re: #189 Backwoods_Sleuth

As I explained earlier in the thread, I’m a Republican because all the local county offices are decided during the Republican primary in May because the Democratic party here locally is very weak.
I’m also what is today considered an Eisenhower Republican (aka these days = RINO): fiscally sensible (yes, taxes are not evil), very supportive of social issues and also very wary of the military-industrial complex.
True story: The local Democratic organization couldn’t find anyone to be president a couple of years ago and they asked me. I told them they needed to find a reasonable Democrat.
The reason I refused is because Rand Paul Libertarians are taking over the Republican party here, both locally and state-wide (that’s how our local County Judge Executive ended up becoming our congresscritter in DC), and I didn’t want to give up my vote to oppose that, because we have closed primaries.
They ended up getting another Republican to change party affiliation to be president.
This is much more than the tea party lunatics redefining “conservative” as it relates to the GOP, it’s about the Paulians making serious inroads on the GOP by preying on fears.
Sadly, I don’t think many people are seeing what’s happening. And many of those who do see it are having a difficult time coming up with strategies to deal with it.

That really blows and I kind of know the deal: I live in Nashville, one of the few Democratic oases in a blood-red Tennessee. We have a GOP governor, a GOP super-majority on our Capitol Hill in which the Democrats (mostly from Nashville, Memphis, and the other large cities) can really do no more than offer token resistance, and the overwhelming majority of our Congressional delegation are either TPGOPers or pandering to them (I’m looking at you, Lamar!).

I can understand wanting to work from the inside of your local GOP to fight off the encroachments of the TPers and the Paulians, but there’s a time when you have to fish or cut bait. IMO, at this point, the GOP as it is currently is absolutely rotten to the core, because the inmates now run the asylum and the establishment types are too scared of them to give them the boot, because they need those folks to compete with the Democrats in any meaningful way.

You really are between a rock and a hard place where you are, but helping to strengthen the Democratic opposition may do a lot to help curb your local GOP’s slide towards the crazy zone.