RINO Rebellion

Subdood said:

Seriously? You seriously believe the Democrat party has "shifted right?"

Wow. There's no rational discussion possible here if that's your stance.

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They're correct. From an outside perspective the centre in US politics has been gradually moving to the right for half a century. Look at the actual positions of the different parties and it becomes apparant.

The trouble is that the media in general, who always want to put the case of a balanced fight, have been moving along with that centre so there's very little persepctive.

kermit said:

The GOP needs to decide if it want to increasingly preach to the proverbial choir or if it wants to be a big tent party. The last election showed that their current path isn't working. They expected to have gains in both the house and senate when in fact they had losses in both. A few more elections like the last one and the hyper-partisan new guard (Ryan, Cantor, etc) will get booted out of leadership positions and maybe the party can return to being the party of Reagan conservatives.

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You can't be a big tent party if every issue is a purity test.

JCSr said:

Parker is a conservative, and she admits it.

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Yeah, and I'm a leftwing liberal. She's the perfect example of a RINO if I ever saw one.

Veritas said:

Yeah, and I'm a leftwing liberal. She's the perfect example of a RINO if I ever saw one.

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So have you ever seen one?

Veritas said:

Yeah, and I'm a leftwing liberal. She's the perfect example of a RINO if I ever saw one.

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Of course she is! (according to you)

Her political views or actions are insufficiently conservative, according to you. That is enough for you to call her a RINO. Can call her anything you want however it will not change the fact that she considers herself a conservative.

Republican In Name Only is a pejorative term used by conservative members of the Republican Party of the United States to describe some Republicans whose political views or actions they consider insufficiently conservative or otherwise not conforming to their conservative position.
Republican In Name Only - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

kermit said:

Just because my view doesn't agree with something that you find self-evident doesn't mean there is no rational discussion possible. If we can't have a rational discussion it's because you refuse to have one.

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You just characterized the entire Tea-Party wing of the Republican party

I find it a little uncomfortable that they wear the tag "RINO" proudly as if they actually know what it means. They need a better name.

Harpuia said:

I find it a little uncomfortable that they wear the tag "RINO" proudly as if they actually know what it means. They need a better name.

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It's not as though their counterparts across the aisle have ever fared any better in being labelled. Anyone remember "Dixie-Crats" or "Reagan Democrats"?

The more centrist* members of any party will always be considered out of touch with the party's ideals by the extremists, and the extremists definitions will always influence the party mainstream's perceptions. So the names given to them will be somewhat pejorative.

*Although to be fair, the Dixie-Crats also included the last of the strongly right-wing holdouts of a southern tradition of avoiding any association with the Republican Party because of memories of Reconstruction politics.

OllieFranz said:

It's not as though their counterparts across the aisle have ever fared any better in being labelled. Anyone remember "Dixie-Crats" or "Reagan Democrats"?

The more centrist* members of any party will always be considered out of touch with the party's ideals by the extremists, and the extremists definitions will always influence the party mainstream's perceptions. So the names given to them will be somewhat pejorative.

*Although to be fair, the Dixie-Crats also included the last of the strongly right-wing holdouts of a southern tradition of avoiding any association with the Republican Party because of memories of Reconstruction politics.

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I believe we used to call them the Blue Dogs. Problem was, folks decided theyd rather have center-right Republicans rather than center-right Democrats.

Oafman said:

That said, a word of caution from this side of the Atlantic. If everyone converges on the middle ground you end up without much real choice. That's what has happened here.

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Dang, you beat me to it

I already had a reply window open and everything.

We're already pretty close to that now. We really don't have a true conservative party in the US (aside from the few of us waiving the libertarian flag). The republican gets labeled "conservative" by the media due to their positions on marriage and abortion, but that's only 2 issue (neither of which are actual "political" issues IMHO)

We essentially have 2 parties who embrace big government and big spending (one side is slightly more guilty than the other). If you were able to build a time machine and get Thomas Jefferson here to evaluate both of our major parties and asked him which ones are conservatives, he answer would be "neither".

I don't think the US will every get away from the 2 party system to be honest. Right now, it seems to be divided into 2 different battlefronts, social & economic. I predict that over the next 30 years, we'll get past some of these petty social issues and it'll evolve into a 2 party system where it's Big Government vs. Small Government.

Right now, we have one side of the fence that seems to be okay with increasing taxes to even the playing field...but everyone has their breaking point and we'll get to the point where the taxes get so high that even the most collectivist-minded democrat will get fed up with it and that's when we'll see the transition.

Harpuia said:

I find it a little uncomfortable that they wear the tag "RINO" proudly as if they actually know what it means. They need a better name.

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A lot of people take insults that are hurled at them often enough as badges of honor.

If I was a moderate republican and told I wasn't republican enough for some current republicans I am not sure I would be insulted.

Jeffwhosoever said:

The middle no longer exists. The chasm between the Democrats and Republicans is wider than the Grand Canyon. Yet, they do have points of commonality, but they would emphatically deny it.

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There is always a huge middle in the country though of people who are not entirely comfortable with either Republicans or Democrats in their current state. It is these people who suffer underrepresentation.

I think it depends on what is meant by moving the Republicans in a more centrist position. If that means adopting a more realist and less interventionist-neoconservative foreign policy, then I am on board. However, if that means adopting a fiscal policy that is more inclusive to deficit spending and to the Keynesian economic theory, then count me out.

Jeffwhosoever said:

There is an ideological middle among citizens, but I'm referring to those in government, at the federal level, as in the Senate and Congress.

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I am aware of that, I am simply bemoaning the government not representing the true sentiment of the people.

Subdood said:

It's not surprising that the left appreciates this article, by a RINO, defending RINOs. Why shouldn't they? A RINO, by definition, is really more of a Democrat than they are a Republican. As such, having whatever influence they do in the Republican party, such influence does nothing to promote the Republican party except where such promotion aids the Democrat party. So of course the left is ticked by this.

A RINO is therefore little more than a mole, a saboteur, a wolf in sheep's clothing. And the only "insanity" that exists is the insanity of allowing them to remain in the party. If their true allegiances are for the left, then they should switch parties and not pretend to be something they're not.

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Ironically you can't spell RINO without NO.. and it's worth repeating.. no, just no.

RINO is a bogus creation by Conservatives who don't like people who represent the party up until a generation ago. When John McCain, George H.W. Bush, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel, Joe Scarborough, etc. etc. - you know people who actually ran and served in office as Republicans as opposed to some blowhard with a blog or User ID on a comments page - are considered RINOs, then the term has lost all meaning.

Jeffwhosoever said:

There is an ideological middle among citizens, but I'm referring to those in government, at the federal level, as in the Senate and Congress. Notice that since Obama took office, the number of moderates declined, while the number of conservatives increased, and the number of liberals remained about the same.

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Those poll results had nothing to do with those in the government, and instead applied to citizens, so I have no idea why you cited it except to disprove your own point.

Also, note the trends, moderates and liberals increased during Pres. Bush's term and there was also an increase in conservatives and decline in moderates during the Clinton era. I'd contend that says more about the ideological flexability of the middle in respose to who is president than any long term ideological changes.

Ask a member of a sub-sub-sub sect of a religion and they'll tell you that they're the True Believer and everyone else is wrong. The right wing is a broad spectrum with plenty of varying ideas about how things are done. Using a dismissive term like RINO indicates an unhealthy idological purity and inability to negotiate a collective identity.

It also reminds me of this clip.
The Newsroom - Tea Party is the American Taliban - YouTube