The US Capitol has been Breached [Action and Developing stories]

[deech 2275]

46 minutes ago, SameSame said:

It may be a sort of bullshit picture, but there is no denying she is an out in the open white supremacist.   Her bar is an open haven for the three percenters.

Don't disagree and she may have absolutely given tours to Insurrectionists the day before, but I can't stand the quick react media bullshit where they see her post that picture and tag it to this story and it's not even a picture from the US Capitol.  

[Chad Fuck 17681]

1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Speaking as someone that has been to DC 10 times in their adult life, you would be surprised at just how close humanity is to the Capitol, much less the entire federal government apparatus up and down the Mall.

One of the most impressive memories I took away from visiting the National Mall with some classmates back in 1989, was a youngish (maybe he was in his 40s?) homeless guy in a beat up track suit pulling crushed cans out of the garbage and pouring the last drops into a dixie cup to try and get a drink.  Here I was looking around all wide eyed and walking all chest thumpingly proud to be an American and was confronted with a harsh reality of what America means for a whole lot of folks.  I'll never forget it.  

[Biff Tannen 45685]

37 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

One of the most impressive memories I took away from visiting the National Mall with some classmates back in 1989, was a youngish (maybe he was in his 40s?) homeless guy in a beat up track suit pulling crushed cans out of the garbage and pouring the last drops into a dixie cup to try and get a drink.  Here I was looking around all wide eyed and walking all chest thumpingly proud to be an American and was confronted with a harsh reality of what America means for a whole lot of folks.  I'll never forget it.  

God, I saw this in NOLA on Bourbon Street.  Horrifying.  

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

IIRC, workswithseeds is in the PNW, specifically Portland. We have several friends and former coworkers who live in Portland, Seattle, and also Idaho. We have kept in close contact with them, and I also have paid attention to the various newsworthy protests, etc that have been going on.

I found this post to echo what a lot of you have said about the deliberate avoidance/turning away from mentioning the right wing extremist groups as the real threat leading up to the insurrection/coup. SIAP, but I watched several times and read around to get a clearer picture of the events surrounding the video. Many vloggers these days are not trained journalists, but essentially folks trying to make a buck pitching to whomever they think will fund them. Lewis has a left bias, but usually is quick to document her videos with surrounding support. In this cut, she does not, but it's pretty telling. The people carrying flags and attacking others by hitting them with those flags are the MAGA. The people spraying others are MAGA. In one or two instances, however, the 'others' fight back with mace of their own.

Depending upon how this week goes, I see more skirmishes like this happening in strongholds where the militia groups and Proud Boy types congregate. Something again, that many of you have speculated for several weeks. They may not have been out in force today, but they are stocking up and harnessing their outrage. Pretty sad state of affairs.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

3 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

I only wish I bought 2 more before I found out he was crazy 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

Steve Schmidt is on a tear tonight. No spoiler this time. Just read.

 

 

 

 

[washparkhorn 9939]

26 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Steve Schmidt is on a tear tonight. No spoiler this time. Just read.

 

 

 

 

I hate the son of a bitch witch of the McCain movement for their lack of foresight when they awakened right populism from the graveyards of history.  The same the sons of bitches at MSNBC who came from the McCain movement deserve a lot of the blame for this moment in history.  They knew better than to mess with powderkeg. So - fuck him, but he understands the problem.

Right populism does not work in the United States. It is antithetical to the Idea in founding this nation of freedom. 

Don't hurt humans is this first principle of this nation. Right populists get drunk on power and forget their promises. And humans suffer.  They self-corrupt.  Right populism always ends poorly for human.

Let's put that recipe back on the shelf and go put a chicken in every pot.  Everyone will be a little happier.  

Good read - thanks.

Edited January 19, 2021 by washparkhorn

[washparkhorn 9939]

good read from propublica  on the parler videos released yesterday - 

To watch most of these videos, as I sought to do in recent days, and see the seat of our representative government turned into the object of a violent attack by fellow Americans is overwhelming. And what struck me most about them is just how much this assemblage of people assaulting the Capitol reminded me of people I had seen and spoken with over the years at regular Republican campaign events, going all the way back to Sarah Palin’s electric appearances in 2008.

Spoiler

 

At my first Trump rally in 2016, at an airplane hangar outside Dayton, Ohio, I had been amazed by the cross section on display: There were husbands in golf caps with well-manicured wives, frat boys, fathers with sons. All of them, all that year, had thrilled to Trump’s toxic rambles about heroin-toting Mexicans, Democratic voter fraud (a theme he had picked up from plenty of more conventional Republican politicians) and “the swamp” in Congress.

Never mind that the Republican Party controlled the lower chamber of the legislature for eight years of the decade and the upper chamber for six.

And now here were many of the same people, or at least, the ones with the means and will to make the trip, a sort of travel-team self-selection of the usual crowds, combined with ranks of the white-supremacist warriors who had descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

As at all those rallies, there were the rootless young men spoiling for a fight, and there was also a huge range of more bourgeois sorts — from people who presented as suburban dads to one real estate agent who flew in by private plane, announcing her plans to “storm the capitol” on Facebook — eager for a spectacle, or something more. And they were saying the same things I’d been hearing from them for years.

Except there was one difference: They were actually there, in Washington, at the Capitol — the very targets of their rhetorical fury all those years. And one way of looking at the videos is that they are the story of thousands of people discovering the connection between the rhetoric and the fact of their presence there, at the actual building.

Some are so stunned by the connection that they don’t really know what to do about it and mostly hang back. Many others respond to the sudden proximity as if a forgotten, dust-covered cord had been plugged into a power source. They feel the inexorable surge, and they advance.

 

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-capitol-riot-what-the-parler-videos-reveal 

 

[Horn Dog 9855]

11 hours ago, brakeman said:

 

Missed one!

[washparkhorn 9939]

the boebert photo is old and in front of the Colorado State Capitol. I wish they would stop using it. It mascerates the message.

[Bama Chick 28596]

Yeah I’m glad Steve Schmidt and the rest of the Lincoln Project Recovering Republicans are using their ratfucking powers for good but I still have yet to hear any kind of acknowledgment that their past efforts started us on this path.

They’ve paid some basic lip service but nothing near the contrition I need for what Rick Wilson did to Max Cleland or what Schmidt did for foisting Palin on this country.

And Ole Steve is currently a Twitter hero and has fanboys and fangirls fawning over his gorgeous mansion whenever he does one of his spots on MSNBC.

No one bothers to point out that fabulous home was paid for by his years of working for the campaigns of people like McCain and Palin.

They’re basically furloughed prisoners doing work release in my eyes.

I’ll thank them for pulling the weeds out of the flower beds but they ain’t staying for supper.

[brakeman 28369]

13 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

the boebert photo is old and in front of the Colorado State Capitol. I wish they would stop using it. It mascerates the message.

nazi enabling white supremist apologist. it's in colorado, thats cool. nice, mama would be proud.

[atomheartbevo 89668]

7 hours ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Depending upon how this week goes, I see more skirmishes like this happening in strongholds where the militia groups and Proud Boy types congregate. Something again, that many of you have speculated for several weeks. They may not have been out in force today, but they are stocking up and harnessing their outrage. Pretty sad state of affairs.

I'm sure they have all kinds of wonderful plans that will immediately fall apart as soon as they get punched in the mouth, so speak.  These groups have the blood of cops on their hands, many of them have made it clear they have turned against the cops, and there's not a state capitol that's not being guarded with cops/National Guard.

[atomheartbevo 89668]

7 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

One of the most impressive memories I took away from visiting the National Mall with some classmates back in 1989, was a youngish (maybe he was in his 40s?) homeless guy in a beat up track suit pulling crushed cans out of the garbage and pouring the last drops into a dixie cup to try and get a drink.  Here I was looking around all wide eyed and walking all chest thumpingly proud to be an American and was confronted with a harsh reality of what America means for a whole lot of folks.  I'll never forget it.  

One of my favorite high school memories was a Close Up trip we took to D.C.  We got some behind-the-scenes tours at the Smithsonian, we visited the OAS headquarters, and met with an actual ambassador from I think Costa Rica.  We visited Arlington National Cemetery, the National Mall, various other monuments, spent a lot of time at the Capitol, visited the FBI and got a lesson on Watergate from some big historian from within the FBI.  We actually were partnered up with one of our rival high schools (fucking Clements), but also with a high school from another state, so we got to hit on some rich girls and girls from another state, so it was kind of overwhelming.  I was all setup to go into aeronautical engineering and ROTC in college, but by the end of the trip, I was willing to switch to poli-sci and go live and work in DC or something.  Just magical.

In the midst of it all, fucking Marion Barry was arrested by the FBI, lol.

Anyways, when we were visiting the Capitol and were going to hang out and see how things work (we all knew the I'm Just a Bill song!) I remember one of our guides/hosts asked who our Representative was and a bunch of us chimed in with "Tom Delay" and holy shit the look of disappointment on her face was stunning.  And that motherfucker never bothered meeting with us, but one of the other Texas Reps from near Dallas did.

I'm not sure where I was going with this.

[atomheartbevo 89668]

FFS

 

[washparkhorn 9939]

34 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

FFS

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/24/can-texas-legally-secede-united-states/

 The secessionist movement has a long history in the Lone Star State. Delegates for the Texas Republican Party even recently debated adding secessionist language to the party's platform. But is it actually legal for Texas to leave the United States?

Simply put, the answer is no. Historical and legal precedents make it clear that Texas could not pull off a Texit — at least not legally.

[washparkhorn 9939]

On 1/17/2021 at 5:39 PM, Sawbonz said:

Someone needs to get busy photoshopping more accurate messages on her masks

Modor's Eyes 

 

[Pato del Muerto 52498]

50 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

FFS

 

Might want to think about how much of the economy here relies on tourism to two US national parks.  The other thing is oil. How’s that doing?

[TexasEd 8067]

On 1/17/2021 at 7:43 PM, Lobo said:

I think Molon Labe, in one of the romance languages/Latin, is "Red Pussy"  

Windmill pussy

[Foosters 17856]

1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Might want to think about how much of the economy here relies on tourism to two US national parks.  The other thing is oil. How’s that doing?

Think?

[Bookman 4639]

When's the next Million Karen March?

[Guest Lobo]

4 hours ago, TexasEd said:

Windmill pussy

Does that mean it has HPV?

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

8 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

I hate the son of a bitch witch of the McCain movement for their lack of foresight when they awakened right populism from the graveyards of history.  The same the sons of bitches at MSNBC who came from the McCain movement deserve a lot of the blame for this moment in history.  They knew better than to mess with powderkeg. So - fuck him, but he understands the problem.

Right populism does not work in the United States. It is antithetical to the Idea in founding this nation of freedom. 

Don't hurt humans is this first principle of this nation. Right populists get drunk on power and forget their promises. And humans suffer.  They self-corrupt.  Right populism always ends poorly for human.

Let's put that recipe back on the shelf and go put a chicken in every pot.  Everyone will be a little happier.  

Good read - thanks.

7 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Yeah I’m glad Steve Schmidt and the rest of the Lincoln Project Recovering Republicans are using their ratfucking powers for good but I still have yet to hear any kind of acknowledgment that their past efforts started us on this path.

They’ve paid some basic lip service but nothing near the contrition I need for what Rick Wilson did to Max Cleland or what Schmidt did for foisting Palin on this country.

And Ole Steve is currently a Twitter hero and has fanboys and fangirls fawning over his gorgeous mansion whenever he does one of his spots on MSNBC.

No one bothers to point out that fabulous home was paid for by his years of working for the campaigns of people like McCain and Palin.

They’re basically furloughed prisoners doing work release in my eyes.

I’ll thank them for pulling the weeds out of the flower beds but they ain’t staying for supper.

No quibble with either of these comments. Time will tell if they are contrite and willing to put in the work to repair the damage wrought and their part in its rise. It's better than Kellyanne making for the exit, only to circle around and start rooting through the trash so I'm mentally willing to give them a little play in their leash.

[Post Oak 20213]

7 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

FFS

 

The Texas secessionists are the absolute most mindless short bus fuckwits that a state filled with obtuse simpletons has to offer.  

I wish I could throw rocks at them.

[TwiceHorn 31471]

21 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

Ok--so let's talk about "the base" for a minute.  Because this is really critical.

The GOP "base" is fundamentally a bunch of non-voters.  They are poorly educated people who have no confidence in politics or institutions.  They don't think their vote really matters, and they behave that way.  They'll show up to vote for Trump when he is on the ballot.  But otherwise, they don't vote.

That fact is evidenced by polling in the last four elections.  In 2016 and 2020 when Trump was on the ballot, the polls missed by about 3-4 points.  That's a good sized polling error, and it reflects the fact that there are a lot of Trump voters are so disaffected that they are hard to poll.  But in 2018 and in the Georgia special, the polls were dead-on-balls accurate.

In other words, the GOP is only competitive on a national level with Trump on the ballot.  Without him on the ballot, they lose bigly, including in states like Georgia.  

That's because the GOP traded highly educated suburbanites for poorly educated rural Q-enthusiasts.  From an electoral standpoint, that's a bad trade.

It's also a real challenge when it comes to gerrymandering.  Of course, the GOP will want to dilute the suburbs and urban areas with exurbs and rural areas to the degree possible.  But what's your turnout model when you're doing that?  That's a bit of a challenge when your turnout is so variable from one election to another.

Very astute.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

39 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

The Texas secessionists are the absolute most mindless short bus fuckwits that a state filled with obtuse simpletons has to offer.  

I wish I could throw rocks at them.

Many of their adherents don't realize the Russian money that has flowed into their movement, either. Guess Wyoming has jumped on that as well. There are several communities in the PNW that I suspect will go that route too. Instead of being run out of town, Russia has expanded their reach. Any Texas lege member who brings up the topic ought to be considered compromised unless shown otherwise.

Lots of news articles about it recently, but here's some further older reading for those inclined:

 

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/texas-nationalist-movement-secession-flag-hanging-moscow-e4c25166a730/

 

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/how-putin-s-oligarchs-funneled-millions-into-gop-campaigns/

2017: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/10/17/how-the-russians-pretended-to-be-texans-and-texans-believed-them/

2015: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/vladimir-putin-texas-secession-119288

[TwiceHorn 31471]

8 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Yeah I’m glad Steve Schmidt and the rest of the Lincoln Project Recovering Republicans are using their ratfucking powers for good but I still have yet to hear any kind of acknowledgment that their past efforts started us on this path.

They’ve paid some basic lip service but nothing near the contrition I need for what Rick Wilson did to Max Cleland or what Schmidt did for foisting Palin on this country.

And Ole Steve is currently a Twitter hero and has fanboys and fangirls fawning over his gorgeous mansion whenever he does one of his spots on MSNBC.

No one bothers to point out that fabulous home was paid for by his years of working for the campaigns of people like McCain and Palin.

They’re basically furloughed prisoners doing work release in my eyes.

I’ll thank them for pulling the weeds out of the flower beds but they ain’t staying for supper.

Well.

Schmidt and Palin pretty much set the table for an Obama victory.

[Eskimohorn 5635]

Well.
Schmidt and Palin pretty much set the table for an Obama victory.

With the economic nosedive and Iraq War the incumbent party was dead in the water. Palin injected energy and was an outsider. There were going to be few paths to victory for McCain.

[TexasEd 8067]

36 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

With the economic nosedive and Iraq War the incumbent party was dead in the water. Palin injected energy and was an outsider. There were going to be few paths to victory for McCain.

Eskimos for Palin?

[Guest Lobo]

1 minute ago, TexasEd said:

Eskimos for Palin?

Dude, those are outdated and offensive terms.  It's Inuit for Retards.  Try to keep up.  

[Jiggy-Z 3432]

1 hour ago, Eskimohorn said:

With the economic nosedive and Iraq War the incumbent party was dead in the water. Palin injected energy and was an outsider. There were going to be few paths to victory for McCain.

That election was when I first realized that the we still had a very bad racist problem.

As it was it went 53/46 for Obama and should have been a Reaganesqe landslide in both PV and EC.

Despite Obama's 9.5 million popular vote margin, the EC could have been swung with fewer than 1.1 million votes in 9 states or voting districts out of 131 millionish votes. 

[thepop 4409]

Not sure where to post so.....FAAFO

 

[Underdog 28633]

When they're open...  but good on HEB. 

[Guest Lobo]

Be fun to make a running list of his ten largest retail outlets (BB&B and HEB probably among them) and check them off as they discontinue his item.  He'll obviously still sell a bunch online to loyal Trumpers and lonely Japanese businessmen with no sense of irony.  But I bet 2021 is going to be most cruel to him.  Dumb bastard.

[Brisketexan 105139]

4 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Be fun to make a running list of his ten largest retail outlets (BB&B and HEB probably among them) and check them off as they discontinue his item.  He'll obviously still sell a bunch online to loyal Trumpers and lonely Japanese businessmen with no sense of irony.  But I bet 2021 is going to be most cruel to him.  Dumb bastard.

Oh, let the stores dropping his product simply be the prelude to the utter gutting he will receive in the defamation suit.  He promoted and trafficked in insane lies that will forever be associated with Dominion.  You can't unring the bell of the harm that has been caused to Dominion.  So, time to pay the price for ringing that bell.  He should be personally bankrupted.

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

[Ghost of LL 15531]

19 hours ago, Wanker Bob said:

If what you're saying is true, and I can't think of anything wrong with it, that means the Republicans will follow trump with whatever garbage they can find to motivate the morons to drive the votes. Trump has been so horrible, and the Republicans shitting on that oaths to cover him so repulsive, that they'll have to continue to pander to America's worst and least valuable people to win. The soul has been sold and the future is dark. We just have to hope they can't find anyone to do it as well as Trump did. 

With these low-education, low-information, low-propensity voters, I don't think you can underestimate the degree to which celebrity and outlandishness played a role in their devotion to Trump and their willingness to turn out to vote for him.  Who do they find that drives those votes without Trump?

Josh Hawley can blow all of the dog whistles.  But for how many seasons was he on The Apprentice?

Ted Cruz is obviously smarter than Trump.  But does he talk just like how we talk?

Tom Cotton can talk "America First."  But will he make the libs cry?

Serious question as you ponder 2024--how in the fuck are any of these guys going to generate the air time that Donald Trump created in 2016?  Nobody is going to tune in to a Ted Cruz speech thinking "I just want to see what he does next."  Nobody is going to go to a Josh Hawley rally because he's a celebrity.

And the worst part for Republicans is: they don't have the first clue how to turn out these people without Trump.  If they did, they'd have done it by now.  But they don't.  They're not people who are going to answer their phones or their doors to canvassers.  They're completely immune to any on-the-ground GOTV efforts.  The only person they listen to is Trump.  And even then--the only listen to Trump insofar as Trump tells them to vote for Trump.

 

 

I'm afraid that the real future of the Republican Party isn't as a political party.  It has no future as a political party, because it can't win elections.  I'm afraid that its real future is as a domestic insurgency movement.

[Post Oak 20213]

29 minutes ago, thepop said:

Not sure where to post so.....FAAFO

 

HEB to texan pumpkins

 

[Foosters 17856]

17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh, let the stores dropping his product simply be the prelude to the utter gutting he will receive in the defamation suit.  He promoted and trafficked in insane lies that will forever be associated with Dominion.  You can't unring the bell of the harm that has been caused to Dominion.  So, time to pay the price for ringing that bell.  He should be personally bankrupted.

Coming soon: The Dominion Pillow Co.!

[thepop 4409]

25 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Be fun to make a running list of his ten largest retail outlets (BB&B and HEB probably among them) and check them off as they discontinue his item.  He'll obviously still sell a bunch online to loyal Trumpers and lonely Japanese businessmen with no sense of irony.  But I bet 2021 is going to be most cruel to him.  Dumb bastard.

 

[Captainant 27668]

ProPublica just put out a really incredible timeline of all the videos recorded on, around, and inside the Capitol. 

https://projects.propublica.org/parler-capitol-videos/

Thank god the parler admins were dumbfucks and broke just about every best-practice when building their insurrection platform.

 

Side note on parler - did yall hear it's back up? It's being hosted by a russian hosting company. Lmao.

[Constant 6732]

11 minutes ago, thepop said:

 

Look forward to the bankruptcy filings. 

[Captainant 27668]

What the actual fuck the defenses at the capitol are nothing but a fig leaf. Look at this shit, there's metal doors sliding down to seal the visitor center and the can just be pushed back up easily

https://projects.propublica.org/parler-capitol-videos/?id=AYijYnzI0Gbr

These videos are fucking WILD

Edited January 19, 2021 by Captainant

[Brisketexan 105139]

13 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I'm afraid that the real future of the Republican Party isn't as a political party.  It has no future as a political party, because it can't win elections.  I'm afraid that its real future is as a domestic insurgency movement.

 

For realz.

Their only purpose is to get and hold on to power (it's not like the party has any principles to advance -- it openly admitted that it has none in its last platform of "whatever that Trump guy says").

It cannot do so via election -- it can't win national elections WITH Trumpkins, and it can't win WITHOUT them.

So, it will choose to do so via alternate means.  And to the extent that the "party" kinda sorta says "violence is wrong" today.....they'll get right with the lord, and be just fine with violence when they realize that seizing power through a coup etc. is their only path forward.

The GOP is a terrorist insurgency now.  But the memory of when they were a political party gives them an inordinate amount of cover to plot and foment their terrorism right out in the open still.

[SquishMitten 10406]

What the actual fuck the defenses at the capitol are nothing but a fig leaf. Look at this shit, there's metal doors sliding down to seal the visitor center and the can just be pushed back up easily
https://projects.propublica.org/parler-capitol-videos/?id=AYijYnzI0Gbr
These videos are fucking WILD

Are those new installations? Because they look more like concession stand doors that really only operate as a deterrent rather than a true security feature. I’d imagine they have sensors that stop them from crushing someone to death since that’s not what they were designed for.

[TexasEd 8067]

1 hour ago, Jiggy-Z said:

That election was when I first realized that the we still had a very bad racist problem.

As it was it went 53/46 for Obama and should have been a Reaganesqe landslide in both PV and EC.

Despite Obama's 9.5 million popular vote margin, the EC could have been swung with fewer than 1.1 million votes in 9 states or voting districts out of 131 millionish votes. 

It wasn't the birther movement which started before the election?

[TXSG8R 3362]

6 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

Are those new installations? Because they look more like concession stand doors that really only operate as a deterrent rather than a true security feature. I’d imagine they have sensors that stop them from crushing someone to death since that’s not what they were designed for.

I don't think they offer much without getting to the bottom and engaging the toggle bolts to lock it in place.  These aren't meant to be part of an active event deterrence.  They are supposed to be closed before someone gets to that area.  Just more evidence that there was zero coordinated response, or more likely, an intentional lack of response.  Those should have started closing when people breached the barriers on the edge of the capitol grounds.  I doubt we ever see the real AAR on everything because of the security aspects, but everyone in any management position for the capitol police needs to burn.  You either grossly undertrained, had horribly underprepared policies and procedures, or actively supported the coup.  There really aren't any other options.  

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

[NameAlreadyInUse 5112]

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

 

For realz.

Their only purpose is to get and hold on to power (it's not like the party has any principles to advance -- it openly admitted that it has none in its last platform of "whatever that Trump guy says").

It cannot do so via election -- it can't win national elections WITH Trumpkins, and it can't win WITHOUT them.

So, it will choose to do so via alternate means.  And to the extent that the "party" kinda sorta says "violence is wrong" today.....they'll get right with the lord, and be just fine with violence when they realize that seizing power through a coup etc. is their only path forward.

The GOP is a terrorist insurgency now.  But the memory of when they were a political party gives them an inordinate amount of cover to plot and foment their terrorism right out in the open still.

The optimist in me sees that there are a shit ton of people that are going to vote R because R.  They don't care about the policies, they've proven that by voting for Trump because R.  So, what an enterprising R leadership should be doing is to start figuring out which parts of the Democratic platform they can co opt to build a new coalition.  And then go hard at that.  They do not have to go down the deadly path, because it will be deadly to them if they follow that path.  They are going to have to get some visionary leadership to see it that way though, and they have to start bringing in candidates who can argue about ideas again instead of creating straw men.  It's going to be a tough thing to do, but it's the only path that doesn't see them driven to dust.

[Brisketexan 105139]

2 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

The optimist in me sees that there are a shit ton of people that are going to vote R because R.  They don't care about the policies, they've proven that by voting for Trump because R.  So, what an enterprising R leadership should be doing is to start figuring out which parts of the Democratic platform they can co opt to build a new coalition.  And then go hard at that.  They do not have to go down the deadly path, because it will be deadly to them if they follow that path.  They are going to have to get some visionary leadership to see it that way though, and they have to start bringing in candidates who can argue about ideas again instead of creating straw men.  It's going to be a tough thing to do, but it's the only path that doesn't see them driven to dust.

Alternative: go full-on into totalitarianism, going down a road more horrific than you would ever like to imagine.  Seize power by violence, hold onto it by violence.  That option is absolutely on the table.