GOP forcibly moved in this direction not 12 but 26 years ago. It clearly dates back to Gingrich's group taking over the House in 1995.I think that it's completely impossible for the Republican party to argue on good faith that they are now finally willing to work with Democrats after what they've done for the last twelve years. Ever since Obama was first elected, and they first embraced the Tea Party movement, their modus operandi has been to push back and refuse to give an inch for as long as possible to any sort of bipartisanship.
"A number of scholars have credited Gingrich with playing a key role in undermining democratic norms in the United States, and hastening political polarization and partisan prejudice.[7][8][9][58][59][60][61][62][10][63][64][11] According to Harvard University political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky, Gingrich's speakership had a profound and lasting impact on American politics and health of American democracy. They argue that Gingrich instilled a "combative" approach in the Republican Party, where hateful language and hyper-partisanship became commonplace, and where democratic norms were abandoned. Gingrich frequently questioned the patriotism of Democrats, called them corrupt, compared them to fascists, and accused them of wanting to destroy the United States. Gingrich furthermore oversaw several major government shutdowns.[65][66][67][59]
"University of Maryland political scientist Lilliana Mason uses Gingrich's instructions to Republicans to use words such as “betray, bizarre, decay, destroy, devour, greed, lie, pathetic, radical, selfish, shame, sick, steal, and traitors” about Democrats as an example of a breach in social norms and exacerbation of partisan prejudice.[7] Gingrich is a key figure in the 2017 book The Polarizers by Colgate University political scientist Sam Rosenfeld about the American political system's shift to polarization and gridlock.[8] Rosenfeld describes Gingrich as follows, "For Gingrich, responsible party principles were paramount... From the outset, he viewed the congressional minority party's role in terms akin to those found in parliamentary systems, prioritizing drawing stark programmatic contrasts over engaging the majority party as junior participants in governance."[8]"
Newt Gingrich - Wikipedia
With the current policies having been in place for 26 years, I doubt that any Republican younger than 50 y/o even remembers what normal conservatism looks like. I wish luck to the Lincoln Project but they may have to leave the GOP and join one of the fringe parties.Republicans have a split road ahead of them - they can choose to continue to embrace Trump's base, having to push neo-Trumps into the spotlight, hoping that the base continues to support them, as their more moderate members steadily leave and drop the party. Or, they can finally give up their insane rightward push, and finally move towards the center of politics.
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