Ed OReillyApr 20, 2023
Aaron Rupar

"The reality is the Republican Party basically went off the rails when McCain picked Sarah Palin, and the press averted its eyes from this lunacy ever since then."

Check out my entire conversation with @froomkin https://aaronrupar.substack.com/p/aaron-rupar-show-dan-froomkin#details

Dan Froomkin on press accountability in the Trump era

Listen now (34 min) | "It's tough love."

Public Notice
Apr 20, 2023 at 1:04amWeb
Show threadDGiantApr 20, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin This, and America voted in a black guy. I really think that broke the right.
Show threadDoctor BiobrainApr 20, 2023

@atrupar Uh…no. The Republican Party went off the rails in the 90’s with the help of corporate media like the NY Times hyping up every fake Clinton scandal and treating both sides like they were equal.

And let’s not forget how much they mocked Al Gore in 2000 over nothing then acted like everything was normal when the Republicans on the Supreme Court handed Bush the Whitehouse based on a one-time rule.

Or the insane coverage of the War on Terror and demonizing anyone who was against it.

Show threadAnne OminousApr 20, 2023
@biobrain @atrupar totally agree. i also remember the thomas confirmation hearings, reagan being sold as a man of the people, iran contra, and iraq 1. we've been headed this direction for a really long time, things are only just ramping up to a new level of insanity now that so much of their agenda has been realized.
Show threadDoctor BiobrainApr 20, 2023

@rustoleumlove Not gonna lie: I was a teenage Republican in the 80’s and still like Reagan. At least he was nice to people, negotiated with Democrats, and genuinely meant well even if his policies were misguided or wrong. He’d be a RINO if he were alive today. I switched parties around 93 because I realized nothing they said matched reality.

And even Bush Sr wasn’t a bad guy. It was the rise of Limbaugh and Gingrich when the angry nutjobs took over and made everything toxic.

Show threadAnne OminousApr 20, 2023

@biobrain ok. funnily enough i see biden as very much like an 80s GOPer.
one thing i will say for many of them, even bush ii & cheney, is that i think they really thought that what they were doing was the right thing for the US.

these days, it's like sarah kendzior says - the main GOP goal seems to be selling the country off for parts. those that arent doing that are engaged in toxic cultural warfare. or both.

Show threadDangandblastApr 20, 2023
@rustoleumlove @biobrain I hadn't thought of it as a "vulture capitalist" metaphor, but it really works. "Let's see how much short-term power and benefits we can get out of this place while we run it into the ground; only the weak would care about those destroyed in the process" does seem to be their view.
Show threadOlavApr 20, 2023
@atrupar
@froomkin iirc he didn't pick her, the Tea Party Express forced him. Basically saddling an electable candidate with an albatross.
Show threadAaron K.Apr 20, 2023
@olavf @atrupar @froomkin Tea Party Express was not a thing until 2010.
Show threadwasabi brainApr 20, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin George w bush presidency memoryholed for how completely insane and off the rails the party went.
Show threadThink MarcApr 20, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin hmmm I thought it was #newt?
Show threadJohn BreenApr 20, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin "I can see Russia from my house"
Show threadDan GillmorApr 20, 2023
@atrupar it was earlier imo, with Gingrich the main instigator at the time. @froomkin
Show threadMark W. AlexanderApr 20, 2023
@dangillmor @atrupar @froomkin Gingrich was, and is, the original existential threat to democracy.
Show threadJesseApr 20, 2023
@dangillmor @atrupar @froomkin They were both inflection points.
Show threadShawn Smith PeirceApr 20, 2023

@dangillmor @atrupar @froomkin Significantly correct.

Nixon was the first major divergence, but Gingrich was the one beyond which everything else changed - because Gingrich’s basic rule was Nixon’s primary rule on steroids: It’s OK If You’re A Republican.

When power at all costs is the only rule, as it became for Repubs after Gingrich, monsters like Palin & Trump are inevitable. The latter two are just notable signposts on the rapidly passing road to Hell.

Show threadKimberleyApr 20, 2023
@dangillmor @atrupar @froomkin That tracks.
Gingrich definitely sent them swirling around the drain. The decision to put Palin on McCain's ticket was an obvious sign they were going down. And the felling of Dick Lugar's statesmanlike career signaled -- to me, at least -- that the situation was unrecoverable.
Show threadSoNotNic 🐍🐉🐈Apr 20, 2023

@atrupar

I am pretty sure that the Republican party lost control of the train in 1947 with the election of Joseph McCarthy to the senate. It came off the track with Nixon and his southern strategy. And it fully embraced living in a fictional world instead of reality with the election of Ronald Reagan.

But McCain picking Palin was certainly yet another sign.

Show threadJune CasagrandeApr 20, 2023
@atrupar For me, I'd say it was the moment a pro-choice Democratic governor of California realized fundamentalists extremists could give you unlimited power if you promised to take away abortion rights — so he switched. Reagan was the cynical fuck who let the loonies off the leash.
Show threadBrettApr 20, 2023
@atrupar Recency bias. They’ve been doing the same things and behaving in the same ways since the 60s. We do not live in extraordinary times. Fascists rose around the world 100 years ago saying and doing the same things too.
Show threadAziz PoonawallaApr 20, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin no, go back further to 2000
Show threadAlex SieApr 20, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin I do think Palin marked the arrival of the culture wars candidate. She had a poor grasp on foreign policy and the economy but excelled at pushing right wing populism. It didn’t work for McCain who needed to win over centrist voters. However, it did work in Republican primaries where it came to dominate. In a sort of self selecting way GOP activists have become more extreme and more intolerant of moderate voices. Trump tapped in to that sentiment.
Show threadMemphisDaPlaya 🎲🎲Apr 20, 2023
@atrupar
Steve Schmidt's "Bride of Frankenstein" don'cha know, Wink Wink, you bet,'cha!
Show threadKeithApr 20, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin Yep.
Newt Gingrich’s legacy suxass Palinesque, —whiny PAB he still is (1994)!
@krisSacrebleu
Show threadPratik PatelApr 20, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin I'd push that back to Newt days. The germs were there even before that. Pat Buchannan.
Show threadAuntie MameApr 20, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin I’ve been sayin!
Show threadDavid H. McCoyApr 21, 2023

@atrupar @froomkin @dangillmor

The GOP was off the rails decades before that.

Reagan fought making King’s birthday a holiday and blamed every I’ll on single black mothers.

All the while attacking govt with the entire country benefiting from govt services.

Show threadmalenaApr 21, 2023
@atrupar @froomkin this also sent Palin off the rails — prior to national stardom she really wasnt much more than a garden variety small town alaska conservative, fame really unleashed her inner nut job
Show threadLes TombéApr 21, 2023
@seachanger @atrupar @froomkin And how!