Objectively intelligent.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Are you stupid or both? In a democracy, the majority should prevail. The GOP could change to try to win a majority, but it would rather try to do things like pack the Supreme Court and suppress the vote to keep power. Journalists should recognize this, instead of pretending it's not happening.

Frankly, Republicans in today's America could, if they chose to, win consistently without engaging in voter suppression, court packing, or other marginal gamesmanship. All they'd have to do is drop some of their ideological radicalism. But that won't play in Republican primaries, which is why Romney, who put in place a market based, moderate healthcare system with near-universal coverage in Massachusetts, couldn't run on his record and had to disclaim his greatest accomplishment.

They have consciously chosen to be radical right assholes.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Frankly, Republicans in today's America could, if they chose to, win consistently without engaging in voter suppression, court packing, or other marginal gamesmanship. All they'd have to do is drop some of their ideological radicalism. But that won't play in Republican primaries, which is why Romney, who put in place a market based, moderate healthcare system with near-universal coverage in Massachusetts, couldn't run on his record and had to disclaim his greatest accomplishment.

They have consciously chosen to be radical right assholes.

The primaries are a problem, true, but I don't see how the GOP could survive without the religious loons and ideologues. If they abandoned the fringe, they'd just be a smaller version of the blue dog wing of the Democratic Party. What would distinguish them from fiscally conservative/socially liberal Democrats? Not much.

If you looked at Hillary v. Jeb, which was the race we thought we'd get in 2016, other than in regard to health care policy, what was the big difference? What was the difference between Dole and Clinton in 1996? Was there a massive difference between McCain and Obama or Romney and Obama other than McCain's neocon leanings?

The looming battle going forward is going to be between the Biden moderates and Progressives. Most folks aren't voting for Joe for revolution. They're just voting against Trump, and for sanity.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The primaries are a problem, true, but I don't see how the GOP could survive without the religious loons and ideologues. If they abandoned the fringe, they'd just be a smaller version of the blue dog wing of the Democratic Party.

Those who have tried to abandon the fringe are called Never Trumpers. If you run in a GOP primary and try to appeal to the center, you lose.

If you looked at Hillary v. Jeb, which was the race we thought we'd get in 2016, other than in regard to health care policy, what was the big difference?

The Republican Party gave you the invasion of Iraq and the 2007 financial crisis. Granted, it had some help with the latter. But let's pretend the only difference was the invasion of Iraq. Aside from the biggest foreign-policy blunder of the century, one that has costs billions and billions of dollars and many, many lives, what's the difference?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Those who have tried to abandon the fringe are called Never Trumpers. If you run in a GOP primary and try to appeal to the center, you lose.

You'll hear no dispute on this from me. The party is hijacked by a pack of lunatics at the primary level. But it also cannot jettison them because it needs numbers they provide. No good option.

The Republican Party gave you the invasion of Iraq and the 2007 financial crisis. Granted, it had some help with the latter. But let's pretend the only difference was the invasion of Iraq. Aside from the biggest foreign-policy blunder of the century, one that has costs billions and billions of dollars and many, many lives, what's the difference?

There was a difference between Gore and Bush II. I didn't omit that comparison by happenstance. But my point was that in most races since Reagan, after which the Democratic Party adopted the same neoliberal stance as the GOP, the differences were minimal.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The Republican Party gave you ..... the 2007 financial crisis. Granted, it had some help with the latter.

Bullshit. Didn't that start in Europe? And fueled here with the structure of mortgages from your pussy grabber's time?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Bullshit. Didn't that start in Europe? And fueled here with the structure of mortgages from your pussy grabber's time?

I don't have a dog in this fight, so if I've missed something let me know, but I thought the biggest trigger in the 2007 debt crisis occurred when US housing prices fell and the equity value of heavily leveraged securitized mortgage pools basic evaporated overnight, drying up the secondary mortgage as a source of funds.

And that the real acceleration of the crisis occurred with the collapse of first Bear Stearns and then Lehman Bros.

I don't think Republicans get all the credit for the collapse of the US housing market and the investment banks that bet on them. I mean, the Rs certainly did their part, but there were some Democratic policies that had a role, too, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley, often blamed as one major component, may have been written by a bunch of Republicans, but Democrats cut a deal to let it get through and it got signed by Clinton.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I don't have a dog in this fight, so if I've missed something let me know, but I thought the biggest trigger in the 2007 debt crisis occurred when US housing prices fell and the equity value of heavily leveraged securitized mortgage pools basic evaporated overnight, drying up the secondary mortgage as a source of funds.

And that the real acceleration of the crisis occurred with the collapse of first Bear Stearns and then Lehman Bros.

I don't know fuck all about markets and banks- I'm an IP punctuation specialist- but Ty says W's at fault.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I don't have a dog in this fight, so if I've missed something let me know, but I thought the biggest trigger in the 2007 debt crisis occurred when US housing prices fell and the equity value of heavily leveraged securitized mortgage pools basic evaporated overnight, drying up the secondary mortgage as a source of funds.

And that the real acceleration of the crisis occurred with the collapse of first Bear Stearns and then Lehman Bros.

I don't think Republicans get all the credit for the collapse of the US housing market and the investment banks that bet on them. I mean, the Rs certainly did their part, but there were some Democratic policies that had a role, too, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley, often blamed as one major component, may have been written by a bunch of Republicans, but Democrats cut a deal to let it get through and it got signed by Clinton.

This right here. Agree 100%. There are several other factors, but this is more than adequate for a quick answer.

(Ratings agencies perhaps deserve to be in this exec summary.)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I don't have a dog in this fight, so if I've missed something let me know, but I thought the biggest trigger in the 2007 debt crisis occurred when US housing prices fell and the equity value of heavily leveraged securitized mortgage pools basic evaporated overnight, drying up the secondary mortgage as a source of funds.

And that the real acceleration of the crisis occurred with the collapse of first Bear Stearns and then Lehman Bros.

I don't think Republicans get all the credit for the collapse of the US housing market and the investment banks that bet on them. I mean, the Rs certainly did their part, but there were some Democratic policies that had a role, too, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley, often blamed as one major component, may have been written by a bunch of Republicans, but Democrats cut a deal to let it get through and it got signed by Clinton.

I certainly don't think Democrats are blameless, but Obama did make it a priority to try to fix financial regulation, and the Republicans fought him on it.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I certainly don't think Democrats are blameless, but Obama did make it a priority to try to fix financial regulation, and the Republicans fought him on it.

The collapse really occurred before Obama take office, so he didn't get a chance to fix it. My general feeling is he managed it very well given what he had to do with.

Bush should have seen the crash coming a mile away and did squat to prevent it - his approach to the economy was to cut taxes to deal with every problem, and he really only realized what he'd done by doing that after it was too late, and he just couldn't do, and didn't really want to do, a 180 in the last 6 months of his administration.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Bullshit. Didn't that start in Europe? And fueled here with the structure of mortgages from your pussy grabber's time?

You're a pretty sophisticated guy, Hank. Do you think there have been no differences between the parties on financial regulation?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The primaries are a problem, true, but I don't see how the GOP could survive without the religious loons and ideologues. If they abandoned the fringe, they'd just be a smaller version of the blue dog wing of the Democratic Party. What would distinguish them from fiscally conservative/socially liberal Democrats? Not much.

If you looked at Hillary v. Jeb, which was the race we thought we'd get in 2016, other than in regard to health care policy, what was the big difference? What was the difference between Dole and Clinton in 1996? Was there a massive difference between McCain and Obama or Romney and Obama other than McCain's neocon leanings?

The looming battle going forward is going to be between the Biden moderates and Progressives. Most folks aren't voting for Joe for revolution. They're just voting against Trump, and for sanity.

No shortage of differences between Hillary and Jeb, just as there were no shortage of differences between Obama and Romney. Yet both mostly practice in the realm of reality. I think a Republican party that gave up the radical right haters would inevitably draw significantly more from the business community, likely moving the Dems left so we really had a center-right and a center-left party rather than having a center and left party and a radical right party. They'd still likely get votes from the haters, but they'd have enough balls to stand up to them.