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I posted something a while back from a book review of a book about W., and it said that George H.W. Bush and Barbara always assumed Jeb would be president, and now they're heartbroken because they, and a lot of other people close to the Bush family, think W. fucked it up for Jeb, and they all thought that W. took what was rightfully Jeb's away from him. Jeb now apparently has no interest in running for president.

He assumed his brother would be president? How does the American Dream fit into that? Mind you, Ireland is no better, the number of family dynasties in politics here is astounding.

Separate question about the republicans now. I read mostly things of a liberal left wing variety. In Europe they have terrible PR. I've seen two Conservative cunts on UK Question Time saying they would vote for Obama. If even their natural bedfellows shirk away from endorsing their candidate they must be pretty extreme.

Now, the thing is I refuse to think that it's simply that almost half/slightly more than half (depending on how the election goes) of the American people are selfish imbeciles. Now, OTF has listed the serious shortcomings of the American Government at length since I've joined (and no doubt lengthier before). What are the good things about the Republican party? Historically, what was good about them?

They ended slavery.
Uh...

There is nothing good about them. They are the party of hate, greed, selfishness, self-righteousness and xenophobia.

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

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MacArthur deserved to be fired.

Right thing to do vs. popular thing to do.

They've not always been so vile, I don't think.

1. In the South, they were once a bit of a bulwark against the even-more-racist-than-they-were Dixiecrats.

2. It was Eisenhower who first publicly identified the problem of the military-industrial complex.

3. They used to be a bit cleaner, politically, than the Tammany-era Dems.

4. The Dems used actually to be rather more aggressive in foreign policy.

They've never been what you might call lefties, but they were once fairly principled old-fashioned conservatives. The descent into disgustingness began with Nixon, perhaps, and really gathered pace with the adoption of the "Southern strategy", the coalition with an increasingly partisan religious Right and the corrupt relationship with the Murdoch media.

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descent into disgustingness began with Nixon, perhaps

I'd say Goldwater's politics in 1964 were the first real public manifestation of incipient neocon-ism.

They used to be the party of northern rich people - the American equivalent of the UK's "sensible men in bowler hats" - prescribing sensible policies for a sensible America. You can imagine how that was bad as well as good, maybe, sometimes.

In a lot of ways, that was a a lot better than the Democrats, who were the party of Southern White Racist Rednecks.

In my family, there are a lot of Republicans who, when you talk to them about about a lot of individual issues, are actually more in line with a guy like Obama but lean Republican because ... I actually don't know why. I have some theories but they don't really add up. I guess it's force of habit, really - habits which began in the 1950s and are reinforced by a mishmash of fears, misunderstandings and a few real facts.

For example, my uncle goes on about Ted Kennedy and Chapaqutac. Well, yeah, that probably did happen and Teddy probably could have been strung up for manslaughter or whatever, but that really shouldn't have much impact on what you think of the bills he sponsors.

A pedantic point first; it wasn't W. who assumed that Jeb would be president, it was his parents who thought that (well before their idiot son was elected).

As to the substantive point, over the course of the last 20 years, the Republican Party has essentially been hijacked by the religious right, anti-tax crusaders, gun nuts and America First xenophobes, especially at the local level. These are essentially the people who are now running the McCain campaign and those who worship Sarah Palin.

From a European perspective, the first thing to keep in mind here is that the US has never had a tradition of party discipline anywhere near as strong as that common in Europe (especially in the UK). That has always resulted in both of the parties being fairly broad churches (particularly when they are in power), and is one of the major reasons we haven't had a third party emerge for the last 150 years.

So yeah, the traditional GOP ended slavery and won the Civil War ("waving the bloody shirt" became the essential element of their national campaign strategy for the rest of the 19th c.). They also were the party of business, protectionism, and (especially in the Midwest) the establishment of smaller bankers and businessmen that ran things. The nature of their support was reflected in a strong isolationist streak and general mistrust of things "foreign" (especially recent immigrants who lived in cities). In the current lexicon, they were very much the party of "Main Street" not "Wall Street".

But they were also the party that produced Teddy Roosevelt (though he ultimately left in a futile attempt to build a progressive third party), and were the only respectable party on racial issues in the South throughout the reign of Jim Crow. In the Northeast, they tended to have a very Establishment old school Anglo worldview that included more than a bit of noblesse oblige and was embodied by people like Henry Cabot Lodge, George H.W. Bush's father Prescott, and (later) Nelson Rockefeller.

All that's gone now, and FF's basically nailed it (as she so often does).

Cross-post with Reed's, but I think they complement each other.

Connecticut Supreme Court has just approved same-sex marriage. Game-changer?

It's worth pointing out that neither campaign agrees with same-sex marriage. Sadly, I think we're going to have to hear Obama and Biden stressing that quite a bit for the next month. Necessary evils...

I think WE and UA explained it better than I did.

To be clear, my family aren't Northeastern blue-bloods. My mom's dad was a school teacher, principal and part-time baseball umpire for local amateur leagues. His dad was also a teacher. My dad's dad taught insurance. His dad was a travelling business supply salesman. Both of my grandmothers were teachers.

I guess they went GOP because they supported the "establishment of smaller bankers and businessmen that ran things" that UA refers to, but weren't really part of it. Even though Cincinnati was one of America's bigger cities for much of the 20th Century, white people their have tended to vote more like the rural midwest, suspicious of anything coming out of New York, Washington or, God forbid, California. They were also tied to the GOP because of our ancestors involvement in abolition.

I think there are still a lot of people out there who vote Republican who, if they were coming into the world today afresh, would probably be moderate Democrats. The problem is that they've attached themselves to the GOP like one does to a football club and that biases their choice of information source. They believe Fox News because it plays to that prejudice.

The GOP aren't alone in this type of habitual voting. My friend in Minnesota points out that his family does the exact same thing, but because the family history is farmer and union, their natural bias is pro-Democrat. He is also a Democrat and all of that, but he points out that just because you land on the right answer, doesn't mean the way you got there is rational or can be relied upon to get you to the right answer next time.

I know quite a few people from Cincinnati. They are all extremely conservative.

Andy C wrote:

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descent into disgustingness began with Nixon, perhaps

I'd say Goldwater's politics in 1964 were the first real public manifestation of incipient neocon-ism.

Good point.

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I know quite a few people from Cincinnati. They are all extremely conservative.

Yeah, it's depressing. It's otherwise a very liveable city with a lot going for it.

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descent into disgustingness began with Nixon, perhaps


I'd say Goldwater's politics in 1964 were the first real public manifestation of incipient neocon-ism.

Hmm. Is this by way of saying things got nasty prior to the Nixon Presidency, or that the earlier Nixon who ran against JFK was better?