Thursday, March 28, 2024

What Do Republicans Like About Trump

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How Wyoming Voters Are Reacting To Rep Cheneys Leadership Battle

What should the Republican Party do about Trump?

Many Republicans, including McCarthy, have decided that the path to retake majority control of the House requires embracing Trump, which means either repeating his false assertions that the election was stolen or keeping quiet, neither of which Cheney has been willing to do.

McCarthy has long viewed Trump as important to helping him become the next House speaker and important to helping Republicans win the midterm elections said a House Republican aide who works for neither McCarthy or Cheney.

The aide described the leadership fight as “a s— show” and “something that should never really have happened,” expressing anger over its handling.

“I think it’s dumb when we always try to claim that we’re this big party that we’re pushing out someone who has a slightly different opinion,” the aide said, adding, “It’s just absurd to me.”


Another senior Republican congressional aide argued that Cheney was likely to be removed because she keeps publicly disagreeing with McCarthy, not because of her criticism of Trump.

“As conference chair, was spending more time bashing Republicans than Democrats” at the recent House retreat, the aide said, adding that McCarthy “was literally the only thing keeping her in leadership.”

Many Republicans have lamented that the squabble is distracting from anti-Biden messaging, which is what they say will actually help them in the midterms.

America Should Deport Illegal Immigrants

Republicans believe that illegal immigrants, no matter the reason they are in this country, should be forcibly removed from the U.S. Although illegal immigrants are often motivated to come to the U.S. by companies who hire them, Republicans generally believe that the focus of the law should be on the illegal immigrants and not on the corporations that hire them.

Democrats Think Many Republicans Sincere And Point To Policy

Democrats, however, were somewhat more generous in their answers.;;More than four in ten Democratic voters ; felt that most Republican voters had the countrys best interests at heart . ;And many tried their best to answer from the others perspective. A 45-year-old male voter from Ohio imagined that as a Republican, he was motivated by Republicans harsh stance on immigration; standing up for the 2nd Amendment; promised tax cuts.;;A 30-year-old woman from Colorado felt that Republican votes reflected the desires to stop abortion stop gay marriage from ruining our country and give us our coal jobs back.


Other Democrats felt that their opponents were mostly motivated by the GOPs opposition to Obamacare, lower taxes and to support a party that reduced unemployment.;

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Religion And The Belief In God Is Vital To A Strong Nation

Republicans are generally accepting only of the Judeo-Christian belief system. For most Republicans, religion is absolutely vital in their political beliefs and the two cannot be separated. Therefore, separation of church and state is not that important to them. In fact, they believe that much of what is wrong has been caused by too much secularism.

Those are the four basic Republican tenets: small government, local control, the power of free markets, and Christian authority. Below are other things they believe that derive from those four ideas.

Republicans Cant Understand Democrats

What do Republicans want to hear from Trump at lunch? A ...

Only one in four Republican voters felt that most or almost all Democratic voters sincerely believed they were;voting in the best interests of the country.;;Rather, many Republicans told us that Democratic voters were brainwashed by the propaganda of the mainstream media, or voting solely in their self-interest to preserve undeserved welfare and food stamp benefits.


We asked every Republican in the sample to do their best to imagine that they were a Democrat and sincerely believed that the Democratic Party was best for the country.;;We asked them to explain their support for the Democratic Party as an actual Democratic voter might.;;For example, a 64-year-old strong Republican man from Illinois surmised that Democrats want to help the poor, save Social Security, and tax the rich.;;;

But most had trouble looking at the world through Democratic eyes. Typical was a a 59-year-old Floridian who wrote I dont want to work and I want cradle to grave assistance. In other words, Mommy!;Indeed, roughly one in six Republican voters answered in the persona of a Democratic voter who is motivated free college, free health care, free welfare, and so on.;;They see Democrats as voting in order to get free stuff without having to work for it was extremely common roughly one in six Republican voters used the word free in the their answers, whereas no real Democratic voters in our sample answered this way.;

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Emboldened ‘unchanged’ Trump Looks To Re

Across the party as a whole, an NBC News poll released late last month found, a majority of Republicans considered themselves supporters of the GOP, compared to just 44 percent who supported Trump above all, the first time that has been the case since July 2019.

But mild dissatisfaction with Trump isn’t the same as political courage. Most prominent Republicans have publicly aligned with Trump even as voter support erodes, and they’re buckled in for the long haul. That creates the opening for more traditional Republicans to toy with forming a new party but it’s a slim one.


Liz Cheney Of Wyoming

The most vocal House Republican to vote to impeach Mr. Trump, Ms. Cheney has borne the brunt of the former presidents wrath. Last week, in an attempt to narrow a crowded field, Mr. Trump endorsed Harriet Hageman, a former Republican National Committee member and a 2018 candidate for governor in Wyoming, in the primary against Ms. Cheney.

Former Trump aides have rushed to Ms. Hagemans side to prop up her nascent campaign and persuade other candidates to drop out of the race. Ms. Cheney has remained unwavering in her criticism of Mr. Trump, describing his unwillingness to accept the results of the 2020 election as a threat to democracy and defiantly daring Mr. Trump and his allies to bring it on.

If Harriet wants to cast her lot with those folks, Ms. Cheney told Wyoming reporters this month, I would note that theyre the same people who were involved in misleading millions of Americans about the election in 2020.

Also Check: How Did The Democrats And Republicans Switch

Republicans Almost Won In 2020

To torture this autopsy metaphor even more: Theres a good argument that the party is still very much alive.


Historically, parties have done more self-reflection and been more likely to change course when theyve hit electoral low points. In the 1988 presidential race, Democrats carried only 10 states and Washington, D.C., and that loss was their third consecutive failed bid for the White House. In 2008, Obama won the popular vote by 7 percentage points Republicans didnt even carry Indiana. So of course the parties were ready to rethink things after those defeats.

In contrast, Trump would have won reelection had he done only about 1 percentage point better in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and about 3 points better in Michigan. Republicans would still control the Senate had Republican David Perdue won about 60,000 more votes against Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgias Senate runoff. A slew of court rulings that forced the redrawing of House district lines in less favorable ways to the GOP helped the Democrats win several seats otherwise, Republicans might have won back the House. Add all that up, and 2020 wasnt that far from resulting in a Republican trifecta.;

Also, Republicans did really well in state legislative races and gained ground among Black and Latino voters nationally .

related:What Did CPAC Tell Us About The Future Of The GOP? Read more. »

Trump Slams ‘wayward’ Republicans For Capitol Riot Vote

What Do Republicans Do if Trump Runs in 2024?

Former US president Donald Trump blasted “wayward Republicans” after lawmakers made a rare bipartisan push to investigate the Capitol riot.


With the support of 35 Republicans, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted 252-175 to look into the events of 6 January.

Party leaders had urged Republicans to oppose the bill, with Mr Trump labelling it a “Democrat trap”.

The bill appears to lack the Republican support it needs to pass in the Senate.

It seeks to create an independent inquiry modelled on the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The legislation establishes a 10-member body, evenly split between the two main parties, that would make recommendations by the end of the year on how to prevent any repeat of the Capitol invasion.


Trump supporters stormed Congress on 6 January in a failed bid to thwart certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in November’s election.

Wednesday’s vote was seen as a loyalty test to the former president for members of his party.

All 10 of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in the days after the Capitol riot for incitement of insurrection were among the 35 who voted for the commission.

In a statement after the vote, Mr Trump hit out at the “wayward” Republican group, saying, “they just can’t help themselves”.

“Sometimes there are consequences to being ineffective and weak,” Mr Trump added.


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A Ponderous Speech Poorly Delivered

In a ponderous, hour-long speech more akin to a State of the Union address than a nomination acceptance, Donald Trump alternated between ticking through his record as president and circling around, like a prize fighter, to launch strikes on his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.

It was a blunderbuss of attacks, of varying levels of validity, in the hope that some will draw blood – on trade, immigration, education, energy and foreign policy. But most of all, Mr Trump sought to paint Mr Biden as in league with the protesters on the streets and the more left-wing members of the Democratic party.

The setting of the speech was majestic – on the grounds of the White House and in view of the Washington monument.

The delivery from a president who thrives more on rousing rallies than rhetorical set-pieces, however, frequently landed with a thud.


How Things Got This Bad

6) The Republican turn against democracy begins with race

Support for authoritarian ideas in America is closely tied to the countrys long-running racial conflicts.

This chart, from a by Vanderbilt professor Larry Bartels, shows a statistical analysis of a survey of Republican voters, analyzing the link between respondents score on a measure of ethnic antagonism and their support for four anti-democratic statements .

The graphic shows a clear finding: The higher a voter scores on the ethnic antagonism scale, the more likely they are tosupport anti-democratic ideas. This held true even when Bartels used regression analyses to compare racial attitudes to other predictors, like support for Trump. The strongest predictor by far of these antidemocratic attitudes is ethnic antagonism, he writes.

For students of American history, this shouldnt be a surprise.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act cemented Democrats as the party of racial equality, causing racially resentful Democrats in the South and elsewhere to defect to the Republican Party. This sorting process, which took place over the next few decades, is the key reason America is so polarized.

7) Partisanship causes Republicans to justify anti-democratic behavior

This chart is a little hard to parse, but it illustrates a crucial finding from one of the best recent papers on anti-democratic sentiment in America: how decades of rising partisanship made an anti-democratic GOP possible.

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How Americas Political System Creates Space For Republicans To Undermine Democracy

9) Republicans havean unpopular policy agenda

Let Them Eat Tweets

The Republican policy agenda is extremely unpopular. The chart here, taken from Jacob Hacker and Paul Piersons recent book Let Them Eat Tweets, compares the relative popularity of the two major legislative efforts of Trumps first term tax cuts and Obamacare repeal to similar high-priority bills in years past. The contrast is striking: The GOPs modern economic agenda is widely disliked even compared to unpopular bills of the past, a finding consistent with a lot of recent polling data.

Hacker and Pierson argue that this drives Republicans emphasis on culture war and anti-Democratic identity politics. This strategy, which they term plutocratic populism, allows the partys super-wealthy backers to get their tax cuts while the base gets the partisan street fight they crave.

The GOP can do this because Americas political system is profoundly unrepresentative. The coalition it can assemble overwhelmingly white Christian, heavily rural, and increasingly less educated is a shrinking minority that has lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential contests. But its voters are ideally positioned to give Republicans advantages in the Electoral College and the Senate, allowing the party to remain viable despite representing significantly fewer voters than the Democrats do.

10) Some of the most consequential Republican attacks on democracy happen at the state level

Republicans Will Defend Their Caesar But New Revelations Show Trumps True Threat

Most Republicans silent on Trump

The DoJ has dealt two blows and the 6 January committee is winding up for more. They know democracy is in danger

On Friday, Donald Trump received two more unwelcome reminders he is no longer president. Much as he and his minions chant Lock her up about Hillary Clinton and other enemies, it is he who remains in legal jeopardy and political limbo.

Trumps allies on Capitol Hill will again be forced to defend the indefensible. That wont be a bother: QAnon is their creed, Trump is their Caesar and Gladiator remains the movie for our time.

But in other ways, the world has changed. The justice department is no longer an extension of Trumps West Wing. The levers of government are no longer at his disposal.

Next year, much as Trump helped deliver both Georgia Senate seats to the Democrats in January, on the eve of the insurrection, his antics may cost Republicans their chance to retake the Senate.

Documents that would probably not have seen the light of day had Trump succeeded in overturning the election are now open to scrutiny, be they contemporaneous accounts of his conversations about that dishonest aim or his tax returns.

Those who claim that the events of 6 January were something other than a failed coup attempt would do well to come up with a better line. Or a different alternate reality.

Prospective witnesses before the House select committee on the events of 6 January ought to start worrying

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Poverty Must Solve Itself

Republicans believe that poor people are usually poor for a reason, be it laziness, choice or whatever. Unless we demand that people pull themselves up by the bootstraps and solve their own problems, people will not be motivated to do things. Therefore, the issue of poverty cannot be solved by the government. Charity should be the choice of individuals.

Opinion: Cmon Republicans Its Time To Do The Right Thing On Health Care

When they went home for the July 4th recess, Republican members of Congress did one of two things: Either they met with constituents and were pummeled with angry questions about their disastrous health-care bill, or they hid out, trying to avoid their constituents so that they wouldnt be pummeled with angry questions about their disastrous health-care bill. Predictably, support for the bill among Republican senators is slipping away, which is not surprising given that this is the most unpopular piece of legislation in the history of polling.

So the time has come for Republicans to cut their losses and do the right thing. It wont be easy, but there are no easy options left for them.

Republicans need to admit to themselves that there is no great victory to be had. There will be political fallout no matter what the 2018 elections are going to be brutal but their choice now is between passing nothing, passing a bill that is so dreadful that it wins them the undying rage of the public, or a compromise that actually helps solve some of the problems they profess to care about.

What Republicans need to do now is drop the idea of repealing the Affordable Care Act and join together with Democrats to fix the problems in the individual market. Its not what they hoped for, but its a lot better than the alternative for everyone.

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Republicans And Their Declared Positions On Donald Trump

Elected officials’ positions on Donald Trump
Federal:Republicans and their declared positions on Donald Trump Republicans supporting Donald Trump Republicans opposing Donald Trump
State and local:
Republican reactions to 2005 Trump tape

In a typical general election year, elected officials readily line up behind their party’s presidential nominee. In 2012, for example, The Hill reported that only four Republican members of Congress had declined to endorse Mitt Romney by mid-September of that year. “All other House and Senate Republicans” had already endorsed the Republican nominee.

But 2016 was not a typical general election year.

Controversial comments from the GOP’s 2016 nominee, Donald Trump, about women, Muslims, Hispanics, and veterans who were prisoners of war caused some Republican lawmakers to distance themselves from the businessman, while others outright denounced him.

This page tracked the stances of Republican lawmakers on Trump throughout the 2016 presidential election: Did they support him? Did they oppose him? Or were they somewhere in between? The focus of this page is on Republican members of Congress and Republican governors, but we also have included some information on influential Republicans who have served in Republican presidential administrations.

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