Republican Party

Negatives

One or more statements on this page need to be checked for accuracy and provided with sources if correct. Criticism of these points needs to be documented, and sources found. See #Notes.

• want to spend more money on wars
  • ...but not interested in paying for said wars through raised taxes
  • ...but not interested in taking care of the veterans of said wars
• use small government arguments to get what they want while actually making government more oppressive
• favor private wealth-concentration over conservation of common wealth
  • oppose environmental regulation
  • support global warming denial
• oppose funding for:
  • public education
  • public health
  • public safety
• endorse religion as a basis for governance (dominionism); anti-secular
• take many positions that cannot be defended rationally (typically for religious reasons):
  • anti-science
  • against sex education
  • against easy access to contraceptives
  • against bodily autonomy for women
  • favor racial profiling over more accurate methods of identifying criminals
  • oppose any kind of marriage or sexual relations except heterosexual
    • formerly used many of the same (bad) arguments to defend opposition to "interracial" marriages
• favor authoritarian, top-down society with high inequality
  • pro-patriarchy
  • pro-plutonomy:
    • embrace the idea of selling principles to the highest bidder
    • against income taxation, especially of the wealthy and large businesses (i.e. the major funders of their campaigns)
  • tend to believe the "just world" fallacy
  • unsympathetic to those in need
• originated and support the "war on terror"
• originated and support the "war on drugs"
• high level of tribalism (draw sharp line between "us" and "them"; expect unquestioning loyalty to "us")
• supported the Wall Street bailout actually, it looks like more Democrats voted for this
• 2010: after complaining that action on a small-business jobs bill was taking too long, Republicans effectively blocked passage of the bill when it was up for a vote.

Pages

• /large government: Republicans support larger, more oppressive government when it suits them.
• /small government: Republicans exploit popular support of small government ideals for their own benefit.

News Items

• 2010-07-29 Senate Republicans Block Bill Supporting Small Business "In a display that can best be described as insane, Senate Republicans demanded all week that the chamber act on the small-business-incentives measure, and not waste time with measures like campaign-finance reform. But this morning, when the small-business package was ready to move, Republicans balked."
• 2014-10-16 Don't Let The Republican Tactic of Suppress and Confuse Steal Your Voice: a brief list of Republican attempts at voter-suppression laws, and their status as of this date
• 2014-10-22 GOP mailer attacking Elizabeth Warren on TARP bailout misleading: Warren did not endorse the Wall Street bailout; she criticized it.
• 2014-11-09
  • Navy Appoints First Ever Atheist Lay Leader, Right Wing Freakout Ensues "Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee objected strenuously saying that a secular humanist chaplain would make a mockery of the chaplaincy and denigrate religious soldiers and their families." -- an expression of dominionism
  • Ted Cruz Threatens To Block Attorney General Nominee: Republicans threaten to block Attorney General nominee over non-existent problem
• 2014-11-10 Tweet: ""Net Neutrality" is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government." Implies that Obamacare is slow and inefficient; implies that net neutrality will slow down the internet. False on both counts (although lack of net neutrality would make it possible for elites to purchase faster speed for their sites -- which would be consistent with the Republican view that only elites matter.)
  • The Oatmeal helpfully explains net neutrality to SenTedCruz.
  • 2014-11-15 Ted Cruz Doubles Down On Misunderstanding The Internet & Net Neutrality, As Republican Engineers Call Him Out For Ignorance
  • 2014-11-17 Al Franken Explains Why Ted Cruz Doesn’t Understand The Internet
• 2014-12-04 Republicans Vow To Punish Poor People With Higher Taxes Because Of Obama's Executive Action: Republicans aren't above taking their own constituents hostage when they don't get their way (h/t)
• 2014-12-05 Government Shutdown Talks May Gut Retirement Security Rule: "The policy would impose a "fiduciary duty" on financial professionals who oversee retirement accounts, barring them from considering the potential profits of their own firm when choosing investments. Instead, investment managers would have to pick stocks, bonds and other assets based only on what was in the best interest of retirees." Never mind helping the poor; Republicans won't even act to protect individual investors. "Republicans are pushing a budget rider that would require the Labor Department to mediate its rule with the more corporate-friendly Securities and Exchange Commission, which financial reform experts said they believe would render the proposal toothless, if it ever made it out of the bureaucratic negotiations at all. The GOP-led House has voted to block the Labor Department from moving forward with the rule in the past."
• 2014-12-23 Republicans: It's OK to admit you were wrong (h/t) "Here in Alabama, the Republicans have been wrong about taxes, the state budget, closing Veteran's Assistance offices, Medicaid expansion, and the effectiveness of corporate welfare because all they talked about during the election was who hated Obama more than their opponent. .. They were wrong about trying to put the Ten Commandments in the courthouse and wrong about trying to make Christianity the state religion."
• 2015-01-07 Congress Introduces A National Abortion Ban On Its Very First Day Back (h/t) "Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reintroduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the same legislation that successfully passed the House last year."
• 2015-02-03 Paul Ryan puts on a mask that doesn't fit "Jon Chait, understandably gobsmacked by Ryan’s nutty rhetoric, noted that it's Obama who has pushed for a series of federal policies that reduce inequality and transfer resources from the top down, while the far-right Wisconsinite has done the polar opposite, rejecting the president’s ideas and pushing an economic agenda that would slash taxes even more on the very wealthy..."

Positives

CWRE is seeking input regarding positive aspects of the Republican Party versus other parties. We are not aware of any at this time.

Links

• issuepedia:US/NC/gov: some details of what happened after the Republican Party took over North Carolina's state government
• Bernie Sanders: meme about Republicans

Notes

There was considerable back-and-forth regarding criticism of the above points in comments here; these should probably be mapped out somewhere.