Steven Van Zandt Unloads...

[Norbert]

" I'm hoping to save the Republican party this year. I'm hoping everybody can come out and vote every single Republican out of office, every single one from the local assemblyman to the mayors and governors and senators and congressmen and up," he says. "Every single Republican needs to be voted out of office right now to teach them a lesson and say, 'You guys better get it together. You want to qualify as a real American party then maybe you should start believing in democracy, equality, science, certain basic things . That's how we define our country and I don't know how you're defining the country anymore, Republicans, but it's got nothing to do with us. It has more to do with making Vladimir Putin happy or some white supremacists happy. But that's not America.' So I'm hoping everybody is united and really works very hard to make sure people are registered and can vote every single Republican out of office this year and then start again next year rebuilding a Republican party that makes some sense because right now they don't make any sense, they might as well be a Russian asset collaborating with treason as far as I'm concerned."

" My father was an ex-marine, [Barry] Goldwater Republican. So I understand that world very well, what real conservatives are and what they believe," he says. "I never really agreed with a whole lot of it but I understand what it was. And this Republican party bears no resemblance whatsoever to that Republican party of my father or Barry Goldwater or what is defined as conservative."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebaltin/2020/08/02/qa-rock-n-roll-rebel-steven-van-zandt-unloads-about-rock-politics-and-much-more/?fbclid=IwAR2UTZjGuTb9g5O7LaoBEHYWMd6U8RssA2ekcIT0sMZ3M_SLxnJbVfSpyes#20b7b3575ea6

[musclecar6]

1. Stevie

Is 100% on the money.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Actually they do, this is the secret sauce that's been driving policy for 60 years

Previously it was filtered by reality, compromise, acceptability, fairness. Now it is unbridled. And it will return because that's the way these people think: only about money, taxes, government as evil, greed, deregulation, and lower classes as business capital.

[KS Toronado]

6. Very well said.... and lower classes as business capital.

And the people who vote R have no clue, so sad.

[StClone]

9. Yeah people don't seem to comprehend or forget that

Repiggies' goals are pretty much Trumpism without the grotesquely obvious nature. Couched in "Capitalism, Free Markets, self-reliance, blah, blah, blah" usually they come out with plausible solutions, under the guise of (perfidious) intellectualism.

[DownriverDem]

15. Except

think about how they win. They use racism and hate to appeal to the lowest of low white folks. I am white and find this all truly disgusting.

[StClone]

19. Winning by dumb-ing down then scaring

R's anti-education, anti-environment, anti-financial aid and anti-choice push gives them the option to scare people into voting against their own best interest. (Then suppressing votes).

-Not funding education leads to the illogical, magical thinking and even anti-intellectual electorate-easier to manipulate.

-Anti-environmental toxic soup leads to reduced vigor to resist (and likely lower mental capabilities).

-No one wants an abortion. But, an unwanted pregnancies may lead to unwanted children who are abused, poorly nurtured, poorly fed and poorly educated. Forming a loop which either doesn't vote or scared into voting uninformed.

[Tommymac]

3. Goldwater Rethugs were just as vile.

He enabled the John Birch society, which brought us the Koch brothers.

The Rethug party needs to be nuked, drowned, smashed and buried...with a stake in it's rotten heart, garlic laced around it's neck and the very earth it's buried in laced with salt.

[Traildogbob]

4. Right?

Go ahead and drown them in the bathtub. MKe em not just small, it extinct. With Flint water and a touch of Trump coal ash sludge.

[Brother Buzz]

12. Um, the John Birch society loved Goldwater

but Barry Goldwater did NOT reciprocate; he was on the outs with Welch.

[Tommymac]

16. He set up an environment so those racist bastards could mainstream

He may not have liked them but his policy stance set the table for them. They gleefully crashed that party.

[Brother Buzz]

18. One could make the argument Nixon created the environment four years earlier

And Nixon was on the outs with the John Birch Society, too. Hell, the John Birch Society, West, was in Nixon's backyard of Orange County, California.

[catbyte]

5. He's been awesome for decades. I've got vinyl from back in the day when he took time off

from the E Street Band. It's loaded with songs about justice--South Africa, South America, Middle East, here. I've always loved him.

[IcyPeas]

7. the first sentence though. I was like WHAT?

Then I read on.....

the republican party today is..... Mitch McConnell.

[speaknow]

8. speaknow

For Steve. Define the Repub's roday.
They have one Motto " All for One,and
nothing for everyone else".

[Brother Buzz]

10. Ya, I really think we need to talk.

[klook]

14. I'm about ready for the witness protection program, myself!

Lillehammer, here I come.

[Upthevibe]

11. Very Cool!

And his band mate, Bruce Springsteen, has NEVER held back either....

And, a shout out to Axel Rose as well: "Guns N’ Roses singer’s anti-Trump tweets come from “a sense of outrage, obligation n’ responsibility to say something at times when I feel not to is being complicit” Now these are the rockers I know and love.

The Republicans can have Ted Nugent and Kid Rock who don't have 1/100th of the talent who we as progressive have! I'm REALLY looking forward to our virtual convention too. I find it very interesting that the media is being "banned" by covering their convention - won't it leak or something anyway?

[Grokenstein]

13. Dems need the competition.

Not opposition for its own sake.
Not an evil counterpart.
A party for alternate viewpoints--but not one that accepts Nazism as "just an alternate viewpoint."

[Tommymac]

17. We already have plenty of alternative viewpoints/competition within Our Big Tent.

Don't need the Rethug Right Wing to be a mainstream party just for 'alternatives'.

Let the conservative extremists shrink and go play with themselves somewhere quiet...like a graveyard.