Surprise surprise, the Democrat thinks I was being neutral to the Republicans.

Buried in extremism.

You will never get an answer from them because the small nuggets of truth that exist in Republican talking points are then used to make batshit claims and then turned into a point of profit for some grifter somewhere.

The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are:

1. that borders do actually matter to the sovereignty of a country and that control over who and what crosses that border is a necessity,

2. countries need some kind of balanced budget to prevent hyperinflation and inevitable austerity,

3. the constitution should be protected and enforced equally for all amendments unless and until they are further amended or repealed, and

4. the Federal government should exist to provide for the defense of the country, protection of interstate and international commerce, and protection of the common good.

I happen to personally think that the best implementation for these points would be:

1. an overhaul of immigration policy is needed to increase legal immigration and decrease the time spent in that process to months or at least under 1-2 years with a pathway that allows current illegal immigrants to get in the back of that (actually useful and reasonably short) line,

2. countries cannot balance a budget like a household balances a checkbook because it doesn't work like that and anyone who says otherwise is either economic-illiterate or a con artist,

3. First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth amendments especially all need to be equally enforced and double especially on the police and the State (looking at you Civil Asset Forfiture, and your partner in crime Cash Bail), and

4. all of these functions would be best served with Universal Healthcare, Universal Education to an undergrad (Associates) level, Universal Basic Income replacing the existing welfare framework with no hoops or requirements or means testing, some form of Georgist land tax integration to help ensure the wealthy at least start to pay their fair share, and a heavy dose of monopoly busting and anti-trust enforcement to prevent billionaires from becoming a thing in the first place and prevent regulatory capture by capital at the very least.

Also religion has no business in government and fuck off with race/orientation/religious/etc discrimination. It is all class warfare from the elite and Reagan deregulation caused the death of the economy and the middle class.

This is why I consider myself a centrist, because the Right would have a conniption fit at most of those beliefs. The Left would have the same conniption fit that I also think that current border policies, the existence of sanctuary cities/states providing incentive, and worst of all the companies and people hiring and exploiting illegal labor due to insufficient availability, use, and enforcement of tools like e-verify (AKA the current status quo) is a shit show and the "left" shows too much weakness on this topic, I think the "open borders/a person cannot be illegal" crowd are dangerously misguided utopiasts, I support the personal right to keep and bear arms interpretation of 2A, support (not limited but also limited) Sates rights as useful ways to experiment with policy along with the original intention of the Senate and Electoral College, and think a decent amount of Left/Democrat ideology is unrealistic, counterproductive, or worse.

Really, it's not so much the current taking points that make sense - although there are underlying truths and values that are being denied, that show up in current taking points.

And honestly, although things will be okay, I don't have anything you'll like to hear about the current situation.

In general, the biggest issue with the Republican Party is that it depends on good leadership. Like a monarchy, that's great when you have a reasonable leader, and really shitty when you don't.

Currently, the Republican corpus is having to come to terms with the failure of it's leadership, and the loss of it's underlying moral fortitude. A very large part of this is because the party has been effectively hacked, and has become a Straussian cult. The Democratic party is not immune to the spread of the underlying ideology, nor of the cult itself, but is impacted in less obvious (but no less problematic) ways.

While Strauss himself may have had some reasonable ideals, the consequences of the intersection of his methodology of teaching and his ideologies, by nature, create a kind of "you get it or you don't" state of affairs, where much is implicit. He intentionally did this, because he wanted people to be capable of reading between the lines, and to be able to stand for true and valuable things that you can't fully justify or comprehend analytically. Although some things must be implicit and be stood for even if they cannot be articulated, the consequences of intentionally creating a scenario where much is left to subtext in an environment (politics) where power is a main focus creates a problematic circumstance that is malignant and difficult to pin down in real-world conflict.

Not only is this complex of interactions difficult to pin down in real-world interactions, it is difficult to pin down internally, once you've genuinely been impacted by it. And so it can spread. And it has spread, in the Republican leadership. And they spread the discordant mixture of implicit behaviors to their constituents.

All of this is to say:

Republicans depend on good leadership, and their leadership is fucked right now. But that doesn't mean the corpus of Republicans in general is actually fucky. They are being fucked too, and their fuckyness will right itself when a mentality comes about that is:

A: communicable implicitly and explicitly B: capable if seeing through the morass of the Straussian cult.

Meanwhile, many of the things that the Republican corpus actually cares about manifest in problematic ways, because their needs are no longer met by their leadership.

So if you're looking to feel good about Republicans, don't look at their leadership, or the maga asshats. Look at the very large body of people who has lost representation, and never has been good at having a public voice. Look at the fundamental Republican philosophies, which are, by and large, good. When they act out, tie it back to those philosophies and beliefs, and try to understand how it led to this, now.

One of the primary things the Republican party doesn't do is look away from the fundamental necessity for power. This isn't (generally) out of a desire for power, though that may be what manifests. Instead, it's from a willingness to deal honestly in realities other people find distasteful. This is why they consider the Democratic corpus "weak" at times. But currently, that's kinda fucking them, because they also can't see an answer to the Straussian cult situation. They know, on some level, that something fundamentally important is being left out, but can't find a way to get back to the moral foundation they had - the power has them. Their leadership knows how to point that unease at the wrong things.

The good thing is - getting to know your local Republican, and sorting through the emotions it brings up in you can help, because the fundamental issue is deeply psychological.

The bad thing is, nobody wants to do that, because it's lots easier to just say "those guys suck" and "we'll best them at the polls". But unless the underlying issue is addressed, you'll lose again. And then time will pass, and you'll win, maybe, and then lose again. And each time, it will be shocking, and each time, a worse leader, and each time, the mentality and it's supporting antithetical mentalities spread.

But, once people realize they can't escape a thing, and it needs to be faced, they face it.

You could say this whole thing is a battle between (or a lack of capacity for mutual understanding by) the explicit and the implicit motivators.

Sure, there are shills for both parties all over.

I have yet to see the trucks with an idolized Kamala Harris holding an American flag on them or even a single article of cultwear pushed out like the MAGA hat, so the Democrats are really slacking in their zealotry.

I bow to your superior insight. I stand corrected.