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Republican Retirements

Solitaire

Neoclinus blanchardi
Solitaire
Joined
Jul 25, 2001
Messages
3,096
I just heard that Will Hurd, the only black Republican in Washington, was retiring.

Does this signify a big change in party composition?
Or am I getting fooled again by ordinary political maneuvering?
 
Solitaire said:
I just heard that Will Hurd, the only black Republican in Washington, was retiring.

Does this signify a big change in party composition?
Or am I getting fooled again by ordinary political maneuvering?
Click to expand...

Ben Carson is Republican still, and he's in the administration!

Is Hurd the one that was on the committee that interviewed Mueller?
 
Solitaire said:
I just heard that Will Hurd, the only black Republican in Washington, was retiring.

Does this signify a big change in party composition?
Or am I getting fooled again by ordinary political maneuvering?
Click to expand...

In addition to Carson, there's a black Republican in the Senate. But Hurd was the only black Republican in the House, a pretty big body.
 
There's going to be more retirements, as lifelong Republicans up for reelection choose to slink into the night rather than be confronted with the consequences of their actions. I wish them many healthy years to dwell on their cowardice.
 
He's really young, had a distinguished career in the intelligence community, and is from a fairly purple district. Even if he wasn't mixed race, he'd have been a really great face for the GOP. This has got to hurt their outlook for 2020.

He could have been one of the "reasonable Republicans" that allegedly exist. He's probably going to come back in 2024 or later, hoping people forget how the GOP sold out to a foreign asset while he was a member.
 
Donal said:
He's really young, had a distinguished career in the intelligence community, and is from a fairly purple district. Even if he wasn't mixed race, he'd have been a really great face for the GOP. This has got to hurt their outlook for 2020.

He could have been one of the "reasonable Republicans" that allegedly exist. He's probably going to come back in 2024 or later, hoping people forget how the GOP sold out to a foreign asset while he was a member.
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He might not come back as a Republican either. Moderate or fiscal Democrat can maybe exist in Texas.
 
Upchurch said:
From Texas, no less.

Actually, that's not fair, I spent a year in Texas and it is not as monolithic as it appears. Close, but not quite. Hurd's district especially so.
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I did a project in Juarez and staid in El Paso years ago. The rest of the state and West Texas may as well be two different countries let alone different states.
 
Doubt said:
I did a project in Juarez and staid in El Paso years ago. The rest of the state and West Texas may as well be two different countries let alone different states.
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Also southern Texas, and central Texas. North and east Texas though... yeah.
 
plague311 said:
No, by his voting record, he is a tow the line Republican.
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But if he's retiring I'd assume it's because he sees something wrong within his party.
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I guess it depends on what you mean as 'seeing something wrong'.

Does 'seeing something wrong' mean "the republican party has significant problems with its members acting in illegal/immoral ways, and not representing the interests of the people".

Or does 'seeing something wrong' mean "Nothing wrong with what I'm doing... but what we're doing will be politically unpopular".
 
I don't like it per se, but in general I won't demonize someone if they just realize one day that they've been on the wrong side of things but... either their self or the world has moved on so much they can't rewrite their base personalities to be on the good side and just decide to... step back.

At least not being an active participant in making things worse is something. It's not everything, hell it's not even a lot, but it's something.

If one day it just hits you that you're the "bad" guy... just not being the bad guy anymore is something. Working to fix the bad would be better, obviously, but just not making it worse anymore is something.

//Caveat// Obviously this is all speaking to general level politics and not like actual criminal actions or whatnot and of realizing you were part of some sort of system, not things you personally and directly did wrong.
 
He seemed rather reasonable for a Congressman from Texas.

I got the impression that he was openly critical of Trump and his border shenanigans. I don't think Trump carried his district and I wouldn't be surprised if he was facing a primary challenger. Not a great place to be if you have other options.

Good news? If the GOP puts up a full on Trumpy they may actually lose the district.
 
In an exit interview of sorts with Robert Moore of The Washington Post on Thursday, Hurd referenced Trump’s outright racist tweets that four minority congresswomen should “go back” to their homes. It’s possible he was considering retirement before this, but you don’t have to read too much between the lines to understand this was the situation that helped push him out the door.

“When you imply that because someone doesn’t look like you, in telling them to go back to Africa or wherever, you’re implying that they’re not an American, and you’re implying that they have less worth than you,” Hurd said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...tring-house-gop-exits/?utm_term=.5576f44d7e0a
 
Jungle Jim said:
In an exit interview of sorts with Robert Moore of The Washington Post on Thursday, Hurd referenced Trump’s outright racist tweets that four minority congresswomen should “go back” to their homes. It’s possible he was considering retirement before this, but you don’t have to read too much between the lines to understand this was the situation that helped push him out the door.
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It must have been quite a shock to him that the party that regularly works to suppress the votes of minorities and engages in gerrymandering to limit their political influence has a problem with racism.
 
plague311 said:
But if he's retiring I'd assume it's because he sees something wrong within his party.
Click to expand...
Though I'd prefer to see courage, what I suspect is he didn't want the ************* of hate that would come his way in a primary if he continued to criticize Trump.

Politicians are afraid of certain Trump supporters and it's not hard for me to see why.

But resigning in protest always seems like kind of a futile act to me. I keep wondering what the reasonable conservatives who have put themselves out to pasture are doing to change the party, or if they just decided they don't want to play anymore.
 
Minoosh said:
Though I'd prefer to see courage, what I suspect is he didn't want the ************* of hate that would come his way in a primary if he continued to criticize Trump.

Politicians are afraid of certain Trump supporters and it's not hard for me to see why.

But resigning in protest always seems like kind of a futile act to me. I keep wondering what the reasonable conservatives who have put themselves out to pasture are doing to change the party, or if they just decided they don't want to play anymore.
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If the game comes with death threats against ones family, I can see not wanting to play.
 
Minoosh said:
Though I'd prefer to see courage, what I suspect is he didn't want the ************* of hate that would come his way in a primary if he continued to criticize Trump.

Politicians are afraid of certain Trump supporters and it's not hard for me to see why.

But resigning in protest always seems like kind of a futile act to me. I keep wondering what the reasonable conservatives who have put themselves out to pasture are doing to change the party, or if they just decided they don't want to play anymore.
Click to expand...

I actually don't have much against the "good" conservatives dropping out of the party and congress all together. As has been stated in the other thread, the Republican Party can really not be saved at this point. No one in the party has the balls to actually save it. Best case scenario is the party fractures, none of them hold any real power until a 3rd party shows up that goes back to the center a lot more and sticks to the old conservative ideas.
 
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