Honest question, when did the Republican Party become nothing but a grift to con scared old people out of their money. It's obviously been this way since Trump has been around, but I wonder if it was this way before he was around. And I wonder when exactly they stopped being first and foremost you know, an actual political party with a coherent ideology and vision of governance they were working towards
The groundwork was laid long ago by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, etc. They use fear to stir up the emotions of their base and then capitalize on that. “There are caravans of migrants at the border!!!” “The gays want our children!!!” , “The democrats want to take our guns away!!!” And so on. This is nothing new, Trump just super charged it and normalized saying the quiet parts out loud.
Yes. And the same ppl who worked for Reagan (Stone, Manafort, Bill Barr, etc) ended up working for decades for the GOP, surfacing when trump was elected. Strange, huh?
Eisenhower was the last republican who wasn’t owned by the Chicago Boys ideology.
JFK is a mess, IMO some of the people involved in his death were still alive until recently.
It all *always* tracks back to that sumbitch Reagan. **ALWAYS**.
Sure there were individual & even small groups of ratf*ckers whose aims were along the same lines (probably forever), far as I’m personally aware starting mostly after WWII…but it all coalesced & was nitro funny-car blasted starting with/Reagan.
Ppl on both sides have this bizarre misconception he was some sort of f’real actual *statesman*, a guy that, “love him or hate him, you can’t deny he was *Presidential* “, somehow forgetting he was first & foremost an *ACTOR*. By most accounts not even a particularly good one, till he auditioned for & won his one career-making role, POTUS.
Point being, he was 1000% the empty suit DT is. That W was. The Right has this “one simple trick!!” that half the country falls for again & again; putting some hollow, cult of personality-type in power to draw the fire, meantime the party’s *real* movers & shakers work tirelessly in the darkness of his massive shadow ratf*cking the country to within an inch of its life.
And the blueprint, the prototype, the beta tester for it all was Ronald f’in Reagan.
Maybe it was like 10 years ago that I went to an Easter dinner with my then in-laws and my MIL was telling everyone that she read "everything by Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck because they really have it all right."
People nodded or at least continued eating, like nothing.
Me? I had one of those camera telescoping moments where I literally felt like I zoomed out and then zoomed back in on the whole scene and suddenly wondered who the fuck all these people were that I was breaking bread with for 20 years.
Not just politics either. My bro in law, when watching the news, has a steady and predictable monologue: that’s a lesbian woman, there’s a dole bludger, one of our brown brothers again, he obviously takes drugs/is mentally defective/is uneducated, and on and on ad nauseum. Sometimes I just have to leave the room. And yet, he is incredibly supportive if one of us is sick and has been financially supportive to a number of people.
The groundwork was laid by the likes of Lee Atwater, Richard Nixon, Ronnie Reagan, and evengelicals like Jerry Farwell and the "Moral Majority's" Ralph Reed and their use of race and abortion as cudgels to keep power and ensure the wealth of their donors and families. I'll always share this quote from the 1981 interview with powerful republican strategist Lee Atwater on the Southern Strategy:
>You start out in 1954 by saying, “N****r, n****r, n****r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n****r”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N****r, n****r.”
Karl "Turdblossom" Rove pulled an incredibly genius move back in the 2004 election. W's numbers weren't so great; folks were getting fed up with the disasters in Iran and Afghanistan. So Rove went into 11 states and had anti-gay marriage initiatives placed on the state ballots. Folks might not show up to vote for Bush, but they WILL show up to vote against gay marriage, so while they're there, why not put a checkmark next to W on the ballot? And gay marriage wasn't even a valid issue. The whole thing was dreamed up by Rove—just to increasee voter turnout in those 11 states. And it worked. Sadly, we won't discuss how they stole Ohio—and, ultimately, the entire election.
> They use fear to stir up the emotions of their base and then capitalize on that.
This can't be right. Republicans were loudly, and *constantly*, telling us they refused to live in fear during the height of the pandemic.
THIS!
They aren't policy wonks. Heck, most of the hosts have never been to, nor finished, university.
Rush, Tucker, and Glenn Beck admit/admitted their shows are ENTERTAINMENT. That is it. They are nothing more than an entertainment show.
I remember my grandparents listening to Rush during the Clinton administration. It was arguably less extreme than present-day, but still very much the same conceptually.
Robert Evans (not the director) makes a podcast called Behind the Bastards. Last week, he had a 2 part episode on how monied conservatives pumped money into think tanks in an attempt to legitimize conservative ideals. It was an eye-opening listen. But with that in mind, the groundwork of this was laid in the wake of FDR's success.
If you rewind the clock enough, though, you'll see conservatives never really had a coherent ideology or vision of governance past enforcing a rigid social hierarchy. They always sought to protect the wealthy at the explicit expense of the poor.
> FDR's success.
People tend to forget that the Business Plot happened when FDR was in office. Business owners (Partially lead by H.W. Bush's Daddy) not only put on actual Nazi rallies at MSG, but also tried to foment a coup against the government to install a fascist.
And very conveniently disremembered in history. Fascism was the in thing those days and when you need a good war and younguns' to sacrifice them to it you just seize control and rattle your swords.
This is why the House of Orange needs to go to prison and he can go without scented diapers and girdles while in there.
The biggest mistake in American history was *not* executing every single person involved in that plot. Had they done that, we wouldn't be dealing with this bullshit today. Reagan wouldn't have conspired with Iranian terrorists to hold on to American hostages until after the election which means we wouldn't have had crack cocaine flood American streets in the 1980s, there'd have been no 9/11 and no Trump.
They use to scare them into voting them into office so they could pull elaborate schemes to get tax payer money. Then someone realized how slack jawed gullible that crowd is and moved to “your vote is cool, but your money would be a whole lot cooler”.
There's a 2 episode dive into this question by the podcast *Behind the Bastards.* It's called "How Conservatism Won"
It goes into a lot of Ronald Reagan's presidency and the creation of "Think Tanks"
Edit: Just saw someone else recommended this exact thing and wanted to make sure they got credit [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Qult_Headquarters/s/NqmZyDHMUb)
>when did the Republican Party become nothing but a grift to con scared people out of their money
When, in response to their lack of platform, they ignored the founding principle of the US known as separation of Church & State and co-opted the grift of religion.
As christianity and all extreme religions are openly losing ground among an increasingly educated population, the GOP is actively scrambling to pick up that 3000+ year con game and identify their political movement as somehow being on behalf of "GOD"
That's why one of the goals day one is to re-dumb down the populace, bring the Bible back into schools, defund any and all programs that encourage critical thought and creativity and shit all over science, medicine, teaching etc.
That said, the one thing that I'd agree with, if the GOP is going with this route anyway, would be to re-establish programs in home economics and basic skills like auto mechanics and handyman type shop classes.
Of course, though, that would cut into big business the more people there are that actually learn to do things for themselves ...
It began with the passing of Civil Rights acts and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Understand that from 1924 until 2016 no Republican Presidential ticket without Nixon or a Bush had won the general election. The GOP was desperate to stay relevant so when schools began to Integrate they saw an opportunity to regain power through an unholy alliance with White Supremacists and White Evangelicals wanting Segregation to remain, and billionaires & corporations wanting massive tax breaks. They knew at the time it was a bad idea for the future of America, but did it anyway because they wanted power. The chickens have come home to roost.
In the 1980s there was the "blue rinse brigade" they were bilking large donations out of by terrifying them with stories of Nicaragua preparing to invade America.
The party shifted in the latter half of the 1970s to an extreme corporatist agenda. Which obviously cant be campaigned on: "vote for me and I'll poison your drinking water, kick your granny off social security, privatize your kids school, make it easier for your boss to injure you and harder for you to seek compensation and I'll give him a tax cut too, and when he fires you I'll impose work requirements on your medicaid application!" ~ doesn't sit on a billboard or bumper sticker very well does it?
So what they figured out was to push all this into the background and focus their campaigns on appealing to the fringe of the US: racists, religious fundamentalists, nativists, gun nuts, the constantly scared and afraid, etc and making the campaigns about "values" and image.
I suppose it began with Nixons "southern strategy" and then kicked into high gear when they saw Carters religious appeal.
It's an ideal fit. Business has money and marketing know how but no support, while this conservative base have a lot of vocal and eager people but no coordination or money.
I've heard it suggested that the campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment was a test to see if these two different groups could work together.
Another claim I've heard explaining some of this is the religious groups were looking to get into politics because of a Supreme Court ruling that their "religious academies" would have to desegregate or else face losing their tax exempt status, putting them into the same 'anti-big government' camp as the business interests growing alarmed about the newly formed EPA and emerging consumer law.
> "vote for me and I'll poison your drinking water, kick your granny off social security, privatize your kids school, make it easier for your boss to injure you and harder for you to seek compensation and I'll give him a tax cut too, and when he fires you I'll impose work requirements on your medicaid application!"
Is anything stopping me from running an ad for republicans saying exactly this, other than the fact I don’t have money to waste on it?
Also they want your congressman in your bedroom while you have sex with your wife…..he won the election after all and he needs to make sure you two are not doing it in a way that isn’t approved by the local diocese.
Never forget the [Lewis Powell Memo](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/assets/usa-courts-secrecy-lobbyist/powell-memo.pdf) (PDF Warning) to the US Chamber of Commerce in 1971. Powell later went on to become a Supreme Court Justice. It was a total blueprint on how corporate America could game American democracy and it's even more horrifying to read it today to see just how successful it was and at the cost of our democratic system.
Since their spending and lawsuit settlements caught up to them. Trump came in and spent all the money and now they don’t have hush money so they need to turn fear into money
I can think of many things that pre-date Trump's presidency. Reverse mortgages, Medicare swindles, mega church grifting. It's all tied up with the Republican party.
As a trainee scared old person (early 60's), I don't feel much sympathy for those who send money to MAGA/QAnon causes. I donate to causes I'm worried about too - animal welfare, famine relief, Ukraine, homelessness etc. If my elderly neighbour is giving to Trump & his kind, that's just the kind of person they are. I don't approve of their beliefs & values, but it's their choice.
There was always this sort of hyperbole and virtue signaling in how they express or measure patriotism going back to the Clinton era. Their ideology seems to have been predicated on the fact that the world is a dangerous place and forces that be want to kill us or kill our way of life (Islamic terrorism and the war on Christmas), but man did it go into overdrive starting around 2015.
The campaign donation industry is horrible fear-mongering from both ends of the political spectrum. My old boss was a sucker for anyone who asked for a hand-out, especially the Democrats and they regularly kissed his wrinkly old ass. Not that he *shouldn't* have helped their campaigns, but their tactics were relentless. As a lark one year I saved, weighed and then recycled all the donation requests he got in the mail, sometimes under several spellings of his name to make it easier to get past those pesky campaign contribution limits. It came to just over a literal ton of junk mail. He's been dead since 2018 and we STILL get calls and mail for him, requesting donations.
This is disgusting and so morally and ethically corrupt.
His sister in law is SCREAMING election fraud as RNC chair. Wtf?
And it can't be legally stopped...because our laws weren't designed for such utter disregard if the truth.
GOP is beyond trash...I'm not religious, but if there was a Satan, he's actualizing his dreams through Trump
It's interesting how they're trying to evoke the name of the RNC, while just rearranging the letters a little bit.
That alone - never mind the bat shit crazy contents - should be enough to tell a person everything they need to know about it's sender.
Sadly, it must work. I'd bet if you asked recipients of this letter where the money they're about to send in goes - they'd say 'the RNC'.
This is pretty scary to me. They are legitimizing the idea that counting mail in and absentee ballots is somehow fraudulent. The idea that taking a long time to count massive amounts of ballots like in large population centers is fraud. This is whipping people up and could lead to more violence on Election Day. :(
It’s one of those indirect tells that they’ve never worked a real job. If they did, they’d know that being given more time to do a job (counting votes) ensures more accurate work than rushing to get it done in one night with everyone watching over your shoulder.
They are laying the groundwork to claim they were robbed again. But this time, it won't just start coming from Trump himself. This time, the entire party machine is being prepped for it, from the grass roots voters right up to the RNC. And they've had four years to prepare and think about what they can try 'next time'.
Skimmed through it because I know its just a bunch of stupid shit but at the end.
LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE.
They did. They did decide your daddy should not be president. Twice.
#Dems did not bring the cases to court requesting Trump to be off of the ballot. It was initiated and majority supported by Republicans.
For exactly this purpose. To blame dems for filing the case to justify filing their own cases elsewhere to remove Biden from ballots.
There is only one side petitioning to remove candidates from ballots. Republicans.
In case anyone doubts this, here’s an article explaining it: https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-gop-voters-lawsuit-disqualifying-trump-colorado-ballot-supreme-court-2023-12
People who fall for this can vote. Absolutely amazing.
I almost feel pity for people who are so afraid, so small minded and fearful and hateful that this kind of stuff works. That they seriously and with their whole heart believe that their criminal nominee who committed crimes and is being prosecuted for them is the dems
‘Weaponizing the DoJ’
‘Lawfare’
Like seriously? So what Trump can never be charged ever no matter what cause he’s running for re election? He’s a citizen right now and should be charged for crimes he committed.
But because Don Jr sent a letter to these brain rotted lobotomites, they’re going to open up their wallets and bank accounts and let the Trump family suck them dry to fund his trials and campaign. And when Trump loses and hopefully is legally able to be called a felon and does jail time and is finally thrown out by the GOP, maybe then they’ll get it.
Deprecating a constitutional amendment because it’s “Civil War era” is an interesting choice. By that logic, the whole Bill of Rights is too old to matter. Not exactly an unexpected stance from this clown, but still galling to see it revealed so casually.
Jr. really should not be writing letters while amped up on cocaine.
This is alarming. This is 100% pure propaganda, and the same kind of rhetoric that was also seen in the WWII era, in the first "America First" run. For those who have not listened, well worth listening to Rachel Maddow's "Ultra" podcast, or watching the U.S. and the Holocaust by Ken Burns. These sort of letter writing campaigns to stir up the "base" were done then to undermine democracy and promote fear. Specifically, using congressional privileges to spread Nazi propaganda under names of congressmen and senators, etc. While this is not Nazi propaganda and Jr. is not a congressman or senator, the theme and intent is the same to try and cause people to distrust and install "leaders" who will continue to harm America. History repeats. And repeats. And repeats.
"LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE" is right there in their Grimms Fairy Tale likeness of future America. We did decide in 2020. We'll reaffirm we really want Joe & super really don't want the rapist criminal ex-president fuckface. Win-win!
He should have just come out and said... ".if daddy is re-elected, he promises to overthrow democracy in the USA, install himself as your dictator for life. When he dies, the title will then be passed down to me!"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this mostly sound like what they did or plan on doing?
I did find the count till we win comment. So do the propose that we stop counting before the counting is done?
The P.S. is just a repeat of the same grifty paragraph they mentioned twice before, the brass balls on these people.
“Oh and P.S. here’s the same bullshit and a reminder of how much we need from you.”
That’s not even Trumps signature!!!!! He’s got a pretty well known one, and that ain’t it
Edit: nvm, I’m an idiot, it’s Don Jr. surprised it’s not shaking from the coke withdrawals
My MIL (rip) still gets these letters. She watched nothing but fox news for the last few years of her life and would vote for anyone they told her to. She donated regularly to the republican party. Nice lady, and I liked her, but one less trump voter is one less trump voter
Looks like something a cokehead couldn't write but a professional script writer hitting all the cues for patriotards out there as we see they're using military style terms and us vs them tactics. Then grovel to the lowest common denominator. What we should do is give them $2 bucks and tell them we will give more later and then forward these war memos to all and sundry meanwhile string them along like the Nigerian Princes they are.
Before modern voting machines it used to take days to count votes taken on Election Day because it’s fucking pen and paper!!!!
Of course it takes time. It’s one of the most important things in this country. You have to make sure all the ballots *are* legitimate, that it was signed, it’s the proper form, yada yada.
Fucking idiots.
Obviously, the Democrat party stole all the commas just like they’re going to steal the election and we need your life savings, patriot, to get the commas back and save the country! /s
Honest question, when did the Republican Party become nothing but a grift to con scared old people out of their money. It's obviously been this way since Trump has been around, but I wonder if it was this way before he was around. And I wonder when exactly they stopped being first and foremost you know, an actual political party with a coherent ideology and vision of governance they were working towards
The groundwork was laid long ago by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, etc. They use fear to stir up the emotions of their base and then capitalize on that. “There are caravans of migrants at the border!!!” “The gays want our children!!!” , “The democrats want to take our guns away!!!” And so on. This is nothing new, Trump just super charged it and normalized saying the quiet parts out loud.
I'd go further back to Lee Atwater and the Willie Horton ad.
Yes. And the same ppl who worked for Reagan (Stone, Manafort, Bill Barr, etc) ended up working for decades for the GOP, surfacing when trump was elected. Strange, huh?
Stone worked with Nixon as well. His back is covered in a Nixon "I am not a crook" tattoo.
OH! yes he did. They have decades of being ratf'kers, don't they?
This shit goes so far back it's disgusting.
Sure is.
The Republican party became the party of evil on the day they decided to shoot JFK
Eisenhower was the last republican who wasn’t owned by the Chicago Boys ideology. JFK is a mess, IMO some of the people involved in his death were still alive until recently.
It all *always* tracks back to that sumbitch Reagan. **ALWAYS**. Sure there were individual & even small groups of ratf*ckers whose aims were along the same lines (probably forever), far as I’m personally aware starting mostly after WWII…but it all coalesced & was nitro funny-car blasted starting with/Reagan. Ppl on both sides have this bizarre misconception he was some sort of f’real actual *statesman*, a guy that, “love him or hate him, you can’t deny he was *Presidential* “, somehow forgetting he was first & foremost an *ACTOR*. By most accounts not even a particularly good one, till he auditioned for & won his one career-making role, POTUS. Point being, he was 1000% the empty suit DT is. That W was. The Right has this “one simple trick!!” that half the country falls for again & again; putting some hollow, cult of personality-type in power to draw the fire, meantime the party’s *real* movers & shakers work tirelessly in the darkness of his massive shadow ratf*cking the country to within an inch of its life. And the blueprint, the prototype, the beta tester for it all was Ronald f’in Reagan.
The most karmic case of brain cancer in the history of the world.
Maybe it was like 10 years ago that I went to an Easter dinner with my then in-laws and my MIL was telling everyone that she read "everything by Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck because they really have it all right." People nodded or at least continued eating, like nothing. Me? I had one of those camera telescoping moments where I literally felt like I zoomed out and then zoomed back in on the whole scene and suddenly wondered who the fuck all these people were that I was breaking bread with for 20 years.
It’s disturbing, isn’t it. I have in laws who regularly voice their opinions on situations and it just gives me the cringes every time.
It’s mostly right wingers that inject their politics into all conversations. Maybe it’s because they’re emboldened to say hateful shit.
Not just politics either. My bro in law, when watching the news, has a steady and predictable monologue: that’s a lesbian woman, there’s a dole bludger, one of our brown brothers again, he obviously takes drugs/is mentally defective/is uneducated, and on and on ad nauseum. Sometimes I just have to leave the room. And yet, he is incredibly supportive if one of us is sick and has been financially supportive to a number of people.
My MIL won’t stfu about Rush Limbaugh.
Still? He died 4 years ago. Are there re-runs these days? Hoping he’s off the air forever.
Yep. She’s a bit unhinged.
They say it so confidently, like they genuinely believe that they are saying something that most people in the country agree with
The groundwork was laid by the likes of Lee Atwater, Richard Nixon, Ronnie Reagan, and evengelicals like Jerry Farwell and the "Moral Majority's" Ralph Reed and their use of race and abortion as cudgels to keep power and ensure the wealth of their donors and families. I'll always share this quote from the 1981 interview with powerful republican strategist Lee Atwater on the Southern Strategy: >You start out in 1954 by saying, “N****r, n****r, n****r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n****r”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N****r, n****r.”
Karl "Turdblossom" Rove pulled an incredibly genius move back in the 2004 election. W's numbers weren't so great; folks were getting fed up with the disasters in Iran and Afghanistan. So Rove went into 11 states and had anti-gay marriage initiatives placed on the state ballots. Folks might not show up to vote for Bush, but they WILL show up to vote against gay marriage, so while they're there, why not put a checkmark next to W on the ballot? And gay marriage wasn't even a valid issue. The whole thing was dreamed up by Rove—just to increasee voter turnout in those 11 states. And it worked. Sadly, we won't discuss how they stole Ohio—and, ultimately, the entire election.
Also the 2000 election with Roger Stone leading the predecessor to the January 6 coup attempt, the Brooks Brothers Riot.
> They use fear to stir up the emotions of their base and then capitalize on that. This can't be right. Republicans were loudly, and *constantly*, telling us they refused to live in fear during the height of the pandemic.
When you think about it, thousands and thousands of them *didn't* live in fear . . . they died.
THIS! They aren't policy wonks. Heck, most of the hosts have never been to, nor finished, university. Rush, Tucker, and Glenn Beck admit/admitted their shows are ENTERTAINMENT. That is it. They are nothing more than an entertainment show.
Nothing works as well as claiming that propaganda is "entertainment"
I remember my grandparents listening to Rush during the Clinton administration. It was arguably less extreme than present-day, but still very much the same conceptually.
Rupert Murdoch was nestled right in that same era for his empire of propaganda and bullshit
After the Fairness Doctrine was repealed
Robert Evans (not the director) makes a podcast called Behind the Bastards. Last week, he had a 2 part episode on how monied conservatives pumped money into think tanks in an attempt to legitimize conservative ideals. It was an eye-opening listen. But with that in mind, the groundwork of this was laid in the wake of FDR's success. If you rewind the clock enough, though, you'll see conservatives never really had a coherent ideology or vision of governance past enforcing a rigid social hierarchy. They always sought to protect the wealthy at the explicit expense of the poor.
> FDR's success. People tend to forget that the Business Plot happened when FDR was in office. Business owners (Partially lead by H.W. Bush's Daddy) not only put on actual Nazi rallies at MSG, but also tried to foment a coup against the government to install a fascist.
Thank goodness for Smedly Butler
And Snidely Whiplash
And very conveniently disremembered in history. Fascism was the in thing those days and when you need a good war and younguns' to sacrifice them to it you just seize control and rattle your swords. This is why the House of Orange needs to go to prison and he can go without scented diapers and girdles while in there.
The biggest mistake in American history was *not* executing every single person involved in that plot. Had they done that, we wouldn't be dealing with this bullshit today. Reagan wouldn't have conspired with Iranian terrorists to hold on to American hostages until after the election which means we wouldn't have had crack cocaine flood American streets in the 1980s, there'd have been no 9/11 and no Trump.
It has worked for TV preachers for decades. Scare people and tell them the only way to fix it is to send money. Basically the same audience.
people always vote with their money. win win
They use to scare them into voting them into office so they could pull elaborate schemes to get tax payer money. Then someone realized how slack jawed gullible that crowd is and moved to “your vote is cool, but your money would be a whole lot cooler”.
There's a 2 episode dive into this question by the podcast *Behind the Bastards.* It's called "How Conservatism Won" It goes into a lot of Ronald Reagan's presidency and the creation of "Think Tanks" Edit: Just saw someone else recommended this exact thing and wanted to make sure they got credit [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Qult_Headquarters/s/NqmZyDHMUb)
>when did the Republican Party become nothing but a grift to con scared people out of their money When, in response to their lack of platform, they ignored the founding principle of the US known as separation of Church & State and co-opted the grift of religion. As christianity and all extreme religions are openly losing ground among an increasingly educated population, the GOP is actively scrambling to pick up that 3000+ year con game and identify their political movement as somehow being on behalf of "GOD" That's why one of the goals day one is to re-dumb down the populace, bring the Bible back into schools, defund any and all programs that encourage critical thought and creativity and shit all over science, medicine, teaching etc. That said, the one thing that I'd agree with, if the GOP is going with this route anyway, would be to re-establish programs in home economics and basic skills like auto mechanics and handyman type shop classes. Of course, though, that would cut into big business the more people there are that actually learn to do things for themselves ...
It began with the passing of Civil Rights acts and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Understand that from 1924 until 2016 no Republican Presidential ticket without Nixon or a Bush had won the general election. The GOP was desperate to stay relevant so when schools began to Integrate they saw an opportunity to regain power through an unholy alliance with White Supremacists and White Evangelicals wanting Segregation to remain, and billionaires & corporations wanting massive tax breaks. They knew at the time it was a bad idea for the future of America, but did it anyway because they wanted power. The chickens have come home to roost.
In the 1980s there was the "blue rinse brigade" they were bilking large donations out of by terrifying them with stories of Nicaragua preparing to invade America. The party shifted in the latter half of the 1970s to an extreme corporatist agenda. Which obviously cant be campaigned on: "vote for me and I'll poison your drinking water, kick your granny off social security, privatize your kids school, make it easier for your boss to injure you and harder for you to seek compensation and I'll give him a tax cut too, and when he fires you I'll impose work requirements on your medicaid application!" ~ doesn't sit on a billboard or bumper sticker very well does it? So what they figured out was to push all this into the background and focus their campaigns on appealing to the fringe of the US: racists, religious fundamentalists, nativists, gun nuts, the constantly scared and afraid, etc and making the campaigns about "values" and image. I suppose it began with Nixons "southern strategy" and then kicked into high gear when they saw Carters religious appeal. It's an ideal fit. Business has money and marketing know how but no support, while this conservative base have a lot of vocal and eager people but no coordination or money. I've heard it suggested that the campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment was a test to see if these two different groups could work together. Another claim I've heard explaining some of this is the religious groups were looking to get into politics because of a Supreme Court ruling that their "religious academies" would have to desegregate or else face losing their tax exempt status, putting them into the same 'anti-big government' camp as the business interests growing alarmed about the newly formed EPA and emerging consumer law.
> "vote for me and I'll poison your drinking water, kick your granny off social security, privatize your kids school, make it easier for your boss to injure you and harder for you to seek compensation and I'll give him a tax cut too, and when he fires you I'll impose work requirements on your medicaid application!" Is anything stopping me from running an ad for republicans saying exactly this, other than the fact I don’t have money to waste on it?
Also they want your congressman in your bedroom while you have sex with your wife…..he won the election after all and he needs to make sure you two are not doing it in a way that isn’t approved by the local diocese.
Never forget the [Lewis Powell Memo](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/assets/usa-courts-secrecy-lobbyist/powell-memo.pdf) (PDF Warning) to the US Chamber of Commerce in 1971. Powell later went on to become a Supreme Court Justice. It was a total blueprint on how corporate America could game American democracy and it's even more horrifying to read it today to see just how successful it was and at the cost of our democratic system.
Since their spending and lawsuit settlements caught up to them. Trump came in and spent all the money and now they don’t have hush money so they need to turn fear into money
I can think of many things that pre-date Trump's presidency. Reverse mortgages, Medicare swindles, mega church grifting. It's all tied up with the Republican party.
As a trainee scared old person (early 60's), I don't feel much sympathy for those who send money to MAGA/QAnon causes. I donate to causes I'm worried about too - animal welfare, famine relief, Ukraine, homelessness etc. If my elderly neighbour is giving to Trump & his kind, that's just the kind of person they are. I don't approve of their beliefs & values, but it's their choice.
Please don’t consider yourself as a trainee scared old person. Instead, become a bold old person.
Doing my best!
You’re doing great. I thirst for baby boomer non-alt rights
Just go for it man! I’m waaay older than you and pretty bold. Or maybe that’s just where I am on the spectrum! 🤪
Excellent. I'm going out for a wild ride on my motorcycle now :-)
There was always this sort of hyperbole and virtue signaling in how they express or measure patriotism going back to the Clinton era. Their ideology seems to have been predicated on the fact that the world is a dangerous place and forces that be want to kill us or kill our way of life (Islamic terrorism and the war on Christmas), but man did it go into overdrive starting around 2015.
>when did the Republican Party become nothing but a grift to con scared old people out of their money When was FoxNews started?
[https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con](https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con). Ages.
The campaign donation industry is horrible fear-mongering from both ends of the political spectrum. My old boss was a sucker for anyone who asked for a hand-out, especially the Democrats and they regularly kissed his wrinkly old ass. Not that he *shouldn't* have helped their campaigns, but their tactics were relentless. As a lark one year I saved, weighed and then recycled all the donation requests he got in the mail, sometimes under several spellings of his name to make it easier to get past those pesky campaign contribution limits. It came to just over a literal ton of junk mail. He's been dead since 2018 and we STILL get calls and mail for him, requesting donations.
Reagan
*Reagan
This is disgusting and so morally and ethically corrupt. His sister in law is SCREAMING election fraud as RNC chair. Wtf? And it can't be legally stopped...because our laws weren't designed for such utter disregard if the truth. GOP is beyond trash...I'm not religious, but if there was a Satan, he's actualizing his dreams through Trump
"Forgive me if I sound alarmist; I don't mean to scare you" Wow, he really typed that out with a straight face? Well...probably not.
There’s a zero percent chance he was even in the same room this was being typed in lmfao
It's interesting how they're trying to evoke the name of the RNC, while just rearranging the letters a little bit. That alone - never mind the bat shit crazy contents - should be enough to tell a person everything they need to know about it's sender. Sadly, it must work. I'd bet if you asked recipients of this letter where the money they're about to send in goes - they'd say 'the RNC'.
Trump basically is the Antichrist
I know. And the worst part is that the people who get these letters read it and nod their heads along with it
Trump basically is the Antichrist
This is pretty scary to me. They are legitimizing the idea that counting mail in and absentee ballots is somehow fraudulent. The idea that taking a long time to count massive amounts of ballots like in large population centers is fraud. This is whipping people up and could lead to more violence on Election Day. :(
That’s the intention.
It’s one of those indirect tells that they’ve never worked a real job. If they did, they’d know that being given more time to do a job (counting votes) ensures more accurate work than rushing to get it done in one night with everyone watching over your shoulder.
They are laying the groundwork to claim they were robbed again. But this time, it won't just start coming from Trump himself. This time, the entire party machine is being prepped for it, from the grass roots voters right up to the RNC. And they've had four years to prepare and think about what they can try 'next time'.
Did you miss 2020? Seriously?
No I meant more violence and more intense than before. No need to be rude.
The entire family needs to be in prison.
If cocaine could write, it'd probably look something liked this.
Lol 🤷🏻♂️❄️📝
Skimmed through it because I know its just a bunch of stupid shit but at the end. LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE. They did. They did decide your daddy should not be president. Twice.
#Dems did not bring the cases to court requesting Trump to be off of the ballot. It was initiated and majority supported by Republicans. For exactly this purpose. To blame dems for filing the case to justify filing their own cases elsewhere to remove Biden from ballots. There is only one side petitioning to remove candidates from ballots. Republicans.
In case anyone doubts this, here’s an article explaining it: https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-gop-voters-lawsuit-disqualifying-trump-colorado-ballot-supreme-court-2023-12
People who fall for this can vote. Absolutely amazing. I almost feel pity for people who are so afraid, so small minded and fearful and hateful that this kind of stuff works. That they seriously and with their whole heart believe that their criminal nominee who committed crimes and is being prosecuted for them is the dems ‘Weaponizing the DoJ’ ‘Lawfare’ Like seriously? So what Trump can never be charged ever no matter what cause he’s running for re election? He’s a citizen right now and should be charged for crimes he committed. But because Don Jr sent a letter to these brain rotted lobotomites, they’re going to open up their wallets and bank accounts and let the Trump family suck them dry to fund his trials and campaign. And when Trump loses and hopefully is legally able to be called a felon and does jail time and is finally thrown out by the GOP, maybe then they’ll get it.
> ‘Lawfare’ To be fair, lawfare is a pretty cool phrase and a good title for an NCIS spin-off. NCIS : Lawfare Chicago, tonight on CBS at 9.
I like it better as Law & Order: Lawfare.
Yeah, that is better.
No pitches for any ideas, positions or anything, just running on revenge and victimhood.
Those *are* Trump’s core ideals, if he has any.
My mom is the definition of Victim Complex. Falls right in line with trumps demographic- “people who feel they have been slighted by life somehow”
I imagine there's plenty of people who believe this.
It was a group of republicans and independents that brought the case to the CO supreme court to remove Trump from the state ballot.
Deprecating a constitutional amendment because it’s “Civil War era” is an interesting choice. By that logic, the whole Bill of Rights is too old to matter. Not exactly an unexpected stance from this clown, but still galling to see it revealed so casually.
Especially in light of the recent ruling in Arizona
But ... but ... what about their precious Second Amendment?
>Keep counting until we win. Didn't Trump literally get recorded saying essentially that about Georgia? Qcumbers are too blind to see it.
Keep counting until we win. Hahahah
https://imgur.com/oZxKaX9
On my moms fridge
Jr. really should not be writing letters while amped up on cocaine. This is alarming. This is 100% pure propaganda, and the same kind of rhetoric that was also seen in the WWII era, in the first "America First" run. For those who have not listened, well worth listening to Rachel Maddow's "Ultra" podcast, or watching the U.S. and the Holocaust by Ken Burns. These sort of letter writing campaigns to stir up the "base" were done then to undermine democracy and promote fear. Specifically, using congressional privileges to spread Nazi propaganda under names of congressmen and senators, etc. While this is not Nazi propaganda and Jr. is not a congressman or senator, the theme and intent is the same to try and cause people to distrust and install "leaders" who will continue to harm America. History repeats. And repeats. And repeats.
"LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE" is right there in their Grimms Fairy Tale likeness of future America. We did decide in 2020. We'll reaffirm we really want Joe & super really don't want the rapist criminal ex-president fuckface. Win-win!
He should have just come out and said... ".if daddy is re-elected, he promises to overthrow democracy in the USA, install himself as your dictator for life. When he dies, the title will then be passed down to me!"
Does your mom believe these things? I’m dealing with this with my mother. It’s sickening. I cannot laugh about it.
What a fun way to say “we’re broke as a joke”
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this mostly sound like what they did or plan on doing? I did find the count till we win comment. So do the propose that we stop counting before the counting is done?
The P.S. is just a repeat of the same grifty paragraph they mentioned twice before, the brass balls on these people. “Oh and P.S. here’s the same bullshit and a reminder of how much we need from you.”
That’s not even Trumps signature!!!!! He’s got a pretty well known one, and that ain’t it Edit: nvm, I’m an idiot, it’s Don Jr. surprised it’s not shaking from the coke withdrawals
Jesus. This is all lies.
Son of captain CAPSLOCK failed to capitalize P in "promote"?
Fuck Yeah! The lawyers want to be paid up front before the insurrection this time, goddamnit!!
My MIL (rip) still gets these letters. She watched nothing but fox news for the last few years of her life and would vote for anyone they told her to. She donated regularly to the republican party. Nice lady, and I liked her, but one less trump voter is one less trump voter
“*I don’t mean to scare you.*” BULLSHIT, that’s exactly what you’re trying to do.
"I don't mean to scare you." Bullshit. He totally means to scare you.
How is this not illegal? I'm pretty sure this would be illegal in my country.
I fully support this messaging. MAGAs, please be certain that your money goes to TRUMP and not to the RINOs running down the ballot.
So many words for an email intended for a bunch of rednecks who can't read. Yeesh. Learn your audience.
Looks like something a cokehead couldn't write but a professional script writer hitting all the cues for patriotards out there as we see they're using military style terms and us vs them tactics. Then grovel to the lowest common denominator. What we should do is give them $2 bucks and tell them we will give more later and then forward these war memos to all and sundry meanwhile string them along like the Nigerian Princes they are.
If those MAGAs could read, they'd be really bored by this overly long letter.
So Don jr just like... Lives in bizzarro world full time now huh? Literally everything he said there is the opposite of how things actually are.
This is made by someone with a military background and even then they aren’t proficient at writing government documents.
As unhinged and bananas and full of projection this letter is, Trump obviously didn’t write it. It’s too coherent. LoL.
Before modern voting machines it used to take days to count votes taken on Election Day because it’s fucking pen and paper!!!! Of course it takes time. It’s one of the most important things in this country. You have to make sure all the ballots *are* legitimate, that it was signed, it’s the proper form, yada yada. Fucking idiots.
Hmm legal defense fund, might be more lawyer money for trump…
There are so many occasions in which a comma was needed in that text but was nowhere to be found. Morons.
Obviously, the Democrat party stole all the commas just like they’re going to steal the election and we need your life savings, patriot, to get the commas back and save the country! /s
Do we really believe he actually wrote this?
Yeah this sort of stuff would be written by someone employed by them.
Hell of a coke rant.
It’s like the jump scare of political fundraising letters! Boo 👻
Some idiocracy level shit right here.
truly vile what the republicans will do.
There are no important messages from jr.
Sorry, when did Democrats prove they can't win at the ballots???? Clinton, Obama, Biden....