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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29116 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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Ah, so people won't protest Republican voters from voting for their preferred candidate, so long as those people approve of that candidate.

They won't protest Republican voters from voting for their preferred candidate, so long as that candidate doesn't have some very specific disqualifying infractions.

From the leader of the insurrection to a billionaire-turned-governor from North Dakota, the GOP’s large candidate field — down to seven candidates — features a wide array of figures, all of whom are antagonistic toward voting and democracy to varying degrees. No one skips out on suppressing the vote, all the way down to your average GOP voter suppression policies, like photo ID requirements.

Maybe the Republicans should stop supporting voter suppression if they don't want Dems to complain about it? Expecting the opposition party to like your candidates is a bridge too far (notably, we're not quoting anything the GOP says about Dem candidates), but nobody is trying to get Haley or DeSantis (or RFK Jr.) disqualified.

  • -17

See, your bit about voter suppression is precisely why I don't believe the blah about "just select a decent guy, for crying out loud". Why are you jumping to "of course the Republicans suppress voters" rather than "Yeah, some on the Democratic voting side do go overboard about that"?

No matter who is selected, there is going to be "If they're Republican, they're fascists".

I mean, you can believe what you like, but as I said, asking your opponents to not criticize your publicly acknowledged policy positions is a bit silly. Of course, the GOP doesn't call it voter suppression for the same reason Dems don't call it illegal immigration, but it doesn't change the fact the GOP is on record being in favor of making it harder to vote.

No matter who is selected, there is going to be "If they're Republican, they're fascists".

The analog here is the GOP talking about how Dems are socialists planning to destroy the American way of life, i.e. normal political marketing. It might be nice if people spoke in less hyperbolic terms, but the fact that they aren't isn't indicative of much.

  • -10

Of course, all of this is operating under the presumption that the Democrats' concern that the GOP has become increasingly illiberal and authoritarian is baseless hysteria. If it's not, then saying "if they're Republican, they're fascists" is not only predictable, it's fairly reasonable.

Like, say, if one of the more senior Republicans attempted a procedural coup and incited a mob to attack Congress. And then the entire party decided to go along with it and purged everyone who didn't follow suit.

It's not just the criticism, it's the ratfuckery. We're talking about constant escalation. You think it's a uniquely anti-Trump phenomenon but that doesn't seem plausible to people who've observed nothing but continual escalation this side of the millennium.

I've been here the whole time. Until 2014 or so I was a Republican.

I'm going to need you to be more specific about "ratfuckery", because my experience over the past 23 years has been an ever-escalating right-wing persecution complex at the same time as they've become increasingly underhanded and unhinged.

It's funny reading this post claiming the right has been ever-escalating their persecution complex, just two posts down from you gasping about how every republican is an insurrectionist.

Part of the Republican persecution complex is their inability to acknowledge their own transgressions.

  • -10

As opposed to which group having the ability to acknowledge their own transgressions?

Maybe the Republicans should stop supporting voter suppression if they don't want Dems to complain about it?

The voter suppression narrative is BS that, where falsifiable, is falsified. It’s the democrats version of the kraken.

Not sure what you mean by that. GOP politicians are on-record as being in favor of targeted discouragement while GOP legislatures have been slapped down for passing targeted voter ID laws and contriving to re-disenfranchise felons in Florida (mentioned in the link above). That's to say nothing of things like suspicious patterns in polling place closures.

What is true, as near as I can tell, is that there isn't solid evidence for voter suppression efforts having a decisive impact on any particular election (anyone cares about). Partly this is because voting suppression tends to provoke short-term backlash, partly because more egregious efforts have been struck down, and partly because they're most likely to be implemented in already solidly red areas where they don't matter that.

But that's not a very strong defense. Regardless of how effective their efforts have been, the GOP continues to be openly supportive of making it harder to vote.

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