Former George Bush strategist Steve Schmidt: Trump's GOP must burn to the ground
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/09/steve_schmidt_donald_trumps_republican_party_must_burn_to_the_ground.html
Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, an MSNBC contributor, said Thursday on the network that the Trump Republican party must "burn to the ground" for there to be "new
growth of a conservative movement."
"So the Republican party of Teddy Roosevelt and John McCain and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is dead. It’s over. It doesn’t exist anymore," Schmidt lamented.
STEVE SCHMIDT: That’s not to mention the baby internment camps, the indecency, the cruelty, the meanness, the lying, the complicit nature of this Republican majority with an attack
on the country that’s launched by the Russian Federation. So the Republican party of Teddy Roosevelt and John McCain and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is dead. It’s over. It
doesn’t exist anymore. It has been taken over, lock, stock, and barrel. For there to be any redemption of a right of center conservative party in the United States of America means the
party of Trump must be destroyed politically.
It’s like a fire. Fires are a part of the ecosystem, part of the natural progress. And when the forest burns, it’s purified. There can be new growth. For there to be new growth of a
conservative movement, of a right center party, the one that I joined in 1988, it needs to burn to the ground.
I agree.
No, Instead rather the whole party needs 'burns to ground' once for all and let some third parties gains it's collapse.
Frankly, American politics have been two party since the beginning. When Washington became president it started as pro-administration and anti-administration, then those became Federalists and Democratic-
Republicans, and so on until now. It didn't become like this as the end result of first past the post, it's part of American history. New voting system pls.
The GOP is not the voice of conservatives anymore. It represents a lunatic fringe. Time to go.
What with Trump starting a slap fight with the Kochs, it may just happen.
when did it ever tbh
In the Reagan era people could have civil conversations about politics, and even many scientists were conservatives. Doesn't happen anymore because the party's gone insane and so is their stance on science.
Were that true, how did Trump manage to get almost half the country's vote? I know that Hillary was a bad candidate and that media manipulation is partly to blame, but even though it's very depressing, I think the GOP actually is the voice of conservatives in the US and it's rather upsetting.
He didn't. The Electoral College is really cool.
"For there to be new growth of a
conservative movement, of a right center party, the one that I joined in 1988, it needs to burn to the ground."
There already is a right-center party, it's called the Democratic party.
the one time we had the whigs, the republicans, and the democrats it was a mess
Many people take about one look at the candidates, pick the one that at the surface aligns with them, and hope for the best. This goes for both sides. The conservatives I know who voted for Trump assumed either it was all for show and he was actually moderate underneath some facade or he wouldn't actually be able to do anything crazy and they'd rather have him than Clinton. I saw through his bullshit and didn't vote for him in the first place. He doesn't have a lot of support left here in Texas, at least not among the people I know. There are protest signs all over the town and I haven't seen a pro-Trump bumper sticker or sign in months. It is changing. He sure as hell wouldn't win an election today.
He was most successful among people who were the most disconnected, like people without Internet or a smartphone data plan. All they ever heard of him was from their favorite TV news (if they even have TV), radio audio and word of mouth.
Less than 60% of eligible voters exercised their right in 2016, Trump got a little less than half the votes (but in all the right places thus the EC win). So about 30% of the electorate put him in the white house because 40% didn't vote or were screwed out of a vote because they were tossed off the voter rolls. I assume there are some that legitimately could not leave work to go vote as well.
What is the strongest conservative ideology, you think? It doesn't seem outlandish that the ideology of stagnation or literal regression is full of lunatics
Grenadiac is entirely right here. The GOP does not represent true actual conservatives anymore. It supports anything that's anti-left at this point, be it Evangelical Christians or lying demagogues like Trump. You know what early 20th century movement had no care for actual conservative values, only the elimination of the left, sometimes in racially motivated ways (*cough*just like immigrants*cough*)? Fascism...
I'm not trying to compare Trump to Hitler necessarily, or imply the GOP is entirely complicit in wanting to completely destroy democracy and all democratic values, no matter how close they come, I'm simply noting the similarities between the situations of then and now and how the current GOP seems to be the birth of a new brand of Fascism: American Fascism. One where nothing matters but triggering the libs and making the other side seem like fools while you spread your own ideology of fear and hatred...
There's also people like my best friend whose family are (socially liberal) Republicans and who always votes Republican himself. He didn't really bother researching Trump (he supported Carson during the primary, which is another issue altogether itself but fair enough I suppose) and just fell back on supporting the candidate who won the Republican primary without actually knowing very much about his platform at all. The one time we really discussed it in any depth at all I knew far more about Trump's policies than he did and ended up informing him on a number of things he hadn't known but that was after he'd already cast his vote so it was kinda too late.
The GOP needs to drop the authoritarians, and head for a more libertarian approach.
Legalize/Decriminalize all narcotics.
Get rid of all current standing gun control regulations, state and federal, and start a new convention regarding the forming of a new Militia Act.
Increase funding to the Civilian Marksmanship Program, make firearm/hunter education mandatory for highschool.
State Banks, like the Bank of North Dakota, for all states.
Legalize homebrewing across the board.
Create tax-based methods of paying off loans.
Put Production vs. MSRP limits on medical services, enforce regulations that force hospitals to show you their charters of payment.
Rebuild/restructure our military into the Swiss model. Have several specialized roles, but otherwise we train a vast reserve of light infantry. Said lightfoots will be trained in the use of several types of heavy equipment, and will be put into reserves within their own states.
Put the same Production vs. MSRP limits on military bidding. Seriously, all of these companies charging $40 for a sparkplug can go fuck themselves.
I can go on, but the conservative aim needs to be anti-authoritarian, while still having some common-sense. Protect our constitution, and rebuild our economy with the facts of automation in mind. If we do not begin turning our economy back into a DIY/Freelance type method by the 2040's, we are in for some serious trouble.
The level of chemistry knowledge in the USA is such that this is not a realistic goal for at least a generation or two. If you don't know how to operate a still correctly and properly distill the ethanol and methanol apart, you brew lethal poison.
And if growing your own weed is illegal in today's society, good luck safely legalizing distilling alcohols.
You've said this before and you've never given me an adequate response to this rebuttal.
I, uh, thought he was talking about modifying consoles to play emulated software...
Homebrewing should be legal if you are making it for yourself. If you end up killing yourself, that's your own fault.
Idiots will and do kill other people this way because there's just that low of a knowledge barrier to it.
And if you blind/kill others because you sell your homebrewed alcohol at an unregulated farmers' market without testing it first? The raw water movement, aka selling and drinking water untreated and direct from source and exposing yourself to every waterborne parasite under the sun, demonstrates that the adult population cannot be trusted to not be too stupid for survival -- all because they think flouride is a mind control drug or some shit and don't want "icky chemicals" in their nice untreated water with animal feces in it.
The production of alcohol is a licensed process because the population can't be trusted to not brew poison and give it to someone else, creating victims other than the clueless brewer. Your rights don't extend to creating a public health crisis.
Only ~22-25% of the United States actually voted for Trump.
That's technically accurate, sure, but even though 100% turn out would mean an almost certain Hillary victory due to young people typically being more liberal-minded whilst voting less than the elderly, I still think we'd have seen something like a 40% vote for him.
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