I do want conservatives on here

gtyellowjacket said:
He gets 75% of the way they are just for having an R at the end of the name. Probably a little further. So did W and McCain, etc. the people I'm talking about are the persuadable middle. Obama won them. Joe won them. What happened to Kamala and Hillary and Kerry?
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What did 2004, 2016 and 2024 have in common? Oh yes, gay panics and race panics. Hmm.
 
Duke Mu said:
I am a former Republican. But the Tea Party--> alt-right -->Trump/MAGA --> Trump 2.0 = National Socialism are not conservatism, not in the Reagan/Buckley sense.

Whatever was bedrock conservatism died with John McCain.
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And had been losing ground since Pat Robertson, then Falwell.
 
Duke Mu said:
I am a former Republican. But the Tea Party--> alt-right -->Trump/MAGA --> Trump 2.0 = National Socialism are not conservatism, not in the Reagan/Buckley sense.

Whatever was bedrock conservatism died with John McCain.
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True enough… and this same conversation could be on the other thread “What happened to American Conservatives?” I wasn’t sure on which thread to post. But this one works too…
 
Zoo_View said:
Let’s remember that the hero to most American Conservatives, Ronald Reagan, was tied at the hip to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly, etc.
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Yeah. They thought he'd reverse the Justice Department's decision to deny federal funding to schools like Liberty, Bob Jones and a few other religious schools who still practiced segregation. Turns out he didn't, but both sides got a lot of mileage out of it. Once it died as a cause, they decided abortion was a sin and used that as the unifier for the Moral Majority types.
 
finesse said:
And had been losing ground since Pat Robertson, then Falwell.
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Pat Buchanan as a candidate.

Robertson and Falwell were on the rim of Nixon's Southern Strategy. They seemed clownish and were not central to Reagan or 41 administration although they were paid lip service, including WH visits. Robertson was more dangerous and had some momentum.

Once a WH candidate, then POTUS, entered 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. who was only half-white, the Tea Party first flipped in Texas from a libertarian movement and mutated to the Orange Headed monster it's become. Trump is both Frankenstein's Monster and the Manchurian Candidate.

Getting through this dystopia day-by-day is all I/we can do. Grant, contracts, graduate students are in peril or have been lost.

I wish Harvard and all Universities and Law Firms in court fighting Trump the best of luck, fortune, and the law on their side. The best contract law attorneys on the planet are representing.


Dems need to get out of the shadows and be seen. Draw the wrath of Mango Duce. But have a plan and simply explain to the people why we are on the wrong path.
 
Evangelicals generally stayed away from politics until the 70s. My stepfather was a Southern Baptist minister and I'd go to the local association meetings they had every month. The local pastors and the head of the association never talked politics except to express the idea that was not part of the church world.

I doubt that there was even an evangelical political organization when he ran except for maybe a local White Citizens Council.
 
finesse said:
Evangelicals generally stayed away from politics until the 70s.
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Yes, the political/cultural history of the 1970s in the south was the creation of a white identity in order to perpetuate the racism of the previous 150+ years plus under a thin veneer. It was never convincing to anyone but the gullible or the fellow travelers.
 
Duke Mu said:
Pat Buchanan as a candidate.

Robertson and Falwell were on the rim of Nixon's Southern Strategy. They seemed clownish and were not central to Reagan or 41 administration although they were paid lip service, including WH visits. Robertson was more dangerous and had some momentum.

Once a WH candidate, then POTUS, entered 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. who was only half-white, the Tea Party first flipped in Texas from a libertarian movement and mutated to the Orange Headed monster it's become. Trump is both Frankenstein's Monster and the Manchurian Candidate.

Getting through this dystopia day-by-day is all I/we can do. Grant, contracts, graduate students are in peril or have been lost.

I wish Harvard and all Universities and Law Firms in court fighting Trump the best of luck, fortune, and the law on their side. The best contract law attorneys on the planet are representing.


Dems need to get out of the shadows and be seen. Draw the wrath of Mango Duce. But have a plan and simply explain to the people why we are on the wrong path.
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This is most "leaderless" that I've seen Democrats since the 1980s, when they were blown out in three straight presidential elections and lost control of the Senate between 1981 and 1987. The difference is that then the Democrats at least controlled the House for that entire twelve-year period and were still competitive in most rural areas and in most states, including most of the South. I've come to the belief that Democrats are just shellshocked by Trump, and especially him winning a second time as a convicted felon, and they're still trying to figure out some way to respond. The reaction to his victory in 2016 was surprise but also anger and a lot of determination to resist. The reaction to his win last year, from what I saw on social media and in real life, was very different - a real sense of depression and head-shaking at what this country has become. I think Democrats generally, from top to bottom, are still trying to feel their way through a sick nation and decaying political system that has become something that many of them don't recognize anymore.
 
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Mulberry Heel said:
This is most "leaderless" that I've seen Democrats since the 1980s, when they were blown out in three straight presidential elections and lost control of the Senate between 1981 and 1987. The difference is that then the Democrats at least controlled the House for that entire twelve-year period and were still competitive in most rural areas and in most states, including most of the South. I've come to the belief that Democrats are just shellshocked by Trump, and especially him winning a second time as a convicted felon, and they're still trying to figure out some way to respond. The reaction to his victory in 2016 was surprise but also anger and a lot of determination to resist. The reaction to his win last year, from what I saw on social media and in real life, was very different - a real sense of depression and head-shaking at what this country has become. I think Democrats generally, from top to bottom, are still trying to feel their way through a sick nation and decaying political system that has become something that many of them don't recognize anymore.
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Doesn't your second sentence answer the whole post? Since the Dems held the House, they weren't legislatively irrelevant. Also, back then, local/regional politics were at least somewhat decoupled from national politics. Obviously that's not the case any more.

I don't think the Dems lack for leaders. It's not even halfway through the first year of Trump's term. The minority party, at this stage, is usually busy with its autopsy and formulation of a response. It seems more urgent now because duh, but again the problem is that national Dems have no power so it's entirely unclear what they would do if they had the best leadership.
 
It's very likely that we're going to have to wait for them to alienate their own. Once they start realizing that their idol has feet of clay (with bone spur reinforcements, theoretically) and they start crumbling, we might have a better angle of attack.
 
No self-professed conservative can support law and order, on the one hand, and the Trump family's brazen corruption, on the other. To pretend it's not corruption is to cuck your own brain.

And I'm not even talking about the half-a-billion-dollar jet or the pardons for $1M dinners. The day-to-day crypto schemes and bribery have netted the Trumps approximately $700M: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-zeke-faux.html
 
heelinhell said:
Color me naive and hopeful that there are true and serious conservatives lurking here who may be willing to come forth and engage in an exchange of competing ideas about how best to preserve our democratic republic and move the country forward...
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There are none. The true and serious conservatives have long since made their voices be heard and they've jumped ship. George Will. John McCain. Mitt Romney. Liz Cheney. Adam Kinzinger. Bill Kristol. David Brooks. etc.

There are some conservatives who are former Republicans on this board no doubt. But they aren't going to exchange in competing ideas because they are now on the same side. They flipped because they know right from wrong.

The remaining "conservatives" on this board who have yet to flip to the right side of history, are disingenuous arselings. They shall remain nameless, but their initials are: Ramrouser, Maxcrow, Callatroy, 45and47, etc. etc.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
This is most "leaderless" that I've seen Democrats since the 1980s, when they were blown out in three straight presidential elections and lost control of the Senate between 1981 and 1987. The difference is that then the Democrats at least controlled the House for that entire twelve-year period and were still competitive in most rural areas and in most states, including most of the South. I've come to the belief that Democrats are just shellshocked by Trump, and especially him winning a second time as a convicted felon, and they're still trying to figure out some way to respond. The reaction to his victory in 2016 was surprise but also anger and a lot of determination to resist. The reaction to his win last year, from what I saw on social media and in real life, was very different - a real sense of depression and head-shaking at what this country has become. I think Democrats generally, from top to bottom, are still trying to feel their way through a sick nation and decaying political system that has become something that many of them don't recognize anymore.
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I’d argue that from 1981 through 1983, the Democrats did NOT control the House.

Phil Gramm (Dem. - TX) was closely allied with the Reagan Administration. Gramm and the other Boll Weevil Democrats voted with the Reagan Administration.

During the brutal 1982 recession, the off-year election landed and the Democrats regained control of the House.
 
Centerpiece said:
There are none. The true and serious conservatives have long since made their voices be heard and they've jumped ship. George Will. John McCain. Mitt Romney. Liz Cheney. Adam Kinzinger. Bill Kristol. David Brooks. etc.

There are some conservatives who are former Republicans on this board no doubt. But they aren't going to exchange in competing ideas because they are now on the same side. They flipped because they know right from wrong.

The remaining "conservatives" on this board who have yet to flip to the right side of history, are disingenuous arselings. They shall remain nameless, but their initials are: Ramrouser, Maxcrow, Callatroy, 45and47, etc. etc.
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Maxcrow?

The Maxcrowder on TDD?

He posts on this board? What is his username?
 
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