Do we even want to coexist with the GOP any more?

[benburch]

[eallen]

1. The GOP has become the party of religious right & corporate welfare.

There is no good left in it. It needs to be destroyed or marginalized.

[buff2]

2. Who in the hell would vote yes?

Crazy MFer.

[liberal N proud]

7. They can't be serious!

[benburch]

9. About 5% of all DUers seem to be Right Wingnut moles...

:shrug:

[NorCalDem]

3. The same can be said for the Democratic Party!

"No, the GOP should join the Whig party in the dustbin of history, and WE are the broom."

They're not listening to the People much either, and have basically played whipping post for the last five years. I could do with BOTH parties dissolving.

That being said, a few of them have been vocal over seemingly random issues, but they should be screaming at the top of their lungs "Impeach, Indict, Imprison!"

The GOP will go down in history as a bunch of crooks and liars. The Democratic Party will go down in history as... well, there won't be much written about them.

:grr:

[EST]

4. Pretty accurate.

[nosmokes]

8. the GOP just gets more from the corporate teat than

the dems, other than that, there's barely a dollar's worth of difference these days. it's incredibly sad, but true. just look at recent votes if ya don't believe me. where were the democratic pols on saturday to support the anti-war movement? MIA. gutless wonders, more concerned w/ re-lection and maintaing the status quo than making a difference.

[Poppyseedman]

10. Both parties are

different sides of the same coin

[kitp]

5. what we need is a large political movement

to the left of the Democrats. This will force both parties to move left. If this comes about due to a strong third party showing for, say, the Socialists or because of polls/protests/letters/emails is not important.
We have to remember that before either party began to speak out against Viet Nam there was a huge presence in the streets in opposition.

Since the 2000 election I have not thought about voting third party simply because I did not want to take one single vote away from the only party that had a chance of defeating *. After the 2004 election and Kerry's miserable performance as a candidate as well as after the election, I have no reason to think the Dem's will ever get close to my political position unless they are threatened from the left.
I will seriously consider supporting third party candidates to the left of the Dem's as I don't see anyone within the party standing anywhere near me. (Okay, a few of them, but no leader, no 'big' voice, even Dean pussyfoots it too much for me.)

If there is such a movement or party, the Dems and the Repugs will move to the left and this current band of thugs will look more and more like the radical kooks that they are.

[acmavm]

6. Coexistence is for fools. They'll just burrow underground or crawl under

a rock and wait for an opportunity.

They're sort of like a fugus or bacteria. Not only disgusting but possibly fatal (for civil liberties and intelligent life forms).

[Deja Q]

14. Get real.

Vermin exist all the time. People need to work together and coexist BUT also be vigilant toward the vermin who wish to abscond with your freedom. And those people can be any one on any 'side'.

Look at our society. Television, particularly of the last 25 years, has been dumbing people down and blinding them; never mind the rest of the media... DUers understandably complain about people being uninformed. That is very true. I find more of substance from Google News than any broadcast or cable network, radio, or newspaper print even!!

We raise our children for instant obedience. Not to think for themselves. And that is the core problem.

Other problems include people not wanting to think outside the box, not care about politics and be dog-eat-dog so they can abscond with your livelihood in the corporate world (which is the pinnacle of the dog-eat-dog mindset, disgusting as it is), and people too busy with their offspring or personal situations to give a damn about others in society; of which our media takes great pride in extolling stereotypes. It is with great irony that I of all people (I'm an Aspie - one who exists with Asperger's syndrome) have done more than your average Fred to help others. Hell, even in my job I go out of my way without thinking about it and I don't even think about money. I've never understood money, either, but I can readily say it's a joke that incites unique forms of ungodly cruelty...

But I digress. Our 'society' takes people and puts them at odds and sets them apart. And that, like our economic structure, is anything but sustainable.

Hell, a social worker acquaintance I know had said "those people need to get work". (While she probably has a point as SOME people are just lazy, I bit my tongue after mentioning India offshoring, for which her reaction clearly showed she knows what's going on in the corporate world... sad.)

[acmavm]

18. I am real. I completely understand a party who's members are either

so greedy or so stupid that they would allow these criminals to hijack one election for sure (I believe both but that's not under discussion here), lie to get us into a war, bankrupt the treasury, give us a piece of legislative crap (the Patriot Act) that curtails our civil and Constitutional rights, allows NO to be decimated and destroyed by a hurricane thanks to the incompetence of the guy they have running the program, Abu Graib, tax cuts for the rich, and on and on and on and on.

I include the ENTIRE republican party in this destruction of my country because the bastards would rather allow us all to go the hell in a handcart rather than face the fact that their 'leaders' are criminals on a par with the Nazis. They'll support them until the bitter end, all the while either blaming the liberal press, the democrats, or Bill Clinton.

Yes, I said Nazis. This administration is into ethnic cleansing just like the nazis. Ethnic and class, the have a pure and utter disdain and disregard for blacks, browns, and the poor. Hell, the middle class don't stand too high in their regard if they're anything but republican.

They are the biggest criminals to ever operate in this country. Cheney and Halliburton, Frist and HCA, Tom DeLay and all his scams and schemes (of which there are many).

I am real. Very real.

[Deja Q]

11. People need to converse and work together.

I've managed to put my views aside for an ex-republican and I learned one or two things as well.

But most people prefer the posturing and polarizing that pusillanimous politics provides. (people on both sides of the political spectrum, for which I thought more than 2 entities would be nice, and I'll admit, it can be damn hard to hold my tongue at times.)

[Poppyseedman]

12. If you are saying we should be a single party system by not coexisting

with the GOP, then we will become 100 x worse than anything you imagine is wrong with the GOP

History has proven that a hundred times over

[benburch]

17. The Libertarian Party would be happy to fill in the vacuum!

Unlike the GOP, they are HONEST.

[Crunchy Frog]

13. Not this GOP.

I don't believe in a one party system though. Maybe the DLC and some moderate Repubs could spin off and form a new party after the GOP has finished imploding.

[Boo_Radley]

15. Just one party . . .

. . . is bad, I don't care what the party is. If not the GOP as the second, then something else. There has to be at least two, though I'd prefer more.

As an aside . . . lot of liberal-minded folks have been fairly disappointed with the DNC of late, and have been more enamoured with the Greens, and a lot of more conservative-minded people have been equally disenchanted with the neoconservative GOP, and have been flirting with the Libertarians. It's possible that we could see a shift in the political make-up of the country if either of the two name-brand parties irritate enough of their constituants badly enough.

(I personally think the GOP has gone too far to the right for the tastes of most Americans, even the more conservative-minded ones, and I'm patiently waiting for a pendulum swing back to the left. I expect to see some defection from the GOP of conservatives and moderate libertarians, leaving the party just for the neocons, and somewhat weakened. I also think that, if the DNC doesn't push too far to the left, they can hold it for a while by positioning themselves as moderate.)

But, to answer the question, yes we need the GOP until there's something else to take it's place. There have to be viable choices for a democracy to work. (It's just a shame that the only alternative choice is the Republican party, which isn't exactly what I'd call a reasonable option).


Edit: I didn't see post 12 when I started typing this. Sorry for the redundancy.

[crispini]

19. Well said, and welcome to DU!

:hi:

And WRT the OP: Pushpoll much?

[Zynx]

16. I don't mind a center-right party existing, but the GOP is fascist.

It really, truly is fascist. Therefore, it must be destroyed and hopefully something sober will take its place.