"Well, what's wrong with slavery?"
- Status
Homicidal_Squirrel
Adventurer
Rush Limbaugh is on AM radio. He gets 13.5+ million listeners per week. Obviously there are a few people tuning in to AM radio. I'm betting Jan Mickelson gets a decent enough number of people listening to him that he has been able to stay on the air.
prosfilaes
Adventurer
I can't find the fivethirtyeight link, but Nate Silver points out that if you take his approve - disapprove numbers, he ranks below the middle of the pack, at +4--47% approve, 43% disapprove. Rubio, for example, may have only 6% of the people picking him, but he's like a +25% by the same ranking. Rubio vs. Trump, Rubio would win.
Trump is bad for America and he's a sign of bad things going on in the Republican party, and I would argue that he joins of the ranks of Republicans who get to say things the base wants to hear that the Republicans who want political credibility can't say. But if you look at the elected Republicans, who Nate Silver thinks will decide the election, they're behind Bush, Christie, Huckabee, Paul and Kasich, without a single one behind Trump.(http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/)
Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
It isn't about you. It is about the Republican party.
How many Republican politicians must propose racist policies or say racist things before we can start labelling the party as racist or trying to appeal to racists? What would be a threshold you would accept?
What does it say about a party if it wants to appeal to racists?
gamerprinter
Mapper/Publisher
The question should be framed as "How many Republicans must propose (or vote for) racist policies before it can be labeled as racists, which would be answered with it's majority", not how many of it's politicians, since the current batch of Presidential candidates only seems to represent the extreme right of the party (whom I consider a minority and not in anyway representative of my Republican ideals, so not worth being applicable to labels). The opinions of a few bad apples should'nt have the power to give the entirety of its group with any kind of label, especially when not representing its majority.
Unfortunately in American politics today, its seems that only the extreme left or the extreme right have a chance at winning Presidential elections. Not that there's never a centrist candidate, they just never win elections. I have very little faith in American politics, having lost it many elections ago.
Last edited:
The problem with framing the issue like that is that it is the politicians- who were elected by the members of the party- who are in positions of power and are advocating and passing laws that either have disparate impact or are outright discriminatory.
Now, it is a reality of American politics that the majority of eligible voters usually do not vote, not just in general elections, but also within the parties themselves. However, goodly numbers of those "bad apples" are commanding the lions' share of those who DO vote.
So, either the majority of GOP members are voting for EXACTLY the radical politicians they want- which I do not believe- OR the majority of GOP members are opposed to the rise of the radical right, but too many of those opposed are not exercising their right to vote. I think the latter is far more likely, given the aforementioned state of American voter apathy.
But as Geddy Lee sings in Rush's "Freewill", "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." By not voting, those abstaining are complicit in the ascension of polarized politicians.
The result: a party probably composed mostly of moderates and liberal conservatives disproportionately represented by radicals. Radicals pushing agendas harmful to American people and the political system.
And it is a group's actions that define its image, not the individual members. Especially when the group is acting under the guidance of those elected to represent those members.
Aesop's fable of "The Farmer and the Stork" tells us we are known by the company we keep:
http://www.litscape.com/author/Aesop/The_Farmer_and_the_Stork.html
AFAIK, no truly extreme left politician has ever won a national election, and I can't think of any radical left governors, either.
Meanwhile, the extreme right has, so far, failed to win a presidential election.
Last edited:
Ryujin
Legend
Middle-aged and older people listen to AM talk radio. These people are demographically more likely to vote.
This has been making the rounds lately:
Not in "first across the finish line" polling, he wouldn't necessarily. Especially in a wide field, like we currently have in the primary race. The "disapprove" numbers tell you how many folks will not vote for him, but that doesn't necessarily lead to a strong signal for a single other candidate. The 43% who disapprove of Trump don't necessarily all go to Rubio, even in a straight head-to-head matchup. Many, disillusioned, might not vote at all. Right now, they'd go to up to a dozen other people still in the race, leaving Trump with the only strong signal, and thus the Primary win.
This is a large part of why early polling in large fields doesn't really tell you who would win. There are too many variables in play.
"Radical" and "extreme" are not well-defined terms.
For example, right now, if one of the candidates tried to open a conversation on gun control, you can be pretty sure the other side would call that candidate 'extreme left'. Heck, they have called Obama a 'socialist' (which, yes, shows that the speaker knows squat-all about socialism, but the point stands).
Last edited:
I was thinking in the non-partisan political sense, and had the point you made of Obama firmly in mind. While he is left of the Democratic party's center, he is a long way away from being a communist (as some incorrectly call him) or representative of the other groups that populate that end of the Democratic Party's internal bell curve.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left–right_politics
Last edited:
- Status
Similar Threads
