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Michigan Republican fake elector for Donald Trump outlined Jan. 6 plan to present Mike Pence with "dueling electors" in December 2020 US radio interview
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- Title
- Audio: 2020 Michigian fake elector brags about GOP plot on tape
- Published
- Sep 7 2023
- Word count
- 917 words
I’ve heard some kind of rumblings that the MI GOP party has been having some kind of major split/power/ethical struggle since 2020, but I know nothing about it. Maybe somebody that does can shed some more light on the bigger picture - my assumption is there’s a camp of Trumpers willing to lie and cheat and commit crimes for him, and then there’s the contingent of reasonable and sane republicans with morals who are trying to salvage some sense of propriety.
Since I've been politically aware (Bush admin) the Republican Party has always been an abhorrent mix of the Bush/Cheney gang (war criminals) and "Christian Right" types who were fighting homosexuals, funding conversion therapy, trying to illegally shove religion into secular spaces and generally seeking a theocracy. Since 2016 they have been an all out neonazi party that eats its own members, disowning people like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, who were already abhorrent before the Overton window shifted right. The guys they literally tried to run for the presidency a few years ago, who were morally repugnant then and still are now, are now not extreme enough for what the party and its voters demand.
The party, as a whole, is actively pushing this direction. CPAC, for instance:
CPAC shapes their stage like a Nazi rune
CPAC: We Are All Domestic Terrorists
Be mindful that local/state politics are quite different from national politics and that many Republicans in the Midwest are mainly only interested in mundane technical issues like attracting business and keeping a balanced budget.
Sigh. I know that’s the song and dance my family has been singing since my dad had me listening to Rush Limbaugh in middle school… but my tolerance for it is done. There’s too much evidence that the GOP is MORE spendy and less interested in US business. It’s crossed into refusal to accept facts and only believe what Fox News is saying. That excuse doesn’t hold water anymore in my opinion.
Curious, where in the US is your family from? The GOP has definitely been going off the rails for some time now, but if you're looking at the state level, GOP-run states generally have better finances than Democrat-run states
Can you point to a source on state run finances? Last I checked, majority republican states relied heavily on federal money to function. And even at that, tended to provide fewer and inferior social services.
This speaks for itself: https://www.statista.com/statistics/312681/per-capita-us-state-and-local-government-debt-outstanding-by-state/
The question on balance of payments is a bit of a different question, since any state would want to get more than it gives and it wouldn't be irresponsible with respect to the state itself's finances. On amount and quality of govt services, IMO purple states tend to do it best. In Illinois for example, govt services are decent but don't at all reflect the high tax burden.
I was not able to load your source, but I'll take on faith it says what you say it does, namely, states with republican led governments tend to have lower government debt per capita.
This tool, pew shows how long a state could operate on "running balances." No state has an indefinite number, and as far as I could tell, republican v. democrat led seems to be randomly distributed.
While it's not unreasonable to expect individual states to maximize income from the Federal government, it is unreasonable to conclude that fiscal policy, as a neutral enterprise, is superior there. Rather, I think it points to the opposite conclusion, that those governments are inept and cannot function without significant bailout. Good thing for their citizens Democrats can see past political games when it comes to building out the social safety net.
I don't know how to look intelligently at services crossed with fiscal policy, but I do know as a general rule, health outcomes are better in states that have more robust medicaid coverage, and those states tend to be lead by democrats.
I'm not sure what ultimate conclusion to draw from this. I do feel rather strongly, however, that U.S. Federal government "debt" does not have the same significance that it does for other entities, including states, local governments, corporations, or families. This would be due to the U.S. government's unique relationship not with just the U.S. Dollar, but also finance and economic output generally. And to the extent that the federal government provides funding to states, their debt (and all economic metrics) are also "funny." I also think that, on the whole, at least for the last 30 years, Republicans have primarily been focussed on war profiteering, theocratic advancement, and most lately, just plain rage. A few have promoted deregulation with myopic but genuine belief that this will increase economic growth for everyone. As a result, our climate is deteriorating (at least as far as human well-being is concerned), racism and poverty are increasing, and unity is vanishing, and almost all of this can be laid at the feet of republican leadership, politicians, and pundits.
Here's a link to the source.
I mean, ultimately states plan their budgets in part by considering what they can expect from the federal government. It seems that on the whole, red states do a better job of keeping their house in order fiscally. I think your point about America's strange relationship with debt can maybe provide some sympathy with what Republicans are working with politically. The fact that the US is uniquely able to finesse the global financial system (though it's truly unclear for how much longer) and borrow much more than it should be able to while experiencing relatively little inflation undermines a significant "value-add" that conservatives should be able to have in politics. Conservatism as a movement then can only really score points by stoking culture war issues. We also have a weird situation where the Democratic party essentially has its own in-house conservative wing that serves the canonical purpose of conservatism in a well-functioning society, while Republicans are often redundant and, at best, exist as merely contrarians to a mostly reasonable, thought-out vision by Democrats.
I still disagree that red states’ budgets are the result of skillful planning. I say without the federal aid, they would be unable make their budgets work.
I really appreciate the rest of your comment, though. That’s a thoughtful grand scale perspective.
That's just absolutely not the case:
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/11/10/election-2020-democrats-republicans-economy.html?bshm=rime/2
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_under_Democratic_and_Republican_presidents
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/america-has-two-economies-and-theyre-diverging-fast/
https://gppreview.com/2020/02/21/growing-divide-red-states-vs-blue-states/
The suburbs outside Indianapolis. I’m elsewhere now. I’ll have to take your word on state-level finances. I was referring to spending at the federal level.
Yeah, I don't care - they're still giving power and legitimacy to the national Republicans, and we know the direction the national Republicans are headed in.
Or, as my grandad used to say: "There's a word to describe all the different Germans who went along with the Nazis because they were interested in improving the economy or providing jobs or focusing on internal issues or dampening crime or were working too hard to care, or any of a thousand other reasons.
"You know what the word is? Nazi. History doesn't care what their reasons were, and neither do I."
Project REDMAP started in 2010 and was the republican plan to push more money into state Republican races so that they could have control of redrawing federal voting districts.
And hypothetically I could be fine* with that if they didn't support the voices in their party that are on board with those "national" trends. Illinois has election denying, book banning, anti-drag school board and county board members too. If you aren't denouncing those extremists, if you're still backing people like Trump and Desantis.... you've decided the rhetoric is acceptable.
*if we're assuming that they also don't care about abortion, marriage equality and the like. I'm really not fine with people opposing that either.
I had to look up the Overton window. That is a very useful framework for talking about the shift in the Republican party. I wonder if there is anyone talking about shifts in the Democratic party?
The Overton Window isn't just about the Republican Party, it's a general mechanism to use to talk about the acceptable range of topics to discuss within a group. There's a window for the Republican party, the Democratic party, the US as a whole, etc, etc, etc.
Yes, I don’t dispute that- BUT the very concept of the Overton window was also invented by a right-wing think tank (also in Michigan) to explain how the right has shifted…
So, whenever I hear the Overton window mentioned I do become a bit suspicious and look for how or if in the example it’s being used to explain away bad stuff the right is doing.
Please note- I’m NOT trying to insinuate that’s what’s going on here- because it’s not… only that the right is amazingly good at co-opting language to muddy waters and make dog whistles… and I’m not entirely sure that this new term isn’t entering the vernacular as part of normalizing some things that shouldn’t be normalized.
Apologies if I’ve hijacked the thread- I just wanted to offer that bit of trivia as food for thought.
Sure, I get that. I have seen many characters spilled about the Republican party's shift toward extremism/nationalism/facism (or pick whatever label you like). But in the interest of understanding the whole picture, I was just wondering if anyone had information or pointers to discussion of shifts in the Democratic party's window, especially over the last 10ish years?
I thought about posting this as a topic, but decided against it as a little too narrowly tailored to my own Michigoose insight into the affair. But it's likely to answer to your questions about the current state of the Michigan GOP, and where the moderates are today:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/08/michigan-gop-republicans-2024-trump-state-party-blue-wall/
The original Michigan Trumper contingent is thoroughly embroiled in felony election fraud charges.
Wow. That article was fascinating, especially the ending paragraphs where the party gave speaking roles to neo-nazis.
Man. What an article. That was an amazing deep-dive into a … I don’t even know what you’d call that. Those extremists making such a blatant massive power grab… I don’t want to call it a disaster because then people won’t pay attention to just how dangerous it is. Look at Florida.
Thanks for the link. It’s a long article, but riveting reading that just gets more engaging the more you read it.
TBH, I'm too frightened and repulsed to get up a proper sense of Schadenfreude about the way the state GOP organization is self-destructing. There've always been multiple hard cores of very scary people here - the competent Christian neo-feudalists, like the DeVos/Prince/Meijer clans; the bone-ugly militia racists; and the "drown government in a bathtub" anti-tax radicals. Now you can add in all the COVID-era madness that's been churned together via Russian disinformation and dark money [warning: very long read].
Michigan is at the confluence of struggling agrarianism and de-industrialization, it's had a long history of bad race relations, and the demographic/economic trends aren't favorable to a population of aging, less-educated, marginally employable White people.
In general, don't worry about posting too niche topics. Just add some useful tags, and users can find it or filter it as they see fit.
But also, there's been a lot of US politics on the front page lately, and I wish some of those topics had instead been posted in the weekly megathreads.
It is my belief that January 6/ electoral scheme was a bridge too far for a subset of republicans and that Trump demonstrating his utter disloyalty and lack of concern for US military security through the stolen documents episode was too much for others. Those sets of people might overlap. But no one is going to publicly advertise their positions on these topics unless they were already firmly in the Democratic camp.
It’s so sad that blatant racism and sexism wasn’t that bridge. Alas, most likely twas always thus.
But more to your point, while I don’t doubt it is true, I fear the number is very small.
Yes, very sad. Disgusting. We need to do better.
I have some hope for the upcoming election if Trump is the candidate. I watched the six months prior to 2016 with ever growing dread. Partly because I saw the Clinton camp making what I perceived as serious mistakes in campaigning. Partly because I knew and remembered the weight of personally targeted propaganda that had been laid on her by media figures like Limbaugh who were popular in the middle of the country. Also because Trump channeled people's fear and resentments but also made tons of open ended promises, any one of which could be a hook for a particular constituency.
Trump is no longer a semi-blank slate, specifically with regard to his deficits in intellectual capacity. The fact that he can't focus enough to read a 20 page memo is now widely known. Sharpiegate was widely known. Trump got his four years to try to drain the swamp and he was more corrupt, not less than predecessors.
The cult is strong, but not everyone who leans right in this country drank the koolaid. But just like people didn't advertise in 2016 that they would vote for Trump, I don't think those who would stay home or vote against him are going to be putting up Biden signs or answering polls honestly.