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The evolution of the term “RINO” — 30 Comments

1. its just old fashioned trotskyite entryism…

   and this came out too on the conservatives running… its reference is to the new trade agreement…

   The rest of us will just sit on the sidelines witnessing a replay of the Obamacare, “pass it so you can read it” strategy. Sadly, as I have noted previously, this fast tracking was applauded by Cruz, Ryan and Rubio, which brings into question their conservative principles, as well as their common sense.

2. People seem to have lost an understanding of the very essence of politics.

   From time to time I invoke Ronald Reagan in forums that touch on the subject of RINOs. Not the real Ronald Reagan, who did know when to compromise; but, the mythical Ronald Reagan against whom every current politician is measured, and found lacking. Not sure that the real RR would pass muster with many of his admirers today.

   All of that notwithstanding; there is a wide gulf between compromise as a trade-off intended to further long term goals, and capitulation. I think many people see the latter manifested over and over in the GOP Congressional leadership.

3. “I’ve noticed that in just the last few years the term “RINO” has morphed. It no longer means what I wrote above. Now for many people on the right it means “any Republican who has ever, on any issue whatsoever, taken a less-than-strictly-conservative stand” neo

   The acronym RINO has become obsolete and is now misleading. A more accurate acronym would be CINO, conservative-in-name-only. In aggregate, the GOP is no more conservative than is Bill Clinton or Joe Biden.

   When matters of principle, of the most fundamental importance are violated, it cannot be ignored or excused without self-delusion. Those politicians who repeatedly violate principles to which they give lip service are traitors to the cause(s) they have used to garner the support they enjoy.

   An internal traitor is, by far the greatest threat to the society that they betray.

   “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.

   An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

   For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

   He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is… less to be feared.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

   The state of our nation proclaims just how far RINO collaboration with the Left has taken America toward her destruction. We are far past the point of automatically extending the benefit of the doubt to the Jeb Bush and Marco Rubios. Such blindness can only be willful.

4. The worst RINO is better than the best DEMO.

5. To me, a RINO is one who ran on conservative principles and then voted the exact opposite of those principles. There is a difference, to me, between an Olympia Snowe who was honest about her stances and a John McCain who pretends he is much more conservative when running for re-election. Those are the kind that bother me.

   Sadly, many voters only pay attention to candidates when they run for office and then fail to see how the person actually does their job in D.C.

6. I suppose it comes with the non-step compromising which makes no one completely happy, and everyone a little happy. I mean that’s politics, right? But we never seem to move the ball decisively, only stop them from gaining everything. Rarely do they have to compromise on some right-ward gain – they play offense, we play defense. All of the time. So people get mad at the lack of any gains for us.

7. The decades long dismay of the Right had made an epithet necessary – RINO/CINO. The fed-up with RINOs/CINOs reaction was rebellion and that had made an expletive necessary — cuckservative. The inclination of the fed-up has become ornery as the GOP/Cons insisted the decline was more easily travelled than the incline.

8. JuliB (and others),

   One way to characterize the problem is that the political game seems more like a ratchet for many of us. The motion is inevitably leftward; it seems to violate some implicit Law of Everything for there to be any meaningful rightward motion.

   Just holding the line seems to be the best the right leaning side might ever do, but then, in the spirit of bipartisanship and comity, leftward motion ends up being the outcome.

   So it’s hardly a surprise when some of us get terribly fed up.

   Enter Donald Trump, stage right . . .

9. The insidious result of electing RINOs is that we get the same results as if we had elected democrats (as we have seen), but the republican “brand” is destroyed (as we have seen).

10. RINO has always meant and still means whether a person’s heart is in the right place.

    Reagan compromised and even did non-conservative things, but we always knew he was on our side, and his heart was in the right place.

    Any change with respect to “RINO” has come about because of the increasing awareness that many Republicans are not on our side and do not have a good heart.

    It is subjective, true, sort of like a cheating spouse acting in strange ways, ways that don’t make sense. (BTW, I have never been in a relationship with any infidelity, thank God, in case anyone is tempted to read too much into that).

    In my own opinion (for example) both Bush the father and the son, however decent they were as human beings, were not on the side of conservatives. That is what “kinder and gentler” and “compassionate” were all about. They were political phonies, rhetoric not coming close to performance and performance mostly to the left.

    As Nixon said, conservatives get the rhetoric and liberals get the action. He said that approvingly.

    It is not strictly a matter of doing the best under the circumstances. For every Olympia Snow there is a completely unnecessary Chris McDaniel.

    The GOP has gradually gotten more of a screw you attitude and it has been noticed. We know where their hearts are, not the right place.

    I have done a 180 the past few weeks. Starting with complete contempt for Trump, I decided to at least watch his video and read his position papers.

    The following is a starting point from past June:

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-slams-jeb-praises-putin-in-extensive-interview-with-bill-oreilly/

    There is much, much more on the internet. His stump speech gets repetitive (as do they all) and it seems to me that he softly and indirectly says there are some “liberal” things he will do.

    I may be a very bad judge of character, I may be a chump.

    But I think Trump’s heart is in the right place. I do think he is on my side.

    He is a pragmatist who understands and adopts many of the conservative criticisms and positions expressed on this site.

    I am sick of losing and siding with losers. Jeb is a perfect example.

    Just for once, I would like to see how the utter truth works out in an election.

11. GB at 1:52, well said as usual.

12. Wooly Bully Says:
    The worst RINO is better than the best DEMO.

    Check out the ratings on Conservative Review sometime. Republican! Sens Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mike Rounds, Shelley Capito, Lamar Alexander and Corey Gardner have approx the same voting record as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (mid-teens). Even some championed by the Tea Parties (Ernst, Ayotte, Johnson) have failing ratings, and others are in the 30s.

    The entire Republican leadership team is led by Paul Ryan at 58%, and most of those running for Speaker are in the 60s and below.

    The Republican Party has literally become the Moderate Party. They should rename the party as such and rewrite their platform as the enabler and financier of the long march to the Collective so conservatives can at least know what they’re voting for.

13. There are bedrock issues that disappear if they are up for negogiation, if they are compromised a way bit by bit. That is my problem with the RINO establishment. The left gleefully race the hand basket to hell with the speed of the locomotive, RINOs saunter the hand basket towards hell at the leisurely pace of a golf cart.

14. Here is an example of what RINOs do. The depths of stupidity required to say this are too great not to suspect active collusion.

    http://www.salon.com/2015/10/15/gops_benghazi_truth_serum_another_republican_congressman_admits_its_all_about_taking_down_hillary_clinton/

15. The worst RINO is better than the best DEMO.

    So what does that mean? We have Bergdahl and Hussein, some of the worst Americans, and then we have some of the best enemies fighting for Islam.

    Either way, both factions can and will kill you. It doesn’t matter which one you back or sugar up to.

16. But I think Trump’s heart is in the right place. I do think he is on my side.

    I don’t trust anyone to be “on my side”, especially not the so called elites.

    The point of achieving independence and the Willpower to resist social authority, wasn’t to give it to somebody else that was ‘more qualified’ supposedly. Not the point at all.

17. ” Now for many people on the right it means “any Republican who has ever, on any issue whatsoever, taken a less-than-strictly-conservative stand”

    I don’t think this is true at all. Conservatives have simply awakened to the fact that it is they who are the RINOs. The republican party itself has never been friendly to conservatives and has only paid them lip service to keep them on board. Maybe conservatives can use the RINO term as a tool to influence the GOP establishment, but the reality is that when the GOP tries to squash the conservatives (particularly of a rural, southern, populist bent) they they are not acting Republican in “name only”, they are being true republicans.

18. The use of the term “RINO” brands one as a fifth rate thinker, at best. It is, like many other terms such as “racist”, the modern inarticulate moron’s “poopy head” (or motherfucker, if you prefer).

19. Y at 4:15, have you no trustworthy extended family/friends? If not you are a lonely soul. I understand hardened distrust of elitists and their minions, that is a given, but I do not understand the absence of family/friends as trustworthy allies. When TSHTF who will have your back? Or do you have 360 vision and hearing, perfect aim, and unlimited ammo?

20. It’s glorious to go down in flames. To believe you are “pure.”

21. Let’s remember the John Birch Society. And Barry Goldwater.

22. It’s a clear symptom of the decadence of America.

    In Europe, on of the differences between the chaotic and useless South and the productive North was that while in northern countries people who had opposed sides could negotiate and play fair, in the South everything was extreme and exaggerated.

    Now the Republicans trash any person who is “not conservative enough”. At the same time, Obama and the Democrats show no respect for the rule of law. There’s no fair play, no respect for rules anymore. America is quickly becoming a Mediterranean-like country, because this is what Mediterranean countries are. In the movies, they portray it as “passionate” and “obsessed with honor”. But, when you live in one of them, you know what all of it really is: no negotiation, no respect for the political adversary, no fairness, no meritocracy, only extreme positions are accepted and no dissent is allowed, no critical thinking.

    It’s kind of fascinating.

    Of course, you’re doomed. Check Mexico, because this is your future. But from the sociological point of view, it’s really interesting. No empire has gone so quickly down the slope. The fall of roman empire took centuries. The fall of US is gonna take just decades. We’re watching the fall on an empire in fast motion. That is a real privilege.

23. but I do not understand the absence of family/friends as trustworthy allies. When TSHTF who will have your back?

    That’s more like a backup plan. I don’t have to trust them because they’re not in this country. It’s just not an issue yet.

    Or do you have 360 vision and hearing, perfect aim, and unlimited ammo?

    Trust must be demonstrated, and there are ways to gain or verify it without family connections as a requirement.

24. But, when you live in one of them, you know what all of it really is: no negotiation, no respect for the political adversary, no fairness, no meritocracy, only extreme positions are accepted and no dissent is allowed, no critical thinking.

    Ever see Highschool of the Dead from Japan?

    It’s sort of like that.

    The fall of roman empire took centuries.

    Islam took awhile dismantling the Roman and classical empires. But the same can be said for the Left and the modern day version of Islamic Jihad, which is basically the same as the old version too.

    As for Republican in Name only, that term is pretty obsolete now. I mean it made a lot of sense to use it when people were concerned about fighting for a political victory, Republican vs Democrats. This isn’t what the war isn’t about now.

    Cuckservative was created in the R and D labs of the net, to supplant these old paradigms about election victories.

25. Yann; Ymarsakar:

    About the fall of Rome and how long it took, see this for an interesting alternative point of view.

    Perhaps the most famous story of imperial decline is that of ancient Rome. In The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, Edward Gibbon covered more than 1,400 years of history, from 180 to 1590. This was history over the very long run, in which the causes of decline ranged from the personality disorders of individual emperors to the power of the Praetorian Guard and the rise of monotheism. After the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180, civil war became a recurring problem, as aspiring emperors competed for the spoils of supreme power. By the fourth century, barbarian invasions or migrations were well under way and only intensified as the Huns moved west. Meanwhile, the challenge posed by Sassanid Persia to the Eastern Roman Empire was steadily growing.

    But what if fourth-century Rome was simply functioning normally as a complex adaptive system, with political strife, barbarian migration, and imperial rivalry all just integral features of late antiquity? Through this lens, Rome’s fall was sudden and dramatic — just as one would expect when such a system goes critical. As the Oxford historians Peter Heather and Bryan Ward-Perkins have argued, the final breakdown in the Western Roman Empire began in 406, when Germanic invaders poured across the Rhine into Gaul and then Italy. Rome itself was sacked by the Goths in 410. Co-opted by an enfeebled emperor, the Goths then fought the Vandals for control of Spain, but this merely shifted the problem south. Between 429 and 439, Genseric led the Vandals to victory after victory in North Africa, culminating in the fall of Carthage. Rome lost its southern Mediterranean breadbasket and, along with it, a huge source of tax revenue. Roman soldiers were just barely able to defeat Attila’s Huns as they swept west from the Balkans. By 452, the Western Roman Empire had lost all of Britain, most of Spain, the richest provinces of North Africa, and southwestern and southeastern Gaul. Not much was left besides Italy. Basiliscus, brother-in-law of Emperor Leo I, tried and failed to recapture Carthage in 468. Byzantium lived on, but the Western Roman Empire was dead. By 476, Rome was the fiefdom of Odoacer, king of the Goths.

    What is most striking about this history is the speed of the Roman Empire’s collapse. In just five decades, the population of Rome itself fell by three-quarters. Archaeological evidence from the late fifth century — inferior housing, more primitive pottery, fewer coins, smaller cattle — shows that the benign influence of Rome diminished rapidly in the rest of western Europe. What Ward-Perkins calls “the end of civilization” came within the span of a single generation.

    Food for thought.

26. Not much was left besides Italy. Basiliscus, brother-in-law of Emperor Leo I, tried and failed to recapture Carthage in 468. Byzantium lived on, but the Western Roman Empire was dead. By 476, Rome was the fiefdom of Odoacer, king of the Goths.

    Huh. Egypt is still there. Syria was still there. Constantinople was still there. Rome was all they had left?

    Cutting off half the empire, is a neat trick for a fall. It’s like if the US lost 25 states, and all we had to see for the civilization was DC, New England, and California. That’d be a ‘quick fall’ too, you know.

    The point is that the Roman Empire spanned all the way to Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia. Just because some land barbarians were sacking cities in the West, didn’t mean much of anything to the sea trade of the classical civilization.

    This is all an excuse to not mention Islam, basically. They were looking in the right place, Carthage or North Africa, but that was destroyed much latter. Not during the 5th century AD.

    the Western Roman Empire had lost all of Britain

    They didn’t lose Britain, the Emperor decided to cut and run. The culture was very pro Roman in that area, although the Irish and Picts were a problem.

    Byzantium lived on, but the Western Roman Empire was dead.

    People can say the same thing about American patriotism + California.

    Dead has a specific meaning, which doesn’t apply there except as a way to cover certain subjects up.

    The classical counter to this distortion is Charlemagne, Karl Karling, descended from a connection to Charles Martel. This was a mere 300 years later from the 440 AD mark.

    What Ward-Perkins calls “the end of civilization” came within the span of a single generation.

    Yea, for idiots maybe. People leaving towns in case of war is a human instinct. Check Syria.

    The point is to look at North Africa, where’s the European civilization there that should have been rebuilt when Charlemagne and others restored security?

    It doesn’t exist. They have ruins of Roman cities in North Africa. A lot of the Roman ruins were cannibalized in Italy, by the locals. That means there were still a population existing there after what people called a “fall of civilization”.

    Civilization cannot fall if the population isn’t replaced. Charlemagne was a leader of the Franks, one of the German tribes that came in and pushed out a lot of Roman territory. In that sense, there was a population replacement.

    In North Africa, however, what is seen in the archaeological evidence is that the population was eradicated. Did the Vikings or German tribes manage that? Who were the ones occupying North Africa during the fall of both spheres of the Roman Empire, was it Vikings or German tribes? No, it wasn’t.

    Inconsistency in the Fall of Civilization story there.

27. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.

    This is not mere rhetoric from the ancients, since we can see it now with the European “Merkel” and SDP and other traitors to their class/culture, as well as the conservatives in the US.

    So internal weakening due to dissent is real and it can be a problem at times. Of course, destroying dissent can also be part of a dynasty’s attempt at Totalitarian power. So there are two sides to that story.

    The people that were calling out against traitors… might themselves be part of a treasonous conspiracy.

28. http://www.everyjoe.com/2015/10/14/lifestyle/know-your-history-mohammedanism/#1

    I think that article and author covers most of the more recent de construction of the Leftist historian’s reconstructed version of Western history.

    That, from what I’ve discovered, is the most recent and updated image or pov.

    There’s a lot of things missing, but that’s more detail orientated. The general broad scope is covered well.

    http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.18766/pub_detail.asp

    When they invaded Egypt, it was 98% Christian; now there are nine thousand Coptic Christians left. Most Americans do not even know Egypt was ever a Christian land. Many Americans have heard of the Armenian genocide by the Turk: very few know this was Mohammedan Turks killing Armenian Christians, who had been Christian since the Fourth Century, since before the Fall of Rome.

    Europe fed the slave trade of the Moslems for centuries. Our boys and women were routinely captured, sodomized and raped. The African slave trade was entirely Moslem for centuries, until the Spaniards, the only land in history ever to successfully throw back a Mohammedan conquest, adopted this practice from their ex-conquerors. Slavery had been largely abolished in Europe after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, going the way of gladiatorial games.

    Ours is a shocking and traumatizing history: merely looking at the maps of the centuries between the sixth and the sixteenth, and seeing the Christian lands that one reached from the Rock of Gibraltar to beyond Persia turning rapidly Mohammedan as they are conquered, enslaved, subjected to this ruthless system of conversion-by-the-sword.

29. RINO is *so* Feb 2015. The cool kids are all saying “Cuckservative” now–or so I’m told.

30. @neo

    Thank you for the text. I’m indeed currently reading Gibbon’s books. If you didn’t read them, I highly recommend it. Elegant, clever, deep and entertaining at the same time. Amazingly well written. I’m reading a translated version, I’m sure the English original one must be even better.

    That said, while it’s true that the collapse was quick, the decadence took several centuries. While movies describe roman society in a similar way no matter the timeline, real roman society changed. Early Romans would fit the traditional “germanic” image very well. Then it reached the peak of roman power with Cesar and Augustus. And the decadence started. Even though there was territorial expansion after that, Rome was going down slowly.

    The fall was very similar to what is happening in the West right now. Including, for example, the low birth and the replacement of ethnic romans by foreigners.

    http://www.rhm.uni-koeln.de/128/Devine.pdf

    The charts in this pdf are interesting, you can see how population started to decline in Europe after 200 AD, with no special reason (like black plague in 1400 AD Europe).

    http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1982/eirv09n31-19820817/eirv09n31-19820817_030-the_roman_model_of_mass_depopula.pdf

    Romans started to become less and less disciplined and committed. Armies became populated by inmigrants while Romans stayed home.

    Economy entered in a endless crisis after 300 AD.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century

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