A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
VIEWED: 755368
PAGE 266 of 725
A heartfelt cry about where the GOP fears ‘their country’ may be headed
If you want to understand American politics in 2019 and the strain of reactionary extremism that has taken over the Republican Party, a good place to start is 2011: the year after a backlash to Barack Obama’s presidency swept Tea Party insurgents into Congress, flipping control of the House.
It was clear, at the start of that year, that Congress would have to lift the debt ceiling — the limit on bonds and other debt instruments the government issues when it doesn’t have the revenues to fulfill spending obligations. These votes were often opportunities for grandstanding and occasionally brinkmanship by politicians from both parties. But it was understood that, when push came to shove, Congress would lift the limit and the government would pay its obligations.
2011 was different. Congressional Republicans, led by the new Tea Party conservatives, wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and make other sharp cuts to the social safety net. But Democrats controlled the Senate and the White House. So House Republicans decided to take a hostage. “I’m asking you to look at a potential increase in the debt limit as a leverage moment when the White House and President Obama will have to deal with us,” said the incoming majority leader, Eric Cantor, at a closed-door retreat days before the session began, according to The Washington Post. Either the White House would agree to harsh austerity measures or Republicans would force the United States to default on its debt obligations, precipitating an economic crisis just as the country, and the world, was beginning to recover from the Great Recession.
The debt-limit standoff was a case study of a fundamental change within the Republican Party after Obama took office in 2009. Republicans would either win total victory or they would wreck the system itself. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, used a variety of procedural tactics to effectively nullify the president’s ability to nominate federal judges and fill vacancies in the executive branch. In the minority, he used the filibuster to an unprecedented degree. In the majority, after Republicans won the Senate in the 2010 midterm elections, he led an extraordinary blockade of the Supreme Court, stopping the Senate from even considering the president’s nominee for the bench.
Where did this destructive, sectarian style of partisan politics come from? Conventional wisdom traces its roots to the “Gingrich Revolution” of the 1990s, whose architect pioneered a hardball, insurgent style of political combat, undermining norms and dismantling congressional institutions for the sake of power. This is true enough, but the Republican Party of the Obama years didn’t just recycle its Gingrich-era excesses; it also pursued a policy of total opposition, not just blocking Obama but also casting him as fundamentally illegitimate and un-American. He may have been elected by a majority of the voting public, but that majority didn’t count. It didn’t represent the “real” America.
The past 10 years of Republican extremism is emblematic. The Tea Party billed itself as a reaction to debt and spending, but a close look shows it was actually a reaction to an ascendant majority of black people, Latinos, Asian-Americans and liberal white people. In their survey-based study of the movement, the political scientists Christopher S. Parker and Matt A. Barreto show that Tea Party Republicans were motivated “by the fear and anxiety associated with the perception that ‘real’ Americans are losing their country.”
The scholars Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson came to a similar conclusion in their contemporaneous study of the movement, based on an ethnographic study of Tea Party activists across the country. “Tea Party resistance to giving more to categories of people deemed undeserving is more than just an argument about taxes and spending,” they note in “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism”; “it is a heartfelt cry about where they fear ‘their countr
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
And as we sweep the Russia bullshit under the rug, in comes muh racism to take center stage the next 14 months.
Good luck with that tactic. Nothing else has worked so far.
It should probably be noted that muh racism has been a tactic on the side for the last 2 1/2 years to no avail either, but when everything else finally gets dropped because it wasn't working this single tactic seems new to the people who were wishing upon a Mueller investigation to remove Bad Orange Man.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:The joke I have heard a hundred times from Republicans, but not once from a Democrat: “What do you call a nigger with half a brain? . . . Gifted!” If is often delivered like this: “I am not a racist, but do you know what you call a nigger with half a brain?” Then the Republican would launch an attack at how Obama would have flunked out of college if he was white. Not racist, said the Republicans. Just stating a fact.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
And as we sweep the Russia bullshit under the rug, in comes muh racism to take center stage the next 14 months.
Good luck with that tactic. Nothing else has worked so far.
It should probably be noted that muh racism has been a tactic on the side for the last 2 1/2 years to no avail either, but when everything else finally gets dropped because it wasn't working this single tactic seems new to the people who were wishing upon a Mueller investigation to remove Bad Orange Man.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
6ix, I’m pretty sure you don’t know what the word racist means. You know, I never got caught as Democrat because I always laughed at the weak jokes. I was actually laughing at the joke teller.
With the exception of the president of the United States, we all know that Russia and other powers have run amok in their attempts to influence U.S. elections and those of other democracies around the world. While much of the media coverage has focused on Russian interference in U.S. elections, this is not just an American problem. As our new report on online foreign influence efforts (FIEs) demonstrates, this is a global problem. Since 2013, Russia has conducted at least 38 distinct influence campaigns targeting 19 different countries.
www.lawfareblog.com/managing-and-mitigating-foreign-election-interfere
nce
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:The joke I have heard a hundred times from Republicans, but not once from a Democrat: “What do you call a nigger with half a brain? . . . Gifted!” If is often delivered like this: “I am not a racist, but do you know what you call a nigger with half a brain?” Then the Republican would launch an attack at how Obama would have flunked out of college if he was white. Not racist, said the Republicans. Just stating a fact.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
And as we sweep the Russia bullshit under the rug, in comes muh racism to take center stage the next 14 months.
Good luck with that tactic. Nothing else has worked so far.
It should probably be noted that muh racism has been a tactic on the side for the last 2 1/2 years to no avail either, but when everything else finally gets dropped because it wasn't working this single tactic seems new to the people who were wishing upon a Mueller investigation to remove Bad Orange Man.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
6ix, I’m pretty sure you don’t know what the word racist means.
With the exception of the president of the United States, we all know that Russia and other powers have run amok in their attempts to influence U.S. elections and those of other democracies around the world. While much of the media coverage has focused on Russian interference in U.S. elections, this is not just an American problem. As our new report on online foreign influence efforts (FIEs) demonstrates, this is a global problem. Since 2013, Russia has conducted at least 38 distinct influence campaigns targeting 19 different countries.
www.lawfareblog.com/managing-and-mitigating-foreign-election-interfere
nce
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
LET'S ADD SECOND TO THE LIST OF LEFTIES HERE WHO USED THE N WORD IN THE LAST WEEK.
That's you and Wishy now.
And no. Quotes don't make it any better. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/15/white-professor-investig
ated-quoting-james-baldwin-use-of-n-word-laurie-sheck
Do Right, Be Right. :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You are seriously stupid, 6ix. Why don't you get a job? I'm getting paid while I answer you, but you are not getting anywhere by accusing Democrats of being the real racists, not Republicans. Never them. Trump keeps claiming he is the least racist person in the world. And you don't laugh at him.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
LET'S ADD SECOND TO THE LIST OF LEFTIES HERE WHO USED THE N WORD IN THE LAST WEEK.
That's you and Wishy now.
And no. Quotes don't make it any better. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/15/white-professor-investig
ated-quoting-james-baldwin-use-of-n-word-laurie-sheck
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Trump claims he is ‘least racist person in the world’ despite repeated racist attacks
Meanwhile, new poll shows majority of Americans think president is racist, despite him being careful to never say Nigger.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-racist-twe
ets-aoc-ilhan-omar-baltimore-al-sharpton-jamestown-a9027306.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You are seriously stupid, 6ix. Why don't you get a job? I'm getting paid while I answer you, but you are not getting anywhere by accusing Democrats of being the real racists, not Republicans. Never them. Trump keeps claiming he is the least racist person in the world. And you don't laugh at him.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
LET'S ADD SECOND TO THE LIST OF LEFTIES HERE WHO USED THE N WORD IN THE LAST WEEK.
That's you and Wishy now.
And no. Quotes don't make it any better. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/15/white-professor-investig
ated-quoting-james-baldwin-use-of-n-word-laurie-sheck
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Trump claims he is ‘least racist person in the world’ despite repeated racist attacks
Meanwhile, new poll shows majority of Americans think president is racist, despite him being careful to never say Nigger.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-racist-twe
ets-aoc-ilhan-omar-baltimore-al-sharpton-jamestown-a9027306.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Doubling down. lol
Do Right, Be Right. :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
What do you regard these days as cause for optimism?
Noam Chomsky’s answer: Several points. First, the times we’re living in are extremely dangerous, in some ways more so than ever before in human history — which will essentially come to an end in any recognizable form if we do not deal effectively with the increasing threats of nuclear war and of environmental catastrophe. That requires reversing the course of the U.S. in dismantling arms control agreements and proceeding — along with Russia — to develop ever more lethal and destabilizing weapons systems; and in not only refusing to join the world in trying to do something about the severe environmental crisis but even aggressively seeking to escalate the threat, a form of criminality with literally no historical antecedent.
Not easy, but it can be done.
There have been other severe crises in human history, even if not on this scale. I’m old enough to remember the days when it seemed that the spread of fascism was inexorable — and I’m not referring to what is referred to as fascism today but something incomparably more awful. But it was overcome.
There are very impressive forms of activism and engagement taking place, mainly among younger people. That’s very heartening.
In the final analysis, we always have two choices: We can choose to descend into pessimism and apathy, assuming that nothing can be done, and helping to ensure that the worst will happen. Or we can grasp the opportunities that exist — and they do — and pursue them to the extent that we can, thus helping to contribute to a better world.
Not a very hard choice.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/noam-chomsky-interview/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Okay, so humor me because I haven't been participating in this thread, but tell me: What "racist attacks" has Trump been participating in?
I know about his willingness to defend the border. I don't consider that "racism", I consider that enforcing national sovereignty. I know about his wanting to keep people (not "Muslims") out from certain failed states. I don't consider that racism, I believe that is a reasonable response based on national security. I have heard of his referring to some nations as "shithole countries". If they're shithole countries (and I believe that they are) then how is commenting on the obvious anything other than commenting on their (failed) national policies and internal corruption? Not racism, as far as I can tell, just a correct reading of their situation.
You people seem to confuse nationality with racism. Then, in a fit of political correctness, you turn around and claim there's no such thing as race! To you, everything is race, and nothing is race!
Aside from people SAYING Trump is "racist" .. how is he racist?
This sounds to me like another RUSSIA!RUSSIA!RUSSIA! hysteria. Convince me otherwise.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
To a Democrat in 2019, anything anybody who has whitish skin has to say about anybody who doesn't have whitish skin is racist.
Doesn't matter that I'm a European Mutt, and aside from a trace amount of British blood in me, most of my ancestors were treated like shit off the boat when they got here. After generations of interbreeding, my DNA is all over the European map, from the west all the way to eastern European countries that are basically shitholes to this day.
My "joke" to myself back when I was deep in my self destructive behavioral patterns was that the German in me was trying to throw everybody else in the oven.
Hey. I think even crazy pink haired weirdos are allowed to laugh at that one. 
Do Right, Be Right. :)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:HAHAHAHA!!! Too funny SIX!
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
To a Democrat in 2019, anything anybody who has whitish skin has to say about anybody who doesn't have whitish skin is racist.
Doesn't matter that I'm a European Mutt, and aside from a trace amount of British blood in me, most of my ancestors were treated like shit off the boat when they got here. After generations of interbreeding, my DNA is all over the European map, from the west all the way to eastern European countries that are basically shitholes to this day.
My "joke" to myself back when I was deep in my self destructive behavioral patterns was that the German in me was trying to throw everybody else in the oven.
Hey. I think even crazy pink haired weirdos are allowed to laugh at that one.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Still, it would be nice if somebody like SECOND ... who has spent countless posts diligently throwing shit against the wall ... or WISHY or REAVERBOT who are ever on the lookout for anything that smacks of NAZI! .... or CC, with his post=modern sensibilities ... would take some of those feelz and provide me with a condensed version ... quotes or something ... that demonsrate the point that Trump is a "racist".
SECOND in particular - if he has read only 10% of what he quotes here, he must have some particularly trenchant quotes or links that would make the point.
SECOND, I'm finally ready to read some of your posts! Are you ready to provide me with some pointed facts?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME