Just Wondering...

alohafri wrote:How many billions of dollars in aid giveaways and how many executive orders does it take before one stops being considered a conservative? Asking for a friend.

Good question.  I may have brought this up on the other board in years past while arguing with Kark, but the conservatives under Nixon (or maybe Ford) came up with a strategy that has worked grandly for them in the last 50 years.  When Repubs are in power, they push for tax cuts while also pushing infrastructure and aid and road projects and gov't spending.  Doing this helps them drive decent GDP growth and keep jobs numbers in a good place.  Once there are Dems in power, the GOP pushes back on all of the spending by pointing out the deficits and the debt.  I mean, if you look back they've followed this plan to a tee.  Reagan blew the deficit through the roof and so did Bush.  Clinton was pushed hard by GOP folks and he was forced to bring spending back down.  W pushed it sky high again only to have Obama held to account for too much gov't spending, so that Obama had to try holding spending level for most of his time in office.  You can pull up all of the annual budgetary spending figures on Whitehouse.gov and see it being played out to a tee. 

Now that Trump is in office, he's trying to spend like a drunk sailor because nobody gives a flying fuck about the deficit anymore.  It's going to be about 3-4 trillion this year so who cares?  Trump just wants to drive spending and raise the GDP and the economic growth figures so he can campaign on it.  Even before the pandemic, the deficit was back over a trillion during what's supposed to be our greatest boom in history (yeah, right)?  If we're at a trillion deficit in our greatest economy ever, what happens when we recess?  

All I can say is I've given up on trying to pigeonhole what conservatives want anymore.  Does anyone know?  The GOP is currently a cult of personality for the president.  He actually made fun of a reporter (Ali Velschi) being shot in the leg by a tear gas canister at his hate rally the other night, and said that he had it coming and that's law and order.  The guy was literally standing in a street doing a live report when he was hit.  The crowd cheered and loved it and was laughing...that a reporter got shot while just earning his paycheck.  It was a peaceful rally, too.  So what is the GOP ideology?  I think it's just running cover and making excuses for DT and supporting whatever he wants.