WI Republicans "need Trump voters to win future elections"...or just overturn elections by force? Wisconsin GOP going rogue.

What seemed like a breakthrough; A state Republican calling out Rep. Robin Vos for retaliation against anyone questioning his leaders and power. Finally right? 

WSJ: Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha, recently sent a letter to his Republican colleagues
alleging that Vos is punishing conservatives who unsuccessfully challenged the Assembly GOP leadership. 

It wasn't. It was scarier. 

“The majority of our caucus perceive that their future electoral success will come under the guide of current leadership and their Democrat-light agenda,” Allen said. The Republican Party now consists of “hard-working people who love freedom.” He said Republicans will need Trump voters to win future elections.

Ah, Trump voters are needed to win! More later...how else would you describe "Trump voters?"

He described such voters as people who have a “healthy distrust” of the establishment, including the media, lobbyists, bureaucrats and career politicians. 

“(New Trump Republicans) want us to aggressively fight for their interests,” Allen said.

Lambast the Republican strategy for the 2020 campaign as timid.

Allen’s remarks come as Republicans across the nation grapple with how to respond to Trump’s insistence that he won the election.

Insurrection, the MAGA Capitol Takeover: So today we saw the "Trump voters" Republicans in Wisconsin need to win future elections? Or just overturn any lost elections:

More Trump voter's idea of liberty and freedom:

And now a final word from President Trump...after the fact:

Again, in the words of Rep. Scott Allen; “(New Trump Republicans) want us to aggressively fight for their interests.”

CNN Reporters chased away get their camera equipment destroyed:

Hate it when ATIFA breaks windows? Well...and is this the Trump rioter who was shot and later died?

No, Trump does not have a plan or direction, did not write Art of the Deal," and still has no idea what he's doing.

I heard this on NPR. Trump voters are mistaken about his motives, temperament, dealing, and intelligence. You may not sleep after this:

The Face of a MAGA Trump Worshiper!!!

No really, this is how I see mindless MAGA Trump wallowers, allowed by law enforcement to rub their stupidity in other Americans faces:

vjh

Stumper: Rural Voters still love Trump's MAGA for free Flim-flam!!!

This poll may be a month old, but I'm posting it here because I think it's still relevant. Consider the fact that many rural Obama/Trump voters don't seem to be influenced by the day-to-day Trump presidential disaster, even when it affects them personally. The same goes for Republican Scott Walker voters, who are more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and all the time in the world to see if his agenda has any chance of working, a luxury they would never allow a Democrat. Check it out.

I blame the GOP's successful campaign to dramatically lower Americans expectations of their country, and what their government should be doing for them. They want to Make America Great Again for free, all the while reducing taxes:

May: A April 21 -  23, 2018 Monmouth College poll cast warning signs for Democrats in Iowa and Wisconsin working to win back rural voters who backed Barack Obama in 2012 but flipped for Donald Trump in 2016 … shows President Trump retaining most Obama crossover voters ... including southwest Wisconsin’s 3rd district.

Strong majorities of voters say they will definitely or probably vote for Trump in 2020 (Iowa: 63 percent; Wisconsin: 61 percent) … extends to Republican candidates for Congress this fall … Obama-Trump voters — 48 percent — in Wisconsin’s 3rd District, which includes Grant and Crawford counties, will do so as well. Support for Democratic ranged from 20 to 25 percent.

The profiles of the Obama-Trump voters; earn less than $50,000 per year, have less than a bachelor’s degree, are women and identify themselves as nonpartisan. The poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5.3 percent in Wisconsin.

IMPACT OF PRESIDENT’S PERSONAL LIFE: Roughly one-half of the Obama-Trump voters in the three congressional districts said their opinions about the president haven’t changed as a result of accusations about his personal life.

THE WALL: Strong majorities of Obama-Trump voters support expanding the wall.

TRADE VS. AGRICULTURE: Opinions varied … In Iowa and Wisconsin, more voters chose the agricultural economy than manufacturing as the top trade priority.

Dems focused on small-town America: U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., has been tasked with tutoring her fellow House Democrats on talking to rural voters whom her party lost to Republicans. “Politically, it is showing up to towns ... no matter how rural it is (and) listening to people,” Bustos said. “We can’t go wrong if we talk about economic issues. People are still struggling and that’s where we have to make sure that we keep our focus on that, and not issues that divide every time we walk into a room.” The number of Democrats holding office across the nation is at its lowest point since the 1920s, and the decline has been especially severe in rural America, according to Bustos.

The (R) doesn't stand for Respect!!!

As much as I have tried to interpret my Trumpian conservative friend in Milwaukee's "all-over-the-map" conversations, I've mistakenly filtered my analysis through the lens of friendship and respect, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Big mistake.

No Respect? GOP says it's No Longer Something You Earn:  Rodney Dangerfield said it best...:

If only they cast off their snooty liberal elitism and show respect to people who voted for Donald Trump, Democrats can win them over and take back Congress and the White House. There’s almost nothing more foolish Democrats could do than follow that advice.

Kurt Schlicter, a columnist for the conservative Townhall.com, recently wrote "We want to be treated with respect and we will not tolerate anything less which is just unacceptable for this to continue. I'm tired of Hollywood spitting on us. I am tired of academia spitting on us. I'm tired of the news media spitting on us." 

It's a Disrespected Scott Walker Scheme Too: Like Trump, Walker's been weeping the "no respect" game for years. 

Talk about Respect...: The CapTimes' Paul Fanlund wrote this about the Trump voters hypocrisy about respect:

"That’s rich. I can’t help but note, after years of Republicans infamously claiming their primary goal was to prevent Obama from being re-elected."

The Washington Post article explains it this way...

It doesn’t come from the things Democratic politicians say. Where does it come from? An entire industry that’s devoted to convincing white people that liberal elitists look down on them. The right has a gigantic media apparatus that is devoted to convincing people that liberals disrespect them, plus a political party whose leaders all understand that that idea is key to their political project and so join in the chorus at every opportunity.

You’ll find that, again and again, you’re told stories of some excess of campus political correctness, some obscure liberal professor who said something offensive, some liberal celebrity who said something crude about rednecks or some Democratic politician who displayed a lack of knowledge of a conservative cultural marker. The message is pounded home over and over: They hate you and everything you stand for.

“I despise Barack Obama. I think primarily because I don’t think he thinks very much of people like me,” one Republican told The Post’s Dan Balz.

Put another way...

In the world Republicans have constructed, a Democrat who wants to give you health care and a higher wage is disrespectful, while a Republican who opposes those things but engages in a vigorous round of campaign race-baiting is respectful. The person who’s holding you back isn’t the politician who just voted to give a trillion-dollar tax break to the wealthy and corporations, it’s an East Coast college professor who said something condescending on Twitter.

Democrats bend over backward to show conservative white voters respect, only to see some remark taken out of context and their entire agenda characterized as stealing from hard-working white people to give undeserved benefits to shiftless minorities. And then pundits demand, “Why aren’t you showing those whites more respect?” Democrats are supposed to abandon their values and change their policies, despite the fact that many of those policies provide enormous help to the very people who say Democrats look down on them ... How many times have we seen Democrats try to show respect by going to a NASCAR event or on a hunting trip, only to be mocked for their insincerity?

That's not all either:

A recent 15,000-word opus by the Post’s Dan Balz ... central finding is reflected in its headlines: “Loyalty, unease in Trump’s Midwest. Voters gave Trump a chance. Some remain all in. Others have grown weary of the chaos.” Balz describes down-on-their-luck, small-town and rural residents who feel disrespected by educated urbanites, especially coastal elites. But what exceeds that resentment is a quiet desperation as their local economies have receded or collapsed.

This comment should blow your mind...

Wearing a John Deere hoodie ... Kurt Glazier is a state worker, a union member and serves as chairman of the Republican Party in Whiteside County. He also sits on the county board. “I think Trump brought out the fact that — I mean, as crude and callous as he was at times — so many people had been almost discriminated against because they were Republicans and not Democrats, that we felt inferior.”

...so will this...

Republican Party chairman in Clinton County Dan Smicker recalled that many of those he encountered were mad, fed up with the state of things. “This is my observation, it is not necessarily my belief  … Number one, they said minority political people have been well taken care of. Small business and working people have been identified as the source of income to take care of those people.”

...there's more...

Republican Party chairman in Clinton County Dan Smicker recalled that many of those he encountered were mad, fed up with the state of things. “This is my observation, it is not necessarily my belief  … Number one, they said minority political people have been well taken care of. Small business and working people have been identified as the source of income to take care of those people.”

We No Longer Expect a Happier Better Life: Finally, the following story pretty much reflects what I see every day in my current job, and simply put, it scares me. Americans have accepted a lower expectation of life, of their country, their politicians, and are now settling for less:

Marsha Story, in charge of decorating cakes, described the life of a single mother struggling on $11 an hour. “We don’t have cable,” she said, explaining how she juggled her finances. “We don’t have the Internet.” She said she declined to go on Medicaid, although she was eligible to use it. “I’ve always paid my own way,” she said.

The Blind Obedience of Trump Voters, an Update!!!

Many Trump voters aren't really paying attention to the Paul Ryan health care sausage being made in D.C., because to them, they believe a multi-millionaire who can't stop lying, and campaigning, is going to take care of the forgotten little guy. Yes, now they want help from the government.

Like Captain America's Chris Evan explained:

Esquire: "I feel rage. I feel fury. It's unbelievable. People were just so desperate to hear someone say that someone is to blame. They were just so happy to hear that someone was angry. Hear someone say that Washington sucks. They just want something new without actually understanding. I mean, guys like Steve Bannon—Steve Bannon!—this man has no place in politics. Some people say, 'Don't you see what's happening? It's time to yell.' 

Yeah, I see it, and it's time for calm. Because not everyone who voted for Trump is going to be some horrible bigot. There are a lot of people in that middle; those are the people you can't lose your credibility with. If you're trying to change minds, by spewing too much rhetoric you can easily become white noise."

With that, here are two recent clips featuring Trumpian followers. In the first video, one fan was asked what Trump could improve on:

Fan: "Yea, health care, he needs to rewrite that Paul Ryan plan because honestly it's terrible. (audible laughter)...straight up terrible."

The clip below starts with Trump voters, and continues with HHS Sec Tom Price's empty promise of a 3 part plan. Like that'll happen. In fact, the clip ends with Rand Paul saying what I've been saying all along about the high risk pools paid for by taxpayers. I thought Republicans didn't want to pay for someone else's health care?:

Paul: "We're certainly not for when you get sick, the taxpayer takes over the tab for the insurance company. It's a terrible situation. What you do is socialize the insurance company losses, but you privatize the billions of dollars that they make. I'm not for giving a gift to the insurance companies, and that's what this house plan does." 

My own plan is simple; the universal "Every Doctor-Every Hospital Act"  

Delusional Pro-Trump Ladies Ga-Ga over unfolding Disaster.

This is truly one of the most amazing interviews ever, where Trump supporters are virtually drooling over every ugly narcissistic move their dictatorial leader has made so far as president. No stumbles, no overreach, no constitutional crisis in the making...because, as one woman puked up, "I love him, I love who he is, I love his transparency."  

My conservative friend in Milwaukee said the same things these Arizona women were saying, totally in the tank for an authoritarian strongman...just like the founding fathers had envisioned.



Scarier still knowing other see things so much differently.

Resentful Trump voters screw themselves keeping Health Care, Higher Pay and Affordable College away from Less Deserving People.

The politics of resentment, of green eyed envy, has been at the top of the Republican list of talking points for decades. 

And yet Democratic strategists -if there are any - haven't done squat to fight back.

Insane Problem: Americans resent lazy undeserving people getting what they get, without working for it. So instead of raising the minimum wage, providing health care, and a "free" college education that would raise "lazy" people up out of poverty, they bring everybody down, including themselves.

Democrats pushed for expansion of health-insurance subsidies for low- and middle-income Americans; investments in education and retraining; middle-class tax cuts; and a higher minimum wage. These are core, standard-of-living improving policies. They would do far more to help the economically precarious — including and especially white working-class voters — than Donald Trump’s top-heavy tax cuts and trade wars ever could.

Resentment is at the heart of union bashing; workers in the private sector don't get the same pay and benefits as union workers, so thanks to envy, instead of bringing the private sector up, we've decided to bring everybody down. It's counter intuitive but oddly effective for Republicans.
 
The Washington Post's Catherine Rampell brought a whole bunch of articles together to prove how powerful envy and resentment is. It's elected Trump, and is about to hold all of us back again:

Why the white working class votes against itself: Why did all those Economically Anxious™ Trump voters reject policies that would have helped relieve their economic anxiety?

Maybe they believed any Big Government expansions would disproportionately go to the “wrong” kinds of people — that is, people unlike themselves. Across rural America, the Rust Belt, Coal Country and other hotbeds of Trumpism, voters have repeatedly expressed frustration that the lazy and less deserving are getting a bigger chunk of government cheese. 

1. In Kentucky, consumers receiving federal subsidies through the Obamacare exchanges complain that neighbors who are less responsible are receiving nearly free insurance through Medicaid. “They can go to the emergency room for a headache,” one woman told Vox’s Sarah Kliff.

2. In Ohio, white working-class focus group participants decried that women who “pop out babies like Pez dispensers with different baby daddies” get “welfare every month” and “their housing paid for, their food.” These women seem to live large, one participant said, while people like herself are “struggling to put food on the table.”

3. The Institute for Family Studies Focus Group, were also skeptical of efforts to raise the minimum wage. Opponents argued either that higher pay wasn’t justified for lower-skilled, less intense work or that raising the minimum wage would unfairly narrow the pay gap between diligent folks such as themselves and people who’d made worse life choices. “That son of a b---- is making $10 an hour! I’m making $13.13. I feel like s--- because he’s making almost as much as I am, and I have never been in trouble with the law and I have a clean record, I can pass a drug test,” said one participant. 

4. In Wisconsin, rural whites are similarly eager to “stop the flow of resources to people who are undeserving,” says Katherine J. Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and author of  “The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker.” The people Cramer interviewed for her book often named a (white) welfare-receiving neighbor or relative as someone who belonged in that basket of undeservings — but also immigrants, minorities and inner-city elites who were allegedly siphoning off more government funds than they contributed.

5. We’ve known for a long time, through the work of Martin Gilens, Suzanne Mettler and other social scientists, that Americans (A) generally associate government spending with undeserving, nonworking, nonwhite people; and (B) are really bad at recognizing when they personally benefit from government programs. Hence those oblivious demands to “keep your government hands off my Medicare,” and the tea partyers who get farm subsidies.

6.Rhetoric this election cycle caricaturing our government as “rigged,” and anyone who pays into it as a chump, has only reinforced these misperceptions about who benefits from government programs and how much. It’s no wonder that Trump’s promises — to re-create millions of (technologically displaced) jobs and to punish all those non-self-sufficient moochers — seem much more enticing. 

No American likes the idea of getting a “handout” — especially if they believe that handout is secretly being rerouted to their layabout neighbor anyway.

Trump voters aren't buying into his or the Republican agenda.

In the survey below, Trump voters don't come across as crazy as they appear at his rallies. It was also interesting to watch the All in with Chris Hayes' townhall in Kenosha, where Trump's "know-it-all" supporters never really had a grasp of what was going on. What they described was the cartoon version pitched by Trump over and over. Salon:

GPG Survey of Trump Voters, December 2016 from GloverParkGroup

Fly Over States Politics of Resentment!!!

Loved this article from beginning to end. Couldn't have said it better and with more conviction. The Hill:

The predominant narrative coming out of the 2016 presidential post-election analysis is: The flyover states have spoken.

A flyover state is the huge region between the coasts. As opposed to the eastern seaboard, northern post-industrial states and Pacific Ocean states. They’re overwhelmingly Republican, staunchly conservative, regressive right wing, evangelical Christian and working class, well, the loudest, most ill-informed of them are. The term wasn’t commonly used in a political manner until recently with the emergence of the Tea Party and the election of Obama.

A visit to Wichita, Kan., isn’t on the bucket list of many Americans. Whereas most travelers fly over Fayetteville, Ark., and Springfield, Mo. They’re not destination spots. The flyover state gripe has nothing to do with the tourist industry of Oklahoma or Nebraska or Iowa. This is about their perceived feelings of abandonment and disrespect from their government. Never mind they’ve elected local, state and national representatives that should reflect their values and interests.

Forsetti’s Justice writes:

“Government has not done enough to help them in many cases but their local and state governments are almost completely Republican and so too are their Representatives and Senators. Instead of holding them accountable, they vote them in over and over and over again.”

Now they’ve elected Donald Trump, the ultimate coastal elite. Trump pandered to their bigotry, and anger at Washington, D.C.

The more entrenched the flyover voting bloc becomes in their voting habits, the further they fall behind economically, by voting against their own interests, the more they blame Washington, D.C. and coastal "liberal elites" for their issues.

They’re not silent or a majority: This is a voter demographic fond of describing themselves as hard-working middle-class Americans. Which they are. They’re overwhelmingly middle-aged to senior, white, semi-rural, increasingly suburban and indignant. They seem to be perpetually enraged every election cycle, and after, according to the results.

They either want their country back or they’re tired of being ignored. They regularly blurt the latter as justification for electing right-wing theocrat/closed minds, austerity minded, cultural fascists to office. These are people that use more government subsidy than any segment of the country, but they hate "handouts" to anyone else. They are the largest consumers of SNAP benefits, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The flyover states are the main reason Congress is irreparably broken.

Since the inception of the term silent majority almost 50 years ago, and all of its iterations since, this block of voters was hardly a majority and never silent. This group has been exceedingly adept at dominating the narrative in virtually every election cycle. They’re proficient at dog-whistle propaganda, and since the mid-1980s, they’ve created their own media echo-chamber which exponentially multiplies the sound of their own voices, with no interference from outside sources. This was accomplished mainly with coast to coast a.m. radio stations broadcasting 24/7 right-wing indoctrination, to conservative patriot and alt-right conspiracy theory websites of the last 15 years which disseminate tragic half-truths and whole fake news.

The alleged silent majority is deafening and easily provoked. They reside in their own echo-chamber bubble of indignation about everything from "New York values" (urban, ethnic rights, LGBT, social justice), to the war on Christmas and Black Lives Matter. They mocked and derided all people’s protests from Occupy to #NoDAPL. Their old standbys are opposing a woman’s right to choose, reinstituting school prayer and eradicating "big government." They hate progress. Their idea of American values is straight from circa 1870.

Hillary Clinton garnered more votes than Trump, 2 million more votes. However, that doesn’t preclude flyover state Trump voters from claiming a landslide and mandate. In 2012 and 2008, Mitt Romney and John McCain received more votes while losing than Trump did in 2016. Yet American-values Trump voters still proclaim a “make America great again” Trump-style mandate. They’re delusional in their belief that their views are more important, more valid, more ethical, and more patriotic than any other groups. They claim American Christian values, home, God and country. White values. Any dissenting viewpoints are taken as literal acts of war.

Anyone who questions the narrow vision of Middle America Christian values, being forced on 325 million people of multiple cultures, religions, no religion, and a mosaic of ethnicities, is deemed ungodly and un-American.

It’s clear cultural fascism: American cultural progress has gone regressive

The United States is in social and cultural check. The poor will get no practical relief. Living wages will remain a distant dream. Healthcare costs will remain the major source of bankruptcy. Environmental issues will intensify to unknown crisis proportions. Women’s reproductive rights will be under constant attack and eroded. Race relations will devolve to tribal levels of disdain and mistrust.

The American melting pot will become a cauldron boiling over with contempt.

There is a cultural war happening in America, it’s in the cold propaganda phase, going back to the 1990s. The election of Trump signals this cultural conflagration will heat up.

Yes, the country has been critically divided for two decades, I don’t know how we find treaty and consensus, while truth is so dishonored and mocked.

To Trump voters: You allowed your bigotry and anger at the system to be cynically exploited yet again, by regressive, wealthy demagogues. I have little sympathy for you. I for one will not be contorting myself to "give Trump a chance" or seek common ground with you.

You need healing, not allies.

Duane Townsend is life-long resident of Detroit, Mich., and an experienced observer of the American social/political landscape.

More Trump voters soon to be trashed on ObamaCare Exchanges!

I've been thinking about how I should react to all the Trump news, and his upcoming ominous presidency, and came up with a few conclusions.

There's nothing we can about the Trump voters gullibility, they've bought into every empty promise.

Voters faith in Trump is a mystery. He lied 70% of the time, according to Politifact.

Why are the Democrats in chaos? They shouldn't be, since there focus was spot on. It's what they didn't do; flat out lie about everything. That convinced many voters to take the easy, "I'll fix it" way out. Many Democrats bought into it too, and will pay the hefty price.

I will watch with glee when rural Republican voters, who believe Trump is going to lower the cost of health care, see their premiums go through the roof. And they will lose their affordable insurance on the exchange. If they thought they were disenfranchised before, just wait. I'm ready for it. They're not, and they're going to go down with me:

Hmm, as it turns out...

In winning what Republicans see as a mandate to repeal Obamacare, Donald Trump carried the Wisconsin counties that participate in a key part of the health program at higher rates 

An analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shows that people living in the 59 counties won by Trump enroll in the Affordable Care Act's private health insurance exchange at a higher rate than the 13 mostly urban counties that backed Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Oddly, Democrats have fewer ObamaCare enrollees:

-In all, 157,751 people in the Trump counties enrolled in the exchanges in the most recent year ... in the Trump counties, about 4.3% of the population is enrolled in the exchanges and in northern Wisconsin counties like Vilas, Iron and Door, the rates of exchange enrollment rise to nearly 10%.

-In the counties won by Clinton, 3.8% of the population enrolled in the exchanges, or 81,280 in all. The two powerhouse counties for Democrats — Milwaukee and Dane — enrolled at below average rates of 4% and 3.2%, respectively, and few other Democratic counties have high usage rates.

Those who didn't vote for Trump will have to endure the consequences of his presidency. But that's okay, knowing we'll see every Trump voter get stiffed right along with everybody else. Everything will cost more as each and every free market/deregulation Trump promised is fulfilled.

Trump voters will be so invested emotionally in their "leader," that they never admit mistakes or be allowed to take the blame.

Here are the real Trump voters. Funny the news networks somehow missed this...

Rabid Trump voters loudly boo the Constitution, and then boot the silent protesters holding them up.

It wasn't so long ago when Tea Party Republicans would hold up their pocket Constitutions as a badge of courage. How times have changed under the fascist leadership of presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The rabid Trump supporters are even willing to throw out our founding document, for someone who "tells it like is," "straight from the heart."

The most unsettling shift in attitudes can be seen in this clarifying moment below: