It’s impossible to overstate how poorly Republicans reacted to the 2008 election. I hope when Mitch McConnell’s obituaries are published, they start with the fact that his leadership at that time created the modern dysfunction in the Republican Party. He, more than anyone, decided they should be a protest party rather than a governing one. I doubt his intent was to lose control and end up with MAGA but an inability to imagine the consequences doesn’t absolve him of responsibility.
I’d go as far back as Newt Gingrich.
Newt is the true architect for sure. McConnell just carried the torch for a while.
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Closest thing I can find to this is here:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newt/boyernewt2.html
as a [high school] junior, he passed out campaign literature for Nixon’s 1960 campaign
Honestly the rot goes alllll the way back to Nixon and the Southern Strategy. They needed a bunch of racist idiots to win and to court a racist idiot you have to act like one. Eventually the “act” stops being an act and becomes the reality of the party.
Republicans were so angry about Obama, for no reason they could ever articulate. It really helped me to understand them and their motivations.
wdym? tan suits, spicy dijon mustard, etc, their reasons are well documented.
Oh come now. That’ll be Newt Gingrich’s claim in our history books, don’t forget him!
They’ve been awful since at least the 80s.
The Republican party has been pandering to nutcases for votes for a long time now. John Birch society, Evangelicals, tea party and now Maga.
I never thought the leopards would eat MY face!
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Yes but politicians of all stripes have been doing that forever and getting away with it. You would hardly expect the electorate to start caring now.
But I think there is a lot of truth to the idea that lower class Republicans think all politicians are out to fuck them over, so the bigger the fuck you they can elect the better. Fuck the women, fuck the minorities, fuck our allies, fuck kids, fuck our neighbors, fuck being calm and rational, fuck logic and intelligence, hell fuck ourselves. They are nihilists, which isn’t even a fucking ethos, Donny!
ahem
Anyway, yeah they jumped on the bull and held on to wherever it was going until it finally bucked them off.
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Historically, they are known for throwing things overboard.
