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Small town Republican thoughts on refuting the alt-right. In The Republican Journal:
I want to make one thing very clear: The Waldo County Republican Committee absolutely, unequivocally condemns Nazi and KKK ideologies and actions, as well as any other kind of bigotry, and we encourage all of our voters and the community at large to do the same.
For fellow Republicans out there, worry not, we don't like Antifa's ideology and actions either, but we need to clean our own house; we need to worry about our own responsibilities.
Such honesty, and clarity of thought!
The most dangerous part of politics today is identity politics, trolling, pathos and a severe lack of critical thinking. You cannot defeat the insidious hatred of bigoted politics with more hate. By doing so, you morph the conversation away from policy and ideology to silly label syntax, eventually devolving completely into back and forth verbal gymnastics. Make no mistake, these trolls are ready for you as you stoop to their level, and they beat you up with mountains of experience.
So what do we do? Very simple. Stay neighborly by controlling your reaction. Seek out those with whom you disagree, try to understand them first, and politely offer your counter argument.
And it looks like the Republicans in Maine, if not in Illinois, are rejecting the alt-right.
The way to defeat Mr. Kawczynski is not by attacking him, but by attacking his ideas. Here are some flaws in his thinking: His immigration ideas are antithetical to the Maine Republican party platform, a section of which states, "We support the assimilation of legal immigrants into Maine society."
Kawczynski's ideas stand in contrast to Maine history and culture; in fact, it is white folks with racist ideologies who pose the greatest threat to Maine's foundation, not other races of people.
Another brilliant tidbit:
Ultimately, all you have to do is walk outside with your eyes open in this state to see that Kawczynski's fearmongering about "white genocide" is completely laughable.
Entire guest column is well worth a read.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday February 09 2018, @07:20PM (2 children)
So does criticizing your candidates ideas mean voting for someone else?
I mean, yeah, lots of people don't like racist bigots, but if they vote for them anyway...
If this guy is running for office, then the post makes sense. If he's just saying "Don't criticize our candidate, just his ideas" then it's propaganda. From the summary I can't tell which, and since I'm neither a resident of Maine nor a Republican, it's rather irrelevant. It will be a long time before I vote for a Republican again...they've got to recover some decent idealism that they had when they identified as "The Party of Lincoln". These days I wouldn't even trust a "Rockefeller Republican" to have any idealism that was decent, and that was about the last time the Republicans showed any. (No, I don't think Regan was a good guy. Neither was Rockefeller, but he had *some* good ideals. Regan didn't. Reagan was an actor with Alzheimer's...and knew how to show a good [B movie] act. I rather admire his "Evil Empire" speech, but not as politics.)
The ideals that the Republican Party used to have were killed by the Supreme Court decision that said cities could not discriminate in favor of residents when providing social services. That killed "We care for our own" at the local level, and turned it into a race to the bottom, because no place can afford to be the most generous for the entire country. And the Republicans not only didn't denounce the ruling, they supported it (quietly).
Don't get me started on the Democrat betrayals. I'm sure not claiming that they've usually been much better...just with different problems. But they've still got some ideals, even if they don't often live up to them.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 10 2018, @12:46AM (1 child)
Idealism? How would you rate "a chicken in every pot" as an ideal?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 10 2018, @06:03PM
It's not great, but it's a lot better than the opposite.
The Republicans used to be for local control whenever possible, and then state level control, but always in the context of caring for your neighbors. That always implied, but never stated, "more than those far away", but this is a practical necessity. If you go back, it was a wing of the Democrats that supported segregation in the South. They were identifiably separate, and got called Dixiecrats, but they were an accepted part of the Democratic party. During the 1960's the Democrats decided this was a bad idea, and then nobody wanted the bigots, so Wallace started his own party just for them. Later they pretty much merged with the Republicans.
Now the Democrats have generally been about the federal government intervening in social matters, and the Republicans have generally been against that, but the last Republican who actually seemed to believe that was Eisenhower. Ever since then they've used it as a rhetoric smokescreen to grab greater control. And at the federal level Republicans have been essentially without ideals other than "I've got mine, Jack...". This attitude has filtered down to the state level, and thus corrupt politicians have found the Republican party more congenial than the Democratic party. Which has increased the problem.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.