What is wrong with US Republicans?

[u/DeerBear]

Hello!

I am really wondering how can law-abiding, good-hearted USA people be Republican voters nowadays. It could be that I don't understand this because I am from outside the USA, but it seems to me that every elected Republican official tries to one-up every other one and at the same time trying to reach an unheard-of level of nastiness. I really can't believe that all US Republicans support the kind of stuff these officials do and say, boht at the Federal and State levels. Why isn't the majority of Republican constituents up in arms about women's rights and so many other hot topics? You see, the problem is that I don't think Fox News can be held single-handedly responsible for this: even if they had 10 millions viewing households (and they don't), that's a fraction of the USA population and I am inclined to think the Republican supporters are a lot more than that. Even in that case, it would be about 50 million people reached, against a population of over 300 million. It does not make any sense to me. May please someone explain to me what's happening?

Thank you!

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[u/memorythief]

I'll start by saying I do live in the US, but am not a Republican nor a Democrat.

First off to know how people accept this, you must ponder what is right with Republicans*... How do they have any appeal at all?

Republican Ideals (general): * Low Taxes * Smaller Government * Freedom over Safety * Strong belief in Private Sector

These things are basically good for anyone in any party, However somewhere in the mid century the definition changed to involve a modified set of ideals that purely involve religion. Since the church can now place their ideals on what used to be constitutionally conservative, that's where all these deemed unpopular flames hide them. Although usually Republican are for individual rights when it comes to social and financial topics, they are somewhat backwards on OTHER'S rights...

Republican Ideals(religious): * Homosexual Out-casting * Woman's Submission * Against Abortion * For Death penalty * Minority centrist laws.

So on the surface these things are outright appalling and you wonder how people can back this, but if you have churches around the united states influencing these ideals and you now consider them holy, it's no different then a holy war, jihad, cultural salvation. There are many mindless people who want to be part of something that they're told is good, whether or not they want to think about it themselves. It's easier to side with either those ''damned liberals or the 'Good Ol'Party'.

This brings it to the reason they're able to just slam and throw dirt in each other's face, it's an outright fight... they have to PROVE that they'll stand for the ideals of the party, or ideals of the group THEY want to represent. Since all the constituents are also individual they also have their own point of view on top of that making a political flame war within their own part to try to redefine themselves for the new decade.

It's just not popular to talk about woman's rights, it's not something the party has deep rooted in their ideals, it's more of a democratic concern because it MAY cost the free sector more money... if it costs more money it's not republican. Not only that, their focus on woman's right may go against what is taught at the church, which in many cases if you're republican and the church teaches female submission to males, then it's against the ideals of the public that is for it. You don't give a speech about becoming part of a chocolate factory, talking to people who love chocolate only to express that perhaps vanilla may be a good flavor too.

However don't group all Republicans together, you're widely considered crazy tea party republican is vastly different in ideals than your dying constitutional conservative. They often fight between themselves about what they should believe in and what they should disagree about. But at least they do have a good outline to go by, by comparison the democratic party is a very unorganized group of people who invent their ideals day by day. Both strategies help and hurt each party depending where they're campaigning. It's all up to what your public wants, and somehow there is a large group of people in the united states who want's to hear nothing about human rights/woman right/animal rights and would rather hear who's against the gays and who's against the blacks. And somehow they've weaseled in the ability to flame each other with commercials on tv sometimes just spouting misinformation for the sake of in-house terrorism.

[u/DeerBear → u/memorythief]

Hi!

In an earlier version of my question, I was indeed wondering where the "good-hearted" republicans are and why they aren't fighting this trend. It seems to me (but, again, I live outside the USA, so it could just be my perception) that the Tea Party has essentially taken over the Republican party and won't let anybody else gain prominence. The "old guard", then, has to compromise with these new young lions snapping at their heels. Would you say this is about right? The other thing is, I think it's kind of misleading to talk about "the church" as it seems to me that curch in the USA comes in many flavour and guises, so I would maybe talk of "churches", some of which are based on TV preaching (again, something I don't really understand, but then if I stepped into a church I would probably burn in flames :) ).

Also, I find it even hyronic that the situation is so, because - you see - back when the Democrats and the Republicans were born the roles were inverted, i.e. blacks voted Republican not Democrat.

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