Tag Archives: GOP TEApublicans

Politics, United States

The ABCs of the GOP: T is for TRUMP and friends

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If you followed the blog closely during the height of our last Presidential race, you may recall my extensive series about the state of the Republican Party– The ABCs of the GOP.  The series was an attempt to catalog just how far party leaders have strayed from what they professed as their essential ideals for the country.  This was of course back in 2012, and when all with that election was said and done, President Obama had a decisive victory in part because of the many internal problems on the other side.

But after everything that Republicans went through in 2012, it doesn’t seem that the party has learned any valuable lessons.  Bolstered by huge victories in 2014 (co-sponsored by all those people that didn’t care enough to vote), it appears that the GOP is preparing to venture down the same rabbit holes which cemented its downfall 4 years ago.

And the guy leading the way to that rabbit hole??  It’s none other than Billionaire media harlot Donald Trump.  As one can imagine, Democrats are enjoying every minute of the chaos, even giving Republicans a new nickname.  Here’s more from Colin Campbell of Business Insider…

The national Democratic Party released a new video Thursday that connects the entire Republican presidential field to the immigration remarks made by real-estate magnate Donald Trump.

The Democratic National Committee’s video is titled, “Retrumplican Party.”

The brief clip intersperses some of Trump’s most controversial comments with the other GOP candidates’ own statements against illegal immigration.

“Trump may be running for president,” the video concludes, “but his ideas are running the party.”

The video immediately spread like wildfire among political pundits, and “Retrumplican Party” started trending nation-wide on Twitter.

Of course we know that all Republican leaders do not agree with Donald Trump, and many of the more sensible ones have come out in direct opposition to his heinous comments.  But now for the third week in a row, the top message being conveyed from Republicans is directly from Donald Trump.

Only this week have we finally got a close second from 2016 front-runner Jeb Bush.  Mr. Bush, who was born to a life of exceptional privilege and is the son and brother of two presidents, thinks the rest of us should be working longer hours to help improve the United States economy.  Sheesh!!

But in any event, the point remains.  Once again, Republicans can’t seem to learn from their very recent past.  As long as the Party’s “big tent” is controlled by a ravenous coalition of Primary voters, it’s going to be difficult to ‘Dump the Trump’.  For the sake of our entire political system, let’ s hope that reason prevails this election cycle.

Retrumplicans

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TexWatch 2014: Past the Primaries Part 1

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The old saying goes like this…

Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.

Once again, this political principle was on display this week’s Primary election. Republicans, as expected, were out in much greater force than their Democrat counterparts, despite all of the hope and anticipation of positive developments like Battleground Texas. In the first statewide election since BGTX’s founding, Democratic turnout was almost the same for 2014 as it was in 2010… dismal. The GOP side had easily twice the number of voters.

Houston Chronicle’s editorial board seems to agree…

The tea party groups won also in this, their third election cycle, because they are knowledgeable and engaged and they show up. They contest every office.

Are you listening Democrats? Until the state’s hapless minority party emulates the tea partiers, they’ll continue to embarrass themselves with such beyond-the-fringe candidates as Kesha Rogers, a Fort Bend County follower of Lyndon LaRouche who has advocated impeaching President Obama and who carts around a poster of the president with a Hitler mustache. Rogers is a Democrat in name only, but low-information primary voters keep voting for her anyway.

Knowledgeable? Well, TEA-Publicans definitely show up. And they always bring a trove of consistent, even if rarely factual, talking points. And in the state’s current voting environment, it’s enough to wallop the Democratic side.

But the most frustrating part of all of this? Even if Republicans are out-voting Democrats by a 2 to 1 margin, the combined voter turnout is still abysmal. Fewer than 1.9 million people voted in this week’s Primary election… roughly 0.5 percent of the state’s population made these decisions for 26 million Texans. 12 million registered voters were nowhere to be found. Of the supreme oligarchy that does manage to get to the polls, many of them have no clue what or who they’re voting for. There’s no better evidence of this than the fact that a virtual unknown can draw over 114,000 votes just because they have a name of Hispanic origin. Reynaldo “Ray” Madrigal, a Corpus Christi native and Wendy Davis’ only primary opponent, never even campaigned north of I-10.

After this week’s contest, it’s pretty easy to see why Texas Democrats are caught in a cycle of disappointment. They are still a weak party, but all is not lost. Some glimmers of hope (and likely evidence that Battleground Texas is making a difference) include increased voter turnout in urban counties, an improved fundraising apparatus and a literal ARMY of new volunteers. Check back for more insight into how statewide candidates did, and how they can win this November.