The Gaming Den

Losers make for some of the most interesting thought experiments. The Republican party, to my mind, has a head full of broken glass. They have just enough power on the national scene to grind lawmaking to an almost-halt, but not enough to pass the legislation they really want. Their stated goals are objectively terrible if you're a carbon-based biped, especially if you happen to be young and/or female and/or less than filthy rich and/or unhealthy and/or pregnant and/or a minority and/or an immigrant (check all that apply). The party itself is leaderless, rudderless, and mostly divided between ineffectual, ill-educated young politicians and unimaginative, ill-educated older politicians. The Republican body is a mish-mash of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, religious fundamentalists, ultranationalists, and corporate interests, tied to a platform of ideas that has not changed significantly in a couple decades. It's candidates for national office are cartoon characters and shockingly dishonest. It's a party of old ideas wrapped in a flag, and while I'd like to think of it as a dinosaur running on its hindbrain and ready to go extinct, it still does command a sizable portion of the electorate.

So as an intellectual exercise, if you could address the party as a whole and try to get them to redress, redefine, and generally redeem themselves, how would you do it?

First off, I don't think you could get the Republicans to completely reverse themselves on many positions. And they would not assume positions that are eye-to-eye with Democrats. But I think you could recast the Republican party as distinct from the Democrats while still being more progressive and less terrible than they currently are.

For example, on Economics:
Paul Ryanomics magic asterisks, deficit scolding and starve the beast have to go. In its place are going to be three core concepts: fiscal responsibility, state infrastructure initiatives, and revenue reform.

Fiscal responsibility is what replaces deficit scolding and starve the beast. The idea is to reduce the deficit in the long term, not by slashing budgets but by tying legislation to some means to pay it. Basically, no law gets passed unless it contains provisions that pay for that law. It's a bit old-school, and people are going to grumble because this is how Clinton did things, but it works.

State infrastructure initiatives is a codephrase for pork barrel spending; they're Federal funds which are used on major construction projects in states to build up or replace or upgrade infrastructure like roads, fiberoptic cables, power, &c. This is something the US is badly in need of, and the individual state initiatives will be a big boost to individual Republican politicans as well as state economies.

Revenue reform is a comprehensive effort to improve how the US generates income, with the ideal of altering (ideally reducing) corporate and individual taxes by eliminating loopholes and exceptions, improving collections, and otherwise trying to maximize non-tax revenue sources like the sale and lease of government land. Which is basically a lot of what Ben Bernake wants to do, sans selling national parks so corporations can cut downt he trees and drill for oil.

It seems that jettisoning the religious right could be helpful. With more than 50% of Americans on board with gay marriage, I wonder how much they could help their image by adopting a platform of "freedom", where people could make their own personal choices, with the government staying out. It would certainly play with with libertarians and some moderates.

And just how is the Republican Party supposed to do those things without abandoning their core constituency -- that is, Rich People?

You say shit like "Paul Ryanomics magic asterisks, deficit scolding and starve the beast have to go." like its just something the party stumbled upon but doesn't really serve anyone. But that crap is the core functionality of the GOP for the past 150+ years.

Your exercise is basically a waste of time unless you first A.) analyze whom the suboptimal policy benefits B.) whom the suboptimal policy politically hurts C.) what would happen if they reversed positions on it and finally D.) how can they staunch the bleeding from it?

Here's an easy one. So-called clean coal and the Democratic Party. The suboptimal policy is pretty much the only reason why the Montana and West Virginian Democratic Party, places in which coal is a major industry, even have a rump. While global warming (not to mention the associated pollution with coal mining) is an issue that will rip off peoples' nuts, it doesn't seem to be flipping many votes aside from the thorn in the side it gives to liberals. If they condemned clean coal that would pretty much mean destroying the WV and MT Democrats, which will set them back governorships and Senators. If they wanted to staunch the bleeding the Democratic Party would either have to raise their overall popularity level or target these states with weregild like a jobs program.

And they need to back some kind of single payer healthcare system. While it's true that 52% of americans are against Obamacare, that's only because 25% of those think it didn't go far enough. That puts the number against obamcare down bellow 40%.

But really, I'd rather see the whole republican party fragment and explode in a shower of shame.

My exercise is a waste of time, period. Because the Republicans are never going to substantially change, at least not this generation. But I like to postulate what a hypothetical not-Democrat Other Party would be like.

Okay then, over what time frame are we talking about?

Unless the Party collapses or is reduced to a regional rump -- which, hey, it might happen -- the Republican Party of 2024 is almost certainly going to be less vile and more progressive than the Party of 2012. If nothing else they'll have shut the fuck up about gay marriage. And unless they manage to absorb Latinos or a major portion of them into their WASP Heartland Revanchist fantasyland like they did with Eastern Europe and Italian immigrants, they'll certainly be less racist, too.

But I assume that you want more substantial changes that aren't just brought on by inertia? Again, what kind of timeframe are we looking at?

At any case, the first thing you need to do is determine what special interest has its hooks in the party and determine how strong its hold on the apparatus is. And you need to go all of the way. For example, even though it looks like the neoconservative wing form but a financial and demographic rump, if you ask the question 'who does telling Israel to go fuck themselves offend' you'll find out that two of these people are the Koch Bros.

If I was the Republican party apparatchik, I'd first ask myself how to get rid of some or all of these weirdass millionaires and billionaires in order to give us some political flexibility to change. Unfortunately, the problem is that many these weirdass millionaires and billionaires are the party apparatchik. So you'd have to instigate a civil war to determine which plutocrat gets to be King Vermin and cull off a few -- or get some of them to take a monetary hit for the good of the party, so haha good luck with that.

Ancient History wrote:My exercise is a waste of time, period. Because the Republicans are never going to substantially change, at least not this generation. But I like to postulate what a hypothetical not-Democrat Other Party would be like.

I'm not entirely sure I understand your question. Do you want possible subtle shifts in Republican positions that are less awful without compromising their core ideology? Here's a couple possibilities:

The Republican endorsed economic model is insane, and it is unlikely they will give up their free market fundamentalism any time soon, but in theory they could have free market fundamentalism that is less awful than what they currently espouse. Like the stuff Milton Friedman proposed. Though a quick google search shows they can't even get that right. Regardless, if the Fed had followed Friedman's advice on monetary policy four years ago we'd probably be better off now, but the modern GOP is allergic to printing money.

The Republican party is the party of the "blessed are the rich" Christian fundamentalist. However, there are a large number of non-sociopathic Christians who nevertheless vote Republican because for some reason that has become the Christian thing to do. In theory another group of Christians could displace the fundamentalists, for example social justice Christians. This would go a long ways towards making the Republican party platform less inhuman.

Drolyt wrote:In theory another group of Christians could displace the fundamentalists, for example social justice Christians.

Hate to tell you this, but left-wing Christianity is dying an even crueler death than fundamentalist Christianity. If megachurches are a dead-end as far as constituencies go, then leftist Christians are an alleyway filled with dead orphans and landmines and Thwomps.

Nothing to do with organization or even ideology. They're dying out for the same reason why deists died out.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:

Drolyt wrote:In theory another group of Christians could displace the fundamentalists, for example social justice Christians.

Hate to tell you this, but left-wing Christianity is dying an even crueler death than fundamentalist Christianity. If megachurches are a dead-end as far as constituencies go, then leftist Christians are an alleyway filled with dead orphans and landmines and Thwomps.

Nothing to do with organization or even ideology. They're dying out for the same reason why deists died out.

Why did the deists die out? (I'm seriously curious here, cause I'm not sure what you are getting at).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism#The ... e_of_deism

I think Lago's point is that both are convenient labels for people who want to claim a certain degree of religious affiliation, but don't actually believe/practice/tithe.

Drolyt wrote:Why did the deists die out? (I'm seriously curious here, cause I'm not sure what you are getting at).

Because it is very hard to be stupid enough to believe in god but smart enough to not believe the tremendously horrible things that all religions preach.

Kaelik wrote:

Drolyt wrote:Why did the deists die out? (I'm seriously curious here, cause I'm not sure what you are getting at).

Because it is very hard to be stupid enough to believe in god but smart enough to not believe the tremendously horrible things that all religions preach.

Really? Research in psychology suggests it is very easy to hold unexamined and even contradictory beliefs. Regardless though ~76% of Americans are Christian and a decent chunk of them vote Republican because the media has convinced them that Obama is the Antichrist. In particular, since most Christians give especial importance to Jesus (makes sense) it shouldn't be that hard to point out to them that Jesus talks about gay marriage zero times but talks about helping those in need constantly.

Drolyt: I recommend you look into cognitive dissonance. It will answer all questions about their views there that should be conflicting.

Actually, there are a ton of cognitive biases that can lead to people hold contradictory beliefs. Even examined, self-contradictory beliefs.

The fundamental problem with the Republican party when it comes to social policy is that they are the party of intolerance. If they try to be less racist and sexist and nativist and anti-gay and Christian and all the rest, then you'd see some scumbag peeling off votes as a far-right third party candidate--and they need those votes.

Eventually, maybe we'll hit a point where the Republican candidate *is* the far-right scumbag, and the actual race is between two reasonable candidates, but I'm not holding my breath for people to stop being racist and intolerant.

Koumei wrote:Drolyt: I recommend you look into cognitive dissonance. It will answer all questions about their views there that should be conflicting.

Huh? What I said was

Drolyt wrote:Research in psychology suggests it is very easy to hold unexamined and even contradictory beliefs.

I'm quite aware of cognitive dissonance. I was responding to Kaelik's post:

Kaelik wrote:it is very hard to be stupid enough to believe in god but smart enough to not believe the tremendously horrible things that all religions preach.

Kaelik doesn't seem to think you can be stupid about some things but not others. More charitably Kaelik thinks belief in a deity somehow corresponds with other religious beliefs, which is somewhat true but there are lots of exceptions.

Drolyt wrote:Why did the deists die out? (I'm seriously curious here, cause I'm not sure what you are getting at).

What Kaelik said, though it's only half of the story. While deism is/was only a stone's throw away from atheism, deists at the time still believed in stupid crap like souls and anthropomorphic first causes. See: the writings of Thomas Paine or just ask the Jacobians what they believed in. In particular, the refinement of methodological naturalism in the late 19th to early 20th century completely killed it. Personally, I like to think that the development of Darwinian evolution was the death blow to deism.

Drolyt wrote:Regardless though ~76% of Americans are Christian and a decent chunk of them vote Republican because the media has convinced them that Obama is the Antichrist.

Okay, now ask yourself this:

A.) Of that percentage of Christians, how many are of the 'spiritual but not religious type' (meaning that they're useless as far as liberal Christianity goes), how many are right-wing, and how many are actually liberal Christians?

B.) What is the trendline on those numbers?

All of the famous media or political leftists are of the 'spiritual but not religious' types who probably pretend to be Christians in order to avoid discrimination -- a minority of them are outright atheists. And liberal Christians are even smaller than that! It's a dead-end growth sector. Maybe the emergence of a modern-day Dr. Martin Luther King type could revive it, but seriously, name me the most prominent liberal Christian in the media today that's not Jimmy Carter and goes out of their way to advertise their Christian-ness.

You also said:

Drolyt wrote:since most Christians give especial importance to Jesus (makes sense) it shouldn't be that hard to point out to them that Jesus talks about gay marriage zero times but talks about helping those in need constantly.

I'm pointing out that they'll have no trouble handwaving that shit away and still being "religious" (in their own eyes) while hoarding their wealth, hating gay people, and generally curbstomping the tired, the sick and the poor.

Koumei wrote:You also said:

Drolyt wrote:since most Christians give especial importance to Jesus (makes sense) it shouldn't be that hard to point out to them that Jesus talks about gay marriage zero times but talks about helping those in need constantly.

I'm pointing out that they'll have no trouble handwaving that shit away and still being "religious" (in their own eyes) while hoarding their wealth, hating gay people, and generally curbstomping the tired, the sick and the poor.

Ah. Fair enough, but it is possible, if quite difficult, to reason with these people. At least I think you'll have a much easier time of it than converting them all to secular humanism.

Drolyt wrote:Really? Research in psychology suggests it is very easy to hold unexamined and even contradictory beliefs. Regardless though ~76% of Americans are Christian and a decent chunk of them vote Republican because the media has convinced them that Obama is the Antichrist. In particular, since most Christians give especial importance to Jesus (makes sense) it shouldn't be that hard to point out to them that Jesus talks about gay marriage zero times but talks about helping those in need constantly.

I'm not saying that it is difficult to hold contradictory beliefs. The position that God exists and he isn't a tremendous asshole is not any more or less self contradictory than any other position about God.

I am saying that smart people realize there are no gods, and smart people realize that you shouldn't murder all the poor people with stupid policies.

It is equivalent to saying "It is difficult to be stupid enough to believe that 2+2=5, but smart enough to know how to calculate acceleration."

That is the reason that there are very few people at Nasa who do incorrect calculations.

Both positions are strongly correlated with intelligence. For someone to understand good social policies they have to be smarter than it takes to not believe in gods.

A Democrat is a politician who believes in capitalism, military hegemony, and restriction of certain civil liberties. They receive campaign funding from, and owe blowjobs to, various corporate interests.

A Republican is a politician who believes in capitalism, military hegemony, and restriction of certain civil liberties. They receive campaign funding from, and owe blowjobs to, various corporate interests.

Your next election will see John Smith (d) run against Smith Johnson (r). Monsanto will hedge their bets and fund the campaigns of both candidates, as well as the campaigns of numerous senators.

If you want to redeem a political party, you need to reign in the influence of corporate oligarchs over your elected officials. Otherwise, it's just a puppet show with a slight deviation on issues of civil liberty.

Kaelik wrote:

Drolyt wrote:Really? Research in psychology suggests it is very easy to hold unexamined and even contradictory beliefs. Regardless though ~76% of Americans are Christian and a decent chunk of them vote Republican because the media has convinced them that Obama is the Antichrist. In particular, since most Christians give especial importance to Jesus (makes sense) it shouldn't be that hard to point out to them that Jesus talks about gay marriage zero times but talks about helping those in need constantly.

I'm not saying that it is difficult to hold contradictory beliefs. The position that God exists and he isn't a tremendous asshole is not any more or less self contradictory than any other position about God.

I am saying that smart people realize there are no gods, and smart people realize that you shouldn't murder all the poor people with stupid policies.

It is equivalent to saying "It is difficult to be stupid enough to believe that 2+2=5, but smart enough to know how to calculate acceleration."

That is the reason that there are very few people at Nasa who do incorrect calculations.

Both positions are strongly correlated with intelligence. For someone to understand good social policies they have to be smarter than it takes to not believe in gods.

Okay, I understand you now. I think what you are saying is true on average, but I think there are more exceptions than you realize.

Winnah wrote:A Democrat is a politician who believes in capitalism, military hegemony, and restriction of certain civil liberties. They receive campaign funding from, and owe blowjobs to, various corporate interests.

A Republican is a politician who believes in capitalism, military hegemony, and restriction of certain civil liberties. They receive campaign funding from, and owe blowjobs to, various corporate interests.

Your next election will see John Smith (d) run against Smith Johnson (r). Monsanto will hedge their bets and fund the campaigns of both candidates, as well as the campaigns of numerous senators.

If you want to redeem a political party, you need to reign in the influence of corporate oligarchs over your elected officials. Otherwise, it's just a puppet show with a slight deviation on issues of civil liberty.

This is somewhat true, but surely you see that the Republican platform is significantly more awful than the Democratic platform? I mean, Obamacare doesn't go far enough, but it is something and the Republicans want to get rid of it (just one example).

when people post like that all I hear is "Herpa derp, social issues don't matter/look at how white and straight male I am."

Like, I get that the corporate boot heel is a problem but watch how you equivocate that shit because it is seriously kind of offensive given the gap between "I think abortion is OK" and "I don't see the problem with forcing women to get probed first if it means the babies I have no intention of supporting may live".

That and economic prosperity is worthless without social equality. Gee, I'm glad that my household can get by on one paycheck, but I don't know if it's at the cost of being criminalized for having informed, consensual sex with the person I love and having to praise Cthulhu Jeebus on demand.

If you're a cisgendered straight white Christian American male the last three decades were undeniably worse for you -- even if you had no intention of exercising any kind of social privilege -- than the 50s to early 70s. So I can understand the angst this demographic has at what appears to be their slow decay into oligarchic submission. And of course their biggest complaint is one that applies across the board to every non-overclass demographic.

But seriously, there is a reason why no one who isn't in that demographic wants to travel back in time more than 20 years unless they're a WASP heteronormal female -- then it's just 40 years, tops. Not even if they're one of the minorities who can pass or partially conform like non-stereotypical queers or well-spoken Japanese men.

So shit like 'there isn't any major difference between the two parties' sounds pretty spoiled and sniveling when one of these parties actually and unapologetically wants to deny you the right to vote, ram probes up your genitals to slut-shame you, and/or take away your adopted kids.

How is American foreign policy any different under the two parties? I don't see any real difference.

Your politicians stance on abortion means fuck all to me, when the majority seem to be unopposed to high collateral drone executions and keeping soldiers in poppy fields, to protect the heroin trade.

Keeping consumers quibbling over civil liberties at home, hinders awareness of larger, global issues. You need to check your privilege, sir. I don't give a fuck about your buyer's justification over whatever political vision you bought in to.