Allah keeps chortling, saying, "No you guys will be back," but I don't think he understands.
Something has changed.
No, we won't be back. Not in the way he means it. If AllahPundit means that I, for example, will still prefer a more conservative president over a less conservative one, sure, of course, but then, Communists preferred the more liberal Bill Clinton over the less liberal George Bush, without actually supporting the Democratic Party with anything stronger than a velleity.
In 2014, the Establishment went all out to defeat its foes not just on the electoral battlefield, but in the battlefield of the mind as well. They wanted to teach the upstarts a lesson: You have not only lost, but you will always lose; you will not be permitted to win, ever. The entire Party will rise up to crush you should you signal any intention of bucking our Rule.
I warned them about something then: A hopeless soldier is a soldier who will desert the field.
Yes, Establishment GOP, you can teach us that you will always lie to us, stab us in the back, humiliate us and crush us; but if you teach us that, be aware we are learning another lesson, too. Not just that "The Establishment Will Always Crush You," but the lesson that There is no hope in any kind of conventional politics for those of us who want better than this Pile of Shit the two parties give us.
You can deal someone a defeat, but you contend with hurricanes when you seek to kill all of their hopes as well.
I am now well and truly convinced of the Object Lesson our Establishment Masters sought to teach us last fall and this past winter:
They will lie to us, always, so that we cannot even have an argument about policy differences with them. We cannot explain to them why amnesty is a bad deal because they lie and claim that they are already against amnesty.
They will not even respect us enough to have the argument with us.
They will betray us constantly, because they think they can.
They think that our desire for a better America will draw us to vote for the Least Worst candidates.
But many of us now feel like the Communists, or the hardcore paleocons: There really is not a large enough difference between the two parties any more to bother oneself in terms of emotional and financial investment any longer.
Either way, we will have some form of repressive, unresponsive socialism in this country; what should we care whether the National Welfare Depot is painted in Red or Blue?
I'm not coming back. I'm done. For the past ten years of my life, I've made arguments, some of which I knew to be false, to defend and apologize for the GOP; I see now that I was a fool to do so.
I actually do not care very much if Hillary Clinton is president. What would really be different? Oh, of course she will be cruel to her political opponents, siccing the machinery of the government on them; but I no longer intend to be her political opponent, not in any more than a chiding way, so what do I care about that?
Besides, her Enemies List is long and luscious; I'm sure I'm way down on it.
Now actual Republicans may have cause to worry but that's their own business.
This party has betrayed me for the last time.
You won your battle, GOP establishment. You taught us all that us Lowly Voters were not going to tell you People of Rank how things were to be run.
Well, I believe you. You will never permit we Lowly Voters a say in how we manage our lives and our country. You have to Deliver your Deliverables to your Donor Class.
Well, I hope they have enough money to buy people's votes, because a lot of us are done with politics, except in an abstract, philosophical way.
I'm now a spectator. I will root for this team or that, as I might root for European soccer teams: that is, out of boredom, not conviction.
You killed all hope that I had. You killed the hope in many of us.
Good luck with your convention and all. I'm sure there'll be a lot of people who are Totally Psyched about the balloons and confetti.
Some of us need more, or need less, and I as I can't have more, I'm choosing less.
Here's Some Truth: We all know this, but being Part of the Team, I felt obligated to lie, because I figured you expected me to lie, even though you didn't believe it.
So yeah: The GOP is never repealing Obamacare or even trying hard to do so. They will make false efforts at doing so which they can present to voters as a Good College Try, but aw shucks, we couldn't quite do it.
It's a relief to no longer have to propagate this obvious, feeble lie.
I know very few of you believe the GOP has much intention of repealing Obamacare, but, being a Republican, I have previously felt the need to present The Official Party Position even knowing it was total bullshit.
I've known it was a lie for a year, which is why I hate when it comes up on, say, the Podcast. What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to pretend the GOP is going to repeal it?
So they're not. They never were.
It was always a lie. To get you to vote for them. We lose on the issue, so then we Have The Issue to run on.
So now we should just start appreciating the Good Parts of Obamacare, because there's no sense being angry about something the Establishment has decided you can't change.
{it is interesting to read him coming clean, I've noticed some of his gopE support in the past seemed very strained.... I guess that it was....}
I've only come to this conclusion within the last few years, and reluctantly. It's hard to accept that what you've been supporting and invested a lot into is just not on your side. The GOP definitely isn't.
Now, I won't give up on them entirely, they can be a tool to accomplish some things, but support the GOP - no way.
Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #2I've only come to this conclusion within the last few years, and reluctantly. It's hard to accept that what you've been supporting and invested a lot into is just not on your side. The GOP definitely isn't.
Now, I won't give up on them entirely, they can be a tool to accomplish some things, but support the GOP - no way.
Oh, you are correct, it is indeed hard to accept. I assume that most of us here have been lifelong Republicans, probably gave a fair amount of cash and sweat equity to the party over decades.
That is one of the reasons that we are in the position that we are in, getting people to understand (and more importantly, accept) the fact that WtP have no team on the field, is very difficult.
Around the time of Bush's second term, I started seeing the party turned into a corporatist special interest maintenance outfit like the Rat party. That Rove tactic is why the base is why the party is a mess today.
I agree! We've suffered enough of being assaulted!
******* Daniel Greenfield, January 29, 2015, The Imaginary Islamic Radical
"Our problem is not the Islamic radical, but the inherent radicalism of Islam. Islam is a radical religion. It radicalizes those who follow it. Every atrocity we associate with Islamic radicals is already in Islam. The Koran is not the solution to Islamic radicalism, it is the cause."