those things would change none of his supporters minds?
Compare the national debt from when he took office. It clearly wouldn’t keep him from supporting socialized medicine, paying for college, etc. Of course I’m not expecting this to happen (though with Trump who the fuck knows). I brought it up to speculate that he could right now call for things much farther left than Biden and almost all his supporters would still vote for him.
This is precisely what was said about Obama. Republicans really need some new catch phrases.
That RINO talk sure died down when Trump came out as opposite of what the Republicans have held as ideals for the last 30 years.
Well, what are the republican ideals now? They seem to have literally left that page blank at the recent RNC haha. or did they fill it in N/A. Or did they just put in TDS/MAGA under “Policy Platform and Ideals”?
Btw, would love to hear from our “law and order”-loving Trunpkins on Trump/RNC’s blatant disregard for the Hatch Act by staging a partisan campaign event on the South Lawn of the White House.
(They were, of course, silent on Trump’s misuse of monies for the wall not appropriated by Congress, but being the eternal optimist, here’s another opportunity to redeem themselves by acknowledging the illegal actions.)
As a liberal I would potentially vote for a RINO (depending on the DEM candidate). I want the country to come together more than I want my ideals to be enacted. I would love to vote for someone like Arnold if he could run. I don’t think we would have so much polarization. I think the polarization is one of the great threats to the country.
Republican In Name Only is the acronym. In practice though, it is usually a center politician that is a Republican.
I would be okay with center left, center, or center right if it lowers polarization. I prefer center left over center right, but would pick center right (I am defining this as about how Arnold was) over far left.
So there were no other federal employees involved in the planning and execution of the event on federal property?
The question answers itself “of course not” - not only by virtue of common sense, but because no way Trump could ever organize and get that kind of execution on a project.
One other fun reflection: Biden’s acceptance speech scored better TV ratings than Trump’s.
TV ratings are irrelevant for purposes of divining voter turnout or interest, no one cares about this metric - except Trump. Trump sees TV ratings as the supreme measurement of validation (because he worships the magic box), so this must be a sore point. Hopefully we’ll get some Super PAC ads dropping lines about how Trump is “low ratings”.
In fairness Trump can’t be a RINO because the Republican Party has essentially said we are Trump. Now can Trump be exactly what the people who were whining about RINO’s? Of course. He’s maybe the least conservative candidate in American history. But the Republican Party isn’t pretending to be conservative anymore. They are for whatever one man wants (which might be ok if the dude they supported had a plan and wasn’t all over the map and changes his opinion based on what cable news says).
Trump’s not a RINO. He’s the only thing the party stands for now.
Oh, I agree completely that now that Trump isn’t a RINO - he’s remade the party on his image and if you don’t follow whatever the Hell he is for on a given day, you’re the RINO.
But I think about 2016 and what led up to it - for years, decades really, there was a conservative movement that had clearly defined values and principles and had scores of think tanks supporting them all, writing papers, books, and influencing policy, and the GOP was the vehicle for it in politics. It was massive, but most importantly, it was generally united in what conservatism stood for (and Repulicanism too, but for electoral reality, which didn’t allow for the perfect vision to ever be implemented all at once).
Rock solid. Constitutional theory. Economics. Family values. Etc.
Then in 2016, a philandering conman and reality TV show host shows up and declares he’s a Republican, beats other Republicans for the nomination and wins, and the entire edifice described above crumbles to meet his whim.