“American democracy simply cannot function without two equally healthy and equally strong political parties,” J Michael Luttig told CNN on Wednesday. “So today, in my view, there is no Republican party to counter the Democratic party in the country.
“And for that reason, American democracy is in grave peril.”
As an old guy, I'd have to agree, though as a leftist turned anarchist, I don't give much of a fuck.
I think back though on the Republicans of my youth, and it really was a notably different party.
It's sort of weird to phrase it like this, but they were assholes with principles. I mean - they were shallow, bigoted assholes then too, but it was more common then for them to still be like the old '50s All-American cliche - patriotic, proud, moral, hard-working, honest... conservative in the old sense of the word. I didn't agree with them at all but at least they had a relatively coherent, if shallow and ignorant, ideology that they generally actually lived by.
Somehow though, especially over the last 20 years or so, they've morphed into this bizarre and startlingly toxic mix of psychopaths, hypocrites and grifters. They have no principles at all really - just things and people that they hate - and it's not even vaguely about trying to accomplish things that they sincerely (if mistakenly) think will make the world a better place, but just about fucking over everyone else. And even themselves, if they can colorably believe that by doing so they'll manage to fuck someone else over even more.
I sincerely believe it's a sort of collective mental illness, and truth be told, I think it can only lead to the collapse of western civilization, and the US in particular. There's nothing really that can stop it. It's effectively a closed loop in which greedy psychopaths fuck things up for their own profit and privilege, ignorant psychopaths look for someone to blame for the fact that things are fucked up, power-hungry psychopaths point them at some vulnerable fringe group and tell them that it's all their fault, then while everyone's distracted, the greedy psychopaths fuck things up even more. And 'round and 'round it goes, like a turd circling a toilet bowl. And there's only one way that can end.
A political party is a collection and assemblage of individuals who share a set of beliefs and principles and policy views about the United States of America.
Remember when the Republican party simply didn't put out a party platform running up to the 2020 election? They released a one page document that just said "We stand for whatever Donald Trump wants." That was weird, huh?
American democracy has by most measures been in grave peril since 6 January 2021, the day Pence, as vice-president, took Luttig’s advice and refused to attempt to block congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win.
Trump, 77, pleaded not guilty, as he has to 74 other criminal counts, in New York over hush-money payments to a porn star and federally regarding his retention of classified information.
In New York this week, regarding a civil suit in which Trump was found liable for defamation and sexual assault, a judge said it was not defamatory to call the former president a rapist.
Nonetheless, Trump leads Ron DeSantis of Florida, Pence and the rest of the field by more than 30 points, firmly on course to face Biden again.
Luttig told CNN: “A political party is a collection and assemblage of individuals who share a set of beliefs and principles and policy views about the United States of America.
A respected conservative judge who was considered for the supreme court under George W Bush, Luttig made a tremendous impact with his January 6 testimony.