Talk:Republican Party (United States)/Archive 11

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Political Position

I noticed that this party doesn't have a political position. I think that it would be best if it was "right-wing." According to a study by the New York Times, the party is further right than the UK Independence Party, France's National Rally, the Swedish Democrats and the Finns Party. All of these parties are listed as "right to far-right" when it comes to their political position, and I would describe the Republican Party under Trump as this. I think that Trump's beliefs are similar to that of the Polish party Pis' beliefs, and he is definitely on the right of the Republican Party. However, it is worth noting that the party has usually been left of Trump, so I would say that it would be best to put a historical political position of centre-right to right-wing. I think that the party has always been economically right of the standard centre-right main political party in most European countries. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html Dylan109 (talk) 08:57, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I second this and the opinion expressed by the writer of "Under 'factions' in the infobox..." (please remember to sign your posts), and I think it's time to update the "Ideology" section of the infobox accordingly, considering the substantial shift further right under the current President's leadership. Specifically, to replace "libertarianism" with "liberal conservatism" and include "far-right politics" amongst one of its more extreme factions. Epicity95 (talk) 10:00, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

These have all been discussed and rejected before. Toa Nidhiki05 13:24, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Ragusp: I don't think right-wing or left-wing should be included... The only difference between the two are which side of the aisle they sit on in congress. It just feeds small minds.

Help?

An editor keeps on deleting from the lede (along with other deletions) the fact that a politician is Republican. Can someone with experience, who may have an opinion one way or the other on this, take a look? Thanks. Talk:Walter Blackman --2604:2000:E010:1100:34ED:B275:BB1D:DF86 (talk) 08:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Excessive length in the 21st century section

It looks like this section [[1]] has turned into a play by play section rather than something out of an encyclopedia. The 100 years of the 20th century section which includes such minor events as WW1, WW2, the cold war (and two associated hot wars), some civil rights stuff at home and probably an election or two, is shorter than the 20 years since the 21st century began. Not that I would discount the impacts of things like 911 or Trump's ability to stir people up but still, does the article really need that much current recent information? Not going to try to cull it myself, just asking. Springee (talk) 02:53, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

RagusP: I agree. The wiki should show the history of how the party came to be. All the heroes of civil rights and such. This platform shouldn't lean against anyone one organization and show the WHOLE TRUTH.

Notes

The reference listed as #16 doesn't say anything about the statement preceding it but is just a Time magazine article on Teddy Roosevelt's switch or rather creation of the "Bull" party from the Republican party when he did not secure the Republican party nomination. Anyone know why it was used to support this statement: "After 1912, the Party underwent an ideological shift to the right." ? The statement may be true but the reference used to support certainly doesn't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.36.18.101 (talk) 15:46, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Under 'factions' in the infobox, it would be more accurate to say "libertarian conservativism" than just libertarianism

Given that the other flavors of conservatism have their own descriptors (social conservatism, fiscal conservatism, paleoconservatism, neoconservatism) it makes sense to describe the libertarians within the republican party as libertarian conservative than just libertarian. Left leaning/bleeding heart libertarians tend not to support the GOP and either retain independence or support democrats if they prioritize social liberalism over economic conservatism.

. Akg427 (talk) 00:07, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Why the Republican party let slavery remain in the South

Slavery was to remain in the South to appease the Democrats as to keep the country together and not start a war. I think this should be added into the first few paragraphs. Where the sentence states they were for keeping slavery in the South. They were not. They were anti-war and anti-slavery. As they are today.

Pity they didn't teach you about the Southern Strategy at school. Guy (help!) 20:09, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the Wikipedia entry for "Southern Strategy", it's interesting that of the three references that are listed to support the following statement: "In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans." none really provide sufficient referral "proof" of that statement. The NYT article has no references listed to back up the idea, (and really, NYT?) and the book "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-1965" does not mention anything at all about that. That leaves the #2 reference, the book "From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution" for which there's no reproduction of the page where the statement (concept?) can be verified, so it is considered non-supporting (in my world anyways). To me, this is just sloppy and doesn't belong in a work that is supposed to be about facts about historical happenings. There may well have been such a strategy but shouldn't the references actually show that to be true? I fail to see how the statement is supported outside of a NYT article, which does not cite any sources and another book whose page does not support anything about the strategy nor mention it in any way and a book whose references cannot be verified. At this point, this looks more like a conspiracy theory or based on rumors and the like and not an actual fact. I guess my question is: are there other resources that directly support this "strategy"? If so, why were they not included as references? Just asking, not saying it isn't/wasn't true. I am finding more of this as I go and actually check references whether they be here on Wikipedia or in books etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.36.18.101 (talk) 16:22, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I haven't really checked those references....but there is little doubt there was (to some degree) a so-called "southern strategy". So probably (for example) the NYT's article referencing it is enough. To what degree there was this strategy (i.e. how big of a part of these campaigns it was), to what degree it was effective, and so on.....are subjects that have been discussed on the Southern Strategy talk page extensively. (Also we had a RFC on this not too long ago where this was discussed as well. It is in archive 10 of this talk page. The result was for inclusion.)Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:39, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Let's not rewrite history. While preserving the union was more important to Lincoln than ending slavery, many in the party were staunch abolitionists. The goal was always to abolish slavery, just not immediately. However, by 1864 (only one decade after the party was formed and during the civil war), the official party platform changed from opposing expansion of slavery to calling for its complete abolition. [2]. However, at no point did the Republicans want slavery to continue indefinitely (as your proposed addition implies), the goal always was to end it, just without a war. Democrats, on the other hand were split on the issue with many from the north leaving the party because of the southern Democrats demand for the expansion of slavery. The Democratic Party became the party of the south and for roughly the next 100 years, Democrats would continue to largely oppose any type of civil rights legislation.--Rusf10 (talk) 20:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
• Actually, for roughly the next 100 years, Republicans and Democrats would continue to largely oppose any type of civil rights legislation. For example, the Senate vote on the 1964 Civil Rights Act [3] was: 46 Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act & 27 GOP voted for the Civil Rights Act. In the House vote on the 1964 Civil Rights Act: [4] 153 Democrats voted for 1964 Civil Rights Act & 136 GOP voted for 1964 Civil Rights Act. And sadly, some Republicans today say they would have voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For example, Rand Paul said "I do not support 1964 Civil Rights Act. I would have voted against it. A private business should have a right to say ‘We don’t serve black people' and let the free-market take care of it" [5] BetsyRMadison (talk) 22:51, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Conservatism vs. Right-wing populism

It's clear that in Trump's era, the Republican Party has become predominantly right-wing populist and NOT conservative.Many party leaders, instead of focusing on conservative principles, choose instead to go after liberal Democrats, showing their populism because they're creating an "other" side that is 100% pure evil that must be fought against no matter what. I say that we should move right-wing populism under "Majority" and move "Conservatism" under "Factions" because the conservative Republican officeholders (both former/current) are very few (like John Kasich and Mitt Romney) and usually less outspoken than the right-wing populists (due to the nature of populism). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.16.238.64 (talk • contribs) 16:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

You would need to show that political science textbooks now classify the party as right-wing populist. While Trump obviously has a populist appeal, that's not untypical in U.S. politics. TFD (talk) 17:34, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 August 2020

2402:3A80:10C2:ECC:991E:963A:2412:4C4F (talk) 09:14, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

We cannot consider blank requests. 331dot (talk) 09:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposed picture for Harding

I propose to change Harding's picture for that one, as the other presidents have just a head picture.--85.131.120.190 (talk) 13:22, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Warren G Harding portrait as senator June 1920

Update the "Ideology and factions" Section

Gallup published a 2020 update of those same stats.

As of May:

- Of Rep./lean Rep.: 61% are socially conservative, 28% socially moderate, 10% socially liberal; 65% economically conservative, 26% economically moderate, 7% economically liberal.

- Of Dem./lean Dem.: 14% are socially conservative, 38% socially moderate, 47% socially liberal; 18% economically conservative, 45% economically moderate, 37% economically liberal.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200626225852/https://news.gallup.com/poll/311303/americans-remain-liberal-socially-economically.aspx

105.98.168.224 (talk) 12:45, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Are we ever going to add Climate Change Denial to a list of ideologies? It's clearly prevalent - withdrawal from Climate Paris Accord, against climate tax, against cap & trade, against many environmental regulations involving carbon/methane emissions, W. Bush calling Al Gore "crazy" on global warming, Romney laughing at Obama for trying to slow the rates of sea level rise, & Trump calling the whole thing a hoax? Some 30-odd% of Americans don't think climate change has significant man-made contributions, and those are disproportionally almost all Republicans. Quintdamage (talk) 18:08, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Climate Change denial is not an ideology. Azaan Habib 18:06, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

It's not? I see it listed on Alternative for Germany with https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/121218/la-menace-climatosceptique-pese-aussi-sur-l-europe as a citation. 72.93.0.37 (talk) 01:15, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

---

@Quintdamage - It's mentioned under "Environmental policies".

WikiJoe24 (talk) 00:39, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

---

@(The OP) - Done.

WikiJoe24 (talk) 01:09, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Support base

The lead says "The party's 21st-century base of support includes people living in rural areas, men, the Silent Generation, and white evangelical Christians." Is it worth changing this, given that the Silent Generation is a decreasing portion of the population? Alternatively, it could say senior citizens/the elderly or similar which is more robust. Also the correlation is arguably somewhat overstated. thorpewilliam (talk) 00:16, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Thorpewilliam, it used to say "the elderly", if I recall correctly. Someone changed it, but I think you're right; I'm fine with it being switched back to "the elderly". One note: our article on the topic seems to strongly eschew euphemism, but following its lead and using "old people" might seem too blunt to some. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:14, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: I replaced it with the euphemism "senior citizens". This should suffice in my opinion. Thanks, thorpewilliam (talk) 01:53, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the correlation is overstated, and particularly because of that, it is important to be precise and conform to sources. Our source ([6]) indicates that among Baby Boomers, the Democrats actually hold an advantage, and the Republican edge is only seen with the Silent Generation. Among the senior (65+) population, slightly less than half are Silents, and slightly more than half are Boomers. RedHotPear (talk) 19:16, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

RedHotPear The Silent Gen specifically is also a rather small demographic, so it may not be accurate to describe them as a core constituency of the GOP owing to their overall size, which is decreasing, and hence effect on the party's policies and election outcomes. thorpewilliam (talk) 11:46, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps, although ~7% of the population (and >7% of voters) is not insignificant. I am strongly opposed to something like "seniors" because it does not accurately reflect our source. RedHotPear (talk) 16:34, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

We should add after Silent Generation (born 1928-1945), because the term is fairly uncommon. Or, just say people born before 1946. TFD (talk) 03:40, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I am not opposed to this, but I'd also note that the term is not particularly obscure and that the Silent Generation page is linked for those who are not familiar with the term. RedHotPear (talk) 16:40, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Inclusion of One America News Network (OANN) to the influential online media outlets

According to a June 14-16, 2020 poll by The Economist/YouGov, Republicans rank news organizations trustworthiness as the following: Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, One America News (OAN), etc. Additionally, about 1/3 of Fox News viewers trust OANN. President Donald J Trump has even promoted OANN as a "great alternative" to Fox News in a tweet. There is further evidence of conservative media moguls' interest in OANN. Moreover, OANN correspondents are part of the news organizations that get seats in the White House briefing room. I'm not sure why Toa Nidhiki05 says adding OANN is "inflammatory" when it is part of the influential conservative online media outlets. Derschluessel (talk) 14:45, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Derschluessel, the president's endorsement of OANN is definitely a good indicator of its influence among his party. I'd support some mention of it here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:22, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Including random, fringe networks is inflammatory. There is no evidence OANN is influential beyond one person talking about it, it's not widely watched or even that widely syndicated. There are plenty of far more influential and noteworthy outlets in the conservative sphere that aren't mentioned - OAN isn't one of them. Toa Nidhiki05 17:12, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Toa Nidhiki05, Derschluessel has sources. What is your sourcing for the assertion that there are far more influential conservative outlets that are not mentioned? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

None of his sources say what he claims. The YouGov poll has Fox News as the only trusted source. OAN is 24% trust, 20% don't, and the rest have no opinion. The second is a tweet from one Republican, Donald Trump, who likes it. The third is talks of someone buying the outlet. Pretty weak sourcing for such an inflammatory claim. Toa Nidhiki05 20:33, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

The pole appears to be of people who identify as vs the POV of the actual Republican Party. I would be reluctant to include without seeing the proposed text and section first. Springee (talk) 17:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Question 89C of the poll Page 157 asks respondents about the trustworthiness of OANN. The untrustworthy and very untrustworthy likert responses have very similar responses between Fox News and OANN for registered Republican voters. Yes, there's a preference for Fox News in terms of trust - which is not being disputed. It is the trend toward inclusion of non-traditional media platforms that warrants OANN being included into "influential news and media sources." I agree with Springee in wanting to see a draft statement here. Let's not rush into it - but let's certainly be prepared to include this news network if the trend holds. We can look at Alternative media (U.S. political right) for direction. Derschluessel (talk) 12:42, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Liberalism as an ideology

Should liberalism be mentioned as a faction in the template? There remains a minority of liberal republicans today. thorpewilliam (talk) 11:02, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Or it could refer to economic liberalism, which the GOP certainly to a large degree abides to. thorpewilliam (talk) 06:46, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

trump won by alot

I know you wikipedians are AOC worshippers, but trump did win, the democrats stole the elections, with the help of fake news websites like this one. 2A02:A03F:8B18:9300:41CF:F84F:7304:66D1 (talk) 05:18, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a news website. It contains articles based on what reliable sources all around the world say. They are saying that Trump has lost. A good example is the highly regarded, government funded, independent Australian Broadcasting Corporation - here. HiLo48 (talk) 05:29, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

BTW - What's the AOC? Australian Olympic Committee? HiLo48 (talk) 05:31, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

He meant Alexandria Ocasio Cortez - Dems are "socialist! socialism and communism booga booga booga" It is a tired trope in the U.S. used by right-wing political elements, business, and uninformed voters. 129.246.254.12 (talk) 16:20, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Center-right party

The center-right and center-left concept should be introduced to this article and the Democratic Party article. There is no need to play around with words. Republican Party is right wing party. Stop all these nonsense 202.9.46.101 (talk) 15:37, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

___ I second this

Gdeblois19 23:39, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, as this article say, "Compared to center-right parties in developed democracies, the GOP is dangerously far from normal" meaning the "an authoritarian outlier". But there are two important details. First, the party is different now from what it was even 10 years ago. Second, there are different factions - see Factions in the Republican Party (United States). So perhaps this should be described as in first para of the lead on page Political positions of the Republican Party. My very best wishes (talk) 21:47, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

• Hasn't this issue or something similar to it come up again and again? Whatever you all decide, please, for the sake of my watchlist, add a hidden text warning so that people don't keep trying to change it without reviewing prior discussion. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:05, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

!It was discussed before and editors at the time decided not to include it. The main reason is that it is not an ideological party in the sense that it has stated principles to which members must adhere. So there have been both left-wing and far right politicians elected under the party banner. The other problem is that exact location in the linear political spectrum is subjective. It would be an extreme coincidence if the dividing line between left and right in the world lay where the Democratic and Republican parties met. `TFD (talk)

Very easily source with decades of academic research. Political position of both parties is mentioned in hundreds of article just not here . Just have to go to other main political articles to get basic info suppressed here for odd reasons. Like global warming - Political science is not real to many.--Moxy 🍁 12:45, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Republicans' justification for blocking Merrick Garland

Should the text in bold (which provides a back-and-forth between Republicans and Biden on Garland) be included in the article: Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:24, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• McConnell's refusal to hold hearings on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland during the final year of Obama's presidency was described by political scientists and legal scholars as "unprecedented", a "culmination of this confrontational style," a "blatant abuse of constitutional norms," and a "classic example of constitutional hardball." Senate Republicans justified this move by pointing to a 1992 speech from then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joe Biden; in that speech, Biden argued that hearings on any potential Supreme Court nominee that year should be postponed until after Election Day. Biden contested this interpretation of his 1992 speech.

References

Please indicate whether you support or oppose something similar to the above text, along with your reasoning. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:24, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose. There are two problems with this text: (1) The political rhetoric is used to rebut peer-reviewed research. The academic research characterizes the Garland action as unprecedented, a major violation of democratic norms and constitutional hardball. It's entirely inappropriate to conflate partisan rhetoric with academic research. (2) The GOP rationale is misleading/false. Unfortunately, it's too in-the-weeds to add additional text that gets into why this is misleading. In short: (a) Biden did not block anyone (unlike the GOP), (b) this is a statement by a single Senator (unlike action by the GOP), (c) Biden's speech was way later in the election than when the GOP blocked Garland,[7] (d) there was no Supreme Court vacancy,[8] (e) there was no nominee under consideration,[9] (f) the Democratic-led Senate never adopted this as a rule,[10], and (g) Biden did not say the nomination should be given to the winner of the presidential election (which the GOP did), only that it be done after the election... per PolitiFact, "Based on Biden's words, it appears he would not have objected to Bush nominating someone the day after election day. It would have given the Senate more than two and a half months to vote on confirmation." My arguments here are mirrored by this peer-reviewed book chapter (pages 162-163), which essentially calls the "Biden rule" nonsense.[11] Ultimately, the so-called "Biden rule" is a faux rationale, and the GOP has already dropped this faux rationale.[12] If this text is to be included (which I don't think it should), then all of this context should be included, as well. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:27, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Pinging past participants in an older RfC[13] that ended in no consensus: SoWhy, Rusf10, SunCrow, Toa Nidhiki05, SWL36, Ahrtoodeetoo, Starship.paint, Alsee, StudiesWorld, Rhododendrites, RightCowLeftCoast, JFG, ModerateMikayla555. Some of the participants have been blocked or were running sockpuppets, so a new RfC might lead to a firmer conclusion. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as too pointy. I also think some of the in the non-bolded section should be removed for the same reason. This text should summaries vs grab "textbites" that shock. Certainly there has been a back and forth on this with pundits on both sides arguing who was right or wrong. The view that the GOP arguments were wrong is not for editors of this article too make. If the purpose of the section is to say the GOP started playing hardball with the rules, then we should summarize that. We shouldn't try to pull out specific arguments made at the time then claim they were right or wrong. Springee (talk) 16:33, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:FALSEBALANCE. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:38, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - that level of context may make sense in an article more directly concerning those events, but it's too much here (and per what I wrote in the other RfC). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:47, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Too much detail to be encyclopedic for an article of this scope, and too tangential. Biden is not a member of the Republican party. It also strikes me as being a little coatracky. As an aside, the preceding sentence appears to be non-neutral as well. R2 (bleep) 17:11, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Include (invited by the bot) The first sentence has problems, it synthesizes selective opinions from political opponents into implying that the the consensus of political scientists and scholars is that it is all of those extreme things. And the questioned text is a common counter argument / response given by the subject of the article in response to those accusations.North8000 (talk) 17:43, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with the above which is why I oppose the text and think the other text needs to be edited. The claim of FALSEBALANCE above is valid in that we shouldn't add poorly constructed text to balance out an opposing view. The question is if the opposing view isn't also poorly constructed. This is fixing a flat tire by adding a second wheel to the car vs fixing the flat. The answer isn't two opposing, poorly constructed claims rather to fix the original problem. It seems questionable to use the actions related to the SC nomination to claim the whole party has moved away from something vs just that the Senate Majority Leader has done that. Springee (talk) 19:03, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support My reasoning is the exact same as last time. It’s utterly absurd to not include the stated reason the party gave for doing this, even if the reason is wrong in the opinion of editors. The section includes both the Republican justification and a rebuttal from Biden. Not sure why this is controversial at all, really, or why it’s being brought up again, but I know Snog has wanted this gone for a year and a half now. I would agree with Springee as well that if we’re going to trim this section, it needs to be trimmed a lot more. Toa Nidhiki05 17:46, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree with others that the first sentence isn't ideal; however, I agree with Snooganssnoogans that the second sentence constitutes false balance. Additionally, I'd be interested to see whether this speech was as widely discussed at the time. If so, maybe it deserves mention; however, if its discussion has simply increased due to the situation around Amy Coney Barrett and his run for the presidency, it seems even worse of a fit. StudiesWorld (talk) 20:11, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Snooganssnoogans Mgasparin (talk) 03:48, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support While I agree with everything Snooganssnoogans said about the weakness and false equivalence of the Republicans’ argument, the fact remains that was a large part of their stated justification. Per what Nidhiki05 says, if you are going to have an article about this subject at all, it should include the rationale used by proponents. The fact that Biden is who he is at the time of the debate also weighs toward inclusion, in my opinion. The point of an encyclopedic article of this type is to present the arguments used by both sides and let the reader come to their own conclusions. In this case, readers are smart enough to see the weakness of the Republican argument and don’t need to have the information censored from the article. Go4thProsper (talk) 13:51, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

  Considering this argument, I think part of the reason the bolded text should not be included is that, whereas Democrats have been talking very loudly about hypocrisy, Republicans have not been nearly as loud with their rebuttal. The Biden comparison is what they give when they're forced to address the issue, but in their floor speeches and other statements, they largely ignored comparisons to 2016 (if we're being blunt, since they know their argument is flimsy as paper), instead just talking about Barrett's qualifications. That means that their rebuttal is less likely to be DUE than the accusations.

  I still think FALSEBALANCE is the most pertinent policy to this situation (and it is a policy), but even if it weren't applicable, the above would give me some pause. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:06, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

• Conditional support - only if the context given by Snooganssnoogans (a) to (g) is also included, then I would support this addition. Here's what I would write: "Senate Republicans justified this move by pointing to a 1992 speech from then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joe Biden; in that speech, Biden argued that hearings on any potential Supreme Court nominee that year should be postponed until after the Election Day; Biden contested this interpretation of his 1992 speech. At the time, there was no vacancy, no nominee, no action taken, and the delay argued for was only until after the next president-elect was determined, and not as McConnell decided, until after the next president began his term. [14] Any version mentioning Biden or these arguments without the bolded text gets an Oppose from me. starship.paint (talk) 10:34, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Snooganssnoogans, and my response to the previous RFC: The initial text presents external academic analysis. It would hardly be NPOV to add a disputed or misleading one sided political rebuttal. If we're going to muck-up the academic review by adding claims by politicians then we need actual and substantive inclusion of the claim that Republicans were misrepresenting what Biden said. Presenting one-sided political argument now would be even more egregious than it was then, as more recent statements and actions by the same politicians establish the pure partisan sophistry of the argument. Alsee (talk) 12:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, unless you can show that they used the same justification for not confirming Amy Coney Barrett. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:35, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose If the paragraph is used it should be moved from Democracy to a section on position on on the Supreme Court. The section on Democracy should be deleted. It has little to do with the Republican Party in particular, but on a quarrel between some republicans and democrats. Ihaveadreamagain 19:42, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose; gets too deeply into the weeds on talking points, especially since none of the sources indicate that that particular point was important or significant in the long term. This isn't an article about the confirmation hearing; the fact that many legal scholars commented on it is important (it indicates why it is historically significant; without that part it would be unclear why we're going into detail on the process there at all), but the fact that there was back-and-forth between the politicians trying to justify it is not. Definitely oppose the expanded version which adds a rebuttal from Democrats; that just makes it even worse. Are we going to add a rebuttal to the rebuttal, and so on, ad-nauseam, until the entire page is the parties arguing over stuff like that? A brief mention of what prominent mainstream legal scholars thought is worth mentioning; the rest isn't. --Aquillion (talk) 03:35, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, i.e. remove bold text Excessive details and poorly written. My very best wishes (talk) 20:36, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
• Comment This is in WP:SNOW territory. Let's please wrap it up. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:07, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per biased view and WP:FALSEBALANCE Dswitz10734 (talk) 21:25, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:RECENTISM and WP:FALSEBALANCE. The quality of the academic sources gives much more weight than the news sources, but moreover the title of this page is "Republican Party (United States)" and any individual who thinks that Biden's 2020 response to someone quoting a speech he made in 1992 is of such historical significance that the topic of the Republican Party (1854–) will be incomplete without it needs to reassess priorities. One brief sentence on McConnell's unprecedented actions (not words-about-actions) relating to the Supreme Court, however, seems reasonably appropriate, though I would favour more attribution of quotes over more quotes (particularly phrases like "classic example of constitutional hardball"—what does the audience actually learn by reading this?). — Bilorv (talk) 10:23, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

In looking at the replies it I think it is important to note that many of the oppose replies include concerns that the non-bold text is also problematic. It would probably be important that any closing include a discussion not only of the bold text but the rest of the text as well. I personally don't see how any of this content directly supports the subsection were it is included. It seems like this is being shoehorned in based on current events vs because it supports the subheading. To be honest, it's not really clear what "Democracy" is supposed to mean in terms of this section. Springee (talk) 15:39, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with Springee. In what possible way is "Democracy" a social policy? What kind of public policy concerns "Democracy"? Democracy is a type of government--it's not a social issue like abortion, affirmative action or same-sex marriage. Regardless, all that's mentioned under Democracy are third-party commentaries about Newt Gingrich and McConnell. I understand that Gingrich and McConnell are rather important politicians, but they don't encompass or define the entire GOP. Every other sub-section under Political Position is essentially about the platform of the GOP and what kind of policies they support or reject--not about individual members of the GOP. So, I really think this Democracy sub-section needs a major rewrite or possibly even a deletion. (Side note: I didn't want to WP:OTHERSTUFF this discussion, but there's no mention of a Democracy section for the Democratic Party (United States) or any other third-party for that matter). Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 08:39, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I would agree with this as well. The entire section is a WP:COATRACK about specific legislators that doesn’t really belong. Toa Nidhiki05 12:29, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I also agree with these points made by Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d, Toa Nidhiki05, and Springee.

• Comment Per recentism, this is on people's minds because the Republicans reversed their position in order to support the nomination to the Supreme Court of Amy Coney Barrett. In fairness, the Democrats also reversed their positions. In the long term, this will probably not be that important. The Florida recount for example was a much bigger story at the time, was the subject of a documentary and is of greater significance but is not even mentioned in the article. If we do include it, I suggest changing the order of the information. First explain the Republican reasoning and then rebut it with expert opinion sources instead of using the present order. Compare "X claimed self, but a jury convicted him" with "A jury convicted X. X however says he acted in self-defense." If you put the Republican position first, it leaves no doubt that experts were aware of their argument before making their findings. TFD (talk) 12:40, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

The Democrats did not "reverse their positions." Their position in '16 was to follow established procedural practices and norms as set by precedent. That is still their position. The Republicans changed the standard practice four years ago. They set a new precedent. Whether one customary method or the other is better is not the point. The same set of rules should apply in the same situations across time. Swapping back and forth between two different sets of rules depending on which set of rules will benefit your party in any given situation is the epitomy of antirepublicanism & antidemocratic authoritarianism. To characterise the other side as 'also changing their position' because they think everyone ought to be subject to the same rules, whatever those rules happen to be, and they raise objection because the other party keeps swapping hitherto and thitherfro is disingenuous. Firejuggler86 (talk) 10:08, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I would hope that my elected representatives would do what was right rather than whatever someone before them may have done. The presidency of Donald Trump set a lot of precedents. I hope that the next Democratic president doesn't feel obliged to follow all of them. TFD (talk) 04:19, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I would hope that my elected representatives would do what was right rather than whatever someone before them may have done. The presidency of Donald Trump has set a lot of precedents. I hope that the next Democratic president doesn't feel obliged to follow all of them. TFD (talk) 04:18, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)Since some of the arguments in the RfC center on the idea that we are balancing scholarship vs non-scholarship are there other scholars who disagree and are the sources being used correctly? The second question is probably "yes" but I've seen a number of examples where a specific passage is quoted from a book or other written published via academic press but when one looks at the text in context it's clear it was misused in the Wikipedia article. For example using a quote of a quote without indicating as much or failing to include the context of the quote from the original work. Additionally, do we have any evidence this view is wide spread or universally accepted? How many scholars wrote about these events? Do they universally feel this is true? Is it just a vocal subset? Do scholars feel this is a one sided move away from norms or is this a case where both sides are moving away from the norms (ie the 2013 use of the nuclear option to confirm judges other than those on the SC)? Any time we say something like "scholars view this as..." (or similar) it should be clear such statements are widely accepted vs come from just a subset of scholars on the subject. Springee (talk) 12:51, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I would wager to guess that if there did exist scholarship to balance scholarship, resorting to nonscholarship would not have occurred? I could be wrong, but that seems logical...

The 2013 use of nuclear option was 'moving away from norms', though? Pray tell, when had it ever been the norm for the opposing party in the Senate to block every single court nominee (or damn near) that a President made? Never? I suppose the counter to that could be that there'd never been a Negro in the WH before, so certainly they couldn't have expected his nominees to get the same treatment as a white man's nominees! (this is not directed at you in any way, btw, Springee - solely at the Senate GOP - I got a bit carried away on a tangent, though, so I'll stop now). Firejuggler86 (talk) 10:40, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Your comment about scholarship is speculative and none of this scholarship is from the perspective of historical hindsight nor should we assume the scholarship presented was free of any confirmation bias. This isn't exactly a hard science where we have clear experiments etc. As for 2013, in the past the democrats might have taken the refusal to confirm as a sign that they had picked judges that were too ideologically away from the center. Instead they decided they could change historical norms. Regardless, this whole section reads as ideologically motivated and cherry picked rather than impartial. Springee (talk) 13:00, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Center-right party

The center-right and center-left concept should be introduced to this article and the Democratic Party article. There is no need to play around with words. Republican Party is right wing party. Stop all these nonsense 202.9.46.101 (talk) 15:37, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

___ I second this

Gdeblois19 23:39, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, as this article say, "Compared to center-right parties in developed democracies, the GOP is dangerously far from normal" meaning the "an authoritarian outlier". But there are two important details. First, the party is different now from what it was even 10 years ago. Second, there are different factions - see Factions in the Republican Party (United States). So perhaps this should be described as in first para of the lead on page Political positions of the Republican Party. My very best wishes (talk) 21:47, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

• Hasn't this issue or something similar to it come up again and again? Whatever you all decide, please, for the sake of my watchlist, add a hidden text warning so that people don't keep trying to change it without reviewing prior discussion. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:05, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

!It was discussed before and editors at the time decided not to include it. The main reason is that it is not an ideological party in the sense that it has stated principles to which members must adhere. So there have been both left-wing and far right politicians elected under the party banner. The other problem is that exact location in the linear political spectrum is subjective. It would be an extreme coincidence if the dividing line between left and right in the world lay where the Democratic and Republican parties met. `TFD (talk)

Very easily source with decades of academic research. Political position of both parties is mentioned in hundreds of article just not here . Just have to go to other main political articles to get basic info suppressed here for odd reasons. Like global warming - Political science is not real to many.--Moxy 🍁 12:45, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Republicans' justification for blocking Merrick Garland

Should the text in bold (which provides a back-and-forth between Republicans and Biden on Garland) be included in the article: Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:24, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• McConnell's refusal to hold hearings on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland during the final year of Obama's presidency was described by political scientists and legal scholars as "unprecedented", a "culmination of this confrontational style," a "blatant abuse of constitutional norms," and a "classic example of constitutional hardball." Senate Republicans justified this move by pointing to a 1992 speech from then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joe Biden; in that speech, Biden argued that hearings on any potential Supreme Court nominee that year should be postponed until after Election Day. Biden contested this interpretation of his 1992 speech.

References

Please indicate whether you support or oppose something similar to the above text, along with your reasoning. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:24, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose. There are two problems with this text: (1) The political rhetoric is used to rebut peer-reviewed research. The academic research characterizes the Garland action as unprecedented, a major violation of democratic norms and constitutional hardball. It's entirely inappropriate to conflate partisan rhetoric with academic research. (2) The GOP rationale is misleading/false. Unfortunately, it's too in-the-weeds to add additional text that gets into why this is misleading. In short: (a) Biden did not block anyone (unlike the GOP), (b) this is a statement by a single Senator (unlike action by the GOP), (c) Biden's speech was way later in the election than when the GOP blocked Garland,[15] (d) there was no Supreme Court vacancy,[16] (e) there was no nominee under consideration,[17] (f) the Democratic-led Senate never adopted this as a rule,[18], and (g) Biden did not say the nomination should be given to the winner of the presidential election (which the GOP did), only that it be done after the election... per PolitiFact, "Based on Biden's words, it appears he would not have objected to Bush nominating someone the day after election day. It would have given the Senate more than two and a half months to vote on confirmation." My arguments here are mirrored by this peer-reviewed book chapter (pages 162-163), which essentially calls the "Biden rule" nonsense.[19] Ultimately, the so-called "Biden rule" is a faux rationale, and the GOP has already dropped this faux rationale.[20] If this text is to be included (which I don't think it should), then all of this context should be included, as well. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:27, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Pinging past participants in an older RfC[21] that ended in no consensus: SoWhy, Rusf10, SunCrow, Toa Nidhiki05, SWL36, Ahrtoodeetoo, Starship.paint, Alsee, StudiesWorld, Rhododendrites, RightCowLeftCoast, JFG, ModerateMikayla555. Some of the participants have been blocked or were running sockpuppets, so a new RfC might lead to a firmer conclusion. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as too pointy. I also think some of the in the non-bolded section should be removed for the same reason. This text should summaries vs grab "textbites" that shock. Certainly there has been a back and forth on this with pundits on both sides arguing who was right or wrong. The view that the GOP arguments were wrong is not for editors of this article too make. If the purpose of the section is to say the GOP started playing hardball with the rules, then we should summarize that. We shouldn't try to pull out specific arguments made at the time then claim they were right or wrong. Springee (talk) 16:33, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:FALSEBALANCE. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:38, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - that level of context may make sense in an article more directly concerning those events, but it's too much here (and per what I wrote in the other RfC). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:47, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Too much detail to be encyclopedic for an article of this scope, and too tangential. Biden is not a member of the Republican party. It also strikes me as being a little coatracky. As an aside, the preceding sentence appears to be non-neutral as well. R2 (bleep) 17:11, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Include (invited by the bot) The first sentence has problems, it synthesizes selective opinions from political opponents into implying that the the consensus of political scientists and scholars is that it is all of those extreme things. And the questioned text is a common counter argument / response given by the subject of the article in response to those accusations.North8000 (talk) 17:43, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with the above which is why I oppose the text and think the other text needs to be edited. The claim of FALSEBALANCE above is valid in that we shouldn't add poorly constructed text to balance out an opposing view. The question is if the opposing view isn't also poorly constructed. This is fixing a flat tire by adding a second wheel to the car vs fixing the flat. The answer isn't two opposing, poorly constructed claims rather to fix the original problem. It seems questionable to use the actions related to the SC nomination to claim the whole party has moved away from something vs just that the Senate Majority Leader has done that. Springee (talk) 19:03, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support My reasoning is the exact same as last time. It’s utterly absurd to not include the stated reason the party gave for doing this, even if the reason is wrong in the opinion of editors. The section includes both the Republican justification and a rebuttal from Biden. Not sure why this is controversial at all, really, or why it’s being brought up again, but I know Snog has wanted this gone for a year and a half now. I would agree with Springee as well that if we’re going to trim this section, it needs to be trimmed a lot more. Toa Nidhiki05 17:46, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree with others that the first sentence isn't ideal; however, I agree with Snooganssnoogans that the second sentence constitutes false balance. Additionally, I'd be interested to see whether this speech was as widely discussed at the time. If so, maybe it deserves mention; however, if its discussion has simply increased due to the situation around Amy Coney Barrett and his run for the presidency, it seems even worse of a fit. StudiesWorld (talk) 20:11, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Snooganssnoogans Mgasparin (talk) 03:48, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support While I agree with everything Snooganssnoogans said about the weakness and false equivalence of the Republicans’ argument, the fact remains that was a large part of their stated justification. Per what Nidhiki05 says, if you are going to have an article about this subject at all, it should include the rationale used by proponents. The fact that Biden is who he is at the time of the debate also weighs toward inclusion, in my opinion. The point of an encyclopedic article of this type is to present the arguments used by both sides and let the reader come to their own conclusions. In this case, readers are smart enough to see the weakness of the Republican argument and don’t need to have the information censored from the article. Go4thProsper (talk) 13:51, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

  Considering this argument, I think part of the reason the bolded text should not be included is that, whereas Democrats have been talking very loudly about hypocrisy, Republicans have not been nearly as loud with their rebuttal. The Biden comparison is what they give when they're forced to address the issue, but in their floor speeches and other statements, they largely ignored comparisons to 2016 (if we're being blunt, since they know their argument is flimsy as paper), instead just talking about Barrett's qualifications. That means that their rebuttal is less likely to be DUE than the accusations.

  I still think FALSEBALANCE is the most pertinent policy to this situation (and it is a policy), but even if it weren't applicable, the above would give me some pause. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:06, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

• Conditional support - only if the context given by Snooganssnoogans (a) to (g) is also included, then I would support this addition. Here's what I would write: "Senate Republicans justified this move by pointing to a 1992 speech from then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joe Biden; in that speech, Biden argued that hearings on any potential Supreme Court nominee that year should be postponed until after the Election Day; Biden contested this interpretation of his 1992 speech. At the time, there was no vacancy, no nominee, no action taken, and the delay argued for was only until after the next president-elect was determined, and not as McConnell decided, until after the next president began his term. [22] Any version mentioning Biden or these arguments without the bolded text gets an Oppose from me. starship.paint (talk) 10:34, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Snooganssnoogans, and my response to the previous RFC: The initial text presents external academic analysis. It would hardly be NPOV to add a disputed or misleading one sided political rebuttal. If we're going to muck-up the academic review by adding claims by politicians then we need actual and substantive inclusion of the claim that Republicans were misrepresenting what Biden said. Presenting one-sided political argument now would be even more egregious than it was then, as more recent statements and actions by the same politicians establish the pure partisan sophistry of the argument. Alsee (talk) 12:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, unless you can show that they used the same justification for not confirming Amy Coney Barrett. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:35, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose If the paragraph is used it should be moved from Democracy to a section on position on on the Supreme Court. The section on Democracy should be deleted. It has little to do with the Republican Party in particular, but on a quarrel between some republicans and democrats. Ihaveadreamagain 19:42, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose; gets too deeply into the weeds on talking points, especially since none of the sources indicate that that particular point was important or significant in the long term. This isn't an article about the confirmation hearing; the fact that many legal scholars commented on it is important (it indicates why it is historically significant; without that part it would be unclear why we're going into detail on the process there at all), but the fact that there was back-and-forth between the politicians trying to justify it is not. Definitely oppose the expanded version which adds a rebuttal from Democrats; that just makes it even worse. Are we going to add a rebuttal to the rebuttal, and so on, ad-nauseam, until the entire page is the parties arguing over stuff like that? A brief mention of what prominent mainstream legal scholars thought is worth mentioning; the rest isn't. --Aquillion (talk) 03:35, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, i.e. remove bold text Excessive details and poorly written. My very best wishes (talk) 20:36, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
• Comment This is in WP:SNOW territory. Let's please wrap it up. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:07, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per biased view and WP:FALSEBALANCE Dswitz10734 (talk) 21:25, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:RECENTISM and WP:FALSEBALANCE. The quality of the academic sources gives much more weight than the news sources, but moreover the title of this page is "Republican Party (United States)" and any individual who thinks that Biden's 2020 response to someone quoting a speech he made in 1992 is of such historical significance that the topic of the Republican Party (1854–) will be incomplete without it needs to reassess priorities. One brief sentence on McConnell's unprecedented actions (not words-about-actions) relating to the Supreme Court, however, seems reasonably appropriate, though I would favour more attribution of quotes over more quotes (particularly phrases like "classic example of constitutional hardball"—what does the audience actually learn by reading this?). — Bilorv (talk) 10:23, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

In looking at the replies it I think it is important to note that many of the oppose replies include concerns that the non-bold text is also problematic. It would probably be important that any closing include a discussion not only of the bold text but the rest of the text as well. I personally don't see how any of this content directly supports the subsection were it is included. It seems like this is being shoehorned in based on current events vs because it supports the subheading. To be honest, it's not really clear what "Democracy" is supposed to mean in terms of this section. Springee (talk) 15:39, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with Springee. In what possible way is "Democracy" a social policy? What kind of public policy concerns "Democracy"? Democracy is a type of government--it's not a social issue like abortion, affirmative action or same-sex marriage. Regardless, all that's mentioned under Democracy are third-party commentaries about Newt Gingrich and McConnell. I understand that Gingrich and McConnell are rather important politicians, but they don't encompass or define the entire GOP. Every other sub-section under Political Position is essentially about the platform of the GOP and what kind of policies they support or reject--not about individual members of the GOP. So, I really think this Democracy sub-section needs a major rewrite or possibly even a deletion. (Side note: I didn't want to WP:OTHERSTUFF this discussion, but there's no mention of a Democracy section for the Democratic Party (United States) or any other third-party for that matter). Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 08:39, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I would agree with this as well. The entire section is a WP:COATRACK about specific legislators that doesn’t really belong. Toa Nidhiki05 12:29, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I also agree with these points made by Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d, Toa Nidhiki05, and Springee.

• Comment Per recentism, this is on people's minds because the Republicans reversed their position in order to support the nomination to the Supreme Court of Amy Coney Barrett. In fairness, the Democrats also reversed their positions. In the long term, this will probably not be that important. The Florida recount for example was a much bigger story at the time, was the subject of a documentary and is of greater significance but is not even mentioned in the article. If we do include it, I suggest changing the order of the information. First explain the Republican reasoning and then rebut it with expert opinion sources instead of using the present order. Compare "X claimed self, but a jury convicted him" with "A jury convicted X. X however says he acted in self-defense." If you put the Republican position first, it leaves no doubt that experts were aware of their argument before making their findings. TFD (talk) 12:40, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

The Democrats did not "reverse their positions." Their position in '16 was to follow established procedural practices and norms as set by precedent. That is still their position. The Republicans changed the standard practice four years ago. They set a new precedent. Whether one customary method or the other is better is not the point. The same set of rules should apply in the same situations across time. Swapping back and forth between two different sets of rules depending on which set of rules will benefit your party in any given situation is the epitomy of antirepublicanism & antidemocratic authoritarianism. To characterise the other side as 'also changing their position' because they think everyone ought to be subject to the same rules, whatever those rules happen to be, and they raise objection because the other party keeps swapping hitherto and thitherfro is disingenuous. Firejuggler86 (talk) 10:08, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I would hope that my elected representatives would do what was right rather than whatever someone before them may have done. The presidency of Donald Trump set a lot of precedents. I hope that the next Democratic president doesn't feel obliged to follow all of them. TFD (talk) 04:19, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I would hope that my elected representatives would do what was right rather than whatever someone before them may have done. The presidency of Donald Trump has set a lot of precedents. I hope that the next Democratic president doesn't feel obliged to follow all of them. TFD (talk) 04:18, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)Since some of the arguments in the RfC center on the idea that we are balancing scholarship vs non-scholarship are there other scholars who disagree and are the sources being used correctly? The second question is probably "yes" but I've seen a number of examples where a specific passage is quoted from a book or other written published via academic press but when one looks at the text in context it's clear it was misused in the Wikipedia article. For example using a quote of a quote without indicating as much or failing to include the context of the quote from the original work. Additionally, do we have any evidence this view is wide spread or universally accepted? How many scholars wrote about these events? Do they universally feel this is true? Is it just a vocal subset? Do scholars feel this is a one sided move away from norms or is this a case where both sides are moving away from the norms (ie the 2013 use of the nuclear option to confirm judges other than those on the SC)? Any time we say something like "scholars view this as..." (or similar) it should be clear such statements are widely accepted vs come from just a subset of scholars on the subject. Springee (talk) 12:51, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I would wager to guess that if there did exist scholarship to balance scholarship, resorting to nonscholarship would not have occurred? I could be wrong, but that seems logical...

The 2013 use of nuclear option was 'moving away from norms', though? Pray tell, when had it ever been the norm for the opposing party in the Senate to block every single court nominee (or damn near) that a President made? Never? I suppose the counter to that could be that there'd never been a Negro in the WH before, so certainly they couldn't have expected his nominees to get the same treatment as a white man's nominees! (this is not directed at you in any way, btw, Springee - solely at the Senate GOP - I got a bit carried away on a tangent, though, so I'll stop now). Firejuggler86 (talk) 10:40, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Your comment about scholarship is speculative and none of this scholarship is from the perspective of historical hindsight nor should we assume the scholarship presented was free of any confirmation bias. This isn't exactly a hard science where we have clear experiments etc. As for 2013, in the past the democrats might have taken the refusal to confirm as a sign that they had picked judges that were too ideologically away from the center. Instead they decided they could change historical norms. Regardless, this whole section reads as ideologically motivated and cherry picked rather than impartial. Springee (talk) 13:00, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Consideration of adding "far-right party" as a description of the Republican Party in the article summary

In all other developed nations on Earth, a party that conducts maneuvering to pull off a majority in the highest court, favors absolute or near absolute deference to an authoritarian-style president, denies of climate change science, practices established intolerance of certain groups and bashing of women's rights, has a primary base of mostly religious fundamentalist voters, amongst others things, would label such a party as far-right. Open for discussion on whether this should be added or not. 129.246.254.12 (talk) 16:24, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Two things: Most of the world's population do not live in developed countries, and the non-developed countries that they live tend to be more conservative than their developed counterparts, which is to say that what developed countries are like politically is not representative of what the world at large is like politically. That being said, however, I think you might have a case if you found a couple of non-opinion articles from RS that stated that the GOP was far-right. Even then, however, if you want to get past NPOV, you'd probably have to say something like "…some have described them as far right", or something to that effect. Stavd3 (talk) 01:07, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Using a different laptop to reply. I don't know what RS means. Here are some articles that discuss this"

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21449634/republicans-supreme-court-gop-trump-authoritarian https://prospect.org/culture/books/how-the-right-went-far-right/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/16/gop-far-right-trump/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-there-are-so-few-moderate-republicans-left/ 2600:1003:B101:340C:20AA:8BBA:CCBC:6E2F (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

"right" has a specific meaning in the reliable sources--having to do with support for established elites and opposition to revolutionary proposals. The checklist of foibled presented above do not qualify--. It is better to start with the reliable published secondary sources written by experts on politics, rather than unsourced private opinions of newly arrived anonymous editors with little experience with political articles. Rjensen (talk) 01:53, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Hey Rjensen, I say the above as a former Republican who has been on the inside (county party orgs, fundraisers, etc.) in prior years. They don't care about moderation; in fact, I was called out for stating that the need to moderate is a pressing one. 2600:1003:B101:340C:20AA:8BBA:CCBC:6E2F (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

It is an exaggeration not supported by political experts. TFD (talk) 07:04, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi TFD, I would encourage you to read the article I posted above, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21449634/republicans-supreme-court-gop-trump-authoritarian, which includes political experts sources that discuss a drift into far-right and authoritarian modes of politics and tactics. 129.246.254.12 (talk) 18:13, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

An article by a journalist on a liberal website is insufficient per Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. You would need academic sources that say this views is widely supported which the article does not provide. TFD (talk) 20:23, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Stavd3, TFD, etc.Rja13ww33 (talk) 20:30, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Cas Mudde, who is cited in the Vox article, mentions another Vox article in "The Trump phenomenon and the European populist radical right." Mudde concludes neither Trump nor his ideology are far right, but his core supporters are similar to far right voters in Europe. TFD (talk) 04:09, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I would agree with that statement, except I would add that Trump personally does not have any ideolog at all whatsoever beyond worshipping hisself and righting the great wrong of not being universally worshipped the world over. The only reason he's the head of (what has become) an extremist far right political party is because the only people that were able to be sold on the idea that he was the new messiah were the wingnuts.

That said...I am sure there are likely ample reliable sources on this matter, and I support the inclusion of this description once enough suitable sources are found. Firejuggler86 (talk) 08:54, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

TFD, here are a few academic sources to backup the claim that the GOP has shifted more to the far-right: https://jspp.psychopen.eu/article/view/750/html?t=1∓cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjc18y&refsrc=email&iid=ddaa72fbb4b64454854fea56e6e2fc1b&uid=1188008143&nid=244+272699400 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2020.1749688 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/koch-network-and-republican-party-extremism/035F3D872B0CE930AF02D7706DF46EEE https://www.jstor.org/stable/41622724?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents 129.246.254.12 (talk) 21:25, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

You first source says that there are parallels between Trump supporters and far-right supporters in Europe. That's the same conclusion Cas Mudde made, which I just mentioned. You need to read your sources before posting them. TFD (talk) 23:19, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I did review them and provided more than one source above. If supporters that make up a predominant base of the modern GOP are equivalent to the far-right in Europe, then it would stand to reason that there is a drift to that ideology, even if the political center is different across Europe and the U.S. Core support of a candidate or party equals what the party stands for in many respects. In any event, I can see you are decided on this, so will leave it be. Perhaps a new section in the main article ("Compositions" section would be a good place for it) can include a paragraph on this modern drift to the extreme right from 2016-2020 and beyond. 129.246.254.12 (talk) 23:52, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

That is original research/synthesis. We cannot report our own conclusions, only those reported in reliable sources. There's nothing unusual that the U.S. far right supports the more right-wing of the two major parties. Many people on the left will vote Democratic, although it is not a left-wing party, at least by international standards. TFD (talk) 00:29, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Recent article on this - research done by a Swedish university: "Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey – study" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/26/republican-party-autocratic-hungary-turkey-study-trump — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.246.254.12 (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

This is meant to be a broad scope article about a political party that has been around for 160 years. As such we need to be very careful about recentism. A claim that the party has shifted significantly towards authoritarianism needs to be shown with extensive and clear evidence. A single, recent study is not sufficient for such a claim in this article. Such claims are best inserted once they can be viewed with historical perspective (GOP attitude towards fascism in Europe prior to WW2 for example) rather than at the time when signals can be mixed and the outcome is uncertain. Springee (talk) 16:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Your rationale doesn't hold water. The measurement tracks changes across time in a consistent manner. Your argument essentially boils down to: V-DEM data is unreliable. V-DEM data is used consistently throughout the encyclopedia to characterize democratic and non-democratic institutions, so the claim of unreliability is false. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:45, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

A single study making the claim is not sufficient to say this is actually happening. You need multiple studies and ideally opposing sides in agreement. Springee (talk) 16:56, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Editor TFD references WP:EXCEPTIONAL policy, but claims of GOP move towards far-right authoritarianism are no longer exceptional. It has been a standard discussion among political scientists and RS news for many years. The Sweden/V-DEM study is newly released and getting a lot of coverage right now, but the issue itself is not colored by recentism or lack of other RS studies as per the concerns raised by Springee. The trend has been observed and documented over time and view that the Republican Party has moved far-right is a mainstream view. The move began around 1975 and academic scholarship shows the move towards authoritarianism has increased over the past decade and pre-dates Trump. It is a party phenomenon backed by RS data and belongs in the article. Three RS examples from before Trump’s presidency are below. Go4thProsper (talk) 13:19, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Articles: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/02/this-astonishing-chart-shows-how-republicans-are-an-endangered-species/ 

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/04/10/150349438/gops-rightward-shift-higher-polarization-fills-political-scientist-with-dread

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/11/its-not-just-trump-authoritarian-populism-is-rising-across-the-west-heres-why/

Go4thProsper (talk) 13:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I think that Trump's behaviour and mannerism over the current Presidential Elections really underscores the fundamental lack of respect for voter rights, media freedoms, and let alone democracy. As far as I am concerned, the US Republican Party is by definition a far-right party. Epicity95 (talk) 21:05, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

At least in my opinion, some republicans, such as Donald Trump are far right, some are center of right, such as Lisa Murkowski, and some are moderate, such as Mitt Romney. 72.134.116.163 (talk) 21:34, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

After his clear defeat in the election of 2020, there were numerous examples of anti-democratic, authoritarian tendencies by Trump: his behavior of not conceding to the incoming winner, not having his government assist with the incoming Biden transition, numerous examples promoting the idea of states that went for Biden should not be certifying the votes, or have state legislatures declare him the winner (illegally?), or have courts throw out state results. Several within the Republican Party either ignored or outright assisted in promoting his conspiracy theories about the election, and/or assisted him in his efforts to overturn the results. If none of this is an indication that the Republican Party, at least in 2020, was increasingly close to an authoritarian party, and definitely a far-right party, I don't know what other evidence we need to make this determination. And these new examples as of November 2020 obviously were not part of the V-Dem study. https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/b6/55/b6553f85-5c5d-45ec-be63-a48a2abe3f62/briefing_paper_9.pdf Do we find examples of such behavior in other modern "democratic" parties, or in "authoritarian" ones? If we don't find similarities with other "democratic" parties, then I think the V-dem study has enough merit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:1028:9196:99E2:946:C095:CAD7:3DC9 (talk) 21:14, 22 November 2020 (UTC)