I have watched way to many politicians enable Trump when he tries to dismantle the guard rails of our democracy. If this was a normal case of people supporting their party leader unless he does something unethical / disagreeable you would be correct, this would likely be an over reaction. However when Trump demands, and receives, cart blanche to run roughshod over the government I see little recourse but to hold those who are enabling such behavior accountable.
Where do you see the limiting principle on getting established? (meaning, how egregious does that "dismantling of guardrails" have to be before it warrants the "I can't even vote for someone who voted for you"...and how many of degrees of separation need to exist? -- for instance, you said you wouldn't vote for a candidate who was a governor who voted for Trump, would you vote for a Mayor who endorsed a governor who voted for Trump?
And it should be noted as an interesting factoid, Liz Cheney herself (who this thread is about) did a little question dodging herself when asked the question by Jake Tapper "So would you vote for Biden over Trump?" -- while her honest answer is likely "Yes", she still avoided coming right out and saying it.
Earlier in the interview, Cheney, a staunch critic of former President Trump, was asked if she would vote for President Biden over Trump if it came down to it, despite her opposition to Biden’s policies.
“We’re going to see what happens,” Cheney responded. ‘We’re going to see how things unfold. I would imagine that there will be a number of other candidates in the race that I think —” before Tapper interjected to ask Cheney if she would be one of them.
Thus far, Christie is the only one who seems to give a straightforward answer on that:
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he will not vote for President Biden or former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
In an appearance on “Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa,” Mr. Christie, a 2024 GOP presidential contender, said he could not stomach voting for either man.
“I’m not voting,” he said of the hypothetical 2024 rematch between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. “I’ll vote down ticket, but I won’t vote for president.”
Let me ask you this ThatRobGuy, do you feel Trumps tenure was destructive to our democracy? Do you feel that Republicans enabled his behavior?
Yes, I think his tenure was a big problem "destructive" -- as you called it -- for a lot of reasons...including reasons in addition to the ones you're referring to.
Yes, I feel republicans in congress enabled him.
I think where our conclusions may differ, can be illustrated by an example going the other direction.
For instance, during both covid and election, the current administration (and allies in the Senate) put a lot of pressure and coercion on social media companies to throttle and/or outright ban certain ideas. (with a lot of house democrats cheering the move on). While I disagree with both conspiracy theories (no, there was no super secret nefarious Bill Gates/Fauci vaxx agenda, and no, the election wasn't stolen, Biden won...full stop).
I see the person who tells people they're not allowed to hear "dangerous" ideas as being just as dangerous as the person espousing the dangerous idea itself.
I say all of this to say: I wouldn't disqualify any of the democrats in question who supported/enabled/voted for one of the people spearheading that approach for that one reason alone.
For instance Gavin Newsom supported the administration on that approach, I can see several scenarios where I'd vote for him over the GOP candidate (the GOP candidate being Trump is one of those scenarios), and that's with me having a laundry list of other things in addition to that, that I disagree with Newsom on.
Perhaps a better "real world" example was when Bush rammed through the Patriot Act, that was a serious destruction of guardrails. I assume most every gop house rep and senator probably still backed him in his re-election efforts against John Kerry. (some of whom ended up being viewed as "the good respectable ones" later down the road after Trump came along)
