Search Results: standards

On Monday the RNC approved a platform, the document that outlines the party’s position for the administration they hope to put into power. The evolution of GOP platforms since 2016 shows the evolution of the GOP. The 2016 platform fell pretty much within the norms of the genre, celebrating the nation and attacking the opposition before calling first for tax cuts—standard for the GOP since 1980—open markets, and deregulation of business and finance, as well as a smaller government. It called as well for an end to gay marriage, protection of gun ownership, and opposition to abortion.

In 2020 the GOP did not write a platform, simply saying “[t]hat the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President's America-first agenda.”

Today's platform, is basically just lifted from a Trump rally teleprompter. The only real sign of the old party is, of course, the platform’s promise to make the Trump tax cuts (which have already added $2.5 trillion to the national debt) permanent. Otherwise, it portrays a world that reflects Trump’s dystopian vision rather than reality, then promises to fix that dystopia either with vague promises or with culture war victories. In odd passages, it promises to do what Biden has already done: conquer inflation, bring supply chains home, revive manufacturing, and save the auto industry.

CNN fact checker Daniel Dale has been kept busy correcting the Republicans’ repeated lie that there is a violent crime wave in the U. S. under Biden; the opposite is true. Both violent crimes and property crimes have plummeted since the Trump administration. Republicans are also saying that Democrats “have eroded the American energy dominance that President Trump delivered.” In reality, while Biden is trying to shift the U. S. to renewables, Dale noted that “the U. S. under Biden is producing more crude oil than any country ever has…"

Do republican voters just not care about any of this? How did that happen?