I’ll believe it when I see it. My faith in the Dems doing anything resembling playing hardball is fleeting. What I see happening is if Trump, his family, or any conspiring GOP members get caught up in real criminal charges, the rest of the gop will cry about political retribution, even for state charges. Further inflaming the base. These people are basically terrorist adjacent and while they may not have actively stormed the capital and murdered the capitol police themselves, they put their heads in the sand. The republicans have no interest in actual democracy anymore because it no longer serves as a tool of white supremacy. If Trump only tweeted less and took the virus even a tiny bit seriously, he would have marched easily into a second term. The current gop is only trying to distance themselves because it looks bad not because they actually disagree.
The GOP has already lost the house, Senate, and White House, which for an incumbent, hasn't happened since the 1930's. The scrutiny that Trump avoided for 5+ years is now in open season. The con is over, it just hasn't quite been fully exposed yet. Without air coverage from Donny T's office, the dirty laundry is going to feel the breeze and get some sun. I'm not up in arms about the fact that the Republicans will resort to dirty tricks to stay in power: that's what politicians do. I don't agree that the GOP is the party of white supremacy (it's a subtle distinction, but just because racists like them doesn't mean they are racist). I ultimately think it comes down to the money: their funders want to pay less in taxes, have less regulation and the impacts to society are someone else's problems. Everything the GOP does can be traced back to "make life easier for the wealthy." The main issue is the Republicans are the minority, and are seeing their rolls shrink. They've played dirty to keep themselves in power, and I think they are up against a serious decline, especially as the folks Trump and QAnon courted realize the con they were exploited in. Most of the folks who believe the election is stolen won't vote next cycle. Many of the moneyed interests who see an ROI on funding these things now are afraid to be openly associated with them. And this is just the beginning of the schism between Republicans who engage in dog whistling (McConnell), and the ones who truly are a destructive influence (Cruz). I hope the Democrats can drop cries of "racism" everytime something happens, but even if they don't, it's not likely to matter. We are past the tipping point where the lies, conspiracy theories and extremism are acceptable in state-level politics, and over the next 4 years, I think we'll see a tremendous wash of the GOP folks involved. Many of the faces of the GOP seem to harbor some extreme religious belies that they are in the end times, rolling out red carpets for the return of Christ (check out some shit Rafael Cruz, Ted's father, says behind closed doors, or what William Barr believed he was doing). This is just as bad as the religious influence that caused people to fly planes into buildings, and the domestic security apparatus is now fully aware of the danger they present. The events of the 6th mark the crossing of a very clear line, and the failure to convict Trump demonstrates how far over that line the GOP is. Put it simply: what do they stand for now? Why do they deserve votes? What do they plan on doing if elected, and why should anyone believe them? After failing to impeach, which admittedly, was a hollow, toothless gesture, how can anyone believe they are on the right side of history?
Trump may be too politically toxic to run again. Trumpism is far from dead. The Republican party isn't wholly shedding Trump because they know who ever can acquire his rabid base can control the party. 75 million votes and a base electrified more than anything milquetoast McCains or Romneys could ever dream of. He shifted the rhetoric and dogma away from the big business free trade globalism to populism that is still resonating with the groups of conservatives I know. Completely reframed "the party of the wealthy" as the party of the working man (even though it's purely marketing). Something was needed after the moribund 2012 election cycle. If Bush era Neocons want to make their own party theyre either literally retarded or are controlled opposition or pervert grifters like the Lincoln Project.
Trump is too politically toxic to WIN again. He can run, though, and what a victory that is for the Senate GOP. I'm sure they will all happily coalesce behind him for a run in 2024, when he's 78 years old and there's been 4 years for his fraud, lies, and nonsense to be exposed. Totally worth the political capital it will cost them to acquit, those videos are totally going away, and I'm really sure the national security establishment will just take that whole thing in stride. Trumpism isn't dead, but it's mutated into a wedge that will continue to split the GOP. The Trump side seems to be convinced of things without evidence, and that makes them easy targets for whatever charlatan comes next: you'll see Trump copycats emerge at the local level and get absolutely smashed. The establishment side seems to see the usefulness of Trump as over, and seeing the danger he represents as not worth the risk. Does anyone think he'd get 75 million votes again? Hell, even running him against Harris or an even worse Democrat (fuck knows: Warren? Sanders?), I don't see him getting the same fervor, funding or attention, but I do see the same result. Surely the GOP is looking at the internal polls that predicted his win in 2016, his loss in 2020 and projecting 2024.... He's poisoned the well with his base: in the next few months/year or so, it will become clear that it was a sham. You'll see the Capitol rioters go to jail. You'll see the lawsuits against him start to get real. You'll see his brand crash as no one wants to buy a $35 cheeseburger in his hotel in DC(it's a Goddamned miracle that place isn't literally used as a public toilet right now, DC cops wouldn't go there except to watch it burn). You'll see actual desperation set in for him and his family. His base may not care, but they will simply refuse to vote for anyone else in the next cycle, and stay home. With no Twitter, no funding and after a few months/years of getting mired in every kind of civil litigation you can imagine, who is going to be better off with his support? A fringe element, a la Marjorie Taylor Greene, if they could win a majority. Post-election, Trump has cost the GOP votes, and it won't be insignificant. Right now, conservativism is a brand, it's part of a lot of voter's identities. Trump has shaken some of that by being repulsive and antagonistic to the "values" crowd, and the Lincoln Project is evidence of how the party wants to move forward. The "I identify as a conservative" crowd is now somehow associated with corruption, lies, and literal rebellion. It's kind of like being a Ford man, buying Ford trucks for 40 years, pulling for Ford in Nascar races, and then finding out they lied on emission standards, the CEO is a pedophile and their trucks are being co-opted by terrorists: it's disgusting and repulsive to them, and their most likely course of action is to disengage from the brand. In election terms, they stay home. The Lincoln project is an attempt to woo them back, and it won't succeed with Trump sucking up all the air in the room. Right now, anyone with a serious future is figuring out how to insulate themselves against a primary challenger supported by Trump, and it won't be hard to see the campaign ads: "Representative Fuckface is supported by Trump, who lied about the election, coronavirus and the insurrection. Rep. Fuckface is bad for democracy and has no plan to beat the Dems, they only want to split the GOP and hand the party to the socialist lesbians or the Trump anarchists". Trump has always been hard to predict, and I think the same logic now applies to his toxicity: in some races, it won't be clear how bad the damage is until they're over. No other GOP figure has lost a presidential election and stood a serious chance of coming back, and I see no reason to believe Trump is special or unique in that regard.
For your first question, it appears to me that the only thing the GOP cares about is self-enrichment. This gives GOP politicians a pretty broad latitude to do or say whatever they want as long as it's convenient for them. GOP voters tend to live in a completely separate reality than the rest of us, so there isn't any press that the base will believe that will keep them accountable. If you don't believe me, just take a look at how Ted Cruz has behaved before Trump won the nomination and after. He couldn't have flip flopped any harder if he was a dying fish on the deck of a boat. In terms of the rest of the your questions, I don't believe that GOP actually thinks it matters. As long as they have Fox, OAN or any other conspiracy theory spouting dipshits leading a bunch of angry and scared uneducated white people around, they will do whatever they can, dirty or otherwise, to continue sucking the tit of the American taxpayer dry. I honestly can't think of any event that would unite this country now, short of a nuclear attack. After the insurrection, all murdering politicians would do would cause the other side to say "Good riddance!"
He was booed off the RNC stage for not endorsing Trump outright and urging delegates to vote their conscience. If I recall, he and his wife needed security escort out of the place. But that was a different time. A good war, that'll do the trick. Something truly existential, not just a police action.
Whatever your existential cure may be, it will make your country look worse, and be worse. It will only make things worse.
Yeah I'm talking death and destruction on our own soil, the enemy marching in the streets. I don't see anything lesser motivating our hyper-informed, super cynical youth to sign up and fight.
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/9683...iani-and-2-far-right-groups-over-capitol-riot I can imagine some of the financial records subpoenaed in this process alone will be pretty damaging. If folks are boycotting Publix for one of their heiresses donating to the "Stop the Steal" rally, exposing who's funding the Proud Boys (which, could they have picked a gayer name?) and Trump's actual financials will be fuel for that kind of fire. Also, there are dozens of reps who can make the same type of claim, and why wouldn't you, at this point? At worst, they settle....
From what I understand it's a combination of both. However, the distribution problem is kind of "normal" in a winter storm, and most states have pretty solid plans on how to address it: Texas knows how to repair lines. The supply problem resulting from a winter storm is sort of ridiculous, as it indicates a real lack of planning, a stubborn refusal to adopt industry standards, ignoring the recommendations the last times this happened and Texas being "special" when it comes to their energy planning. So, the distribution problem is there, but manageable, expected and kind of acceptable. The supply problem is not.
They are wasting no time turning this disaster into a culture war. Tucker said on his show last night that Texas is entirely dependent on wind. As usual, republicans have no plans to fix anything and spend all their time blaming democrats.
They've been warned for years to "winterize" their systems, such as physical lines, etc. They fought so hard against it that they pulled out of all federal regulations around power, were therefore not allowed to connect to the national grid, so have their own deregulated grid to contend with. Go figure, "deregulated" means that they didn't adhere to best practices, planning, etc, as DND mentioned. The vast majority of outage (like 2/3) is due to failed natural gas, goal, and nuke power... and yet they're pointing the blame at wind and solar. Fucking idiots.
I know it's been said earlier in this thread, but this just piles on to the notion that Republicans in the past 10 years care for nothing else but looking out for their own at all costs truth or cooperation be damned. Hurricane Sandy hits New Jersey / New York... DENY AID! 4" of snow causes massive blackouts in Texas who have pulled their shit with their power distribution....WE NEED FEDERAL AID IMMEDIATELY! Can you even imagine what this would look like if California had massive wildfires and their power grid was over stressed and needed federal aid to help them out under a Trump presidency....oh wait...
The heater itself is efficient, but it's not like you see houses being heated with them. Forced air gas heating is hugely more efficient at heating a house. The biggest issue I've had is in buildings where the heat was turned down to save energy, and then everyone brought in their own under-desk space heater... and it tripled the electrical load, beyond the designed limits for the space.