What the GOP used to stand for
It has been known for a while that the Republican Party has lost interest in good faith governance and a serious policy debate. There is no concern for majority public opinion, and outright contempt for inconvenient truth. In view of what the GOP has become, there really isn't any reason to keep up the charade. The Republican Party stands for more wealth and power for the elites and extremist crackpot Christian fundamentalism. The dominant economic dogma is the fully debunked Horse and Sparrow theory. Alt-reality, alt-facts and extremist crackpottery is the basis on which the Republican Party exerts the power that (i) its millions of supporters give to it by their votes and open support, and (ii) its major donors get from the corruption of campaign contributions.
In the latest dropping of the pretense at good faith democratic governance, the bad faith neo-fascist Republican Party has officially withdrawn from participation in presidential debates. CNN writes:
The Republican National Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to withdraw from its participation in the Commission on Presidential Debates, the organization that has long governed general-election presidential debates.
In a statement, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the commission is "biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms to help ensure fair debates including hosting debates before voting begins and selecting moderators who have never worked for candidates on the debate stage."CNN has reached out to the commission for comment.
Thursday's vote comes after months of signals from the RNC that it sought a break from the commission. In June 2021, McDaniel sent a letter outlining several complaints about the commission's practices, reflecting former President Donald Trump's concerns about the conduct of the 2020 debates.
And in January, McDaniel sent another letter threatening to "prohibit future Republican nominees from participating in CPD-sponsored debates" unless the commission changed its rules.The RNC has advocated for a number of changes to the commission, including adopting term limits for its board and prohibiting members from making public comments about any candidates. McDaniel, in an echo of Trump's concerns, has also pushed for more influence on which journalists moderate general election debates, asking the commission for a "transparent criteria for selecting debate moderators that would disqualify individuals from consideration who have apparent conflicts of interest due to personal, professional, or partisan factors."
Hypocrisy, etc.
The GOP complains about conflicts of interest if and only if it sees real or apparent conflicts as working against Republican interests. Real or apparent conflicts that benefit Republicans, e.g., Clarence Thomas voting in a US Supreme Court decision to hide his wife's crackpot extremism, are accepted and not spoken of. Silence in the face of Republican hypocrisy, lies bad behavior and etc., is in accordance with the standard Republican KYMS (keep your mouth shut) propaganda tactic.
In fact, withdrawing from debates entirely is in accord with KYMS. As pointed out in a blog post here yesterday, maintaining KYMS discipline is 100% effective at preventing a blowhard politician, a hypocrite(s) and/or a bad actor(s) (crook, traitor, etc.) from uttering an easily debunkable lie, extremist crackpottery or something stupid. If one practices KYMS, one cannot PFIM (put foot in mouth). Debunkable lies, extremist crackpottery and stupid constitutes most (~80% ?) of the rhetoric and reasoning that flows from neo-fascist Republican elites these days. That leaves a lot of opportunities for PFIM that the GOP would rather not be part of.
A public service message from
Christian nationalism:
“The last religion you will ever experience”
(so help us God)
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