even the ostensibly reasonable conservatives seem to genuinely believe that it is unfair (practically illegitimate) for democrats to play to win.
Replies
"If Obama had simply conceded the 2012 election to Mitt Romney, the GOP would not have gone flaming, batshit fascist, as a favor" is something I've seen otherwise sane conservatives claim. Whether it's Nixon, Bork, Romney or whoever, it's always this "look what you made me do" shit.
aug 13, 2025, 5:44 pm • 67 4 • view
The best thing about Bork was that he loved Sarah Caudwell novels
aug 13, 2025, 5:41 pm • 0 0 • view
@radiofreetom.bsky.social is on the right side of history like 65% of the time and frankly right now that's not good enough. The thing that drives me insane are the times he's an idiot about things no one is thinking about but insists the world watch while he steps on a rake.
aug 13, 2025, 5:45 pm • 1 0 • view
"Hey everyone, Trump is a fascist and proves it on a daily basis. I'd like to stop the presses so we can take some time to be mad at the Democrats."
aug 13, 2025, 5:45 pm • 3 0 • view
Yep. Too many conversations when Biden's reelection was slipping revolved around how Kamala wasn't "charismatic" enough to overcome a rapist felon wannabe dictator.
aug 14, 2025, 8:12 pm • 0 0 • view
He’s never once made the obvious connection between Nixon and Trump. Like he can’t conceive of it. Trump is the apotheosis of the last 50 years of Republicanism. The paranoia, lawlessness, the anti-scientific stupidity, the cruelty, the mendacity, the greed…it’s all led us here. Tom just denies it
aug 14, 2025, 11:29 pm • 0 0 • view
Reasonable conservative is an oxymoron in my experience
aug 14, 2025, 2:02 am • 2 0 • view
That’s how the white supremacy mindset works. They feel that they’re the real Americans and Democrats represent the other so they have no right to play to win because the country is not theirs.
aug 13, 2025, 5:40 pm • 21 1 • view
May I say that reasonable conservatives has become an oxymoron. Also, self pat in the back for not using all those f-words that came to mind. Well done, fucko. Shit.
aug 13, 2025, 11:29 pm • 0 0 • view
It’s cheating and dishonorable unless they do it!
aug 13, 2025, 5:38 pm • 10 0 • view
What's wild is that they pretend that denouncing and voting again the guy was some sort of wily procedural gamesmanship that denied him a fair hearing and vote
aug 13, 2025, 6:16 pm • 6 0 • view
Ah yes, it is unfair when Democrats play to win. However, when they don't, then it's "You don't understand why the Democrats lose"
aug 13, 2025, 10:28 pm • 0 0 • view
anyway this is just an idle theory i have but i think reagan's 1984 landslide and Bush's 1988 repeat convinced a lot of conservatives of the time that they had won politics and that they were the natural governing party of the united states, and those who remain have not let go of the fantasy
aug 13, 2025, 5:40 pm • 2,048 177 • view
I mean they basically and immediately treated Clinton like he was illegitimate.
aug 13, 2025, 5:56 pm • 24 0 • view
As Chris Rock himself said, "They treated him like a Black president."
aug 13, 2025, 10:13 pm • 2 0 • view
I grew up in that world and they felt so cheated in 1992 by Perot's candidacy, which they saw as robbing them of an otherwise deserved victory (Clinton got >50% of the vote in only D.C. and Arkansas, and won some states with <40% of the vote).
aug 13, 2025, 6:02 pm • 0 0 • view
Not a coincidence that the current gerontocracy leading the Democrats came of age during the Reagan-Bush era and have undiagnosed or untreated political PTSD. They're like beaten dogs.
aug 13, 2025, 5:45 pm • 11 1 • view
Or you think that because you want to think that.
aug 13, 2025, 10:14 pm • 2 0 • view
Convinced much of the media as well -- the NY Times bought in, and saw Clinton as a trashy interloper...
aug 14, 2025, 3:38 pm • 0 0 • view
Sometimes I suspect that more than a few of the older Dem pols were convinced of the same thing.
aug 13, 2025, 5:42 pm • 4 0 • view
Gen X ruining it for everybody yet again
aug 13, 2025, 5:52 pm • 3 0 • view
Kinda explains why they hated Clinton so much. He’s the rightmost Democrat since WW2 at least, and the GOP absolutely loathed him and Hillary. That’s from wounded pride more than any specific policy of the Clinton administration
aug 13, 2025, 6:26 pm • 6 0 • view
Basically, I agree. The concept is that Dems can only sway people by trickery, and Republicans are the rightful and pure stewards of the nation. Based entirely on vibes. And they are morally justified, because it's for the greater good. No deed is wrong if it's in service, etc. It's chilling.
aug 13, 2025, 5:47 pm • 1 0 • view
2004 cemented this delusion
aug 14, 2025, 3:06 am • 0 0 • view
And a LOT of Dems of that same vintage feel that, at the very least, Dems must follow the Reagan model to succeed even today. Essentially, they, too, feel conservatives won politics (94 only confirmed this) and deserve to rule forever and always.
aug 13, 2025, 5:44 pm • 11 0 • view
Ostensibly smart people somehow can’t (refuse, really, because it imputes responsibly) connect the dots between their “respectable” conservative jurists of the 70s/80s and the current domination by Trumpists and FedSoc reactionaries
aug 13, 2025, 5:42 pm • 18 2 • view
Many of whom clerked for those "respectable conservative jurists".
aug 13, 2025, 5:55 pm • 9 0 • view
I've had similar theories over the years. When the Republicans were claiming Obama wasn't a legitimate president and did everything they did to block his agenda, I knew racism was part of the reason, but I told people the other reason was the GOP saw the White House as their birthright since 1980.
aug 13, 2025, 10:45 pm • 3 0 • view
quite so. but it wasn't just a wind at their backs, but a shiny golden goal buoyed by the lewis powell roadmap. after the civil and voting rights bills, Rs knew they'd never win another election w/o propaganda &/or cheating. all that created considerable momentum, as well as savage self-delusion.
aug 15, 2025, 12:50 am • 0 0 • view
I knew this was about Bork without even seeing the rest of the thread.
aug 13, 2025, 6:00 pm • 2 0 • view
Reinforced with the "silent majority" propaganda starting in Nixon's time.
aug 13, 2025, 9:33 pm • 0 0 • view
I’m not American, but I am just old enough to remember the unholy shame and scandal about Watergate. What really stopped me in my tracks, was that when the whole Iran-Contra mess came out, it was pretty much consequence-free for the perpetrators.
aug 14, 2025, 1:36 am • 0 0 • view
Convinced a lot of Democratic politicians and consultants too
aug 13, 2025, 7:49 pm • 1 0 • view
Reagan broke the nation's brain on this subject. Bush/Dukakis was closely fought because neither candidate was very popular, but I guess when Bush won the narrative was solidified that Republicans should have the presidency by default, even though it's gone 50/50 ever since.
aug 14, 2025, 3:05 am • 10 3 • view
Entirely possible, but I think it might be more accurate to say that conservatives have always felt they were the natural governing party at all times. After all, they are the party that most believes in natural hierarchy and most celebrates unequal distribution of power.
aug 14, 2025, 2:05 am • 1 0 • view
Similar dynamic coming from the Cuomos, Schumers, and Gillibrands IMO. Obviously it's not as horrible but it's worse than what we need
aug 14, 2025, 4:07 pm • 0 0 • view
I'd say that Clinton's triangulation and the repudiation of Bush II were the other side of that coin: conservatives were pissed that Democrats were stealing their donors, and really mad that after having it all their own way after 9/11 they were kicked to the curb for sheer incompetence.
aug 13, 2025, 7:37 pm • 1 0 • view
The reason they went full Nazi was a) a way to distinguish themselves from third-way Democrats and b) resentment about how they hd everything their own way, failing hard and getting turfed as a result.
aug 13, 2025, 7:37 pm • 1 0 • view
I agree with the comments below that its not a theory but a fact that Reagan/Bush landslides: 1. convinced conservatives that Rs are the natural governing party. 2. convinced D electeds and so-called thought leaders of the same thing. It's 40+ years and US political system has not recovered
aug 13, 2025, 7:00 pm • 1 0 • view
It also explains why they hated Clinton so much even though he arguably did more for the right than the left.
aug 13, 2025, 5:43 pm • 21 0 • view
Balanced the budget, cut welfare, deregulated banking. BUT was pro-choice and put RBG on SCOTUS. The economy was humming and he felt like a liberal to them even as he governed from the center. They hated him for all of that.
aug 13, 2025, 8:31 pm • 7 0 • view
It's important to remember the tax code under Clinton. Taxes used to be simpler for most people, and there were punitive taxes on businesses and business owners who did not put money back into employee pockets and R&D. GWB blew that up. The GWB tax cuts, really a tax realignment, got us here.
aug 15, 2025, 4:16 pm • 4 0 • view
Slashing taxes and starting billion dollar wars is a great way to wreck the balanced budget you inherited.
aug 15, 2025, 4:50 pm • 1 0 • view
It was more than that. He completely realigned the code. He line item removed tax penalties for companies not investing in R&D, reordered inheritance taxes to favor the ultrawealthy, made exemptions and filing tougher and more opaque for average people.
aug 15, 2025, 5:46 pm • 0 0 • view
Wow didn't know those details. Awful. I was struck by how quickly they gutted public filing recently, which would benefit lower income workers so much. It's ludicrous how they are able to get away with their populist poses while legislating for the super wealthy.
aug 15, 2025, 10:00 pm • 1 0 • view
Unfortunately a very specific arm of Democrats came to see the same thing about Clinton specifically (Gore should coulda been the heir). All of this nostalgia has left the door wide open and all of these people, right or left, handwringing with little to show in results
aug 13, 2025, 5:44 pm • 1 0 • view
And it really became true when they stole the 2000 election.
aug 13, 2025, 5:44 pm • 4 0 • view
They also believe they are the Christian Party and the true patriots. Delusional.
aug 13, 2025, 6:07 pm • 0 0 • view
see also bill clinton only winning pluralities in 3-way contests as an unfair interruption
aug 13, 2025, 6:18 pm • 4 0 • view
I feel that the 1994 election had much the same effect, as has the 2024 election Of course, their shining Thousand Year Reich didn't last very long after 1995
aug 13, 2025, 5:51 pm • 0 0 • view
💯
aug 13, 2025, 6:15 pm • 0 0 • view
Hmmm… it’s the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War that tips it? Bush’s stratospheric numbers convinced many not only that they must win but that they deserved to win.
aug 13, 2025, 7:23 pm • 1 0 • view
Back in 2000 Karl “Turdblossom” Rove was blathering to anyone and everyone about creating a “permanent Republican majority.” Many of them really do believe that is their rightful (and righteous) destiny.
aug 13, 2025, 5:54 pm • 10 1 • view
Really felt like Rove was right after the 2004 election. Then the economy imploded and made President Barack Obama possible. Every permanent majority can be upended by the economy. See also 1928 and 1932.
aug 13, 2025, 8:39 pm • 0 0 • view
Bush was in the dumpster well before the crash. The 2006 midterm wave election was a bloodbath for Republicans.
aug 13, 2025, 11:30 pm • 1 0 • view
Also fears about Bush’s privatization plan on social security.
aug 14, 2025, 2:00 am • 0 0 • view
Oh for sure and Iraq backlash kicked in then. But economy was already sputtering and was a big factor too.
aug 14, 2025, 1:59 am • 0 0 • view
I dunno man, 2007 was the hottest economy I've ever seen in my life before the big crash came. All sugar high based on the banks writing bad paper for sure but there was lots of money flowing and tons of work.
aug 14, 2025, 2:02 am • 1 0 • view
That sounds right. I was still in college. My red southern district ousted a long term Republican for a Dem and the ads were constantly hitting the Republican over gas prices and the like.
aug 14, 2025, 2:11 am • 0 0 • view
Ironically unless there's some exogenous supply shock going on* high gas prices mean the economy is booming. *which maybe a little bit, Iraq war and all, but I don't recall it as being a supply problem in 2006.
aug 14, 2025, 2:15 am • 0 0 • view
This was typical of a lot of Dem messaging that year. Hit big energy, big insurance, trade etc. It was pretty effective, just from voters' feeling that things weren't going well and needed to change. Many GOP candidates, of course, have run that same horse since. www.youtube.com/watch?v=G19e...
aug 14, 2025, 2:20 am • 0 0 • view
And my idle theory on the flip side is that a lot of the current Democratic leadership came up during this period when Dems were getting absolutely crushed at the national level, and so they operate as though it’s always 1972/1984/1988.
aug 13, 2025, 5:42 pm • 31 3 • view
2016 and 2024 (especially) brought them right back to that headspace too
aug 13, 2025, 5:54 pm • 12 3 • view
Convinced a lot of Democratic leaders and especially a lot of political journalists and pundits too
aug 13, 2025, 5:43 pm • 724 28 • view
Yeah sadly these were the formative years for the fucking 80 year olds running the party
aug 13, 2025, 5:45 pm • 13 0 • view
This. So many older Democrats concede this as though it's a fact rather than a fight
aug 13, 2025, 8:14 pm • 0 0 • view
By a lot you mean 99.99999% of political journalists, who to this day do not think of Democrats as fully human let alone equal citizens.
aug 13, 2025, 7:39 pm • 4 0 • view
Geriatric Democratic leadership's seeming death pact with Clintonian triangulation and not actually standing for anything makes more sense when you realize they're still terrified of the ghost of Ronald Reagan
aug 13, 2025, 5:44 pm • 56 6 • view
And still believe that public opinion is fossilized in the early 1980s.
aug 13, 2025, 5:57 pm • 7 0 • view
I think they're also terrified of Trump's armed mob. J6 hit different than anyone is saying.
aug 13, 2025, 7:45 pm • 6 2 • view
How many election cycles will we cower in fear?
aug 13, 2025, 8:08 pm • 1 0 • view
As I said on the show today, it's past time for the gerontocracy to end. I sure don't want to be a part of it.
aug 13, 2025, 8:10 pm • 6 1 • view
Sighing as I currently sit in Mitch McConnell's Kentucky, which votes to stay ignorant and struggling. Mitch made out like a bandit, increasing his wealth over $60m from 2018 to 2022. All this after his wife's (Elaine Chao's) father died, leaving her the proceeds from his shipping business.
aug 13, 2025, 8:48 pm • 0 0 • view
*The Bob Cesca Show.
aug 13, 2025, 8:38 pm • 1 0 • view
Bill Clinton certainly thought so.
aug 13, 2025, 6:30 pm • 0 0 • view
The thing is, he won elections.
aug 13, 2025, 7:59 pm • 1 0 • view
And then reinforced for another generation after 9/11 when everyone who opposed Bush was with the terrorists
aug 13, 2025, 6:02 pm • 1 0 • view
The 2006 midterms were a seminal movement in Democratic politics, in a good way. You can trace back nearly every positive achievement the party has accomplished in the last 20 years to the politics that came out of that rebellion against capitulation to the Bush regime.
aug 13, 2025, 11:27 pm • 0 0 • view
And for me, is why Bill Clinton and his team are still held as the leading voices in Democratic politics because they upset this order in 92.
aug 13, 2025, 6:13 pm • 1 0 • view
Yes. I was 24 that year and hadn't seen a D president since I was 12. It's hard to explain how liberating it felt when Clinton won.
aug 13, 2025, 6:20 pm • 5 0 • view
I get it. But also, I feel like this is why the James Carvilles of the world still have a lot of pull. Because they pulled off a truly surprising and big win. But important to remember that was 33 years ago! It's the 1992 equivalent of a strategy from the late 1950s.
aug 13, 2025, 6:32 pm • 6 0 • view
Oh, so wasn’t supporting the strategy by any means
aug 13, 2025, 7:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Totally. I remember a pro-choice activist in 1990 saying she felt like the country had just decided that the presidency was Republican and the senate was democrat. This is part of why they hated Clinton so much and would do anything to take him down.
aug 13, 2025, 5:50 pm • 3 0 • view
I was in high school and college during the Reagan/Bush years, and honestly I still have a hard time not letting those three straight landslides color the way I think about politics.
aug 13, 2025, 6:19 pm • 3 0 • view
This convincing was not hard once Democrat leaders realized how vastly profitable it was to play the valiant hero who always falls *just* short of stopping those evil Republicans - but a little more money will get it done next time! We promise
aug 13, 2025, 10:38 pm • 2 0 • view
the gerontocracy's permanent defensive crouch has a lot to do with when they came of age politically and remains one of the biggest reasons we should move past them
aug 13, 2025, 5:51 pm • 588 57 • view
My god I just looked at Tom Nichols account and when he's not whingeing about Bork he's insisting that the original Road House and Face Off are the two worst movies ever made. What is WRONG with that man??
aug 13, 2025, 5:57 pm • 14 0 • view
easy: he’s a Republican. ergo, he’s a dipshit
aug 14, 2025, 1:10 pm • 0 0 • view
Face Off is a legitimately terrible movie, but there are certainly worse.
aug 14, 2025, 4:01 am • 0 0 • view
I always refer to his hatred of Indian food as a huge red flag.
aug 13, 2025, 6:14 pm • 18 1 • view
he sucks all the way and has always only ever sucked all the way but he’s a Never Trumper so nobody was willing to gatekeep his stupid ass
aug 13, 2025, 6:19 pm • 6 0 • view
It's like hea never seen Plan Nine from Outer Space!
aug 13, 2025, 6:06 pm • 3 0 • view
like a pack of grown dogs cowering at a rolled up newspaper
aug 13, 2025, 5:57 pm • 105 3 • view
To quote a famous Jerseyite, "end up like a dog that's been beat too much, till you spend half your life just covering up...Born in the U.S.A."
aug 13, 2025, 6:08 pm • 83 1 • view
During the October 1973 Saturday Night Massacre, Bork became acting U.S. Attorney General after his superiors in the U.S. Justice Department chose to resign rather than fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was investigating the Watergate scandal.
aug 13, 2025, 11:42 pm • 22 1 • view
Following an order from President Nixon, Bork fired Cox as his first assignment as Acting Attorney General.
aug 13, 2025, 11:42 pm • 18 1 • view
Not particularly damning now but then it was a big deal
aug 13, 2025, 11:44 pm • 5 0 • view
Still particularly damning tbh
aug 15, 2025, 4:09 pm • 1 0 • view
As i was raised, yes, it would be considered corruption of the law. But bribes and extortion seem to be a pervasive feature of the art of the deal...
aug 15, 2025, 4:47 pm • 0 0 • view
How do we turn jump scares into accepted political activities?
aug 13, 2025, 6:44 pm • 3 0 • view
I feel like another reason for the defensive crouch was the 2010 midterms Think about it- the minute an earnest liberal gets in charge and tries to expand healthcare, he gets absolutely demolished in the midterms. Just cooked. Wouldn’t that be prior confirming for the older politicians ?
aug 13, 2025, 11:08 pm • 5 0 • view
We got our ass beat in 1984 and 1988. Then we win in 92 and lose the house and senate in a landslide. Then we win a huge majority in the senate and house in 2008! Wooho!! Oops house is gone. Really reaffirms priors
aug 13, 2025, 11:09 pm • 2 1 • view
exactly, the way I say it is 'see Reagan won 2 elections so we have to campaign and govern as though he has won forever, no other choice'
aug 13, 2025, 6:10 pm • 9 0 • view
not a lot of utility in the leftmost party’s leadership believing, in their bones, that America’s voters are fundamentally conservative
aug 14, 2025, 1:09 pm • 1 0 • view
I think the 2010 election looms VERY large in a lot of people's memory (including mine) and I think it makes it difficult to correctly judge some things. I just remember that the last time we tried to do something we got bit hard for it.
aug 13, 2025, 8:20 pm • 3 0 • view
Or Biden making sure that we didn't pay for the covid crash with extended recession and years of mass unemployment, and being willing to tolerate a bit of inflation, rather than fucking over 5-10% of the population to keep prices down. Won't make that mistake again!
aug 13, 2025, 11:16 pm • 1 0 • view
Yeah, i think one of the biggest political lessons of 2024 is that inflation is an.absolutely unforgiveable sin in the public's mind, regardless of the context of the inflation
aug 14, 2025, 12:26 am • 1 0 • view
And it's not good! It's been argued fairly convincingly IMO that an inflation-averse monetary policy that's willing to tolerate unemployment much more than inflation is one of the prime drivers of wage stagnation and expanding inequality.
aug 14, 2025, 12:48 am • 2 0 • view
Add it to the pile of self destructive/self defeating beliefs and behaviors i guess, sigh
aug 14, 2025, 1:01 am • 2 0 • view
And we’re about to see a whole lot of inflation and unemployment by the looks of it, though I hope I’m wrong.
aug 14, 2025, 3:22 am • 0 0 • view
Yep – I've been saying this for years. And it's infuriating, because the R wins of the '80s had way more to do with the exogenous factors of the '70s than it did anything inherent to our body politic. Reason A #1 why we need everyone who entered Dem politics before 2016 to go the F away.
aug 13, 2025, 5:57 pm • 18 2 • view
I think it was actually @jamellebouie.net who made this point originally, but it's not the age of the Democrat, but when they got into politics that creates the attitude (compare Warren, for example).
aug 13, 2025, 5:59 pm • 26 2 • view
Good point
aug 13, 2025, 8:10 pm • 1 0 • view
100%
aug 13, 2025, 11:24 pm • 0 0 • view
Pretty sure it was the defining belief of the DLC
aug 13, 2025, 7:22 pm • 13 0 • view
Correct!
aug 13, 2025, 7:56 pm • 6 0 • view
Yeah this was why they all thought it was brilliant strategy to take up the Republican outsourcing agreement (NAFTA) and pass it over and against a majority of Dems in both House & Senate with Republican help and couldn't understand why D's immediately afterwards lost Congress from 1994 to 2006.
aug 13, 2025, 8:01 pm • 3 1 • view
And the 90s reinforced it because Clinton was able to win 2 elections by ruling and running as a Republican, completely ignoring that he never won a majority. His reign also lost the party lots of seats throughout the country, which actually reinforced this notion because they lost to actual GOPers
aug 13, 2025, 6:52 pm • 4 0 • view
Have you looked at the popular vote margins in the elections preceding Clinton's first win? They are informative and not in the way you seem to imagine
aug 13, 2025, 7:58 pm • 2 0 • view
However much true it is, the idea that what’s ultimately a racism dial has to be turned just enough by Democrats in order to win feels fundamentally bad.
aug 14, 2025, 1:08 am • 0 0 • view
I'm strongly of the opinion that Bush Jr's two wins (one stolen) did this for the next generation of conservatives. Everything since then has either been a reification or at best an insult.
aug 13, 2025, 9:29 pm • 4 0 • view
Note that Nordlinger didn’t address why Bork was opposed. Of course, that might lead to honest discourse. Not their interest.
aug 13, 2025, 5:40 pm • 58 1 • view
I have never once seen or heard a Bork apologist address the actual issues raised with Bork, and instead they just treat it as reflexively batting aside a conservative stalwart when Scalia was confirmed like maybe a year or two before.
aug 13, 2025, 5:43 pm • 50 1 • view
Conservatives don't like being told "No"
aug 13, 2025, 7:49 pm • 8 0 • view
Also, Bork's defeat was in a BIPARTISAN vote! Six (!!!) Republican senators voted against him! And he didn't even make it out of committee (the vote was 9-5 against), but Bork himself insisted that the full Senate vote. I guess he had a humiliation fetish.
aug 13, 2025, 6:37 pm • 7 1 • view
That and the whole "no one ever really goes to jail for their political crimes" has really bit us on the ass.
aug 13, 2025, 5:43 pm • 51 2 • view
growing up in Illinois really set me up for disappointment with the rest of American politics
aug 13, 2025, 5:52 pm • 8 0 • view
Illinois is far better at sending their corrupt politicians to prison than the federal government!
aug 13, 2025, 6:03 pm • 26 0 • view
"GASP, who are you?" "I am the ghost of Dan Rostenkowski!" "What do you want?" "To remind you, that although stamps are money, you're really not supposed to abuse access to an unlimited supply of them."
aug 13, 2025, 6:05 pm • 13 1 • view
It seemed to have convinced Mr Triangulation Bill Clinton too.
aug 13, 2025, 8:18 pm • 0 0 • view
Pretty sure that viewpoint was baked into the Republican Party vis-a-vi the Democrats since the Civil War. It’s just aged badly what with all that mid 20th century Southern Strategy stuff
aug 13, 2025, 5:44 pm • 1 0 • view
It especially forged the certainty that when properly wielded, the religious right is politically unstoppable
aug 13, 2025, 6:07 pm • 0 0 • view
You say many smart and insightful things, but this may be the best one yet.
aug 13, 2025, 6:00 pm • 0 0 • view
100%
aug 13, 2025, 5:59 pm • 0 0 • view
we must crush the republican fascists
aug 13, 2025, 9:08 pm • 0 0 • view
🎯🎯🎯
aug 13, 2025, 6:39 pm • 0 0 • view
goes hand in hand with the boomer generation ascending to power and never really letting go. as others have said below, it convinced a generation of *dems* of this, too
aug 14, 2025, 12:30 am • 4 1 • view
yes, this was the origin of Clinton derangement syndrome, and it has gotten increasingly deranged since. Even into Obama's term republicans kept talking about the 90s as the "reagan era"
aug 13, 2025, 5:46 pm • 10 0 • view
Also explains why Gen-X, particularly Gen-X men are so often leaning conservative now. They were children at the time, some part of their impressionable brains got the message that this is the natural order, and they haven't unlearned it as adults.
aug 13, 2025, 6:07 pm • 6 0 • view
Conservatives the world over think they're the natural governing party of their country. It's part of their schtick. Labour/leftists parties see themselves as being immeshed in a struggle/fight for power, conservatives see themselves as the natural/normalised/inevitable rulers
aug 14, 2025, 1:09 am • 1 0 • view
This fantasy is rooted in the "daddy complex" of conservatives. They fawn over the old white dude because... he MUST know what he is talking about.
aug 13, 2025, 7:38 pm • 0 0 • view
And this shite makes me glad that I am no longer on twitter.
aug 13, 2025, 7:39 pm • 0 0 • view
I think it's also related to the conservative rhetorical strategy of speaking entirely in symbols until the underlying referents are obliterated. That's why Trump's tweets look like nonsense: they're full of anchorless hyperlinks
aug 13, 2025, 6:25 pm • 4 0 • view
I don't think its a theory. If you read articles written around Clinton's win you'll see tons of comment about how he stole their future.
aug 13, 2025, 5:42 pm • 23 2 • view
I think this idea is also deeply embedded into every Dem politician who cut their teeth during this time frame. Schumer for instance. And the corollary "Dem = loser" mindset.
aug 13, 2025, 6:51 pm • 3 0 • view
Unfortunately for the people, many elite Democrats have enabled Rs in that fantasy by seeming to believe it themselves.
aug 14, 2025, 4:06 pm • 0 0 • view
I remember a lot of "The permanent Republican majority" talk after the '94 midterms as well.
aug 13, 2025, 5:41 pm • 4 0 • view
It's not conservatives with that mindset that are the problem. It's the amount of folks who've worked in the media for the past 40 years who have adopted that mindset that've created this situation. News adopting that frame and turning everything else into "he said she said" at best made this bed
aug 13, 2025, 5:45 pm • 7 1 • view
I've said for years now the problem among Democratic Party elite is it's always the day after the election in '84. *That* is their formative political memory and it colors everything they do and believe. They act like losers because they wake up every day having just lost 49 states.
aug 13, 2025, 11:30 pm • 0 0 • view
The TV news media treats them this way no matter which party is in the majority.
aug 14, 2025, 12:11 am • 0 0 • view
won the Cold War, i'd say, and now they have to be loyal to good daddy so the value of their houses across the river just keep going up
aug 13, 2025, 5:45 pm • 0 0 • view
(not actually crediting reagan and bush with that, tbc)
aug 13, 2025, 5:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Bork was Bove with some polish and hair.
aug 13, 2025, 5:48 pm • 1 0 • view
I mean your take is probably better than mine but I don't think the Republicans really needed any convincing that they were the natural governing party.
aug 13, 2025, 6:43 pm • 1 0 • view
But…they’re spectacularly bad a governing.
aug 15, 2025, 3:23 pm • 0 0 • view
Therein also lies the conundrum that is the mistaken perception that conservatism is the vanguard while progressivism is actually reactionary.
aug 13, 2025, 7:14 pm • 0 0 • view
There is a longstanding argument in political historiography that Republicans started believing that they were the natural governing partyafter they won the Civil War and never let go of that notion.
aug 13, 2025, 5:43 pm • 4 0 • view
Until FDR, the only Democrat with two conservative terms was Wilson, and the Dems only won four elections between 1860 and 1932, so it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to believe that. Especially when some blame Taft for not standing aside in 1912 for Wilson's win.
aug 13, 2025, 6:00 pm • 1 0 • view
Which is why they lost their minds over Clinton and kept pursuing all kinds of nonsense to bring him down. People were tired of the Reagan revolution and Bush seemed out of touch with every day pocketbook issues. But instead Republicans ginned up the conspiracy machine and here we are.
aug 13, 2025, 7:43 pm • 1 0 • view
But they can't govern.
aug 13, 2025, 5:59 pm • 2 0 • view
The founding principle of the modern GOP is that the exercise of government power by Democrats is facially illegitimate.
aug 13, 2025, 6:03 pm • 5 0 • view
“We can’t help ourselves” is the Matt Bors “you made me become a Nazi” cartoon.
aug 13, 2025, 6:05 pm • 5 1 • view
We hear so much about how badly Bork and Romney got treated when Nixon and Reagan literally shanked the sitting government *on foreign policy* in Vietnam and Iran to get electoral advantage.
aug 13, 2025, 11:29 pm • 0 0 • view
Also interesting that this generosity they advocate for never - NEVER - goes in the other direction.
aug 13, 2025, 5:46 pm • 8 0 • view
I remember abcnews.go.com/Politics/vid...
aug 13, 2025, 5:40 pm • 6 2 • view
The Romney stuff is just baffling considering 1) they whine about how badly he was treated but never give specific because they'd have to admit there's nothing there, and 2) Trump was much nastier to Romney than Obama or Dems ever were!
aug 13, 2025, 5:57 pm • 10 0 • view
Although most of the current Democratic leadership ALSO seems to believe that it is unfair (practically illegitimate) for Democrats to play to win.
aug 13, 2025, 8:11 pm • 7 0 • view
The baseline expectation of both Conservatives and the political media is that Democrats must compromise, be collegial, and engage in good faith win-some/lose-some politics… But that Republicans are under no obligation to reciprocate, ever. It’s the fundamental asymmetry in American politics.
aug 13, 2025, 5:52 pm • 18 2 • view
Also, Bork was rejected by a BIPARTISAN majority that included Republican Senators.
aug 13, 2025, 5:39 pm • 31 0 • view
unfortunately a good number of democrats think that as well
aug 13, 2025, 5:40 pm • 0 0 • view
If I knew necromancy the reanimated corpse of LBJ would be in the face of these GOP assholes. …which would be REALLY smelly, tbh. Only increasing the Johnson Treatment ‘s effectiveness
aug 13, 2025, 5:40 pm • 1 0 • view
Nixon literally broke into the the DNC headquarters to plant listening devices and steal documents, but Bork got a bum deal.
aug 13, 2025, 6:35 pm • 38 2 • view
Old enough to recall Saturday Night Massacre And the Carswell and Haynsworth nominations And LBJ’s disastrous nomination of Fortas to be chief Which is where everything went wrong with the Court If a nominee is hostile to freedoms I want my senators to vote no, if that’s playing to win so be it
aug 13, 2025, 5:59 pm • 0 0 • view
Conservatives aren't ever reasonable because they base their beliefs on loyalty rather than fairness and on hierarchy instead of equality and equity. Conservatives are emotionally driven apes.
aug 13, 2025, 6:34 pm • 2 0 • view
And too many Democratic Senators think they're upholding tradition by agreeing with them.
aug 13, 2025, 5:43 pm • 0 0 • view
I think it’s telling that Republicans are *still* whining about the Saturday Night Massacre hatchetman not getting a SCOTUS seat, but you never hear anyone complaining about, say, Nixon and John Mitchell clearly exploiting bribery allegations to force liberal justice Abe Fortas out of a SCOTUS seat
aug 13, 2025, 6:21 pm • 9 1 • view
This has gone way beyond Republican versus Democrat. Conservatives are supporting threats and hostility against America, and protecting one another from repercussions by inventing bullshit about immunity and abandoning separation of powers. Conservatives are evil, and Republicans are terrorists.
aug 13, 2025, 6:16 pm • 3 0 • view
There are no more reasonable conservatives left. Aside from "I got mine, fuck you" policies, nothing they believe in stands up to any form of scrutiny.
aug 13, 2025, 6:48 pm • 11 1 • view
#NeverTrustANeverTrumper
aug 13, 2025, 8:58 pm • 1 0 • view
McConnell said with a straight face, Biden should use his SCOTUS pick to unite the country.
aug 13, 2025, 5:44 pm • 9 2 • view