The Texas GOP Platform & Resolutions: Read It For Yourself
All kinds of controversy is spilling out over the Texas GOP platform and resolutions from their weekend convention.
Votes on the state’s revised GOP platform are currently being tallied, the Texas Tribune reported.
If approved, the new party platform would include declaring homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” repealing the 16th Amendment that created the federal income tax, and mandating that Texas students “learn about the humanity of the preborn child,” in part by forcing students to listen to ultrasounds of gestating fetuses.
During the convention, Texas Republicans approved a resolution declaring that President Biden “was not legitimately elected,” per the Tribune.
Attendees also voted on a measure urging “lawmakers to enact legislation to abolish abortion by immediately securing the right to life and equal proaction of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization,” per Newsweek.
The platform also calls for the abolishment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, opposes efforts to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and supports prayer “being returned to our schools, courthouses, and other government buildings.”
Read the full Texas GOP Platform and Resolutions here:
Texas GOP Platform
“Pre-born children”… their manipulation of language is masterful.
As for prayer in schools… well, F that whole Constitution thing. Except the 2nd, of course.Report
Non-denominational prayer and Bible readings in public school was considered perfectly Constitutional until the Warren Court banned the practice in a 1961 or 1963 case. The reason why the Catholic school system developed in the first place was because the Catholics pretty much saw the public schools as Protestant schools in all but name. Some cities with a more diverse population didn’t have any prayer or Bible reading. Cincinnati decided to get it rid of it before the Civil War but many did until the Supreme Court but a nix to it.Report
If you look at what the Constitution says and prevailing precedent as regards the Constitutionality of prayer in schools and you’re position is that we need to bring prayer to schools, I don’t know how you can say you support the Constitution.
The Constitution is clear on the matter. And, while it took some time, the courts are now clear on the matter.Report
In two of the cases remaining on the docket for this SCOTUS term, the Court appears poised to make quite substantial changes to precedent.Report
Lovely.Report
What about prayer that doesn’t establish a religion?Report
Prayer by it’s very nature is religious so I don’t understand the question.
As a parent, I object to teachers leading prayers with my children. What about my parental rights?Report
Prayer doesn’t establish a religion. A prayer could exclude one or more, and I guess you could argue that it prevents the free exercise of those religions, but you’d be granting the premise that school prayer is permissible. Within American practice, prayer has always played a role in public life, even in government. The Declaration of Independence takes the existence of God and nature as the basis for rights. Our official prayers have traditionally been monotheistic (at least by implication), and wouldn’t be objectionable to most Christians, Jews, Muslims, or Deists.Report
What Republicans really want, versus what they tell us they want:
The Republican SCOTUS ruled that states must provide taxpayer funds for religious schools.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-21/supreme-court-rules-for-parents-seeking-state-aid-for-religious-schools
Step 1: Destroy public schools;
Step 2: Shift those tax dollars to Reverend Bob’s Creationist Academy.Report
Another Chip conspiracy theory.
In the ruling you cited, the state was providing money to private non-religious schools, thus discriminating on the basis of religion.Report
except its not Pinky. Republicans have openly disdained public education for several decades, what with its multi-cultural and inclusive emphasis. They do want public taxes to be used to fund private religious schools. That California chose to provide funds to secular private schools – which don’t really exist elsewhere – is not the problem you think it is.Report
California’s support of secular private schools isn’t a problem; it’s their support of only secular private schools. As for the average Republican’s assessment of the public school system, it varies, but Chip takes the most extreme possible idea and portrays it as the secret goal, and that’s conspiracy thinking.
(And no, I don’t know anything about the case beyond the first couple of paragraphs in Chip’s link, so I could be completely wrong.)Report
I’ll wait until I’ve read the opinion in detail. The payments to private schools only arose because the school district did not operate public secondary schools.Report
There’s something now on the sidebar that includes links to the ruling and the wikipedia page.Report
Parts of Maine are so thinly populated, that it doesn’t make sense to set up a public school in those areas. So Maine subsidized non-sectarian private schools. It didn’t want to subsidize religious education, though, so sectarian schools were excluded.
Since it was already the law that states can subsidize students, who can use the money to go to sectarian schools if they wished, I don’t see why Maine can’t switch to that option now.Report
I don’t see why Maine can’t switch to that option now.
Or before. I don’t know about Maine’s details. In many western states, the state constitution expressly forbids any public funds going to any religious organization in any way, including church-associated schools. Such restrictions were usually added at the same time that initiatives and recalls were.
The Court has held those provisions to violate the First Amendment under some circumstances. A few years back there was a case about funding for playgrounds built and operated by non-profits. The state had simply followed their constitution’s provision that they couldn’t give any money to any church for any reason.
Like I said, I need to find time to read the opinion in detail.Report
Pope Pinky doesn’t get to say what is or isn’t objectionable to people not in his own cult.
The enthusiasm for government prayer is hard to understand on any basis other than “most of the people in my bubble like this and we used to be able to impose it on others, and now that we can’t I’m sad.”Report
There’s also the minorly inconvenient issue that prayer is still very much a part of public life in many places. My daughter’s public middle school honors day, my son’s Scout troop – both open with prayer. Our local Blessing of the Fleet Festival opened with Catholic prayer Hell Congress opens with prayer. There’s been no ban that needs to be pushed back on, only the correct insistence that prayer is not the exclusive providence of Christians, and so if prayer is to be conducted in public facilities at publicly sponsored events, it should include all traditions.
Which some fundamentalist Christians seem to find offensive, no matters Jesus’ actual teachings on, say, the holiness of Samaritans and other unbelievers (whom He was actively comparing to Jews).Report
What sort of utter gibberish is this?
Please state a prayer that you think is not exclusive of some religion.Report
I suspect there are some Buddhist ones that would qualify, what with Buddhism lacking a deity and all . . . .Report
You’re right, the US was invented an hour ago and we’ve never had national ceremonies, a military, Congress, or a presidency, so there’s really nowhere to even start.Report
What the hell does that have to do with you providing a prayer that is not exclusive of some religion?
And you probably want to read this, because even the religions that are not excluded often have a problem with them: https://baptistnews.com/article/bjc-opposes-local-government-prayer/
Someone in the government asking that everyone in a public place participate in a prayer, even one to my God that would otherwise be perfectly acceptable to me, is still violating my religious beliefs that assert that no one should be coerced, in any manner, into prayer or any sort of relationship with God, even if ‘correct’.
And this isn’t some new, fancy invention of ‘liberal’ Baptist churches. Baptists have always opposed this sort of government-led religion, or any sort of forced religious inclusion by _anyone_. (Hence the opposition to infant baptism.) This is a basic premise of Baptists, that a relationship with God is a personal choice and no one is allowed to dictate it.
Well, I say ‘always’, although in very recent times the Southern Baptist Convention has fallen to nonsense conservative stuff. But…the Southern Baptist Convention is not in charge of Baptists. Neither is the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, for the record. No one is in charge of Baptists. But…the CBF is speaking for me in this instance.Report
So…
You find it ideologically consistent that teachers should be barred from acknowledging that some families have two mores or two dads because some parents don’t want their child exposed to it AND that teachers and school administrators can lead prayers in classrooms and schools?Report
Our country operated like that for nearly two centuries. I don’t know that there are any logical inconsistencies. Could we be in a situation that’s anything like 2022 and have teachers and school administrators being allowed to lead prayers, though? Probably not.
Would you have a problem with a minute of silent reflection at the beginning of the school day?Report
Again, many public schools, public meetings, and other public activities ARE STILL STARTED with moments of silence and prayers. There’s been no blanket ban, and certainly not a federal one.Report
“Many public schools”? A Pew survey indicated 8% of public school students had ever had a teacher lead the class in prayer. I’ll admit that’s higher than I would have guessed. As for the other public activities, I mentioned those myself.Report
most of the time if there’s a moment of silence or prayer its part of the school wide daily announcements, not the individual classroom level .Report
Our country had slavery for centuries as well. Doesn’t make it right.
On the one hand, you have conservatives arguing that parental rights should allow them to dictate curriculum, including acknowledging basic truths such as gay people exist.
On the other hand, you have conservatives pushing for school-led prayer.
So… parents have the right to say that certain members of the school community can be denied their fundamental existence but parents do not have the right to raise their children free of religious practice that is not in accordance with their beliefs.
Stellar.Report
No, our country had slavery for four score and 9 years.
Beyond that, no one’s denying anyone’s existence. Beyond that, I just don’t get your argument. You want the right to keep your children away from exposure to religion, but you don’t want anyone to have the right to keep their children away from exposure to sexuality?Report
That’s because discussing homosexual couples and transgendered individuals isn’t a sexual discussion Pinky. Having two dads, or two moms, or a parent who changes gender presentation has zero to do with sexual practice. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Its simple a recognition f the humanity of people in their many, splendid and God-created forms.Report
I don’t want my children to be forced to pray.
Just like I’m sure most Christian parents wouldn’t want their children forced to say Jewish or Muslim prayers.
Why do we need prayer in schools?
And didn’t you previously argue that teachers shouldn’t share personal information with students? Wouldn’t that include their religion?
And, yes, you do deny people’s existence if you ban their existence from being acknowledged.Report
I say Jewish prayers all the time. Led prayer in school wouldn’t actually reveal anything about the teacher, and certainly a minute of silence wouldn’t.
The question of why we need prayer in school is why this is a bit of an academic conversation. I think it has great value, and I could convince most of the members of the TX GOP platform committee, but I don’t think I could convince many others.Report
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.Report
You don’t get to bait and switch this, Pinky.
You argued for _prayer_, not a moment of silence.
You have to defend _prayer_, not a moment of silence.Report
I don’t know what more you want. I’m not pretending I didn’t write what I wrote; I’m asking Kazzy where his line is.Report
Seems pretty clear to me.Report
Yeah. Now apply that to things that people find religiously offensive, like “Pride Week” or treating women as equals (this is literally written into the Koran. Women are gossips, so they cannot be as credible witnesses to crimes — four women count the same as 2 men, in terms of being a witness).
And unlike Judaism, Islam is pretty hard on “do it the way the Koran does it.” — so it’s not like they’re going to just say “four people make a credible witness.”Report
Does that mean I’m not allowed to ask Kazzy about a minute of silence? Are we going to move to a “one comment per thread” rule, where we each state our positions but don’t interact? I really want to know if Kazzy would approve of the silence, because it seems so reasonable to me.Report
The Supreme Court addressed this in Wallace v. Jaffree, holding that while a truly neutral moment of silence requirement would be OK, the one in Alabama was a dodge to permit prayer.
Schools and teachers always have the authority to tell kids to STFU for a minute, and, therefore, nobody bothers to legislate moments of silence except as a dodge to permit prayer.Report
“Guys. We’ve had a handful of (small) victories following some serious mis-steps from the Democrats. They’ve over-reached on some culture war issues, they have some serious messaging problems on a national level, and the economy is fixing to have a recession *AND* inflation at the same time. Gas prices are going up following Biden making some big moves about limiting energy production. Seriously, the iron is going to be hot and we need to figure out how to strike it.”
“Let’s be even stupider.”Report
Jay, have you ever considered that the rank and file of the Republican Party really believes in this stuff? The rubes have taken over the party. This is true belief. They really think this is a winning message or believe in it enough to cheat outrageously to get power and impose it by force.Report
I believe that the rank and file is, mostly, doing day-to-day stuff involving stuff that is *NOT* politics and only turns to politics when things start failing outside of normal tolerances.
At which point they are being asked to choose between the nutball Republicans (and their attendant anti-anti-Republicans) and the nutball Democrats (and their attendant anti-anti-Democrats).
At which point they find themselves boggling at how much crazier the people who do this stuff every day for fun are than the people who only start paying attention when gas hits record highs.Report
So like hundreds of people violently attacking Congress and coming within inches of assassinating the Vice President…do these rank and file take notice of this?
According to all information yes, yes they are very aware of it and hey what- they approve of it!
John Eastman, the Proud Boys- they ARE the rank and file.Report
“Do these rank and file take notice of this?”
If I had to guess, I’d say “no”. They barely remember Jan 6th and think that the Democrats are only making a big deal out of it because they can’t run on their accomplishments.
“According to all information”
You mean stuff like polling? I can link to polling, if you want. Would you like to give counter-arguments to the polling with me having linked to them first or is that not required?
“John Eastman, the Proud Boys- they ARE the rank and file.”
Democratic leadership pretty much *HAS* to run with that, don’t they?
Well, I hope, for your sake, that you guys will be able to keep up all of this January 6th momentum through the next 4-5 months.
Try to do a good job shaming people who complain more about inflation than treason, or gas prices than treason, or bread prices than treason.Report
And which of the Texas GOP platform planks and resolutions are aimed at those very real problems?Report
Oh, diddly squat.
They’re screaming sentiments very loudly and, get this, they’re not even sentiments that are shared by a plurality of their presumed constituency.
They’re batshit insane and completely tone deaf and are communicating that they don’t have any idea what to do about very real problems that will be affecting 98% of the population of their state.Report
Please cite your source for how the rank and file is unaware of Jan 6.
Last I saw, 80% of Republicans believe the Big Lie.Report
It’s not that they’re “unaware” as much as they “barely remember Jan 6th and think that the Democrats are only making a big deal out of it because they can’t run on their accomplishments.”
You know how you feel about (insert Democratic scandal here)? How, technically, it *MIGHT* have been bad but the reaction to it was worse and there was serious bad faith on the other side so you can’t believe that the Dems bothered giving lip service to this being a big deal?
It’s like that. It’s not that it wasn’t *BAD*, it was. It’s just water under the bridge and if you had something to talk about that made you look good then you’d be talking about that instead.
You’re not talking about that instead.
Therefore there is nothing that you can talk about that makes you look good.
But if you’re hoping for a source on that, I can’t really provide one.Report
So it more accurate to say they remember but don’t think it’s a big deal.Report
Well, I think it’s more accurate to assume that I used the phrasing that I used and not the phrasing that you put in your paraphrase of what I said.Report
The choice that American citizens have is to vote for the Democratic Party or to vote for this either by directly voting for Republicans or to give it implicit blessing by not voting in the election. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t voting in the election for leftist, libertarian or, shutter, finding the Republicans insignificantly to the right. Not voting Democratic is a vote for this.Report
As someone who won’t vote in this election, in the state in question, meh, whatever. At this point, I can’t imagine ever voting or a Democrat again, though I could be persuaded if, say, they got serious on abortion. Since “getting serious” on anything, much less something as big as abortion, is not something the Democrats do, I won’t hold my breath, though. Does this mean I’m effectively voting for Republicans? Well, if we take your logic seriously, by not voting for Republicans (and I never will), then I’m also effectively voting for the Democrats. Do my effective votes then cancel each other out? But more than that, if the Democrats want me, and many others, to vote for them, all they have to do is convince us there’s a good reason to vote for them other than “IF YOU DON’T VOTE FOR US AMERICA IS DOOOOOOOMED!”Report
Chris, at this point, not voting is not an option. There is a rapidly heating war going on here, and sitting it out, hoping for your preferred policy position in a candidate is not going to cool that war off. I don’t like voting for neoliberal centerists either, but they are still, on many things, a far sight better then the ultra conservative Right, who will seek to actively oppress, if not erase, people I care deeply about. Its not great solution. Its note even a good solution, but I don’t have the personal luxury of any other choice!Report
It takes more time and effort to post a comment expressing one’s opinion, than it does to vote.
“My vote won”t change things” appears very curious when its wrapped inside “And here are a bunch of my thoughts and opinions which I definitely want everyone to hear!”
Related :
Eunisses Hernandez, who campaigned on shifting funds from the Police Department to mental health services, and openly used the phrase “Defund the Police” has pulled ahead of veteran Democrat Gil Cedillo by 292 votes in the race for Los Angeles City Council.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-06-14/hernandez-pulls-ahead-of-cedillo-in-tight-la-council-raceReport
It takes more time and effort to post a comment expressing one’s opinion, than it does to vote.
We must type at very different speeds.Report
The reason I comment on this is that I’m seeing how criticism without solution ends up being indistinguishable from authoritarianism.
What I mean is, liberal civil society is the happy result of a long process of trust building and cooperation, where institutions like churches, business, military, police and government all function and enjoy a basic level of trust.
The central message of oppressive regimes is that no one can be trusted, not even themselves. Repressive regimes are eager to demonstrate that they can’t be trusted with power,, everyone might be an informer, no one is above suspicion and all organs of society are broken and powerless and most of all, each individual is utterly alone and alienated.
So the message that “the cops/corporations/churches/ government agencies are corrupt” is inevitably a signpost pointing to authoritarianism and injustice.
This is because the messenger hasn’t bothered to point to an alternate path, one where they CAN be reformed and trusted.Report
Notice how the only GOP Senator offering a plan to address the economic concerns of his bas – Rick Scott – was told to can that plan, stop talking about it and just sit quietly in the corner. The Biden Administration and Democrats are offering ideas while Republicans are offering fiddles.Report
I think one of the best pieces of advice I got in grad school was that ideas are cheap.Report
Hence why I am all too happy to criticize the Democrats, particularly in the Senate. The House is passing stuff . . . .Report
Though apparently merely posting this tweet is authoritarianism, to say nothing of actually believing that we should reduce the power of, you know, the authorities.Report
You will find precisely zero places where i have said Democrats have all the answers, or even most of the answers nor will you find a place where I have said they are doing everything they could. You will find a growing number of places where I have said I’d love to have a functional DSA or similar option.
But we don’t have those options, especially not here in the South. So in order to minimize harm to people I care about I’m continuing to vote for the Democrats as – sadly and maddeningly – the lessor of two evils, and as one path of resistance to Republicans. You might consider doing the same in Texas.Report
the lessor of two evils
Someone somewhere always profits.Report
I guarantee you there are lots of black voters in NYC who marched in BLM marches, who then voted for Eric Adams last year.
Also, ask the KPD how being an accelerationist worked out for them.Report
I’m not suggesting we vote for the KDP; we don’t have one. I’m not even suggesting we vote for the SDP, because we don’t have one of those either. We have a center-left or straight up center party that does nothing and insists that its left wing, which is full of people who are decidedly not communists, vote for them entirely because the other guy is so bad, while also going out of their way to be critical of its left wing. And while I did not bring up Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic, I did turn it around to point out that the issue then was also a center/center-left party that punched left (or shot guns left) and then was surprised it couldn’t form a coalition with the left.Report
So the message that “the cops/corporations/churches/ government agencies are corrupt” is inevitably a signpost pointing to authoritarianism and injustice.
I think this is an incredibly dangerous view, for many reasons, but most of all, because it is, in fact, manifestly, if ironically, an authoritarian one.Report
Here, here. People who don’t vote for ostensibly leftist reasons in the United States are basically the KPD who argued that the SPD were “social fascists” and no better than the Nazis. The real opposition to the Nazis were the SPD, Centre Party, and DDP rather than the KPD.Report
This argument rests on two necessary premises: a.) Democrats are preventing the conservatives from doing harm, and b.) Democrats are not contributing to the strength of conservativism. I think both a.) and b.) are false, both as a result of their do-nothingism.
As I’m sure you know, a common argument for voting, among leftists (whose politics are not represented in the Democratic Party, by and large if at all) is harm reduction, but I firmly believe that harm reduction is better done outside of the political system, through both the building of power and through mutual aid. The former is of course a long-term project, so I focus on, and I would argue leftists should focus on, the latter (both for its immediate benefits and for its role in building power). Oh, and anti-fascism, which we know both from today and from history, voting doesn’t really help, because fascists don’t care about process or institutions or democracy, when those things are in their way.Report
In many places, Democrats are preventing harm at the state and local level. Some of the Administration’s current policies – which my fellow federal bureaucrats are hard at work implementing – are reversing serious harms from the previous Administration. In others, they are at least documenting harm. As I have said repeatedly I’d love to have better leftist alternatives, but those don’t largely exist in the US.
As to the building power and mutual aid issues – there’s a lot of mutual aid I participate in (mostly though funding well equipped organizations that have track records of success). That effort, however, doesn’t change the fact that the fascists will seek to destroy those organizations if they take power. And for the moment (though maybe not too much longer) limiting that power does indeed require voting.Report
The fascists will always attempt to destroy them, and are doing a pretty good job here in Texas, as I’m sure they are in Mississippi. There’s nothing Dems can do to stop it, nor is there anything they will do to stop it. The only option we have is to increase our efforts outside of the political system. Which is what, at least here in Texas, we continue to do.Report
How did this go the first time around in 1930s Germany? Voting is not about your moral highground. It is about practical effects and the moral highground often comes from being part of something bigger than yourself and doing something for the greater good.
A guy I know from grad school’s biggest cri de ceour is student loan cancellation. Does the situation on this issue suck? Yes. However, he seemed to take head when I said that it is more important to protect women’s rights to abortion access and the rights of LGBT people.
Every vote counts. You might think Beto’s crusades are futile for a variety of good reasons but he is pretty brave in my view for how he campaigns on them in Texas. Maybe he will go down in defeat but if Texas Republicans can be denied a supermajority or a majority at all, it is better than not.Report
I mean, not voting wasn’t the problem in Germany. The problem was a fractured opposition to the Nazi Party, and that fracture was largely the result of a.) the fecklessness of the center-left party, and b.) the violent (as in, a bunch of murders by the state) suppression of the far left (who, despite the destruction of their leadership, still managed to make gains in the ’32 election).
So basically, to avoid a repeat of this, history teaches us that we should a.) develop an opposition party that isn’t as feckless as Zentrum-SDP coaltion, and b.) stop punching left. The two are not mutually exclusive, particularly since, after 2009 or so, the only folks with vision, motivation, and energy among the opposition are the folks being punched.
In other words, two things that the Democrats are absolutely not doing. So why would I vote for them when they’re leading us on the path towards the very thing that y’all keep saying voting for them will prevent?Report
So where is it, this society where no institutions can be trusted, which enjoys freedom and justice?Report
This is not what you said. What you said is “So the message that “the cops/corporations/churches/ government agencies are corrupt” is inevitably a signpost pointing to authoritarianism and injustice.”
In other words, if their is a legitimation crisis, we can’t talk about it, because to talk about it is authoritarian.
The cops are corrupt! Corporations’ influence on political institutions is bad! Chruches, man, don’t even get me started! These institutions are suffering legitimation crises not because folks are pointing out that, say, the cops can kill people largely without repercussions, that they have unchecked power to imprison people or otherwise ruin their lives with no independent check on this authority, or that, as so many videos and now Uvalde show, cops’ first instinct is to lie, and meanwhile, they aren’t actually doing what they are supposed to do (protecting and serving and all that). What’s causing the legitimation crisis for cops is that they can kill people without repercussions, they can imprison people with little or no checks on this power, and their first instinct is to lie, while they don’t do their damn jobs. We have to do something about that, to prevent a serious erosion of freedom and justice at the hands of reactionaries who’ll take advantage of the crisis, and doing something about it requires talking about it. Same for corporations, same for the military, same for churches, same for many other institutions. You’re explicitly suggesting we shouldn’t do that, which seems like a very good way to a) assert the absolute authority of those institutions, and b.) open the door to the reactionaries to take them over.Report
What I mean is that pointing to corruption without proposing an alternative leads to helplessness and ultimately a loss of freedom.
Cops may be corrupt, but there is a model for a world in which they aren’t. That world is one where they are under the control of the citizenry and part of a trusted and competent system of governance.
And there are actual existing working models of this right now all over the world.Report
The true opposition to the NSDAP was the Weimar Coalition of the SPD, Center Party, and DDP. The KPD would always be bit players and just as prone to street thug violence as the Nazis because they thought Stalinist Germany was the only true alternative to the NSDAP Germany.Report
This is ahistorical, particularly given KPD advances in the ’32 election and the center-left violent repression of the KDP and its predecessors.
In 1918, there was a very real possibility for a strong, majority (or plurality) for the left in the existing SDP-KPD alliance. The SDP decided to abandon that alliance and directly aid in the violent, murderous repression of the KPD and related groups (e.g., Sparticists), in favor of the center-left, and the next 15 years of German politics are a result of the failure of the center-left and the aligned SDP. Blaming it on the left, or not voting, or whatever, is a flat out denial of history, and ignores that some of the first targets of the newly empowered Nazis were the KPD.Report
Yesterday you were complaining about people voting strictly on social issues.Report
“The SPD are social fascists” is the usual response. The current version is that the Democratic Party are neo-liberal corporate sellouts. The lie the Further Left tells themselves in the Untied States is that but for the Democratic Party, we would be in charge even though most Democratic Party voters reject what they are selling wholesale.Report
This is a false dichotomy. Owing to our system of checks and balances, divided government acts as a third realistic option. It’s not enough for Democrats to be better than Republicans. They have to be better than gridlock, and they’re failing miserably at that.Report
The only way for Democrats nationally to be better then gridlock is to eliminate the filibuster. So far that’s a non-starter, and I don’t see that changing no matter how badly they get shellacked.Report
I mean that the policy agenda they are campaigning on and trying to pass is, on balance, worse than the status quo. If they were trying to pass an agenda that was better than the status quo and failing to do so only because they didn’t have the votes in the Senate, that would be a good reason to vote for them. That they are actively trying to make things worse is a good reason to vote for divided government.Report
Eliminating the filibuster doesn’t actually fix the dramatically escalating numbers of “Children in Cages” under Brandon.
Did you vote for him because of the “Children in Cages?” Because if so, he’s made the problem WORSE.Report
“All kinds of controversy is spilling out”
Understatement of the year.Report
Brevity is the sole of getting a post up quickly…Report
Not to be outdone, I see the Heritage Foundation is proposing to send women who administer their own abortions to mandatory psychiatric detention.Report
I tried looking for this and could not find it. Have I been felled by Poe’s law?Report
I wish..
His name is Jamison Foser
https://mobile.twitter.com/jamisonfoser/status/1538941619969241089Report
Jamison Foser is a Media Matters guy. He tweeted about Jay Richards, a Heritage guy, recommending but not endorsing the positions of an article by two guys from The Stream.Report
Haven’t we recently had a discussion about Tweeting in your professional capacity?Report
Remember that this proposal to merely lock when up in a psychiatric ward, is the kinder, gentler Republicanism.
This is the one we’re supposed to prefer!
As opposed to the other version of charging women with murder.Report
Do these people realize how nuts they sound?Report
They don’t care.Report
They really don’t.
Michigan GOP lawmakers propose 10-year prison sentence for abortion providers
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2022/06/22/michigan-gop-prison-abortion-sentence/7699868001/?gnt-cfr=1
Elections have consequences.Report
And?Report
My comment is in moderation.Report
Ah, one of the “n” words. Someone in another thread asked about editors’ responsibilities. Among others, they control the list of character strings that get comments tossed into moderation or even trash.Report
Most Democratic voters are people who voted for white slavery, this past election.
This was an actual issue, in the papers. Biden participated in theatrics to prove that he’d sent the children to their kidnappers, and lo, the people clapped. One Campaign Promise Fulfilled!
From this, I surmise that Democrats will vote for anything, provided you can put a bawling kid in front of a camera.
(Still on the O-team, if there’s anyone left. Not going to vote for pro-Slavery Harris, come hell or high water. Sticking someone responsible for keeping blacks behind bars and earning money for others in front of the cameras for Juneteenth was an offensive mistake.)Report