fett on 10/4/2016 at 17:00
Well, New England typically doesn't vote Republican, so the Trump example doesn't really apply there.
Tocky on 11/4/2016 at 01:39
Quote Posted by MrDuck
Welp, for my 2 no-one-asked-for-them-but-I-don't-care cents, I do lean towards the side of believing in a superior force. Though I subscribe to no religion 'cuz eff that.
COME AT ME, MOFOS!
Brother! I too belong to the non-church of nebulous higher power. It makes no sense to and is likely a leftover impulse of being raised around religious folk but I just can't shake that old unseen hand, praise the invisible power of the singularity which for reasons unknown (and perhaps unknowable by only a part) separated in the big bang and became all that is. Maybe one day if man creates life from scratch as it was said to have been by accident then I will drop that belief. Or not. Admittedly a lot of it is emotional. Just because I WANT there to be a guiding force of goodness in the world does in no way make it so. We humans do tend to anthropomorh things. So I guess I'll see you in church never. Right, it's a date then.
BTW BruderMurus, in keeping with the non-teachings of my non-religion, I hold no ill will. I'm a rough old cob and when I feel one of my friends is being threatened with hell it makes me angry. I would rethink hell if I were you and could break free of the ridged thinking demanded by religions that herd folks down one lane of thinking. Never go down the chute. Cows can tell you it ends badly. There is absolutely no reason good people would be sent there if it existed. Think how cruel that is. Is that the sort of being you want to worship? Eh. Not going to change your mind at this point. Trust me when I say I wish you the best on life's journey.
demagogue on 11/4/2016 at 02:09
Quote Posted by fett
Well, New England typically doesn't vote Republican, so the Trump example doesn't really apply there.
Remember New York is home turf to Trump. That's part of his paradox maybe.
I found upstate conservatives a curious bunch, as a southerner living in and around New York.
They're not evangelical, but they still can still be as batshit bumpkin as the rest of them.
Well you're in that part of the country now, so you probably have a good idea, and will probably correct me that, for as crazy as New Englander conservatives can get, they're still no where in the same ballpark as Southern conservatives can get... Well, they're just different species.
Anyway, even the upstate Reps aren't the NE urban Republicans, what used to be called Rockefeller Republicans except I think that term got RINO'd out a while ago and they've rebranded themselves in Tea Party terms. I mean New York is the kind of place you can find Wall Street and Logcabin (gay) Republicans, which is the kind of world Trump is coming from. The Tea Party madness that put a Rockefeller in charge of what came out of an Evangelical movement is crazy.
If you recall, the whole thing that got this snowball rolling was the Republican base turning all Benedict Arnold on Bush I for "read my lips", the last great Rockefeller Republican, (actually Pat Buchanan was at the head of that little revolt, so Evangelicalism was right at its roots) and they were apparently happy to shoot themselves in the foot and have Clinton win than stand another 4 years of him. And then Gingrich et all came in 1994 and institutionalized it.
Well Trump isn't a true Rockefeller though... perverted sense of civic mindedness, no sense of "duty before ideology", or "facts/realpolitik over romanticism"... or maybe what's worse, a realpolitik romanticism, which is the stupidest political ideology ever.
heywood on 11/4/2016 at 17:03
Rockefeller Republicans are still around and keep getting elected as governors, e.g. George Pataki, Jodi Rell, Charlie Baker, Jim Douglass, Mitt Romney, Lincoln Chaffee (before he switched). But they're not winning Congressional elections much anymore.
There are a few religious conservatives around here but not that many. The Religious Right isn't really a driving force here like in the South or Midwest.
demagogue on 12/4/2016 at 04:07
How much traction does the "Republican in name only" RINO charge get?
Is the Tea Party a thing in the NE? And if it's not, then what does the Tea Party movement represent there?
One of the ironic things about the Tea Party fiasco is they're trying to gut the party of its traditional bases by labeling them as RINOs, when they're the upstart outsiders that don't really fit in traditionally. In the time of Nixon and Reagan they still spoke in terms of it being a "big tent" party, and now that's been flipped on its head.
heywood on 12/4/2016 at 14:46
The Tea Party is around, and has had some effect on New Hampshire and Maine. The current governor of Maine is Tea Party backed, but Maine's Congressional delegation hasn't really been challenged by the Tea Party.
In New Hampshire, I think the Tea Party movement hit its peak in the 2010 mid-terms. Originally it was seen as a libertarian movement, and that plays well in New Hampshire. In the 2010 election, a Tea Party landslide led to a massive Republican majority in the state legislature. But it was a bait and switch. Most of the new legislators elected in that 2010 Tea Party wave turned out to be traditional conservatives who used their power in the legislature to push a social conservative agenda, which does not play well in New Hampshire. And so in 2012, the voters handed the legislature back to the Democratic party. Subsequently, in 2014, the Republicans regained the state legislature, but without Tea Partiers in the leadership. The Tea Party also won a primary for a House seat in 2014 whose incumbent was the fairly unpopular Democrat Ann Kuster, thus ripe for Republican picking. But their candidate was a loon and lost the general election.
In the other New England states, the Tea Party movement basically has no power. You don't really hear any Massachusetts Republicans complaining about Charlie Baker and calling him a RINO, even though he is definitely cast in the Rockefeller Republican mold.
