Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Today Congress meets in Joint Session to witness the Vice President open the electoral ballot envelopes and count them. Fanciful tales have been spun about how Vice-President Pence could refuse to count some of the electoral votes. (See above that President Trump clearly believes this.) That isn’t going to happen. That ship sailed when Republican legislatures in the contested states failed to certify alternative slates of electors. What will happen is that challenges will be made to the electoral votes in some of the contested states and each chamber will vote on the challenges. The majority will vote to accept the electoral votes and that will be that. The challengers will make their case that the results are tainted by fraud, and the response will be that either the fraud did not exist, or that it wasn’t sufficient to change the vote. Trump supporters hoping that this will be thrown into the House for a vote by state delegations are going to be disappointed today.
What today does do however is to set up Trump as a man who half the country believes had the election stolen from him and the American people. We will see if that signifies something down the road.
Agree. My guess is Trump will carry on and form a 3rd Political Party, etc. etc. He now a man with a God mandated mission. He and Vigano will do what they can to slow down the coming of the Anti-Christ or a least prepare those who will listen. Overall, I see nothing but bad times ahead.
I’m anticipating sitting back and ignoring the dishonest attempts to put lipstick on the pigs they* just thrust upon us.
They = academia, globalist billionaires, main stream media, social media, tech titans, China.
My guess is Trump will carry on and form a 3rd Political Party, etc. etc. He now a man with a God mandated mission.
Wrong on both counts. Trump has no need for a new party as he is in control of the GOP now. The Georgia defeats of the establishment solidifies that control. I am always cautious of ascribing the will of God in politics. As Lincoln noted, The Almighty has His own purposes.
A Republican Party reborn as the party of common folk.
(National Review who?)
Taking control of the Republican Party seems to be a better strategy than starting a third party. Perhaps because of political apathy we have the party we deserve. The situation is depressing but the problem has been exposed, the challenge will be working out a strategy going forward. Two years will pass quickly and conservatives need get on with building a solid platform and candidates to begin taking over the Republican Party. There should already be a recall effort to remove and replace the Georgia governor his minions who sold out to the Democrats.
If all goes well the defeated and banished establishment hacks can start their third party.
We’ve been trying to take control of the Republican party since Reagan. It’s not really working for us.
A Republican Party reborn as the party of common folk.
(National Review who?)
The trouble with National Review and Commentary is that their institutional purpose is to provide salaries for the people who work there. The IRS 990 forms indicate that both Richard Lowry and John Podhoretz receive salaries in excess of $200,000, as did Kevin Williamson at one point. I think NR has about 25 employees and Commentary about 10. David French, who has almost no history of employment in private firms, who has practiced law only fitfully for the last 15 years, and who is not a member of the bar of the state in which he actually lives, also received a handsome stipend.
We’ve been trying to take control of the Republican party since Reagan. It’s not really working for us.
When Reagan was building a national profile, about 1/4 of the Senate Republican caucus had a voting record closer to the median of the Democratic caucus than to the median of the Republican caucus. Hugh Scott, the Republican floor leader, had a voting record about equidistant between the caucuses. There is a Republican senator today whose voting record is equidistant. Her name is Susan Collins.
A detractor of McConnell has offered an interpretation of him thus: he actually doesn’t care about squat other than giving business lobbyists what they want. That seem a peculiarly pointless way to spend your old age. He is kept there by the caucus. At the age of 78, he’s just been re-elected for a 7th term and has not held the floor leader’s position for 14 years. Republican senators reward failure.
Does it strike you as odd that all three of McConnell’s daughters and two of their spouses are hostile to the Republican Party? You usually get your politics and religion from your father and your manners to your mother. He doesn’t seem to have influenced any of them.
Both of the two main broken parties would not be missed if they died out. What we do miss is what Trump is encouraging… shared goals, shared beliefs, shared opportunity …
The county local election where I live is an example of how difficult it is for conservatives. Our County Commissioner was a true constitutional conservative and understood that not increasing taxes required fiscal responsibility. After the election he told me that he was outspent by the farm lobby, undermined by other officials and lied about on Facebook. His victorious opponent will deliver to his supporters and the rest of the county will pay for it in higher taxes.
For many years I have voted against establishment candidates during primaries but had to vote for the establishment’s candidate in the general election because the alternative was much worse. The vast resources of the establishment, neglect from the local media, and no accountability for slandering is hard to overcome. Trump has even traveled to states to endorse the establishment candidate who then turns on him. If the conservative does win against the establishment he receives no funds or endorsements from the Republican Party. The Republican establishment will cover its neglect and abandonment of the conservative candidate by blaming the victim of its neglect and abandonment by labeling him as a crazy fringe candidate should have never run for an office. The media then piles on and by the time they finish the conservative is permanently damaged and exiled, never to run for office again.
“Does it strike you as odd that all three of McConnell’s daughters and two of their spouses are hostile to the Republican Party?”
Doesn’t strike me at all odd.
But then I figure one-third to one-half of Republican office-holders are closet Democrats.
For many years I have voted against establishment candidates during primaries but had to vote for the establishment’s candidate in the general election because the alternative was much worse.
You need, we all need, to start getting comfortable with “much worse.”
Doesn’t strike me at all odd.
Why is it not at all odd?
Pretty sure I called McConnell a closet Democrat.
If that’s too facile, then it probably has something to do with the perception that the Republican party is swarming with wicked, cruel, nasty, evil conservatives.
Pretty sure I called McConnell a closet Democrat.
Per the American Conservative Union, he votes correctly 87% of the time.
If that’s too facile, then it probably has something to do with the perception that the Republican party is swarming with wicked, cruel, nasty, evil conservatives.
Which doesn’t convince half the public. Why do his daughters and their respective husbands buy into this?
McConnell and their mother divorced in 1980. She went full blown feminazi and their daughters took after her.
Virtue signaling, class markers?
McConnell and their mother divorced in 1980. She went full blown feminazi and their daughters took after her.
My mother might have appreciated a daughter who took after her. She was 0 for 2.
I see a great career path open to our Republicans.
Appears to me the Republican establishment will be quite happy with serving out their careers in an American version of the Euro “Christian Democrat” parties, pining away in public for power so they can institute policies commensurate with their promises {while dreading the day it might occur}. Being the underdog has, after all, endless opportunities for fund raising and “if we only had both houses and the presidency” which in the past every now and then they inadvertently achieved, only to prove they had no plans whatsoever to accomplish what they promised to do in their fund raising slicks.
Trump has taken this machine over, but it is still the same machine. He has managed to inject it with higher octane fuel and changed the spark plugs, but it is still the same machine. The last 2 months is proof enough of that.
“The last 2 months is proof enough of that.” Nope, all four years and more. I first read about the golden showers propaganda shortly after he was in office and then we were into the long slow build-up to the impeachment farce. He had most of two political parties against him since 2016 when he began running.
American version of the Euro “Christian Democrat”
Foundationally Christian Democratic parties are important in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Flanders, and Luxembourg . In the rest of Europe, they’ve faded away.
Trump has taken this machine over, but it is still the same machine. He has managed to inject it with higher octane fuel and changed the spark plugs, but it is still the same machine. The last 2 months is proof enough of that.
If it’s still the same machine, and I agree that is, can we really say that Trump has taken it over?
“If it’s still the same machine, and I agree that is, can we really say that Trump has taken it over?”
Correct. It was just a manner of speaking to say that he really hasn’t. And that Republicans have a tradition of running on platforms they never really intend to implement when given the chance.
Maybe we should do something about that by finding a better party to support.
It amazes me that many good people fail to calculate the effect of twenty million new voters by 2022. Count on it through a Biden amnesty in his first one hundred days. They will not need to cheat next time. For those who think Joe Manchin might serve as a buffer to the radical agenda, think of what a glorious opportunity for attention starved Mitt Romney to cross over and be a media darling.