The Incredible Shrinking Republican Party

[BradleyPNW + 282]

Americans favor Democrats to Republicans by double digits. Republicans suffered over a 10% decrease falling from 44% to 39% just since May. 

Trump's Republican Party = Fail. 

https://news.gallup.com/poll/315734/party-preferences-swung-sharply-toward-democrats.aspx?fbclid=IwAR0ISbC0-XDIvdtgDS87W9NWfuf7R-Z6sCDRHlHXszRSGfKcnIQtMeyv92E

Edited July 17, 2020 by BradleyPNW

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

Ah yes, just like all those polls back in 2016 that demonstrated Trump's clear inability to win. 

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

It's similar to communist parties in central and eastern Europe after the Iron Curtain fell - those parties often turned to decimating their own states to stay in power, persecuting their opponents, destroying their lives and careers - the same thing Trump does to his opponents too. Plus his stubborn refusal to respect facts and science killed more Americans than the first World War. So after the props that kept them in power fell, nobody wanted to have anything with them anymore, save a fraction of brainwashed cult-like followers. 

It's the other way around - it's fascinating that after all the crimes and atrocities Trump as GOP president committed, he still has so much support in a (nominally) open and democratic country. 

Edited July 18, 2020 by Yoshiro Kamamura

[SUZNV + 1,197]

1 hour ago, Yoshiro Kamamura said:

It's similar to communist parties in central and eastern Europe after the Iron Curtain fell - those parties often turned to decimating their own states to stay in power, persecuting their opponents, destroying their lives and careers - the same thing Trump does to his opponents too. Plus his stubborn refusal to respect facts and science killed more Americans than the first World War. So after the props that kept them in power fell, nobody wanted to have anything with them anymore, save a fraction of brainwashed cult-like followers. 

It's the other way around - it's fascinating that after all the crimes and atrocities Trump as GOP president committed, he still has so much support in a (nominally) open and democratic country. 

Curious, why you have to choose central and eastern Europe Communist parties as examples and not the CCP, Soviet, North Korea, Cuba,Vietnam, Cambodia (PolPot) ... Communist Parties by their own people's choices, not from a foreign Occupation? I don't think they make outstanding examples. And for all of the Communist parties or any other dictatorship or totalitarian parties, they depend on mainstream for spreading their propaganda to praise their deeds and cover their corruptions, using all the science or statistics evidences they can come up with to make ridiculous excuses, not to go head to head with the main stream by calling them fake news. Whenever you have mainstream & education & youngster sing about an incumbent President, then start worrying about propaganda and brainwash campaign. 

Edited July 18, 2020 by SUZNV

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

“It's the other way around - it's fascinating that after all the crimes and atrocities Trump as GOP president committed, he still has so much support in a (nominally) open and democratic country. “

Please list the ‘crimes and atrocities’....as opposed to just claiming them. Typical Leftist ploy.

[Proud to be an American 0]

Listening to the media is not helpful. The virus in the US is different than the virus in Europe. There is no consistent answer as to what the best way is to address the risk. States which did not shut down are mainly doing much better than states that did shut down. The CDC in their podcast said the reason for the spike in the Florida numbers is not because they reopened, but because of the flight from the north away from the Democratically run cities and the resulting high case loads. A second reason for the high numbers is the 30 testing centers which reported 100 percent positive on COVID tests. If President Trump were to exercise Federal power to override the individual state governors, he would be labeled a facist. If he lets the governors do their jobs he is labeled as incompetent by the media. Most of the members of US media are supporters of the DNC, so the news is completely slanted. And never mind when the virus was starting, DNC Congress members were too busy trying to unjustly impeach the President, while at the same time saying "come out to the Chinese New Year's celebration, come out to Broadway...etc. Although Cuomo's policies killed thousands of elderly by requiring COVID positive people be placed into nursing homes, he is lauded  by the media as a great governor instead of being accurately labelled as "Governor Death". . It's easy to see why the American people are jaded.. Don't believe the polls. There are a lot of people who won't say publicly what they really think because the cancel culture can just cancel their livelihoods. It's going to be a very close election. As always is the case, individual liberty in the USA is at stake.

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

7 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

“It's the other way around - it's fascinating that after all the crimes and atrocities Trump as GOP president committed, he still has so much support in a (nominally) open and democratic country. “

Please list the ‘crimes and atrocities’....as opposed to just claiming them. Typical Leftist ploy.

Will probably mention border "prison camps" for the 11 hundreth time. 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

Racists are ok with border prison camps despite the fact illegals are paying for their Social Security and Medicare bills. Social Security *nets* around $13 billion/year from illegals and Medicare gets $3 billion. 

https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/28/undocumented-immigrants-quietly-pay-billions-social-security-and-receive-no/

Illegals don't get to collect SS or Medicare. So all that money is free for the American olds feeding at the government trough. Any Medicare recipients up in here? Illegals are paying for your doctor visits. You should be pissed at Trump for abusing them in concentration camps. 

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

It makes no difference if the Republican Party now attracts less voters.  The various voting districts  (House Districts) have been gerrymandered, so that even if the total Republican vote is minimal, the Party will remain in control, and especially of the Electoral College vote.  Because the Democrats cannot develop new thinking and are mired with their old elitist group, it will remain on the outside, looking in. 

The Republicans could drop to a popularity of 35% and still maintain the Presidency. In perpetuity. 

[UNC12345 + 171]

54 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

even if the total Republican vote is minimal, the Party will remain in control

Are people ok with this?

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

18 minutes ago, UNC12345 said:

Are people ok with this?

Apparently.  In any event, since I am a mere guest in the USA, it is none of my concern, I merely make the observation from the outside.  I see these articles where the gerrymandering is decried, but nobody seems to do anything about it.  I would observe the Republican politicians are the worst offenders.  In specific States, both Illinois and Maryland are outrageous offenders.  Hey, if those voters demand a clean democracy  (OK, "Republic" to satisfy the purists), then let them throw the entire crowd out, every last single one, and start over. 

Incidentally you don't have this problem in Vermont.  Voting lines are done by County, and those borders do not move.  Also for top-end offices, the maximum political contribution is $4,000.  For lower offices, i.e. the State legislature, it is $1,000.   That cuts out the big-wallet propagandists, no cruddy guys like Adelson from Nevada to tilt the playing field with his casino money. 

Edited July 18, 2020 by Jan van Eck

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

8 hours ago, BradleyPNW said:

Racists are ok with border prison camps despite the fact illegals are paying for their Social Security and Medicare bills. Social Security *nets* around $13 billion/year from illegals and Medicare gets $3 billion. 

https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/28/undocumented-immigrants-quietly-pay-billions-social-security-and-receive-no/

Illegals don't get to collect SS or Medicare. So all that money is free for the American olds feeding at the government trough. Any Medicare recipients up in here? Illegals are paying for your doctor visits. You should be pissed at Trump for abusing them in concentration camps. 

 

Well, if they don’t want to pay into a system they cannot benefit from....DON’T COME HERE ILLEGALLY!

Again, the ‘liberal victim mentality’ scenario.

[BradleyPNW + 282]

20 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Well, if they don’t want to pay into a system they cannot benefit from....DON’T COME HERE ILLEGALLY!

Again, the ‘liberal victim mentality’ scenario.

1) The illegals aren't complaining, they're paying. 
2) Old white dudes are the guys who complain. 
3) Same old white dudes have no clue the illegals are paying for their Social Security and Medicare. 

Speaking of victim mentality: President Poor Me didn't get his wall for Christmas. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

I guess the ‘old racist white dudes’ shouldn’t expect anything after paying into the system their entire working lives.....or the ‘old racist black dudes’, or the ‘old racist legal immigrants’ for that matter.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

Since Brad wants to bring up illegal immigrants, let's look at a few ways they "contribute":

Crimes by Illegal Immigrants Widespread Across U.S.

(excerpt)

Non-citizens constitute only about 7 percent of the U.S. population. Yet the latest data from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that non-citizens accounted for nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of all federal arrests in 2018. Just two decades earlier, only 37 percent of all federal arrests were non-citizens.

These arrests aren’t just for immigration crimes. Non-citizens accounted for 24 percent of all federal drug arrests, 25 percent of all federal property arrests, and 28 percent of all federal fraud arrests.

In 2018, a quarter of all federal drug arrests took place in the five judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border. This reflects the ongoing activities of Mexican drug cartels. Last year, Mexican citizens accounted for 40 percent of all federal arrests.

In fact, more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.

Migrants from Central American countries are also accounting for a larger share of federal arrests, going from a negligible 1 percent of such arrests in 1998 to 20 percent today.

Critics will try to downplay the importance of the Justice Department’s report by pointing out that the majority of crimes in the United States are handled by prosecutors in state and local courts. But even there the data is shocking.

A recent report from the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed that 297,000 non-citizens had been “booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and July 31, 2019.” So these are non-citizens who allegedly committed local crimes, not immigration violations.

The report noted that a little more than two-thirds (202,000) of those booked in Texas jails were later confirmed as illegal immigrants by the federal government.

According to the Texas report, over the course of their criminal careers those illegal immigrants were charged with committing 494,000 criminal offenses.

Some of these cases are still being prosecuted, but the report states that there have already been over 225,000 convictions. Those convictions represent: 500 homicides; 23,954 assaults; 8,070 burglaries; 297 kidnappings; 14,178 thefts; 2,026 robberies; 3,122 sexual assaults; 3,840 sexual offenses; 3,158 weapon charges and tens of thousands of drug and obstruction charges

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

15 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Well, if they don’t want to pay into a system they cannot benefit from....DON’T COME HERE ILLEGALLY!

Again, the ‘liberal victim mentality’ scenario.

Are they even paying into the system though? How can they if they’re not registered?

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 hour ago, Dan Warnick said:

Since Brad wants to bring up illegal immigrants, let's look at a few ways they "contribute":

Can’t wait to see how he handles this one.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

4 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Are they even paying into the system though? How can they if they’re not registered?

Standard practice is to use the social security card of someone already in the system.  Or, the entire social-security card is simply forged. What you end up with is a vast river of cash flowing into the Federal treasury for deductions at source from paychecks issued to people operating under someone else's identity.  In an effort to combat this, the Feds now have this hiring protocol where the employer has to look at more ID than just the SS card.  Typically it requires some other Federal ID, such as an I-551 immigration visa, or a passport, or a concealed carry license, or an FAA-issued pilot certificate, or a ship's masters certificate, or a trainman engineer certificate - some other document that in turn was previously vetted by US officials.  Of course, there is a thriving trade in the manufacture of those documents, also!

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

4 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Standard practice is to use the social security card of someone already in the system.  Or, the entire social-security card is simply forged. What you end up with is a vast river of cash flowing into the Federal treasury for deductions at source from paychecks issued to people operating under someone else's identity.  In an effort to combat this, the Feds now have this hiring protocol where the employer has to look at more ID than just the SS card.  Typically it requires some other Federal ID, such as an I-551 immigration visa, or a passport, or a concealed carry license, or an FAA-issued pilot certificate, or a ship's masters certificate, or a trainman engineer certificate - some other document that in turn was previously vetted by US officials.  Of course, there is a thriving trade in the manufacture of those documents, also!

So they just take. If I’m understanding, they deduct someone else’s expense off their income yes?

Edited July 19, 2020 by KeyboardWarrior

[BradleyPNW + 282]

7 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I guess the ‘old racist white dudes’ shouldn’t expect anything after paying into the system their entire working lives.....or the ‘old racist black dudes’, or the ‘old racist legal immigrants’ for that matter.

Yeah. So, this will be the third time I explained to you illegals pay $ billions into Social Security and Medicare. In other words, the old racist white dudes are punching themselves in the dicks by supporting Donald Trump's wall/concentration camps. I'm starting to sense you don't know how Social Security and Medicare works. Like, do you not understand it doesn't matter that someone paid into SS/M their whole lives because that money is already gone? SS/M is a pay as you go system, it isn't a savings account. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

19 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

So they just take. If I’m understanding, they deduct someone else’s expense off their income yes?

Nor really.   Start with the documented migrant; he has documents, is logged in into the social security system, and his paycheck has deductions from that for his working contributions.   Along comes Person #2, using the same numbers, but in reality he is somebody else.  That fellow also gets paychecks in the name of person #1, and also has deductions taken off that paycheck for social security and medicare, but those work credits all flow to the first fellow.  The second fellow is "ghosting" along in piggy-back on the first worker.  So the second worker gets his paycheck tabbed for the deductions, but because he has no real social-security number, will never see a penny of it down the road when he retires.  He pays in, gets zero back.

The ghost worker treats the deductions as part of the "cost of doing business," the cost associated with earning a paycheck in the USA, albeit under all these false pretenses.  He is good with it as the paycheck is larger than the equivalent one in Mexico or Guatemala.  The big winner is the social security system, which gets this windfall of over $3 billion on free cash receipts for which there will never be a claimant. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

9 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Nor really.   Start with the documented migrant; he has documents, is logged in into the social security system, and his paycheck has deductions from that for his working contributions.   Along comes Person #2, using the same numbers, but in reality he is somebody else.  That fellow also gets paychecks in the name of person #1, and also has deductions taken off that paycheck for social security and medicare, but those work credits all flow to the first fellow.  The second fellow is "ghosting" along in piggy-back on the first worker.  So the second worker gets his paycheck tabbed for the deductions, but because he has no real social-security number, will never see a penny of it down the road when he retires.  He pays in, gets zero back.

The ghost worker treats the deductions as part of the "cost of doing business," the cost associated with earning a paycheck in the USA, albeit under all these false pretenses.  He is good with it as the paycheck is larger than the equivalent one in Mexico or Guatemala.  The big winner is the social security system, which gets this windfall of over $3 billion on free cash receipts for which there will never be a claimant. 

Now I understand. That’s interesting. Can’t say it isn’t fair though. The system isn’t for them. 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

1 hour ago, Dan Warnick said:

Since Brad wants to bring up illegal immigrants, let's look at a few ways they "contribute":

Crimes by Illegal Immigrants Widespread Across U.S.

(excerpt)

"Non-citizens accounted for 24 percent of all federal drug arrests" => 76% must be citizens.
"25 percent of all federal property arrests" => 75% must be citizens.
"28 percent of all federal fraud arrests" => 72% must be citizens. 

Your Heritage article doesn't look like it conflicts with the CATO research that concludes illegals are more law abiding that US native-born citizens. https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-immigrants-crime-assessing-evidence

Quote

"illegal immigrant incarceration rates are about half those of native-born Americans in 2017.  In the same year, legal immigrant incarceration rates are then again half those of illegal immigrants."

[In Texas], "illegal immigrant conviction rates are about half those of native-born Americans – without any controls for age, education, ethnicity, or any other characteristic.  The illegal immigrant conviction rates for homicide, larceny, and sex crimes are also below those of native-born Americans.  The criminal conviction rates for legal immigrants are the lowest of all."

"The Texas research is consistent with the finding that crime along the Mexican border is much lower than in the rest of the country, homicide rates in Mexican states bordering the United States are not correlated with homicide rates here, El Paso’s border fence did not lower crime, Texas criminal conviction rates remain low (but not as low) when recidivism is factored in, and that police clearance rates are not lower in states with many illegal immigrants – which means that they don’t escape conviction by leaving the country after committing crimes."  

CATO does mention something your Heritage guy overlooked:
 

Quote

"Federal incarcerations and convictions reveal little here because they represent less than 8 percent of all incarcerations and, worse still, are not representative of nation-wide crime trends.  In 2016, for instance, there were only 85 federal convictions for murder out of a nationwide total of 17,785 murder convictions that year, comprising less than 0.5 percent of all murders.  Government immigration enforcement programs like E-Verify may even raise crime rates."

Whoops, that looks like a major error on the part of Hans A. von Spakovsky. 

Wait, what? I can't believe this, it turns out illegals REDUCE drug related crime rates. How did Hans overlook the research that was available to him at the time he wrote his article? Sloppy Hans might not be a very good source of information. 

Quote

"Cato scholars aren’t the only folks investigating illegal immigration and crime.  Sociologists Michael Light and Ty Miller found that a higher illegal immigrant population does not increase violent crime rates.  Those two researchers then teamed up with Purdue sociologist Bryan C. Kelly to look at how higher illegal immigrant populations affected drug arrests, drug overdose deaths, and DUI arrests.  They found large and significantly associated reductions in drug arrests, drug overdose deaths, and DUI arrests with no significant relationship between increased illegal immigration and DUI deaths."

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Now I understand. That’s interesting. Can’t say it isn’t fair though. The system isn’t for them. 

Not really.  See, US agriculture and the meatpacking, dairy, and orchard industries are totally dependent on ag labor from Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua.  And a big chunk of that ag labor is undocumented.  Now everyone has evolved to accommodate that arrangement - first the farmers, who literally cannot run their operations without that undoc labor, and the ICE people, who historically have done nothing.  So those ag workers would flow back and forth across the Border and nobody much cared or worried about it, which in turn sowed the seeds of the present discontent.  When the Feds started clamping down, then the unanticipated response was that the ag workers brought over their entire families and did not risk going back and forth as they rather casually did in the old days.  So then what happens is that you have this demand on the school systems for all those kids, and you have kids being born in Mexico and brought here at age 4 and then becoming adults in the USA all without any papers, the "Dreamers," and even going into the military and then being deported!  So the system is now out of whack. 

As a philosophical point, it is unfair and unworthy of the USA to go charge someone for a service that is never going to be granted.  That is theft, and it is not who we are as a nation. 

The better system is to issue six-month permits for ag workers, and year permits for dairy workers, and effectively document the undocumented.  The US ag system cannot operate without them, everybody knows it, so the whole ICE enforcement rigamarole is just a charade.  Why should the US have its policies founded on charades?  That is unworthy of the nation. 

[crazy trip + 90]

Hey ya’lll, I wouldn’t get to excited about the  Republicans ever shrinking party.I highly doubt that they are racing to the New Democratic Party and the extreme change that they represent. I believe that like myself and Trump they identify more as INDEPENDENT thinkers (the middle who make or break a candidate) who will not be bound by the chains of party group think.  My prediction Trump wins in a LANDSIDE, for all of the obvious reasons. I mean honestly who in their right mind, in the secrecy of the voting booth, is  really going to vote for less safe cities and suburbs for themselves and their children??