dagblog - Comments for "With or without Trump, GOP insurgency plans for a civil war in 2018 midterms"

McConnell & Ryan are the new

artappraiser — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 01:53:42 +0000

In reply to With or without Trump, GOP insurgency plans for a civil war in 2018 midterms

McConnell & Ryan are the new Obama for righties, "it's" now all their fault:

Roy Moore’s Alabama Victory Sets Off Talk of a G.O.P. Insurrection

By Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin @ NYTimes.com, Sept. 27

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Republicans are confronting an insurrection on the right that is angry enough to imperil their grip on Congress, and senior party strategists have concluded that the conservative base now loathes its leaders in Washington the same way it detested President Barack Obama.

[....]

Trent Lott, a former Senate Republican leader, was blunt: “Every Republican senator had better get prepared for a challenge from the far right.”

If nothing else, divisive intraparty battles could cost party donors tens of millions of dollars and weaken Republicans’ position in a year when Democrats were already poised to make gains, at least in the House. They could also reshape the party’s agenda, driving it further in the direction of Mr. Trump’s strain of nationalism rather than the more conventional, business-oriented agenda espoused by Mr. McConnell and Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.

Republicans increasingly worry that their base’s contempt for Mr. McConnell is more potent than its love for Mr. Trump. Mr. McConnell could be an anchor around incumbents in the same fashion as Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, who is routinely used to undermine Democratic candidates. The loudest applause Mr. Moore received during an election-eve rally came when he declared, “Mitch McConnell needs to be replaced.”

In a memo about the Alabama election that circulated among Republican donors, Steven Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund, a “super PAC” closely allied with Mr. McConnell, said primary voters were intensely angry and inclined to blame Republicans for dysfunction in Washington.

“The Republican Congress has replaced President Obama as the bogeyman for conservative G.O.P. primary voters,” Mr. Law wrote [....]

Congrats to Lee Drutman, I

artappraiser — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 22:19:06 +0000

In reply to With or without Trump, GOP insurgency plans for a civil war in 2018 midterms

Congrats to Lee Drutman, I posted on his analysis in mid-August: America's new, combustible four-party system

And @ Politico we have: Could

artappraiser — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 22:13:56 +0000

In reply to With or without Trump, GOP insurgency plans for a civil war in 2018 midterms

And @ Politico we have: Could America’s Socialists Become the Tea Party of the Left?, Oct. 1

No longer happy to languish in principled irrelevance, socialists are plotting a Sanders-like insurgency inside the Democratic Party.

Also @ WaPo:

artappraiser — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 23:44:57 +0000

In reply to With or without Trump, GOP insurgency plans for a civil war in 2018 midterms

Also @ WaPo:

Pelosi was toxic to voters in 2010. Ryan and McConnell are facing the same problem.

By Paul Kane, Sept. 30

It raises the question of when Democrats — and the GOP — will begin using the House speaker and Senate majority leader's images against them.

Some members of Congress spend years, even decades, plotting their way up the ladder to become House speaker or Senate majority leader.

The reward? National ignominy is almost a certainty.

“Masochism. I always thought maybe that’s part of it,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said, only half joking.

In 35 years on Capitol Hill, McCain has never run for a congressional leadership post, possibly one reason he remains an overall popular national figure.

That was once the case for House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). Now, just 31 percent of Americans approve of Ryan’s job performance while 51 percent do not approve, according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll.

Ryan’s base of support is almost nonexistent: Eight percent strongly approve of his performance; 31 percent strongly disapprove [....]