re: #33 Obdicut

We would have been so much better off with that version of the GOP.

This IS that version of the GOP. The version we have now is the same. GOP 2002-2003 is no different from LGF 2002-2003.

re: #37 Obdicut

Why would being a direct recipient of it make you feel it would grow stronger than weaker over time? It had grown weaker, for awhile. Bush made actual inroads with Hispanics.

Odd question. It gives me zero reason to trust them, especially having been one. They have been on this exact trajectory since Goldwater/Nixon/Reagan-Bush, and spent the 90s and 00s nurturing unhinged bigots like Michelle Malkin, Coulter, Walter Williams, Charles Murray, Dinesh D’Souza and other highbrow cranks.

Why would something suddenly shift towards normalcy beginning on Nov. 5 2008?

I don’t think that the GOP’s complete turn towards white nativism was inevitable. Likely, yeah, but they could have purged themselves— the Democrats managed it.

Well, overt white nativism, anyway. And you’re absolutely right; nothing is inevitable, any more than LGF’s shift was inevitable. That’s the result of personal work, of which everyone is capable, but too few on the coward/conformist rightwing have the sac to do for themselves.