That if there is no center candidate, Trump wins. What a bunch of bull

Sick of these lies too.

and it is not only against tRump.

Because I don't recall any such thing lately. So do tell.

But nice pivot tactic there.

is there some purity test I need to pass or are we a big tent? do tell.

do you think somehow you have some rights that are being violated here?

Your notion that I think my rights are being violated is just bizarre and has nothing to do with our conversation.

Is it a language issue? Is that the trouble we are having communicating here?

would want to back away from it. It made no sense. But it seems a bit silly, then, to have made such an unsupportable statement to begin with.

Expressed an opinion and am not interested in discussing it. Your quickly deleted response spoke volumes. Clear now?

buh bye

Last time at the Presidential level we ran on one of the most historically progressive platforms, so you clearly aren't talking about that election. So it begs the question you are being asked. There are no differences of definition. We live in the same society with the same political norms.

I would think that 16 would be a reminder of why we must vote Democratic always.

a war with tRump and the fucking Republicans. Duh.

He called the lies of extreme progressivism impossible to defeat the lies of Trump. Both are on the spectrum of lies. That's what he said.

Demonizing Democrats is getting really old. You can save your attacks on the "we are in a war" insinuation telling people Democrats are corrupt.

He is a conservative still, although he has denounced Trump and today's Republicans.

and what he is trying to do is build a lifeboat for an ideology that needs to fucking drown.

by promoting as a future saviour of conservatism, which he is trying to separate from the GOP.

they got away with that shit once

As long as he is speaking out against Trump, I don't care about his ideology right now. We take back the House and Senate, we can deal with his ideology later. If Democrats lose in the mid-terms because we run too many people who are anti-establishment Democrats then we have lost this country forever. We are a big tent and can keep the old while at the same time bringing in fresh blood with new ideas and there is no reason we can't use help from disgruntled Republicans to do it.

Easy to forget.

...but it's too bad Ruhle didn't challenge him on his criticism of how progressives plan to pay for things like single payer health care, free college...etc. END THE TAX CUTS, END CORPORATE LOOPHOLES!

...that may be difficult to keep. However the promises on our side sound pretty darned good...if they can ever be actualized

I see him daily now, here there everywhere, like Avenatti, they've figured out how to get paid through the never ending circus show. I'm starting to lose interest. I have to go to a real job.

Lots of ideas and no leadership. .good ideas but no " one voice message" theme.. diluted essentially... can't successfully accomplish much...good things are hard..

Hate, as the Tea Party, tRumpsters and the faux religious right. They spread meanness and hate...that's easy to do...Kindness, humanity..very difficult.

Why so many threads about Morning Joe anyways. He and her . . . hate Democrats.

up early. But that program is a window into what some Republicans think the can do to haul their tushes out of the fire. Lordy, Mika has such a distorted view of feminism. And Barnacle is still firmly lodged in the Fifties. Meachem is an insufferable show off gasbag. Haass still owes us an apology for PNAC. I love heckling them on twitter.

incurred.

He said that you are not going to out lie Trump with lies about extreme progressivism.

He never said he likes Democrats, so forget about his bullshit and move forward. Some people think he is really great not liking Trump, is among the majority but I would not trust him.

He’s also said the Democratic party is the only party that represents the core principals of democracy. I don’t need someone to heel to my worldview for me to have a desire to listen to their opinion.

Various Republicans, including members of the media and retiring Congresspersons, have been critical of Trump. Steve Schmidt, Republican Party strategist turned TV pundit and Trump critic, has even renounced his Republican Party membership. Schmidt tweeted, "29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump."

Now, let me preface what I'm about to write by saying the more people that recognize the horrors of the Trump Administration the better. But let's be clear about a few things. Trump and his base of support is a monster of the Republican Party's making, a monster who was 50 years in the making. The Southern Strategy and racist dog whistling has been modus operandi for the GOP for longer than Steve Schmidt has been alive. Schmidt turned eighteen as Ronald Reagan's administration was coming to an end. I imagine Reagan inspired Schmidt to register as a Republican. Reagan, the man who basically kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign by giving a speech about "states' rights" less than ten miles from Philadelphia, MS, where three civil rights workers were murdered. Every other Republican presidential candidate, from Nixon to Bush to McCain to Romney, has also engaged in dog whistling.

In addition, the Republican Party has engaged in race-based gerrymandering and race-based voter suppression. The Republican Party has also fomented and exploited sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, jingoism and hatred of LGBTQ persons. The Republican Party has undermined trust in government by infusing government with incompetence and corruption. The Republican Party has also fostered the "liberal media" myth, which has contributed to a highly irresponsible infotainment industry that promotes false equivalencies and seems unwilling to label facts as facts and lies as lies (out, I suppose, of some twisted sense of what constitutes fairness or balance).

All of the above made the rise of Trump or someone like him almost inevitable. So, all I can suggest to Republicans who are critical of Trump is that you keep scrubbing those hands. The blood won't come out easily, but what choice do you have but to keep scrubbing?

Let me make one more point before closing. Unless one is genuinely ignorant of history, it is utterly disingenuous to suggest that the Republican Party of today (or pre-Trump) is anything like the Republican Party that was started by anti-slavery Whigs. Nor is today's GOP the "party of Lincoln," as some like to claim (Lincoln, by the way, was no abolitionist). Mr. Schmidt, the pre-Trump Republican Party is no more the Republican Party of 1854 than today's Democratic Party is the Democratic Party of pre-1964 Strom Thurmond.

Why call out Republicans who are critical of Trump, one might ask. The reason is simple. Republicans need to take ownership. We need to be clear about who Republicans have been for half a century now. All persons of conscience must guard against this notion that all will be well or "normal" if we simply rid this nation of Donald J. Trump. All is not well. Republicans have very deliberately created a monster, which was born before Trump moved into the White House and will undoubtedly survive long after Trump is gone. Own it, Republicans. Own it.

Lastly, to all those persons of conscience, vote for Democrats in November. The party may not be perfect, but it's the only thing standing in the way of authoritarianism, the only thing standing in the way of fascism. If you've never voted before, 2018 would be a good time to start. Your Social Security, your health insurance or your child's health insurance, and your very life may depend on it. Please vote.

I failed to reply with thanks to your thoughtful posting of this in my Schmidt thread last night. I read it then and again just now.

Sure, he hates Trump.

But he's not a good guy.

His personality was something familiar after we witnessed her public persona for years following the 2004 election. And she was Schmidt's choice.