Progressives (Liberals)

- The Republican party is a good deal less authoritarian, both in the organization of its national committee and in the observable behavior of its presidents and Congressional delegations. The contrast in the last Presidential Primaries and election was stark and clear. Hillary Clinton directly controlled the DNC and its finances right from the start of the primaries. In contrast the Republican primaries were hard fought and contentious.

Sasse says because he is "a constitutional conservative" he wants to limit the ability of presidents to declare emergencies without Congress, but voted to affirm Trump's emergency declaration because Pelosi is "politically motivated."

Huh.
12:15 PM - 14 Mar 2019

Well clearly Sasse isn't in any way politically motivated

So, it's your contention Sasse is playing games?

Apples and oranges, george. Clinton, who first ran in '08, was the '16 front runner as soon as Obama declared victory in '12. 2016 was a special case — a former First Lady who believed (as was encouraged by party toadies) that it was actually her "turn". It had nothing to do with any alleged "authoritarianism".

The very idea that "it was her turn" speaks to the authority of the party inner circle.

Re: blatham (Post 6808619)
Well clearly Sasse isn't in any way politically motivated Rolling Eyes

...then again, I haven't read his plans for 2024 and beyond so maybe he is.

Personally considering the alternatives in the field so far, I wish she would run again. I would vote for her in a heartbeat.

And broads. Like Trump.

Today, authoritarianism has emerged as the greatest challenge facing the liberal democratic world — a profound ideological, as well as strategic, challenge. Or, more accurately, it has reemerged, for authoritarianism has always posed the most potent and enduring challenge to liberalism, since the birth of the liberal idea itself. Authoritarianism has now returned as a geopolitical force, with strong nations such as China and Russia championing anti-liberalism as an alternative to a teetering liberal hegemony. It has returned as an ideological force, offering the age-old critique of liberalism, and just at the moment when the liberal world is suffering its greatest crisis of confidence since the 1930s. It has returned armed with new and hitherto unimaginable tools of social control and disruption that are shoring up authoritarian rule at home, spreading it abroad and reaching into the very heart of liberal societies to undermine them from within.

On Tuesday morning, “Fox & Friends” did a segment on this newest faux-movement, which in turn led the President of the United States, a huge fan of that TV show’s chipper racism, to tweet about it at length. Jexodus was embodied by the doe-eyed Elizabeth Pipko, a 23-year-old former Trump campaign staffer, Jexodus’s “national spokesperson.” She has excellent eyebrows and two self-published books of poetry (“Just the thought of failure brings me to tears/And the thought of someone witnessing it, brings out my biggest fears,” reads one poem from her first collection, “Sweet Sixteen”).

...Per conservative news site the Daily Wire, Jexodus is the brainchild of 56-year-old Republican strategist Jeff Ballabon, a longtime operative who, among other dubious achievements, lobbied the RNC to include language in its 2016 platform that dropped support for a two-state solution and rejected “the false notion that Israel is an occupier.” (On the website for his firm, B2 Strategic, Ballabon quotes none other than Watergate-burglary mastermind G. Gordon Liddy to cast himself as a samurai for Israel: “If Akira Kurosawa did a movie about Israel, Jeff would play one of the leading roles.”)

[...]
“Trump is now stoking religious division immediately after tweeting out a post-#ChristchurchMosqueAttack condolence message. Add it to the pile,” wrote Kevin Baron, executive editor of Defense One, a publication devoted to national security.

In a similar vein, Yashar Ali of New York magazine declared on Twitter that it was “not the morning for this.”

Polling data and experts interviewed by The Washington Post do not show a Jewish exodus from the Democratic Party in the Trump years.

Instead, they show a demographic group that continues to vote at exceedingly high rates for Democrats — as it has for decades. That number actually ticked up when Trump was elected, with 71 percent voting for Hillary Clinton and only 24 percent voting for him in 2016.
... ... ...

Jeff (Jeffrey) Ballabon is an American media executive, lobbyist for Israel, political advisor, and consultant.

...During law school, he interned at the State of Israel's Ministry of Justice,

...Ballabon was heavily involved with the election campaigns of George W. Bush and with the Bush administration. He has been involved as well in a number of House and Senate election campaigns, including John Ashcroft, Sam Brownback, Rick Santorum, and Bob Turner, and was a surrogate for the Mitt Romney campaign. As a fund-raiser for the 2004 Bush campaign, he co-chaired a dinner that reportedly "raked in $4 million".

Ballabon was a prominent supporter of Donald Trump's candidacy.[5][6] He led the 2016 initiative to change the Republican Party's platform language on Israel[7][8][9] and worked closely with the Trump campaign on its Israel policy.[10] Since the election, Ballabon has been an advisor to Donald J Trump for President and appears on media as a Trump surrogate.[11]