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Comment by vanattab | Hacker News Reader

As a former republican who is afraid of the direction of political dialog in this country. This is the best outcome I could have hoped for. In my option the dismal showing for dems in the congress and many state legislatures and governors and trumps loss is a repudiation for the toxic rhetoric from both groups.

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The problem is, I have yet to see any good faith efforts to govern on the part of Republicans in the past decade. Sure, Democrats make missteps all the time, and I'm more than happy to campaign with you against specific things that the Democrats have done over the years, but I can't think of a single good thing that Republicans have done in my adult lifetime. Since Newt Gingrich, it seems that Republican's primary purpose in life is to grab more power - the country be damned. I'm more that willing to vote for a Republican that isn't just a party shill, and has reasonable views on things like gay rights, abortion, the war on drugs, military spending, healthcare, etc, but I have yet to see even a single one. Romney, maybe? But not really, he's still a hyper partisan, except in like 2 things.

> I'm more that willing to vote for a Republican that isn't just a party shill, and has reasonable views on things like gay rights, abortion, the war on drugs, military spending, healthcare, etc, but I have yet to see even a single one.

It sounds like what you're saying is that you'll vote for any Republican that leans Democrat.

> I have yet to see any good faith efforts to govern on the part of Republicans

That sounds super partisan.

> Republican's primary purpose in life is to grab more power

At this point, I've heard both parties say that about the other.

Democrats introduce legislation designed to, they think, help Americans. Republicans block that legislation.

The one major piece of legislation passed and signed into law in the past 4 years by Republicans, who controlled all of the government for 2 of those years, was a giant, unfunded, tax break for the rich. That is it.

> > I have yet to see any good faith efforts to govern on the part of Republicans

> That sounds super partisan.

Can you provide any evidence to the contrary? I'm willing to believe that my news are partial...

Is there any indication that the GOP is going to seek consensus with the next administration?

Sam Harris did a really fascinating podcast with David Frum, a long time conservative writer and assistant George Bush.

Frum basically says that after the Obama election, republican strategists sat down to decide on whether to shift the platform to changing demographics in America or to double down and declare all out war. They chose the latter.

Congressional and Senate Republicans did quite well under Obama. Trump's increase in the Black and Hispanic vote will be food for thought.

I think a potential factor is the democrats' anti-gun rhetoric. It's explicitly designed to cater to white suburban moms, i.e. those who think guns are bad and scary and threaten their children. This in spite of the fact that twice as many children die from accidents involving glass tabletops than firearms accidents [0]. Add to that the recent surge in new minority gun owners due to safety concerns [1], the long, racist history of gun control [2] from army/navy laws to those targeting "saturday-night specials", and the recent push to lock certain weapons behind a $200 tax and an arduous process [3] and I think it makes for a big factor in Trump's increased black and hispanic support. This is in spite of the fact that Trump is absolutely terrible as far as gun rights go, but the democrats for some reason insist on being worse. Running on a platform of repealing the NFA, the GCA, and the FOPA, or even getting rid of the Hughes amendment, would probably yield massive dividends.

[0]: https://www.ammoland.com/2020/11/twice-as-many-children-die-...

[1]: https://www.blackenterprise.com/black-americans-now-account-...

[2]: https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/347324-t...

[3]: https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/

Good points.

Do you think there's room for a middle ground on this issue? Can America handle a national discussion on gun rights, health care access, bullying, and mental health simultaneously? Gun laws cut through all of those issues deeply.

I've seen and heard quite a few democrats addressing the need to do better Spanish outreach due to the spread of pro trump propaganda on social media. That mistake has been identified and is being addressed. I have not heard that the black community went big for Trump. Can you cite some sources?

I wrote that he made gains, because he did. He did better than Romney did in 2012 and did better than he did in 2016.

Sorry, you're right.

I was under the impression that, in general terms, the Black vote went for Biden and the Hispanic vote went for Trump.

The majority of both went to Biden, but Trump made gains over what he got in 2016 which was better than Romney in 2012. So there appears to be a path to improve minority showing for Republicans, depending on the Republican.

>As a former republican who is afraid of the direction of political dialog in this country.

Specifically what are you afraid of?

>In my option the dismal showing for dems in the congress and many state legislatures and governors and trumps loss is a repudiation for the toxic rhetoric from both groups.

Can you give me some examples of the toxic rhetoric you see from congressional democrats?

I think the media and pundits on both sides have constructed mental pictures of the "enemy" in the minds of naive voters, which don't accurately describe the people in the opposing camps. During the Bush and Obama administrations if you did a study where you asked GOP voters to describe how they think DEM voters would describe there political views and vis-versa there was a much bigger gap between what Democrats thought Republicans believed and what Republicans themselves reported then the other way around. Although I have not seen data from the trump era I suspect that the discrepancy would be in both higher in both comparisons.

This didn't really address my questions. What scares Republicans about democrats?

Is it that I want affordable health, eye, and dental care?

Is it that I want poor and minority groups to be protected from exploitation?

Is it that I want religion to stay out of politics and wombs, and pay taxes?

Is it that I want white collar criminals to be prosecuted?

Is it that I want the failed war on drugs to end and get addicts actual rehabilitative care?

Is it that I want our decrepit infrastructure to get maintained?

Is it that I want people of color and women to be protected from hate?

Is it that I want poor and minority people to have the same opportunities as rich kids?

Is it that I want college to be affordable and lead to a better life instead of serfdom?

Is it that I want to get perverse incentives out of prisons?

I can go on. We can argue methods in other posts, but do these mere dreams scare Republicans? If so, why?

Republicans directly oppose all of those things, because they are, at their core, bad people who are only interested in their personal wellbeing, not of what is best for this country.

And generalizing half the population in the worst way possible is definitely what's best for the country.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on why Republicans oppose the things that Mr/Ms Flyy posted 9 hours ago. Or anyone else's thoughts. Please.

I don't think you ever get a good answer to that because the answer is ambiguous. Asking why "Democrats" or "Republicans" do anything is asking about a straw man. Many individual voters will have a nuanced opinion about all of those questions. The way a lot of the questions are phrased presupposes Republicans don't care about those things, which I suspect is probably wrong for most.

I think many of those who identify as "Republican" or "Democrat" don't examine most of those points in any detail at all and just simply vote down the ticket. Their opinions are probably not going to reveal any useful information.

For the rest, my guess is its probably a fundamental disagreement about what government should be responsible for. Voting for the government to further some cause is inhertanly voting for parts of it's implementation. I think my libertarian bias is leaking through.

Here's a congressional democrat calling for lists to be drawn up of those who worked with Trump.

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324807776510595078

What do you think they intend to do with those lists?

Most likely hold them to account for enabling poor policy choices by avoiding giving them any position of power in the future, discouraging anyone from voting for them, etc.

But her statement was rather vague and didn't clearly state at all what the purpose of her list would be, so our own biases about her and what she represents would likely color our feelings about what she might do with such a list, no?

To be clear. Congressman Cortez is asking if people are preserving the history of people that supported trump.

She is not making a list.

Congresswoman Cortez explains herself well.

>Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future? I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future

The concern is that these enablers will not have their credibility tarnished for their support of trump.

Are you okay with whitewashing?

She wants to prevent Trump's (former?) supporters from whitewashing their actions so that we, Royal we, can face the problems trump exposed.

What, exactly, is your fear here?

You're spinning what is essentially "screenshotting tweets" to sound a lot more nefarious than it is. It seems pretty clear to me that she's talking about accountability. It's not about hunting down poor innocent conservatives in their homes, it's making sure that people involved in the administration can't distance themselves from their actions.

"both groups". Such amazing mendacity. You people live in a world of your own.

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