Angry GOP donors close their wallets

[FuzzyLumpkins]

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/05/republican-donors-trump-mcconnell-anger-243449

Republicans are confronting a growing revolt from their top donors, who are cutting off the party in protest over its inability to get anything done.

Tensions reached a boiling point at a recent dinner at the home of Los Angeles billionaire Robert Day. In full view of around two dozen guests, Thomas Wachtell, a retired oil and gas investor and party contributor, delivered an urgent message to the night’s headliner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: Just do something.

Wachtell, who has given tens of thousands of dollars over the years to Senate Republicans, recalled that McConnell responded defensively. Passing legislation takes time, the Republican leader responded, and President Donald Trump didn’t seem to understand how long it required.

“Anybody who was there knew that I was not happy. And I don’t think anybody was happy. How could you be?” said Wachtell, who has previously given over $2,000 to McConnell but recently stopped donating to Senate GOP causes. “You’re never going to get a more sympathetic Republican than I am. But I’m sick and tired of nothing happening.”

With the GOP’s agenda at a virtual standstill on Capitol Hill, the party is contending with a hard reality. Some of the party's most elite and influential donors, who spent the past eight years plowing cash into the party’s coffers in hopes of accomplishing a sweeping conservative agenda and undoing Barack Obama’s legislative accomplishments, are closing their wallets.

The backlash is threatening to deprive Republicans of resources just as they're gearing up for the 2018 midterms. Party officials are so alarmed that North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who oversees fundraising for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told his colleagues at a recent conference meeting that donations had fallen off a cliff after the Obamacare flop. The committee’s haul plummeted to just $2 million in July and August, less than half of what it raised in June.

[boutons_deux]

the only "anything done" that Repug BigDonors cares about is tax cuts for themselves, and the Repug House passed today a budget as a step toward those tax cuts.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

the only "anything done" that Repug BigDonors cares about is tax cuts for themselves, and the Repug House passed today a budget as a step toward those tax cuts.

And subsidies, and deregulation of their industry, regulation of their competitors, and whatever social and foreign policy preferences they have.

I've noticed you've dumbed down your takes down into simple monolithic explanations more and more as you continue to age.

[boutons_deux]

And subsidies, and deregulation of their industry, regulation of their competitors, and whatever social and foreign policy preferences they have.

I've noticed you've dumbed down your takes down into simple monolithic explanations more and more as you continue to age.

tax cutting is their overriding priority, everything else you mentioned is happening, so that's not why they would close their wallets.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

tax cutting is their overriding priority, everything else you mentioned is happening, so that's not why they would close their wallets.

That is not what you said. You said that is all they care about. Nothing major has come out of congress on those other issues either. I get that you think its already fait accompli but your despair is unbecoming.

[boutons_deux]

All they care about THAT'S NOT GETTING DONE

[RandomGuy]

That is not what you said. You said that is all they care about. Nothing major has come out of congress on those other issues either. I get that you think its already fait accompli but your despair is unbecoming.

I worry about what they will actually get done.

Their new budget really fucks over the poor to benefit the rich, and that looks very likely to get through relatively intact.

Of course, cutting Medicaid and social security will be political suicide.

I hope they get everything they want. Short term pain, like a Band-Aid getting ripped off, but any pretense of credibility with a lot of voters will finally go away. Long term gain of finally, definitively discrediting failed "conservative" ideas.

[baseline bum]

I worry about what they will actually get done.

Their new budget really fucks over the poor to benefit the rich, and that looks very likely to get through relatively intact.

Of course, cutting Medicaid and social security will be political suicide.

I hope they get everything they want. Short term pain, like a Band-Aid getting ripped off, but any pretense of credibility with a lot of voters will finally go away. Long term gain of finally, definitively discrediting failed "conservative" ideas.

You're nuts. If Ryan gets his medicare voucher plan through in this tax cut bill that's it for medicare. No way you'll get 60 votes to bring back a single payer health care system any time soon in Today's USA. Did you not see how hard it was to get the ACA through congress back in 2009 after two consecutive Democratic wave elections?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

You're nuts. If Ryan gets his medicare voucher plan through in this tax cut bill that's it for medicare. No way you'll get 60 votes to bring back a single payer health care system any time soon in Today's USA. Did you not see how hard it was to get the ACA through congress back in 2009 after two consecutive Democratic wave elections?

What do you make of the gerrymandering SCOTUS case?

[baseline bum]

What do you make of the gerrymandering SCOTUS case?

Pinning my hopes on Kennedy making the sane choice, par for the course with the SCOTUS.

[SnakeBoy]

You're nuts. If Ryan gets his medicare voucher plan through in this tax cut bill that's it for medicare. No way you'll get 60 votes to bring back a single payer health care system any time soon in Today's USA. Did you not see how hard it was to get the ACA through congress back in 2009 after two consecutive Democratic wave elections?

I don't see how a Medicare voucher is the end for single payer hopes. It's Graham's idea that permanently ends that idea. Get states addicted to block grant money and that's all she wrote imo.

[RandomGuy]

You're nuts. If Ryan gets his medicare voucher plan through in this tax cut bill that's it for medicare. No way you'll get 60 votes to bring back a single payer health care system any time soon in Today's USA. Did you not see how hard it was to get the ACA through congress back in 2009 after two consecutive Democratic wave elections?

They aren't bringing back a single payer health care system. They are trying to gut Medicare.

[baseline bum]

They aren't bringing back a single payer health care system. They are trying to gut Medicare.

I mean after the GOP guts Medicare there is no way the DNC will get it back any time soon. ACA is way to the right of Medicare and that was hell to get through a Democratic supermajority, and I doubt we'll see a Democratic supermajority for a long time. So why do you want Ryan to be successful here in killing it? It's not pulling off a bandaid, it'll be decades of pain.

[baseline bum]

I don't see how a Medicare voucher is the end for single payer hopes. It's Graham's idea that permanently ends that idea. Get states addicted to block grant money and that's all she wrote imo.

I meant replacing Medicare after the GOP destroys it.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Pinning my hopes on Kennedy making the sane choice, par for the course with the SCOTUS.

I think the writing is on the wall that Kennedy is going to finally kill gerrymandering. I should have been more specific. You seem very bear on progressive policies and bullish on conservative. Not to say that is your preference but rather than you anticipate things going that way.

If partisan gerrymandering is illegal it is going to be very hard for the GOP to maintain the legislative hegemony. Would that change your overall outlook on things?

[RandomGuy]

I think the writing is on the wall that Kennedy is going to finally kill gerrymandering. I should have been more specific. You seem very bear on progressive policies and bullish on conservative. Not to say that is your preference but rather than you anticipate things going that way.

If partisan gerrymandering is illegal it is going to be very hard for the GOP to maintain the legislative hegemony. Would that change your overall outlook on things?

If that is the way the court goes, that will be the end of the modern GOP as a national party. They have had to resort to increasingly desperate methods of cheating to maintain their edge in many states.

It will goddamn take years, if not decades to undo the damage the stupid mother fuckers in the Trump administration have been doing to good government.

I will dance on the grave of Republican credibility very gleefully, and mourn for the poor conservative moderates who will have to find a new home.

[baseline bum]

I think the writing is on the wall that Kennedy is going to finally kill gerrymandering. I should have been more specific. You seem very bear on progressive policies and bullish on conservative. Not to say that is your preference but rather than you anticipate things going that way.

If partisan gerrymandering is illegal it is going to be very hard for the GOP to maintain the legislative hegemony. Would that change your overall outlook on things?

I'm bearish on the DNC partly because I fear Clinton loyalism in the party, and the 2016 election was a definite repudiation of her. I can't really say I'm bullish on conservatism though, because Trump is remaking the GOP in his image, as a fascist party. You already saw that lunatic Moore win Alabama. Flake is probably out in Arizona. I also think the DNC is going to have an extremely hard time taking the senate with their concentration of voters into larger cities. Small conservative states have an extremely oversized influence on our legislative process because of having a senate. That can't be fixed with fair house districts. The senate, and thus the electoral college, give a pretty nice advantage to the GOP at the national level right out of the box since they have a stranglehold on rural areas.

[baseline bum]

If that is the way the court goes, that will be the end of the modern GOP as a national party. They have had to resort to increasingly desperate methods of cheating to maintain their edge in many states.

It will goddamn take years, if not decades to undo the damage the stupid mother fuckers in the Trump administration have been doing to good government.

I will dance on the grave of Republican credibility very gleefully, and mourn for the poor conservative moderates who will have to find a new home.

I think that's crazy talk, RG. The GOP has a huge advantage in the senate that's not going away due to the concentration of Democratic votes in large cities. And that advantage in the senate gives them the advantage in the electoral college too. Four of the last five presidential elections the Democrat candidate has won the popular vote but they only won the election twice and it had nothing to do with gerrymandering. Since this country awards influence to lines on a map instead of giving equal voices to the people you're not controlling the government if you can't get votes in the right places.

[RandomGuy]

I think that's crazy talk, RG. The GOP has a huge advantage in the senate that's not going away due to the concentration of Democratic votes in large cities. And that advantage in the senate gives them the advantage in the electoral college too. Four of the last five presidential elections the Democrat candidate has won the popular vote but they only won the election twice and it had nothing to do with gerrymandering. Since this country awards influence to lines on a map instead of giving equal voices to the people you're not controlling the government if you can't get votes in the right places.

There are several states that go GOP now, where the GOP consistently loses the popular vote, but ends up with solid GOP representation in Congress.

I think gerrymandering has a larger influence that you know. If that goes away, it opens the floodgates.

[baseline bum]

There are several states that go GOP now, where the GOP consistently loses the popular vote, but ends up with solid GOP representation in Congress.

I think gerrymandering has a larger influence that you know. If that goes away, it opens the floodgates.

I think you're underestimating how much the DNC has completely lost the rural vote. How are fair house districts going to turn red states blue in the senate? The DNC is doing a poor job with voters outside of cities and until they fix that this blue wave you keep predicting is fantasy.

[boutons_deux]

iow, America is fucked and unfuckable

Kennedy might kill partisan gwrrymandering, but by voting to gut the VRA, he enabled voter suppresison and racial gerrymandering