this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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“I didn’t come here,” Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina complained last week, “to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy.” Tillis was referring to Republicans who were abandoning a deal on border security because they thought reaching a solution with President Joe Biden would hurt Trump’s electoral chances in the fall. It is immoral, Tillis added, to look “the other way because you think this is the linchpin for President Trump to win.”

As Bruce Willis’s fictional cop John McClane would say: Welcome to the party, pal. In theory, Republicans care deeply about the situation on the southern United States border. In reality, most of them seem to care only about whatever Trump wants at any given moment, and what Trump wants is to take refuge in the Oval Office from his multiple legal problems. Tillis’s outburst, although welcome, was a rare moment of candor from a senior Republican senator about the degree to which the party’s once and future nominee has gutted the GOP of any remaining principles.

For years, Trump has attacked and obliterated anything like virtue in the Republican Party, a process that regularly features Republicans pulling their political souls from their bodies and handing them to Trump in jars for display on his mantle at Mar-a-Lago. (Ted Cruz going from the potential conscience of the 2016 GOP convention to a Trump-praising, phone-banking flunky is only one such example.)

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[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 48 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Conservatives abandon decency? Isn't that like saying wolves abandon veganism? When the fuck were conservatives virtuous?

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world -3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, didn't Lincoln and the rest of his Republicans enshrine slavery in the Constitution? Where before it was largely an unregulated gray area.

Don't get me wrong. It was minor progress. And fairly progressive for the time. But hardly how Lincoln is consistently whitewashed. And that is the start of the Republican party. It only went downhill quickly after that.

By the 1930s, Prescott Bush was an accessory to a fascist plot to overthrow FDR. So they were speed running the whole downhill part. Though ironically they did manage to slow walk. The fascism. Hitler got rebuked and killed for his attempt. But Republicans learned you got to go slow. Not give people too many obvious clues to rail against.

[–] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Lincoln was liberal, not conservative.

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Where did I say he was?

[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 36 points 9 months ago

They're not abandoning anything. They simply don't feel the need to hide it anymore.

They finally have the implied permission they've always craved to return to the days when white guys controlled everything, minorities (now including LGBTQ+) can't sit at the same counters in delis, and they could smack their secretaries on the ass and say "thanks, toots."

This is who they've always been.

[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Lol, okay bruh. The last decent republican was Eisenhower.

[–] JaymesRS 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I strongly thought in the 90’s that Colin Powell would be the first black president. I didn’t fathom the decent into madness that the Republican Party would succumb to.

[–] CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

I thought Sarah Palin in 2008 was the full descent into madness and that this was rock bottom and a moment of reckoning for the GOP. Little did I know we were actually sitting at the top of the slide back then.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

I remember reading that his wife was adamantly opposed to him running for Vice President. She knew what would get stirred up.

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Straight line from that asshat to trump via palin. He tried. But he gave in to the party rather than following his heart. He admits to that in his memoir.

[–] Rooskie91@discuss.online 17 points 9 months ago (3 children)

TBH, if fascism has to rise, I'm glad it did with the most incompetent frace of a man it could have. Could you imagine if someone more intelligent or charismatic was heading this nonsense?

Of course it would be nicer if it hadn't risen at all, but here we are....

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hitler was seen as incompetent and a joke. Its not as good as you hope. Its bad and trying to make it seem not so bad is worse.

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

More people need to realize this. Hitler wasn't some brilliant strategist or genius. He was a failed artist who could give a good speech. And spoke to the hatred and bigotry that many of his fellow countrymen harbored. Much of his success was blind luck. And happening to have a few good strategists around him.

The biggest difference between MAGA and early nazi is there nationality, and the particular type of human failure they worshiped.

[–] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 6 points 9 months ago

Maybe stupidity and lack of charisma is part of the winning combination though? I often make the argument you just made, but I've been questioning it a bit lately...maybe stupid and foul is necessary to gain power in the Republican party? 🤔

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

The thing is that a more competent politician wouldn't have needed to go full fascist. Bush Jr got caught lying the country into two wars and we gave him a pass. Reagan got caught smuggling in tons of cocaine and it got shrugged off. I liken it to popping a giant zit, gallons and gallons of pus is running out, but it was always there just beneath the surface.

[–] xc2215x@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

They have been doing that for a while now and will continue.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 months ago

They're either sucking up to him now to get the good position in his reich, or Trump has dirt on them and can blackmail them. Given the track record of criminal activity from GOP members, I'd say a lot of them want that dirt to stay in the ground.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If you've never seen it, watch the movie 'Network.' It's amazing how that movie went from cutting edge satire to docudrama so quickly.

Pay attention. there's a minor character, a silver haired corporate board member who is adamantly against the plans to convert the news division to entertainment. Guess where he ends up at the conclusion?

[–] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Black Mirror has a more modern take on it, but yeah, Network was one of the canaries in the coal mine.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

Yup, the Waldo moment...

[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

The elected officials are only as good as the public who vote for them. Nice to blame the symptom.

[–] SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Decency, morals, humanity, pretty much everything good they are now shitting on it and wiping their asses with it.

[–] itsonlygeorge@reddthat.com 2 points 9 months ago

They worked on this for generations, dumbing down the population and getting people ready to accept Republican totalitarianism. They missed the mark with GW Bush and instead got stuck with Trump. They just didn’t think they could get away with it under Bush, there were still too many good people in the government. Now they are stuck with idiot Trump.

[–] shartworx@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

The most shocking part of this story is that Tillis is the voice of reason.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Remember, they are fighting for us Americans! They really care about the average American.