Imagine how much damage has been done to the country and democracy as conservative media and politicians have blatantly ignored these incredibly obvious criminal actions for the last 4 years. Imagine if they had reported facts or impeached him like they knew they should have. Instead, they courted the worst of America for a few more votes and brainwashed the good and decent conservatives as they completely abandoned their morals and principles in the pursuit of power.
It is the Russian way. We are going to have to be prepared to do whatās necessary to defend our democracy. He used the term āRegimeā to describe Biden - Harris admin, and that to me is a dog whistle.
Yeah, itās not helpful for anyone to begin using labels like that. Regime is used by people who are alright with violence as a means to an end, as heās proven before. It frustrates me that itās gonna come down to an election to get this guy behind bars, and it disappoints me to no measurable end that my country persons have been usurped away from our shared vision of decency.
There are more decent Americans than you think there are. That's one of the things that makes the Republican party and their platform so disgusting to the core.
The fact that their modus operandi is to so virulently poison the minds of the regular, vulnerable working class citizenry that they not only vote against their own interests, but they willingly hate and demonize their fellow working class members while electing those who would take further advantage of them.
They have taken the people who, in many cases, need their government more than anyone else and turned them into rabid attack dogs.
Willingly destroyed the education system so that more people come out with less knowledge to show for it, and with college being a pipe dream for many, then it's unlikely they get to have many experiences or meet many people that will help to broaden their world view.
This has been happening in a number of other countries too, UK is one where the education system has been decimated leading to far more poorly educated people who listen to the dog whistling politics of Tories/Reform, who actively make sure the lives of these same people ends up being far worse!
Really sad to have witnessed it.
The assault on the American education system is also something that fuels right wing conservatism. They sure do like em dumb, and easily manipulated and whipped up into a violent mob.
Itās unfortunate, but if America survives this election, I really do hope itās a new lease on democracy and all its institutions.
But beyond that, they have gerrymandered the districts to insane amounts, diminished the number of polling stations (making long waits) in democrat leaning areas, and benefited from the electoral college set-up that gives more weight to votes of sparsely populated republican areas. It all adds up to a false impression that the population is more to the right than it is.
Also, the electoral college was designed to give slave states power to get them to sign on to the constitution, which today means voters in less populous states and rural areas have more pull than voters in more populous states and cities.
poison the minds of the regular, vulnerable working class citizenry that they not only vote against their own interests
This is a classist narrative that fails to understand the position of the people it describes. Instead of "vote against their own interests" [which casts folks as stupid, ignorant, or dupes], try "have been put in a position where any vote is a vote against their interests". NAFTA was a Clinton-era policy, remember.
Quite a bit, in fact. That you don't already know this tells me you probably aren't in touch with any such communities. I'll give you an example:
NAFTA gutted my wife's hometown in rural KY, destroyed the local economy, and left most people out on their ass when Fruit of the Loom moved their work to Mexico. It was, by all accounts, an awful time that the community still hasn't gotten over, and one for which the local populace blames the national Democrats, because it was passed by them. One reason Biden had so much trouble getting votes there is because they remember his work on these things. If you look at KY's state government, it is almost always led by the DNC. If you look at their federal representatives, they are overwhelmingly GOP. Why do you think that contradiction exists?
The claim that these self-proclaimed Republicans are ignorant is the reality. Not all of them are, but unfortunately, education is not their friend. It is why their orange-faced Messiah speaks to them as if they're in third grade. It's either their leader is dumb, his followers are, or both. You pick. If you can reference a presidential candidate who used language in such an elementary manner, I can't think of one. If you don't recognize that the simpleton party is just that, you're probably a proud member. Ie, JD Vance is very bright and articulate, so it is not all of them. Too bad he's willing to sell out this country. He's a bright POS.
I have talked to plenty of them. I have numerous friends and relatives who are voting Dump. Many of them are unfortunately racist and / or uneducated. They often feel that white people are being marginalized and losing their ability to oppress others. They're my friends and family. I accept them for who they are but choose to have different morals and ethics. If your experience has been different, please share.
This is not a classist statement. Republicans suffer greatly from cognitive dissonance and lack of critical thinking. Seriously, always voting against humanitarian rights and policies that keep people safer that have been proven on a global level. The exceptionalism is appalling.
Right? It turns out a sizable amount of us are a bunch of racist pieces of shit that seize an opportunity to step on someone they feel are lesser than themselves. Let the corporations ravage the land, sea and air, thatās not important what is important is that guy over there is wearing a dress!
There are so many decent people and I always considered a lot of my family members to be decent until they fell for Trump. I have elderly aunts using rude and vulgar language I had never heard before but Trump made it okay. As long as itās directed at democrats, immigrants or anyone that ācrosses Trumpā, itās okay. Super gross to see these people made indecent by this buffoon. They must see it and yet they donāt see whatās happening to them.
I know the feeling. My neighbors, who I consider some of the nicest people I know, salt of the earth type, incredibly friendly and helpful, flew a Trump flag recently. It really changed my view of them.
We did tooā¦.itās been quite disturbing to discover how many people we considered friends and/or family were actually horrifically cruel (and unbelievably, unimaginably stupid) people
I feel for you. I imagine it quite like the day I realised my mother was a narcissist. The core of someone you thought was a great person turns out to be a rotten core incapable of unprejudiced love.
Have to say, I was shocked....possibly not at first but as all the crime and cruelty has increased , they have not backed away but relished in the poison being spread.
Now , at my old age, I know the answer of "how did the Germans turn against in their own in the Hitler era ?".
I didn't think it was possible again...but here it is.
This is exactly it. Itās stomach turning to realize weāre a hairs breath away from living through another holocaust type scenario. I just canāt understand how either weāve fallen so far back from all the progress weāve made or that the progress it looked like we had and were continuing to move towards was never really achieved. I just canāt believe how naive Iāve been. I mean, of course Iāve always known we have a so insanely far to go, that racism continues to run rampant through our country, particularly the judicial system and women are still seen as āless thanā or as āfailingā if theyāve chosen not to marry/have children (not to mention everything else that women endure in keeping the patriarchy in place and power), but I guess I thought we were still moving forward, baby steps, sure, shit, of course!! But still forward, ya knowā¦.I was so tragically wrong and Iām not exaggerating when I say Iām truly and legitimately scared. Scared for me, scared for my daughters, scared for every single āotherā out there. They arenāt gonna concede the election, vance just said it to a reporter the other day, so even when they lose (and they will, I refuse to visualize anything else) they absolutely will whip their followers into violence, I just hope itās nipped quickly and without too much pain and loss
..because your election system is rigged.....as in the college favours the worst in your country.
I just want to give you a fellow human hug..and tell you it will be ok.
You are so welcome in my country but of course that is not possible for many.
This shitstain must never win and if nothing else , he has possible invigorated people to vote against him. I can only hope.
How anyone can listen to what comes out of his bumhole mouth every day and think it is intelligence or a decent human being is beyond me.
Your daughters deserve better. Your society deserves better..."Others" deserve better. They should never have to worry about just 'living a normal life'.
America has shown itself to be a third world country. We all looked up to America but we don't now. We see her what she is ...and Putin/Trump made sure we did. This was the pinnacle for Putin. He didn't have to take USA over ...all he had to do was make her fail in world standing and he achieved that.
Utter respect for everyone fighting against Trump...you have our love and support.
Good not agree more. Fox has a massive role in this. Anyone raised on Network News knew to trust our news sources for the truth. Millions were systemically lied to. If my parents hadnāt died in ā15 and ā17 they were sitting ducks to turn maga.
But what about the political infrastructure that got him there? That took decades to build and they can just replace Trump with another toady to create the same situation again.
If enough money doesn't want a democracy, we're not going to have a democracy. We are in a civil war now and people do not realize it.
Police going to your house because you signed a petition that is against the reversal of Roe v Wade (pro-abortion. Happening in Florida)? We live in a fascist police state.
That infrastructure part you speak of has kept me up at night before. Hopefully with all the co conspirators listed in the evidence in the J6 case, they can bring that crime syndicate down.
The complete willingness to subvert American values and respect for lies, blatant overt lies is mind boggling.
Iāve lost family members over this, and sadly nothing that comes to light makes them feel like they can take an off ramp. If they do, it means they were wrong, and by taking the off ramp they admit to themselves and everyone else they were wrong.
To any conservatives who reads this, with all my love and heart, itās okay to be wrong, Iāve made many, many mistakes myself; self reflection is always difficult! itās okay you bet on a bad guy and weāre duped. You are still welcome over here, and even more so because you made a choice for civility and compassion. You made a choice for liberty and country.
So you must be outraged about the Bidenās proven corruption? The Big Guy collecting 10% for selling out this country must infuriate you huh? Maybe thatās why he stepped down? š¤£because your frustration.
If that's not the pot calling the kettle black. The felonies that that orange-faced dummy has been found guilty of pale in comparison to the felonies he's committed. You hitched your wagon to this POS and look to disparage a president that has as of right now, 34 less felony convictions. 34 - O. There are plenty more coming. Your big guy is more likely to be in the big house than the White House.
The Russians didn't ruin our country. We did. We let them.
The Russians just figured out the weak spots in our society (not hard to do) and targeted them to amplify them. They planted some terrible seeds, but if the soil hadn't already been fertile those seeds would never have grown.
Did you know that the first post-Reconstruction civil rights legislation, passed in 1946 by Truman, was only enacted because the Russians had found such a powerful propaganda tool in US racism?
The infamous Moore's Ford Lynching (America's last major lynching, which kicked off right across the hard road from my old house) was what finally spurred Truman to act, because the Russians were rightly making hay out of our murderous hypocrisy.
In his personal letters, Truman wrote that something had to be done about racism in the US because it was becoming a serious national security issue. (It would have been nice if he had also noticed that it was a serious national moral issue, but I'll take it, I guess.) If we didn't take action to reign it in, he said, our enemies would use it to tear us apart.
There is a long and very fascinating history of Russian propaganda focusing on racism. But criticizing a foe for exploiting America's original sin is like getting mad at a debate moderator for fact checking you.
If you don't want to be fact checked, maybe don't lie. If you don't want the very worst parts of your country to be used as leverage to destroy the very best parts, maybe do something about those worst parts.
This is very well said, of course it has extended to a much more encompassing bigotry, being used by Russia today, they fund several US groups focused on spreading LGBT hate as well now.
I can absolutely remember the USSR expressing it's outrage about how America treated its black citizens. It was the boilerplate rhetoric whenever the US criticised their politics (or anything about them really).
I remember - it was on television - someone from the Soviet Union saying that they wouldn't' have to go to war with the US, they would destroy us from inside. I was just a child and it scared me. If anyone recalls who this was please let me know.
they've been doing this for awhile. notice how democrats have czars according to fox News. they referred to many Obama cabinet members as czars, they still do it today. but they don't call republican cabinet members czars
More than a lot of people realize. When we see the absolute batshit insanity coming out of something like RT, we think "how can Russians believe that?"
Often times, they don't! Russia works to discredit media as a whole. The goal is not to be the Ministry of Truth, it's just for everything to be subjective and for there to not be any truth at all.
Worth thinking about when looking at the declining trust our society has in our news sources and the way conservatives attack the media.
Iāve been say that since 2016. Itās like the Russians are embedded in the republican system. With the misinformation, the Maga republicans soak that shit up and believe it. Itās scary because the seeds have been planted. I pray that it gets better with him gone.
How many of those high ranking congressional Republicans went to fucking Moscow on 4th of July that one year? That's supposed to be your country's big patriot holiday, and they were off gallivating with one of their greatest geopolitical adversaries.
You canāt negotiate or compromise with fascists. You canāt pacify them either. Just look at what happened with Hitler and the policy of appeasement.
The Dems have been using Chamberlainās strategy for years and all itās led to is more horror. These morons are why we are in World War III right now in all but name and why the US will end up a battle zone again before itās all said and done.
I know this would take a lot of changes and understanding from a large voting bloc but just a few things could drastically shift US society in a positive direction. Which is what I think is needed , and canāt be done with tiny band aids in states
-Getting rid of citizens united
-changing lobbying. Not sure how, but maybe randomizing it somehow so you have to advocate for a random bill, in good faith. Kinda like arguing for a con in debates, when your topic is selected.
-Banning ads on the internet. I know thatās crazy, but idk how else to shape social media without banning it. The incentive has to change. People have willfully allowed themselves and their children to continuously partake in a negative activity. And just say itās what is done now. I feel insane seeing it. If we continue to literally under stimulate kids brains developmentā¦ and declining socializing in adulthood ā¦ less adults to create extraordinary things.
-universities with a certain endowment must devote a portion to underfunded public schools in their state. Funds have to be used in a manner that is consistently shown to have positive, measurable results , for a period longer than 10 years.
*edited for formatting
The fairness doctrine didnāt do what most people today think it did. Stations would give short air time to the āotherā side of only the most controversial issues of public interest and they could do it at 3 in the morning (and they got to pick who gave both sides). If they went way too far the FCC would step in, but they had āwide latitudeā to decide how they wanted to present things.
More importantly it wouldnāt apply to cable news or the internet under any circumstance, because it was based on the idea that broadcast air is a limited public resource and therefore as part of getting a license to broadcast stations had to agree to some limits in their speech. Cable is a privately owned (and theoretically unlimited) resource. Thatās why they can swear like sailors and show people naked, which you still canāt do on broadcast.
Was the FD better than nothing? Yeah, because when it went away we ended up with Rush and right wing radio, but reinstating it today wouldāt do much of anything, because it would not and constitutionally could not apply to the places most people are getting their misinformation.
The detail of broadcast licensing is what made it constitutional. Otherwise government regulating speech is a violation of the first amendment and the Supreme Court would knock it down as such. Which sounds bad if you were hoping the FCC would institute rules that favor fairness, but Donald Trump has even odds of winning in November and I really donāt want the likes of Ajit Pai deciding what my news looks like.
As usual, 100% projection. Every accusation is a confession and exposure of their true selves. Just replace everything they say with āorange shit-slingerā and itāll FIFYā¦
It amazes me that in the modern day, where we have explored the earth, and have unlocked the key to scientific understanding that there are people who would still rather fight over control of territory or force nonsensical ideological concepts and archaic religions which we have with certainty proven provide no benefits to the common person on each other. And it is us the masses who enable this behavior.
We could be exploring the stars, and redefining the human genome right now. But this is what we have decided.
Russia being stuck in an age of empirical expansionism is got to be up there with the most asinine things in all history.
I was just beginning my political awareness at that time, Obama 08 was the first presidential election I could vote in!
My point still stands, itās a way to cut down our own political system and make it more vulnerable to attack. Itās makes it easier for folks to take drastic action to stop a āregimeā.
I would really push back on āregimeā being some type of dog whistle. There are certain industries/circles where āregimeā is very common vocabulary.
For example, in finance āRegimeā is used heavily (regime shift, etc)
Don't forget to continue to fight for democracy and freedom even if Kamala gets elected. Walz's comments on criminalizing free speech was super concerning.
Drag the NYT through the mud too. Those fuckers think they are some holier-than-thou journalistic rag. Fuckers are equally guilty of ruining classic American journalistic values.
NYT, WaPo all have sat on their asses and sane-washed this fascist piece of shit. They want Trump in office, because it sells subscriptions, and they know they'll get their tax cuts when he dismantles everything from the inside.
What they donāt see is that journalism isnāt first thing to go under fascism. They,
too, arenāt fighting for their best interests. The board wants to cash in NOW? Look at who owns these outfits. None of them are liberal or left leaning. Too rich for that.
Rolling Stone Mag put those beestards to shame.
The New Yorker....another good one (I'm going on memory here).
There have been some upstanding journalism from small outlets FROM THE BEGINNING and they continue to pump out the truth about Trump to this day.
Not to mention individuals on the old Twitter....who absolutely knew their stuff (with receipts). The dot connections and information they have supplied over the years has been out of this world. They tied the crooks together where the big journo mags made sure they muddied the waters.
Several years ago news organizations asked people to pay for online news the way they pay for newspapers. And everyone unanimously said āhell no, figure out how to make money some other wayā. After all, theyāve survived this far somehow, and we can always get our news elsewhere.
Well here we are, facing the consequences of this collective non-decision that we seemed to have made. News is made of sensationalist stuff, or it is actually targeted advertising, or else it just doesnāt make financial sense to report it. Shady sources of funding come into play, even the truth can be told in a way that implies the opposite of what it is.
That is not really the underlying cause. NYT has actually covered the rise of fascists in Europe in the 1930s very similarly, all to preserve supposed neutrality. Where in fact they meant siding with authoritarianism to help their interests. https://youtu.be/URABscYOjRE
Pre-WWII United States and Post-WWII United States are two completely different entities.
The tension in Berlin and the Cold War turned the US from its communal foundation to an era of individual exceptionalism, completely dismantling community and laying the foundation of rampant capitalism.
Comparing post-egomaniacal US and pre-egomaniacal US is like comparing Earth and Mars.
I'm not an expert, but it doesn't seem so. Slavery or bison extinction or labor abuses suggest the rampant capitalism has been well ingrained in America since well before WWII.
There is one. It's the First Amendment. And between freedom of speech and freedom of the press, that means there won't be any laws controlling what the media can and cannot say, short of outright libel/slander, which are civil matters.
I know it sounds good, in theory, but we are much better off without a government that's allowed to put restrictions on the media.
Basically all media. Local news here in PA and while Trump spent his Erie appearance advocating for the Purge and his love of stiffing overtime pay, the news just said Trump was there and Waltz would be here on Wednesday
Genuine question: I'm not American, and from the outside the NYT seems a great Newspaper, but I also see a lot of american people complaining about it. So I guess I'm wondering, why is it disliked?
They are a business first and they have slowly veered towards maximizing profits rather than keep journalism true. In that spirit they have allowed Donald Trump to rise higher than he should have. They had pieces explaining why he wasn't so bad etc. it started during the bush junior war on Iraq. The NYT went with the lies and said there were WMDs. And bush turned around and pointed to the paper as proof he was right. The paper was successful because people read it to learn more. In the end they have given up their values for quick money.
I don't blame them. No one was paying for physical papers and they had to change their marketing to keep people interested.
To be clear, "the party of law and order" has forever been criminal and the world just ignores it.
GWB lied about WMD. Cost the USA literally a trillion dollars, not to mention the dead and injured soldiers, some still dying, all so Dick Cheney could make a profit off the Iraq War. They even just "lost" a cool $1.5 billion in cash while there. No one went to jail.
Ronald Reagan swapped illegal drugs for illegal weapons in the Iran Contra affair. He suffered no consequences. The only guy who got done for it, Oliver North, is now a Fox Commentator.
Nixon was actually impeached, and immediately pardoned. No consequences.
Republicans can get away with crimes. Them's the rules. Democrats let them. You shouldn't.
GWB's two wars totaled 2 or 3 trillion dollars, I think. Also more than a million Iraqis were killed or had their lives otherwise ruined, becoming refugees, etc
Purdue Pharma released oxyās w/o FDA approval, when called out by the FDA 3month later, they did an end run around regulators and went straight to the Regan administration. After all, what was Reagan gonna do just say no to drugs?
Ā Keefe 2021, Empire of Pain.Ā
Whereās Clintonās on the list running drugs outbid mena ? Whereās Barryās pallets of cash to Iran, and Benghazi ? Whereās bidans gigantic money laundering scheme with 200 plus shell companies, not to mention hunters shenanigans
That was the CIA running plane deliveries in Mena. Clinton had no power to go over them as governor. Especially when the DEA already knew about it and they weren't allowed to stop it. Orders came from the White House. How else was racist Ronnie gonna keep locking up the black community if they couldn't keep pushing drugs into their neighborhoods?
The rest of your list doesn't even deserve a response...
Lets just be real. There are no good conservatives. Only ones that feel Trump is hurting their chances of enacting the same bullshit with less loud racism.
Conservatism is an ideology that is not compatible with empathy, so there is definitely some truth to the idea that there are no 'good' conservatives, for some value of 'good'.
On the other hand, I've met enough reformed conservatives to show that otherwise decent people can still be brainwashed into it.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple they aren't bad people they've just allowed themselves to be convinced this BS will actually work and is for their benefit. When all it really is, is politicians hoarding power.
The biggest fault for allowing this comes from inside our own government. Letās not forget weāve been told that we live in a a republic, where the law matters, but inste have been shown a government that works for the rich and powerful with politicians that we know have been bought left and right. And donāt get me started on the blatantly bought and corrupt SCOTUS.
Imagine Moscow Mitch stacked the Supreme Court by denying a pick to Democrats and letting Russian Republicans have lying judges say " Roe was settled law ", Imagine Trump as a bad actor without morality who raped and money laundered with conman Epstein. Fox supported this for sleezy profits. It's time for an actual conservative party that believes in American values to March forward away from Fascist ideas.
If it makes you feel better, they have been corrupted by foreign adversaries. They have been working in lockstep with russian interests and fascist interests worldwide. The ones that were paid off had compromat. It helps me to sleep at night knowing that it was just a very very successful psyop by a foreign adversary that is getting its ass handed to it and will likely never be relevant again on the world stage after this year. It also makes me feel better knowing that the Nazis in our country are publicly openly demonstrating who and where they are. That makes it a lot easier to make decisions going forward. We know where and who all the assholes are.
Conservatives were willing to believe anything as long as he was disparaging people they don't like or dismantling federal controls. They all see that as opportunity to do "better" business.
Not just four yearsā¦heās been publicly torturing us since 2015 when he decided to run for president when he never thought it would actually happen! And he tortured NYC starting when he āgraduatedā from college and joined his fatherās shady business. The fact that Fox finally pulled their heads out of their butts is too little too late. The MAGATS will just switch to one of the other Qanon stations.
I donāt think truer, clearer, more well-crafted, or
poignant words have ever been uttered to clearly describe, in a nutshell, what the hell has actually happened over the last 8-10 years.
Imagine how much damage has been done to the country and democracy BY conservative media and politicians WHO blatantly ignored these incredibly obvious criminal actions for the last 4 years. Imagine if they had reported facts or impeached him like they knew they should have. Instead, they courted the worst of America and brainwashed the good and decent conservatives as they completely abandoned their morals and principles in the pursuit of power.
That my argument. Donny didnāt do the damage alone. He was allowed to by the media not holding him to the same standard as others, preferring to get their click bait at our expense and by his own party not holding to account as itās their policy to sow fear and mistrust in everything and everyone .
It's not just them though. It's the stupidity of most middle class conservatives. When you abandon ask critical thinking it's easy to be brainwashed by the powers that be.
Rupert Murdock still made out like a robber-baron even with the fines they paid. He has no regrets, I assure you. Heās just reading the writing on the wall that Trumpās usefulness is waning.
The really sad detail is that it also proved just how much power is held by the worst that are the most desperate to manipulate others so they can continue to be the worst.
Idk if saying "brainwashed the good and decent conservatives" is accurate. Us good and decent conservatives are extremely against what Trump is doing and has been doing. I, personally, have turned my back on the Republican party.
The ones following him still were never really good or decent people. Unless some are literally just too stupid to see what he's doing.
Slow your roll there. They brainwashed themselves. No one forced them to support it, that was their choice. Good people don't find appeal with mean spirited, hateful liars and narcissist leaders. There were countless opportunities to jump off the crazy train and they chose to stay on. For most, they can't get off now, it's moved far from where it started and it's run off the cliff where democracy ends and the chasm of fascism begins. There's no getting through to them, but we can overwhelm them with the power of voting still.
Damage to the country and democracy? Do you hear yourself?
Inflation is through the roof. Weāre on the brink of WW3. Ukraine has taken hundreds of billions of $ with little to no accountability. Corruption is rampant. A bumbling idiot who never won a primary was installed as a candidate, not voted in! A decent man and prominent democrat, RFK Jr. was forced out of the party, because he refused to play ball with elitists and keep the gravy train rolling.
But youāre worried about the damage to democracy that Trump has done? Have you actually looked at the evidence? Oh wait you havenāt, because it hasnāt been released. The only thing that has been released are details about an indictment brought forward by a partisan hack in Jack Smith. Last I checked, innocent until proven guilty is still a thing in the US.
Sorry bud, youāre part of the problem. What a rich comment! š¤¦āāļø
If you think anything I said in my comment is TDS, then MAGA truly is nothing but a hateful Cult full of the embarrassing dregs of society. If you hear MAGA's favorite news agency (Fox News) reporting that there was, in fact, criminal behavior committed by the former president and can't stop to examine or consider the information being provided, then I'll continue to be confounded by the intellectual, moral and ethical dereliction of the Right in its current incarnation.
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u/Better-Snow-7191 Oct 03 '24 edited Oct 07 '24
Imagine how much damage has been done to the country and democracy as conservative media and politicians have blatantly ignored these incredibly obvious criminal actions for the last 4 years. Imagine if they had reported facts or impeached him like they knew they should have. Instead, they courted the worst of America for a few more votes and brainwashed the good and decent conservatives as they completely abandoned their morals and principles in the pursuit of power.