Apparently legal access to marijuana is not mellowing out many people in Colorado…
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I’m not going to insist that your view is invalid because you didn’t phrase that quite right. But I do wish people would clearly distinguish between the Republican Party, its leadership, elected Party members, and rank and file members of the party. The first three are pretty execrable* and your comments about them are apropos**. But the last group is just people; some good, some bad, but most of them trying their best for their families and communities.
I myself am a registered Republican (it’s the best way for me to influence elections in my Democratic Party dominated, machine politics state) and I physically get out and help people better their own lives. I show up for various demonstrations, which is admittedly weak sauce, but I’m also in the school systems fixing computers, plumbing, wiring and masonry, and helping teachers with their needs. And you know what? When I’m in there, doing that, I find that the other volunteers working by my side come from every political persuasion.
* especially that third group; not too many good eggs in that basket.
** in my opinion, at least.
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Time to move to another state–but wait they would have to start all over qualifying for their pensions.
There is a difference between tactical voting and buying into the party platform. I wouldn’t call Toby Young a socialist just because he tried to join the Labour Party a few years ago, with similar intentions to yours.
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Exactly! Just because one is a Republican does not mean one blindly supports the party platform or leadership.
Rhetoric explicitly wishing death to Republicans should probably make the distinction of which Republicans are meant.
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I think some of you are misunderstanding the position of the Republican party in the era of Trump. Children, females, LGBT, POC, etc. are not actually fully human and thus unworthy of public expenditure. If it does not benefit the wealthy white male demographic directly, it has no place at the public table. And directly if a vital qualifier, because most of them are not able to think through the fact that failing to educate the next generation results in fewer qualified workers, fewer consumers with sufficient income to purchase the products sold by the companies owned by said demographic and generally a country headed down the shitter. When your thought process is limited to the next quarterly profit report, your ability to comprehend the truly awful implications of your policies is, well, let us say, limited.
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Pot taxes contribute less than 2% to the state budget. While $200 Million is nothing to sneeze at it’s only a fraction of the state’s $20 Billion budget.
Because of the myriad laws and restrictions imposed by TABOR (taxpayer bill of rights), Amendment 23 and Gallagher amendments, school funding comes from a patchwork of sources. The affect is that state legislators have been forced to squeeze teachers and higher education funding over the past 20 years in order to redirect funds to other projects that are also legally required. TABOR really ties their hands from doing anything substantial.
https://www.greateducation.org/statistics-faqs/funding-faqs/amendment-23/
https://www.greateducation.org/statistics-faqs/funding-faqs/tabor-gallagher/
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A couple months ago I was coming out of the East Library in Colorado Springs (El Paso County) and I was stopped by a middle-aged white man in a suit with a clipboard. He asked, “Are you a registered Republican voter?”
I’m sure he thought the odds were in his favor, since I’m also a middle-aged white man in Colorado.
I was startled by the question and laughed in his face before I could stop myself. Then my wife laughed at my reaction. He wasn’t pleased, but didn’t ask any follow-up questions, so I have no idea what he wanted.
I was left wondering if the library was where you go to find right-wing voters these days, or if they were really reaching. Don’t the Republicans want to defund libraries?
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Emergency strike funds are a critical aspect of union power. If they spent that money on classroom supplies (for which the state is IMO constitutionally required, at any rate) they would in short order be without a union.
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I live in Denver Metro, and I keep trying to tell my friends that we live in a tiny blue bubble in a very red state. They always protest that statement. Denial is a hell of a drug.
Oh, and fuck the Republicans. Obviously.
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And what if they’re barely paid for working?
Libertarians, folks.
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Except the county party - and anyone who wants to download the spreadsheet from the Secretary of State - knows who is registered to what party in each county/district. The party knows who their donors & active voters are. The Lamborn campaign knows who donated to them during the last five cycles.
it should have been a cakewalk to re-up Lamborn without doing a cold-ask petition drive.
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And the first Columbine massacre (which is more forgotten. AKA Serene Mine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_Mine_massacre).
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I don’t know what they wanted, or what their agenda was at that moment in time. It may not have had anything to do with Lamborn at all; your link reminded me about that encounter.
I just know they were asking visitors to the library if the were registered Republicans, and they were looking for signatures for something.
If I were a better activist I would have taken some time to troll him, but I couldn’t have followed up that laugh with a, “Sure!”
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I don’t know if you got a Lamborn specific petitioner. But the press on Lamborn specifically says they were using cold-ask petitioners. Which is just crappy strategy for an incumbent.
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Well, maybe in the short term. But the way you make a difference in the long term is to get people off their rear ends and out into the streets.
It’s how you both solidify your own ranks and pull people from other teams. It how your party’s rank and file stay in touch with what works and what people want to see and hear. It’s also a good way to encourage them to see the “other” as reprehensible, since people with opposing views are unlikely to be kind when they’re being buttonholed or badgered on the street.
People posting the same opinions and memes over and over on the same sites won’t make a lasting difference the way people making persuasive arguments out in the street will. Getting adherents into the streets is the way to win and keep winning… and Republicans like to win.
I think you’re giving Lamborn, and most incumbents, far too much credit for wanting change, progress or to bend the arc. Yes I realize I sound cynical, but incumbency - especially on the authoritarian side of the curve, but not exclusively, as any machine-dominated political system shows - tends to only want to maintain power and their personal status quo.
Personally, I’m pleased Lamborn is out. He’s lazy and thoughtless, and a thoroughly owned subsidiary of the moiety of anti-stewardship Christianists who are actively trying to mess the planet up enough to make Jesus come down here and open up some whoopass. Glenn is no better, but without Lamborn, that district is more competitive than it was. Which is truly useful for progress and bending the arc.
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NY? I’m a registered Green and I actually voted for a Republican for mayor once when I lived in NY. The Dems there are mind-bogglingly corrupt.
THat said,thi guy wasn’t a typical Republican, and was only running as one because of some of the bizzarities of NY politics.
Whether or not they’re pleasant in person, though, I’ve got a pretty serious problem with anyone who voted for any of the Republicans in Congress right now.
My (Republican) state rep was a cosponsor of Delaware’s marriage equality bill.
And again at the state level, some of our Democrats are very problematic, what with the damage they’ve done and continue to do to the public education system.
But at the national level, I can definitely see your point, yes. Oh yes.
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Fascist parties, like other parties, have always drawn their support from diverse people. A core group of true believers, plus a lot of assistance from people who find other reasons to support the party.
“I didn’t vote for him, I voted against the communists”
“He’s going to get business moving, I don’t care about the rest of it”
“I don’t agree with everything he says, but he’s making the homeland strong again”
Etc.
What share of culpability goes to the Good Germans?
