Why isn't the Republican party not shifting back to the center?

[something_else]

50 minutes ago, Raze said:

That’s not being treated better, that’s removing accountability.

How?

And that's not entirely related to the main point of discussion anyway, the point I am making is that it seems unfair to claim confidently that progressive states create a worse homeless situation when the issue is very hard to quantify accurately because so many factors play into it. 

[Recursoinominado]

9 minutes ago, something_else said:

How?

And that's not entirely related to the main point of discussion anyway, the point I am making is that it seems unfair to claim confidently that progressive states create a worse homeless situation when the issue is very hard to quantify accurately because so many factors play into it. 

Well, if i were homeless, i would love to be in Los Angeles, fuck it, why not? Nice weather, beautiful city, gorgeous people, going to the beach.

[Raze]

1 hour ago, something_else said:

How?

And that's not entirely related to the main point of discussion anyway, the point I am making is that it seems unfair to claim confidently that progressive states create a worse homeless situation when the issue is very hard to quantify accurately because so many factors play into it. 

If the policies are attracting an issue to a state and not properly addressing or solving it, it’s a policy problem.

[Recursoinominado]

26 minutes ago, Raze said:

If the policies are attracting an issue to a state and not properly addressing or solving it, it’s a policy problem.

Good cities attract people, people bring issues. It is the city's duty to solve those issues.

Just kicking people out from the streets, isn't solving issues, this is just a classic moronic right-wing way of dealing with complex issues.

[Philipp]

@Leo Gura Do you believe that left position on transsexuality, where it is basicly a fact that you can be "born in the wrong body" and that affarmative care is the best course of action, is actually true?

Edited August 29, 2023 by Philipp

[Leo Gura]

18 minutes ago, Philipp said:

@Leo Gura Do you believe that left position on transsexuality, where it is basicly a fact that you can be "born in the wrong body" and that affarmative care is the best course of action, is actually true?

Basically yes. However this is a very rare situation and also people can get very delusional about it.

It's not so easy to sort out the delusion from the legit matters. There is plenty of trans-ideology stuff which is delusional, even though some people need genuine and serious gender affirmative care.

It is important to distiguish the legit medical needs vs the ideology. What I dislike is gender and trans ideology. Because I dislike all ideology.

It's like the difference between pickup vs pickup ideology. Pickup has great stuff in it, but the ideology around it is toxic. And unfortunately the two almost always come bundled together.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Jodistrict]

The underlying issue is actually economic.  The idealogues in the Democratic Party won't look at this.  Robert Kennedy, Jr. understands the problem and has a solution.

Here is a good book that gives the contextual background.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listen,_Liberal 

[Raze]

8 hours ago, Recursoinominado said:

Good cities attract people, people bring issues. It is the city's duty to solve those issues.

Just kicking people out from the streets, isn't solving issues, this is just a classic moronic right-wing way of dealing with complex issues.

What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. Major blue areas are hemorrhaging people and business because they are tired of the awful policies.

https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/02/california-population-exodus-housing/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/york-city-lost-5-3-100000482.html

It’s literally the exact opposite of what you are saying, they are losing resources and attracting drains. The homelessness crisis wasn’t nearly as bad in the past because they actually had more common sense policies versus now just letting people do whatever they want. 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Raze

[Hardkill]

4 hours ago, Raze said:

What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. Major blue areas are hemorrhaging people and business because they are tired of the awful policies.

https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/02/california-population-exodus-housing/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/york-city-lost-5-3-100000482.html

It’s literally the exact opposite of what you are saying, they are losing resources and attracting drains. The homelessness crisis wasn’t nearly as bad in the past because they actually had more common sense policies versus now just letting people do whatever they want. 

A lot of people are moving away from California and New York not primarily because of the crime and homelessness. It's because those states are getting too expensive to live in, especially with regard to renting or owning a home. Also, neither of those articles you mentioned said that the reasons for exodus was because of the "crime problem" in those states.

Crime and shootings are definitely worse in most red states including Texas, West Virginia, Alabama, Idaho, and Florida:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-pundit-lisa-marie-boothe-falsely-claims-miami-is-safer-than-new-york-city

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/opinion/crime-and-political-punishment.html

https://www.bestplaces.net/crime/?city1=50667000&city2=54835000

https://wallethub.com/edu/richest-and-poorest-states/7392

So tell me, what "common sense policies" have the officials in charge of the red states been using that have made their states much safer to live in?

Furthermore, why is the uninsured and underinsured rates for healthcare generally much lower in red states than blue states? Also, why is the level of infrastructure and social safety nets usually much lower in red states than in blue states? Moreover, why is the level of education per capita much lower in virtually every red state than in almost every blue state? 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Hardkill

[Raze]

4 hours ago, Hardkill said:

A lot of people are moving away from California and New York not primarily because of the crime and homelessness. It's because those states are getting too expensive to live in, especially with regard to renting or owning a home. Also, neither of those articles you mentioned said that the reasons for exodus was because of the "crime problem" in those states.

Yes, the main reason is housing. This is because a lot of liberals are behaving very hypocritically in their advocacy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw

But, crime and homelessness are a major contributing reason. For example, this poll found among California residents considered homelessness one of the most serious issues in the state.

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/california-poll-homelessness-urgent-issue-state-rcna72972

In NYC a poll of private sector workers found 40 percent were considering moving and the majority said not enough was being done about crime and it was a major concern

https://pfnyc.org/news/poll-reveals-employees-will-resist-return-to-office-until-city-and-subways-are-safe/

4 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Crime and shootings are definitely worse in most red states including Texas, West Virginia, Alabama, Idaho, and Florida:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-pundit-lisa-marie-boothe-falsely-claims-miami-is-safer-than-new-york-city

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/opinion/crime-and-political-punishment.html

https://www.bestplaces.net/crime/?city1=50667000&city2=54835000

https://wallethub.com/edu/richest-and-poorest-states/7392

So tell me, what "common sense policies" have the officials in charge of the red states been using that have made their states much safer to live in?

Just comparing states by itself is misleading, their are blue areas inside red states and vice versa. In red states the major contributors to their crime rate are blue cities inside them. That being said there are many causes to crime, and many of the most violent states have been that way even when they voted differently in the past, and is to do with issues like income inequality, fatherlessness, etc.

The difference is that it’s one thing to not be able to solve a massive systemic issue that’s been going on for decades, and another to be actively worsening the situation with misguided attempts at reform.

The common sense policies are simply what they weren’t doing that they are now which is making the situation untenable

ex:

Maryland state law has made it almost impossible to charge a minor, an example of how ridiculous this is their is an 11 year old who has been arrested 17 times for carjacking and is still on the loose because the police aren’t allowed to hold him

New York eliminates cash bail and now criminals are constantly being rearrested and most New Yorkers say they believe it’s the cause of the crime spike

San Francisco has a injunction blocking the removal of homeless encampments, the residents are now protesting because this has caused huge homeless encampments everywhere

California passed a state law making theft under $950 a misdemeanor, and retail theft has now spiked significantly 

This is causing store closures

4 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Furthermore, why is the uninsured and underinsured rates for healthcare generally much lower in red states than blue states? Also, why is the level of infrastructure and social safety nets usually much lower in red states than in blue states? Moreover, why is the level of education per capita much lower in virtually every red state than in almost every blue state? 

Sorry but this is largely irrelevant, this is the kind of defensiveness that has allowed progressive policies to spiral and is seriously hurting their causes. Just pointing at the other side and saying they have problems too does not excuse massive failures.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Raze

[thenondualtankie]

@Leo Gura 

Quote

There is plenty of trans-ideology stuff which is delusional, even though some people need genuine and serious gender affirmative care.

Could you please define what you mean by trans-ideology?

[gettoefl]

3 hours ago, thenondualtankie said:

@Leo Gura 

Could you please define what you mean by trans-ideology?

here are 3 aspects of trans-ideology that many may find unreasonable according to chat-gpt

Quote

Absolute Denial of Biological Sex: Some critics argue that an absolute denial of the concept of biological sex can be seen as unreasonable. While gender identity is distinct from biological sex, some argue that ignoring the biological basis of sex can oversimplify the complexities of human biology.

Non-Discussion of Gender Identity: Some critics suggest that an insistence on unquestioning acceptance of an individual's declared gender identity without room for open discussion might hinder productive conversations about the complexities of gender and the experiences of all individuals.

No Acknowledgment of Gender Dysphoria: Critics argue that an ideological stance that downplays or dismisses the significance of gender dysphoria, a distress related to the incongruence between one's gender identity and assigned sex at birth, might ignore an important aspect of the transgender experience for some individuals.

 

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, thenondualtankie said:

@Leo Gura 

Could you please define what you mean by trans-ideology?

That's too complicated to get into here.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

I just found two articles that together I think helps explain more as to why the Republican Party as a whole can't move towards the middle of the political spectrum:

https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2016/8/30/12697920/race-dividing-american-politics

https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2017/9/22/16345194/republican-party-pathological

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-there-are-so-few-moderate-republicans-left/

Basically, these articles together say that it's because the Republican elites have had a serious political dilemma ever since around 2008.

The first article mentioned that ever since the late 60s to early 70s, the Republican party for decades had been inspiring racism amongst the majority of white christian in the US (especially those in the south) by using the southern strategy and promoting racist law and order messages in a subtle manner. Then, ever since Reagan first rose to the power in the early 80s, the party came to the idea of invoking the fear of communism/socialism by saying that big government intervention on the economy prevents prosperity, the welfare system enables too many black and brown people to take too much advantage of too many entitlements provided by the government, public education undermines religious freedom,  mention enables racial minorities to take too much advantage of the welfare system, the government has no right to grant hospitals the choice to terminate the life of unborn children, etc. This of course really worked out so well for them that it lead to the growing political dominance of the Republican party from the early 70s to the middle of the 2000s decade. 

However, America has also for decades steadily become more diverse, more highly educated, and the younger generation has become much more culturally and socially liberal than the previous generation. Therefore, even though the Republicans might have been converting more Democrats to Republicans than vice versa, the Democrats were making greater gains among new voters, and also doing better and better among increasingly cosmopolitan wealthy Americans. So, while the demographics had increasingly favored the Republicans from the 1970s to the early 2000s, the demographics eventually began to favor the Democrats nationally from 2008 and since then has continually increased in favor of the Democratic party even still to this day.

The article then said that by 2008, the Republican party really had two choices. One was to acknowledge that the GOP had now been representing the middle class voters and offer a set of economic policies that would support the growing struggles of middle class people. The other choice was to continue pushing very economically conservative policies that was preferred now only by the now minority-within-the-party wealthy establishment Republicans by promoting the idea of "big government is bad" to such an extreme, pathological degree. So, instead of saying the same kind of messages that Reagan used, they now would come up with messages that had outlandish conspiracy theories such as "the federal budget has actually been siphoning off all of the taxpayer money of all of the middle-class (mostly white) to poor criminal welfare recipients and illegal immigrants (almost entirely black and Hispanic)." Trump and the MAGA Republican would say false dark statements such as "our country is dying" and "the level of crime in our country is the worst it has ever been." They would also make extremely xenophobic messages such as saying that muslim immigrants must be banned from entering the country, Haiti and African countries are "shithole" countries, and that Mexican immigrants are bringing drugs, crime, and rapists. They also kept propagating the racist narrative that Obama was not born in America and that he has been running a secret plan involving black Muslims taking over the country one day. Moreover, Trump would present himself as a populist by saying how the entire system has been rigged by the government and the establishment. 

One reason the GOP leaders decided to push their party to the extreme right instead of promoting more moderate economic policies that would improve the lives of the middle class was because according to the second article, their party's donor-class have had too much of influence over them, especially ever since the conservative rulings of SCOTUS since the 70s have been increasingly allowing the wealthy and corporations to use more and more money to legally bribe the GOP politicians into pushing for more economic policy that unfairly benefit the rich and corporations. Therefore, the donor class for the Republican party will never let the Republican politicians promote more popular economic policies that would benefit middle class or working class people.

The other reason the party chose to move to the far right is because of the racial backlash and nativist backlash from both their base and many swing voters. Trump shrewdly capitalized on this the best in 2016. The third reason for this was because of the partisan gerrymandering, which has made many congressional and state legislative seats throughout the US safe for each party respectively. Therefore, candidates running for each of those seats have no incentive to appear moderate and actually are instead forced to come off more extreme in order to compete for the nomination of their party for such an office.

Plus, the right-wing media since the 90s and other right-wing activists since the 70s including the evangelical groups, anti-immigration groups, and gun-rights groups have been major contributing factors to the party's continuing shift to the far right even still to this day. All of these power players have been using whatever means necessary to influence the GOP to constantly take very unpopular right-wing positions for their own selfish reasons.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Hardkill