3 ms·

Why should they have helped McCarthy? He's one of many Republicans who bent the knee to Trump and the scourge of the "alt-right", and he reaped what he sowed.

by ss108 4y ago

Why should they have helped McCarthy? He's one of many Republicans who bent the knee to Trump and the scourge of the "alt-right", and he reaped what he sowed. It's not like the Republican party was trying to correct itself by going with a staunchly anti-Trump country-over-party moderate. One party is clearly taken over by lunatics, while the other maintains a much more moderate posture, yet you blame the one attempting to stay sane over the one that is making conspiracy theories part of its core platform.

gizmo686 4y ago
Because he was politically weak and they had an opportunity to take advantage of that. As it is the Democrats got nothing but optics out of the fiasco. Had they played their hand differently they might have gotten something more. For what it is worth, I suspect there was some backroom dealling they were trying to do, but nothing came of it.
- ss108 4y ago
  Yeah, I can see a good argument for it, I suppose.
amluto 4y ago
I hate to say it, but I see this attitude as a big part of the overall problem. Both parties have representatives who focus on policies that sound good with no useful thought or understanding of their actual effects. Both parties represent their opposites as lunatics, horrible people, other otherwise as people to be detested, with little allowance for the fact that the actual function of Congress is to pass hopefully beneficial bills — the mindsets or moral qualities of those who vote for the bills is ultimately not as important. Left-leaning people do plenty of things that are easy for right-leaning people to point at as examples of lunacy. For example, look at almost any article about “DEI” or inclusive terminology or anything involving words like “Latinx”. Regardless of the actual merits of these things or the intentions of those who encourage them, they sound bad to many people with right-leaning hats on, and they’re very, very easy to make fun of.
- ss108 4y ago
  On the contrary I think your perspective represents a clear problem: you seem to think the spread of DEI and woke bs in certain segments of society can somehow be equated with a literal attempt to turn over the results of an election, a storming of the fucking capitol like we're some 3rd world country, QAnon, attempts--some successful, others less so--to make cruelty a major point of immigration policy, etc. Not to mention issues such as climate change. There is no sense of morality in what you're saying. I have traditional values and would vote for a center right party over Dems, if we had one. But what we have are two parties very unequal in terms of morality and intellectual credentials.
- mayormcmatt 4y ago
  Seeing inclusive terminology as a punchline, yes, I can see that. But a sign of left-wing lunacy? This response has some whiff of "bothsidesism", drawing a perceived equivalence between the behaviors of each party. If you didn't mean it like that, I apologize for misunderstanding. That being stated, there's an objective difference between one party promoting inclusive terminology while the other promotes forcing a 10-year-old girl to give birth after being impregnated by rape. I know that latter issue wasn't mentioned, nor is it a universally held policy for all Republicans, but neither is support for inclusive terminology, and I bring it up to demonstrate the contrast of some views. Take even the most far-left view of a Democrat in Congress and it's to, what, provide universal healthcare? UBI? For this reason, I agree with the previous poster that one side seems like they're at least thinking about making life better, while the other seems hell bent on making it miserable, and sometimes in the craziest ways. To be honest, I find the inclusive terminology more annoying than helpful, and I was born, grew up, and live in the Bay Area, a few blocks from where the Black Panthers were founded, to give an idea of where I'm coming from. But I feel like -- and this is going to sound a little strange -- Republicans harping on that topic is like sushi in the 80s. Remember movies/media from back then where eating/enjoying sushi was a sign that one was an effeminate cosmopolitan, bourgeois, and all-around weird person? Now it's in supermarkets in rural Virginia (yes, I've seen it there). At some point it will stop being a punchline; it will melt into the background and nobody will think much about it anymore.

by ss108 4y ago

gizmo686 4y ago

Because he was politically weak and they had an opportunity to take advantage of that. As it is the Democrats got nothing but optics out of the fiasco. Had they played their hand differently they might have gotten something more. For what it is worth, I suspect there was some backroom dealling they were trying to do, but nothing came of it.

ss108 4y ago
Yeah, I can see a good argument for it, I suppose.

amluto 4y ago

I hate to say it, but I see this attitude as a big part of the overall problem. Both parties have representatives who focus on policies that sound good with no useful thought or understanding of their actual effects. Both parties represent their opposites as lunatics, horrible people, other otherwise as people to be detested, with little allowance for the fact that the actual function of Congress is to pass hopefully beneficial bills — the mindsets or moral qualities of those who vote for the bills is ultimately not as important. Left-leaning people do plenty of things that are easy for right-leaning people to point at as examples of lunacy. For example, look at almost any article about “DEI” or inclusive terminology or anything involving words like “Latinx”. Regardless of the actual merits of these things or the intentions of those who encourage them, they sound bad to many people with right-leaning hats on, and they’re very, very easy to make fun of.

ss108 4y ago
On the contrary I think your perspective represents a clear problem: you seem to think the spread of DEI and woke bs in certain segments of society can somehow be equated with a literal attempt to turn over the results of an election, a storming of the fucking capitol like we're some 3rd world country, QAnon, attempts--some successful, others less so--to make cruelty a major point of immigration policy, etc. Not to mention issues such as climate change. There is no sense of morality in what you're saying. I have traditional values and would vote for a center right party over Dems, if we had one. But what we have are two parties very unequal in terms of morality and intellectual credentials.
mayormcmatt 4y ago
Seeing inclusive terminology as a punchline, yes, I can see that. But a sign of left-wing lunacy? This response has some whiff of "bothsidesism", drawing a perceived equivalence between the behaviors of each party. If you didn't mean it like that, I apologize for misunderstanding. That being stated, there's an objective difference between one party promoting inclusive terminology while the other promotes forcing a 10-year-old girl to give birth after being impregnated by rape. I know that latter issue wasn't mentioned, nor is it a universally held policy for all Republicans, but neither is support for inclusive terminology, and I bring it up to demonstrate the contrast of some views. Take even the most far-left view of a Democrat in Congress and it's to, what, provide universal healthcare? UBI? For this reason, I agree with the previous poster that one side seems like they're at least thinking about making life better, while the other seems hell bent on making it miserable, and sometimes in the craziest ways. To be honest, I find the inclusive terminology more annoying than helpful, and I was born, grew up, and live in the Bay Area, a few blocks from where the Black Panthers were founded, to give an idea of where I'm coming from. But I feel like -- and this is going to sound a little strange -- Republicans harping on that topic is like sushi in the 80s. Remember movies/media from back then where eating/enjoying sushi was a sign that one was an effeminate cosmopolitan, bourgeois, and all-around weird person? Now it's in supermarkets in rural Virginia (yes, I've seen it there). At some point it will stop being a punchline; it will melt into the background and nobody will think much about it anymore.