I believe the phrase “Why then is extremist, explicitly Nazi rhetoric so pervasive within the Republican ranks?” is a far more complex phrase than you leave it to be. For one, we lack any objective way to gauge the overall opinions. All methods of gauging this (to my current knowledge) at all, have inherent issues.
The methods I know of are: Personal Experience, Media Coverage, Questionnaire studies, and the opinions of the leaders. Personal experience has to many unrelated variables at play. Were do you live? Who do you talk to? What are the people you talk with willing to talk to you about?
Media coverage can be extremely biased as it is often times more profitable to focus on the number of eyes that you get, versus the accuracy of your information. Media coverage is also not focused on representing society. It makes more sense to report on a single important incident, than it is to report 100 quiet days were nothing happened.
Questionnaires would normally be a good method and it normally would be. However, there are a lot of variables at play. How was the data gathered, is it peer reviewed, what measures were taken to prevent the inherent biases (either from the researchers, or by the nature of the current method studying), what is the sample size? This would be the best way to categorize the party as a whole, should the correct measures be taken. I have a had a lot of trouble finding solid studies that strayed away from this, as the current landscape of political questionnaires and studies are full of studies containing these flaws. Note: If you have found a good study that takes the necessary precautions, I would be grateful if you shared it. I should also note, that I’m not exactly a professional fact checker and I do not know all the best ways to find these studies.
The opinions of the leaders of a given party can also be a great way to gauge. However this necessitates that all members of the party agree with their current leader. Not all republicans want to vote for trump, or may not be paying enough attention to be knowledgeable about him (As much as we argue and it does in fact matter who you vote for. America seems to have grown a sub culture of people who are mostly dis-interested in politics. My belief is that it is most likely either people who do not care about politics, or people that trust their overall government and fellow man enough to make the decisions for him in such matters).
Another thing is that there are many “sub-parties”, if you will, under republicans. I have seen traditionalist republicans argue with libertarian republicans. I have seen republicans who refuse to budge an inch on guns, debate republicans who believe gun control is necessary. I have seen republicans who hate the war on drugs, debate republicans who think alcohol should be banned. I believe the reason that we see a more unified message among-st the republican party is due to the general state of politics in america.
I believe the biggest reason for this unification in message; is because the transition of politicians to more of a focus on careers, rather than directly fighting for what you believe in. A great example is how most republican candidates have tried to get endorsements from trump, because they new he was popular and it would help there image. Lobbying is a huge industry at the moment, encouraging both republicans and democrats to vote differently.
I believe the second biggest reason is need for traction to get started. To win an election you need votes, to get votes you need money, to get money you need a source to get money from. If you’re rich, great! You’ll be among the few who get a chance to risk throwing money away for the hope of maybe making this country better. If you’re not a wealthy person (who as a population, appear to be less concerned with politics and more concerned with business.), than you can try to start small and try to talk to everyone to get them to spread your name. This can be a very slow process and also carries with it the risk of failure, as you may be a liability to future employers and you might be seen as evil by some. The final option is to pander. Try to get other political candidates to endorse you, and build connections. The downside is that you have to not only worry about what is best for the country/state/city, you now have to worry about how it will look to everyone else if you openly fight against the very people who built your political career.
Why do people who disagree with their party just vote for another party like the green party. The most common message that I hear is this: Voting for someone does nothing if they will never be elected. Most other parties are almost completely ignored. Thus my best option is to vote for the politicians closest to my beliefs, from the bigger republican party.
The current state of republican politics also makes it difficult to describe them through a study. Because of the sub-factions that exist, who may disagree heavily republican voting as a whole. Such people who would only vote for someone they believe is making the party a better party. This means that even if there is an over 50% population of republicans who are Nazis: there may still be “sub-parties” who act almost in-dependently from the republican party, excluding only the title of republican.
This is why I, and many republicans that I know, will agree with you that there is a dangerous group of Nazis within the republican party. There will be a dis-agreement as to how bad the situation is, but this the threat of Nazis is a commonly known fact. I think the use of this fact as a counterpoint to all republicans beliefs, has made many republicans afraid to say or admit how bad the situation is (out of fear that you will completely ignore any points they have to make. especially if they are one of these sub-parites). I also know republicans who refuse to vote for Donald Trump because of his handling of the Charlottesville incident, among other things.
I merely believe it to be more constructive to encourage republicans to look for the evils in there own party, just as democrats should within their own as well. While also trying to break down the adversarial nature of modern politics, as many people on both sides have a bad habit of shutting down when confronted, and encouraging collaborative political discussion.
P.S.
there are some errors in gammar and spelling I have to hop off now and I plan to fix them tomorrow.
Some of the language I used did not meet the standard that I am asking for from the final paragraph. As much as I hate to admit it, most of my other comments here were made while I was triggered. One of the few things that I hate this much about modern politics, has to be the over generalization and dismal of political beliefs made with arguments that do not actually question the policies or specific politicians. This is not an excuse for the way I went about commenting, and I want to condemn the way I spoke earlier. I only leave those comments up because I believe others have a right to see how the conversation got to this point, and how I have handled myself in the past.
I believe the phrase “Why then is extremist, explicitly Nazi rhetoric so pervasive within the Republican ranks?” is a far more complex phrase than you leave it to be. For one, we lack any objective way to gauge the overall opinions. All methods of gauging this (to my current knowledge) at all, have inherent issues.
The methods I know of are: Personal Experience, Media Coverage, Questionnaire studies, and the opinions of the leaders. Personal experience has to many unrelated variables at play. Were do you live? Who do you talk to? What are the people you talk with willing to talk to you about?
Media coverage can be extremely biased as it is often times more profitable to focus on the number of eyes that you get, versus the accuracy of your information. Media coverage is also not focused on representing society. It makes more sense to report on a single important incident, than it is to report 100 quiet days were nothing happened.
Questionnaires would normally be a good method and it normally would be. However, there are a lot of variables at play. How was the data gathered, is it peer reviewed, what measures were taken to prevent the inherent biases (either from the researchers, or by the nature of the current method studying), what is the sample size? This would be the best way to categorize the party as a whole, should the correct measures be taken. I have a had a lot of trouble finding solid studies that strayed away from this, as the current landscape of political questionnaires and studies are full of studies containing these flaws. Note: If you have found a good study that takes the necessary precautions, I would be grateful if you shared it. I should also note, that I’m not exactly a professional fact checker and I do not know all the best ways to find these studies.
The opinions of the leaders of a given party can also be a great way to gauge. However this necessitates that all members of the party agree with their current leader. Not all republicans want to vote for trump, or may not be paying enough attention to be knowledgeable about him (As much as we argue and it does in fact matter who you vote for. America seems to have grown a sub culture of people who are mostly dis-interested in politics. My belief is that it is most likely either people who do not care about politics, or people that trust their overall government and fellow man enough to make the decisions for him in such matters).
Another thing is that there are many “sub-parties”, if you will, under republicans. I have seen traditionalist republicans argue with libertarian republicans. I have seen republicans who refuse to budge an inch on guns, debate republicans who believe gun control is necessary. I have seen republicans who hate the war on drugs, debate republicans who think alcohol should be banned. I believe the reason that we see a more unified message among-st the republican party is due to the general state of politics in america.
I believe the biggest reason for this unification in message; is because the transition of politicians to more of a focus on careers, rather than directly fighting for what you believe in. A great example is how most republican candidates have tried to get endorsements from trump, because they new he was popular and it would help there image. Lobbying is a huge industry at the moment, encouraging both republicans and democrats to vote differently.
I believe the second biggest reason is need for traction to get started. To win an election you need votes, to get votes you need money, to get money you need a source to get money from. If you’re rich, great! You’ll be among the few who get a chance to risk throwing money away for the hope of maybe making this country better. If you’re not a wealthy person (who as a population, appear to be less concerned with politics and more concerned with business.), than you can try to start small and try to talk to everyone to get them to spread your name. This can be a very slow process and also carries with it the risk of failure, as you may be a liability to future employers and you might be seen as evil by some. The final option is to pander. Try to get other political candidates to endorse you, and build connections. The downside is that you have to not only worry about what is best for the country/state/city, you now have to worry about how it will look to everyone else if you openly fight against the very people who built your political career.
Why do people who disagree with their party just vote for another party like the green party. The most common message that I hear is this: Voting for someone does nothing if they will never be elected. Most other parties are almost completely ignored. Thus my best option is to vote for the politicians closest to my beliefs, from the bigger republican party.
The current state of republican politics also makes it difficult to describe them through a study. Because of the sub-factions that exist, who may disagree heavily republican voting as a whole. Such people who would only vote for someone they believe is making the party a better party. This means that even if there is an over 50% population of republicans who are Nazis: there may still be “sub-parties” who act almost in-dependently from the republican party, excluding only the title of republican.
This is why I, and many republicans that I know, will agree with you that there is a dangerous group of Nazis within the republican party. There will be a dis-agreement as to how bad the situation is, but this the threat of Nazis is a commonly known fact. I think the use of this fact as a counterpoint to all republicans beliefs, has made many republicans afraid to say or admit how bad the situation is (out of fear that you will completely ignore any points they have to make. especially if they are one of these sub-parites). I also know republicans who refuse to vote for Donald Trump because of his handling of the Charlottesville incident, among other things.
I merely believe it to be more constructive to encourage republicans to look for the evils in there own party, just as democrats should within their own as well. While also trying to break down the adversarial nature of modern politics, as many people on both sides have a bad habit of shutting down when confronted, and encouraging collaborative political discussion.
P.S.
there are some errors in gammar and spelling I have to hop off now and I plan to fix them tomorrow.
Some of the language I used did not meet the standard that I am asking for from the final paragraph. As much as I hate to admit it, most of my other comments here were made while I was triggered. One of the few things that I hate this much about modern politics, has to be the over generalization and dismal of political beliefs made with arguments that do not actually question the policies or specific politicians. This is not an excuse for the way I went about commenting, and I want to condemn the way I spoke earlier. I only leave those comments up because I believe others have a right to see how the conversation got to this point, and how I have handled myself in the past.