General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy do Repukes always seem to pick stupid, ignorant presidential candidates?
I think because those characteristics are what comprises the majority of their base.
we can do it
(12,205 posts)MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,230 posts).
While liberals generally accept that there are those with better talents and differing educational skills who should rise and lead, conservatives want people who are like them, someone they can have a beer with at a cookout or county fair.
This flies in the face as to how conservatives frame to their masses that the wealthy are somehow better than they are, with some weird premise that they were either preordained to be wealthy or they have God's grace.
With the current conservative collection, that means debased, immoral and mendacious bullshitters.
.
unblock
(52,387 posts)or their state-level candidates?
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)ego_nation
(123 posts)The less of it, the better, as far as theyre concerned. If you dont need someone to do anything more than cut taxes and regulations, you dont have to set the bar high.
Wounded Bear
(58,743 posts)Different Drummer
(7,652 posts)DD
MLAA
(17,340 posts)If I needed an answer other than stupidity and racism are traveling partners I would go with
While Democrats look to elect someone even smarter than they (we) are, the majority of republicans want to elect someone like themselves.
I also wonder if the majority of republicans have any idea of the true nature, complexity and requirements of the role of President.
Different Drummer
(7,652 posts)How else to explain Trump?
NewJeffCT
(56,829 posts)people in government with law degrees and law licenses and such, or others that were highly educated...
Now, it's just whoever can yell out the most Limbaugh/Fox News talking points the loudest and most often that gets the nomination for the GOP at the state and local levels.
Was listening to Norm Ornstein as a guest with Al Franken on Sirius radio on Saturday and Norm put the blame on Newt Gingrich. Prior to Gingrich, the staffs of the Republican & Democratic committees would work together and come up with bills to present to their committees and the bills would be debated and modified in committee and then move forward to the entire House or Senate for votes. Newt tanked that and GOP staff was now required to work alone slapping together bills and Dem staff was frozen out and GOP played with the entire process afterwards. After that, loyalty and purity were more important than debate and bipartisanship.
JHB
(37,163 posts)Conservatives have targeted any independently thinking Republicans since they started ousting Rockefeller Republicans back in the 70s. By Newt's time the survivors were trained into falling in line no matter what.
Anybody who might have felt frisky faced the wrath of Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the RW noise machine. Let's not forget that for a solid two and a half decades any Republican who even suggested Rush wasn't all that important was on his show within 48 hours walking it back and blaming the "liberal media" for taking him "out of context".
The only direction where they've had any freedom to maneuver is farther to the right, which is part of how they've gotten crazier and stupider.
MurrayDelph
(5,301 posts)have no appeal to the ignorant masses that listen to talk radio, so the so-called smart ones keep looking for affable puppets they thin they can control, only to discover that they can't, so they look for the next would-be puppet in hopes of controlling. Repeat.
moondust
(20,017 posts)Taxes and law enforcement are the sworn enemies of crooks who want to be "kings" for life.
stillcool
(32,626 posts)if they just follow the script.
crickets
(25,987 posts)WyattKansas
(1,648 posts)So they use characters with bumper sticker slogans to whip up a frenzy that confuses people.
The Democratic Party needs to start yelling exactly what the differences meant to people in the past. Nobody is going to educate people for the Democratic Party, that the republican pump & dump scam only leaves most of the people holding the shit bag. Hell, most people do not understand that in the 1950s, the wealthy elite did not actually pay their 92% tax rate, unless they were stupid... It forced the wealthy elite to invest in the United States by expanding or opening new businesses, starting and financing charitable foundations, donating to charity, etc. etc. (which still allowed them ownership of their tax debt) which benefited American Workers and the U.S. Not only is that absent now with republican Ayn Rand policies, the wealthy elite move their wealth into hedge funds, which drive up prices (food, goods, utilities, pharmaceuticals, etc.) for average Americans trying to survive. Ever wonder why we have a lot of food recalls, disease, etc. etc. warnings today?.. How much of it is due to 'deregulation' (your rights eliminated) screeching from republicans.
For Christ's sake, you don't need a Goddamned college education and degree to figure that out and/or know it. The reason it keeps going on and on is that there has been nobody calling it out and raising hell about.
DEbluedude
(816 posts)RT Atlanta
(2,517 posts)n/t
hunter
(38,337 posts)He'd say or sign anything for a blow job.
Every Republican President since has been a puppet.
The only thing that changes is the nature of the strings.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)Well, McCain choosing Palin without vetting her to find out how stupid she was was a pretty dumb move on his part. But overall, he was a literate fellow who was intelligent enough to overall understand how shit works. Romney is a smart guy in his own way. He is a damn snake but that doesn't make him dumb either.
I guess the big lesson there though is that they both lost. The only GOP wins in the past few decades have been Bush and Trump.
Cornell Engineer
(80 posts)were scraping the bottom of the barrel with Dubya the GOP proves that they can always find a much deeper barrel.
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." -John Stuart Mill
Andy823
(11,495 posts)and the people the vote for are real good and "lying" and promising them everything the want to hear. Republican politicians are great at the "con job", just look at trump.