'Rationals' vs. 'radicals': Anti-Trump Republicans threaten third party

[SouthBayDem]

Source: Reuters

Over 100 former Republican officials will sign a letter on Thursday declaring that if the Republican Party does not break with former President Donald Trump and change course, they will back the creation of a third party.

The letter, headlined: "A Call For American Renewal," is an exploratory move toward forming a breakaway party, two of its organizers said. The group is dismayed by what it says is a modern Republican Party driven by its allegiance to Trump, who continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from him.

"The Republican Party is broken. It's time for a resistance of the 'rationals' against the 'radicals,'" said Miles Taylor, one of the organizers. Taylor, while serving in the Trump White House, wrote an anonymous opinion piece in the New York Times in 2018 headlined: "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."

The group first raised the threat in February, following the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters to try to disrupt congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's presidential election victory.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/rationals-vs-radicals-anti-trump-republicans-threaten-third-party-2021-05-11/

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. Do it!

The 'Rationals' know that is the only way this Democracy survives. They need to calve from the Trumpian iceberg. Save Democracy, prepare to fight policy on another day.

[Miguelito Loveless]

2. Please proceed.

[cilla4progress]

3. I applaud

this positive development!

[KS Toronado]

4. I question if they really want to start a 3rd party

Believe it's more like a wake up call to their former reQuplicans to stop worshiping at the Qrump altar.
They can see and understand that Qrump is ruining their beloved party. But they won't start a 3rd
party knowing how it would divide what's left of the existing one. They're just trying to get their
former partners in crime to wake up and smell the roses.

[Metaphorical]

6. I think we're past that point and they may be as well

The Cheney/Romney faction understand that the Trump party is toxic, but it has also eaten the GOP brand. Manchin and Sinema probably do too, especially Manchin. They understand that in the Senate in particular the ideological purists are about to run the party (and the country) off a cliff.

A third party would create a buffer, and would allow them to occasionally caucus with the Democrats whenever they felt that it is in the better interest of the country than following the party line. They recognize at this point that the purists control the Republican party, but they are also placing a huge bet that Trump will not in fact have the power that he and his supporters believe he has.

We are at the precipice right now. Biden is doing everything right, but he's got a razor-thin margin in the Senate to work with, and the current blitz that the GQP is doing in Republican states to restrict voting rights, even if they fail in the courts, is just exacerbating the situation. Should challenges to these laws succeed (and I think they probably will - they're not well constructed), the next likely action is secession. Biden may not have signed up to be Abe Lincoln, but he may not have a choice.

[PortTack]

10. Some states especially tx have threatened secession several times...

It will never happen!

The most obvious reason..their own party won’t let them. If tx and just one other even small state were to leave, they would never win another presidential election and never hold the senate again. That’s just one of many many reasons

Besides most legal scholars say the 14th amendment is pretty clear regarding the subject

[oldsoftie]

16. Texas cant secede anyway. But they COULD split into several new states.

They're the only state that has this ability as far as i know.

[Tarc]

19. Please stop spreading this lie; they absolutely cannot split themselves up

without Congressional approval.

Loony-toon Texas secessionists cling to a tortured interpretation of an 1845 Joint Resolution as granting "pre-approval".

It did not.

[GB_RN]

5. Stop Threatening

This reminds me of a comedy routine done of Muamar Qadaffi back in the 80s, by (I think) Robin Williams, when Reagan said we were going to bomb Libya in retaliation for Lockerbie and the Berlin bombings. It went something like this: “Cross this line you die! OK, cross this line, you die! OK, now cross this line you die!” After a while, these threats have no meaning.

[Skittles]

7. JUST DO IT ALREADY

Last edited Thu May 13, 2021, 04:25 PM - Edit history (1)

then there will be TWO FUCKING GOP ASSHOLE PARTIES

[BoringUsername]

20. Exactly... Either do it or shut up

Threats mean nothing. Threats are not going to change the Republican party at this point.

[C Moon]

8. Yeah, okay. I'll never believe a Republican.

They’re Republican because their love of money is above all else. They’re up to something else here.

[Cheezoholic]

9. Beware the repug long game...

Ever since the sweaty Nixon debate and the Goldwater neo con movement these fuckers have been playing a vindictive long game, and they are damn good at it. If they move away from their inglorious puppet on a national level, they will continue to utilize his rhetoric on local and state levels to empower the pawns on the board. They are already putting ultra conservative Liz in a position to infiltrate the "new" middle of the political spectrum which is now as far right as the repugs of the 80's. "Progressive conservatism" is already a focal point amongst younger republican stalwarts and we need to be very wary of continuing to let the fox into the henhouse of true progressive policies. I don't trust these fuckers at all.

[littlemissmartypants]

11. Remember the Downton Abbey episode where Mrs. Isobel Crawley

Tells Lady Cora Crawley she's leaving and going to join the Red Cross in France?

[bucolic_frolic]

12. Rational implies science and logic, it will be a tiny and irrelevant base

They've been ejected and are wandering in the wilderness. They stand for little more than Reagan with rose-colored glasses and 1910s small city good government. Civic-minded Republicans will be proud, and you can bet that's a cloister.

[SmartVoter22]

13. A third party is a good move

Most nations have several major parties that represent;
Very far right ideology
Normal Conservative ideology
Moderates
Normal liberal ideology
Very left liberal ideology

America certainly has millions is each of the above ideological factions which could be supported.
This would bring more views into mainstream discussion.

Bring more voices, as there are not just two.

[oldsoftie]

15. But wouldnt we have to change the manner of government for this to work?

Because the way it is NOW, only the top would get any major say in what goes on.

[oldsoftie]

14. I thought the Trumpers have been threatening this for some time now.

idiots.

[AZ8theist]

17. Ho hum...

More empty rhetoric.

Until that fascist traitorous fucking imbecile is in prison, this talk is a giant nothingburger.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

18. Let's see it happen

Too many Repukes have cold feet.