The Republican Party since Reagan has held a strange mix of religious right-wing supporters, less-extreme social conservatives, economic conservatives, anti-tax nutjobs and law-and-order types. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell helped land the Religous Right for the GOP and they’ve been useful for the establishment. However, it seems the American Taliban are getting fed up with not getting their way. Abortion hasn’t been banned. Gays aren’t herded into camps. And Public High Schools still can’t require students to pray.
It may just be me, but with a less openly-biased and ludicrously overdrawn OP you might attract considerable more debate, if not necessarily more attention.
Putting aside the holiness or lack thereof of the Republican party, I don’t think it’s going to fall apart. Part of being a big tent party means that some of the people in the tent are going to care about things other people in the tent don’t. This particular tension isn’t new…Barry Goldwater, for example, was fighting with the Religious Right 20 years ago. The groups you identified aren’t the only two that don’t get along well within the party. The religious right and the neocons aren’t that fond of each other, either, and the neocons also don’t get along with the paleocons.
The Democrats have similar problems. Look at the split among the Democrats over CAFTA, and the fighting between the party’s left wing and the DLC centrists. These internal conflicts are just part of having large, multiple interest parties.
I think the religious right is starting to realize they’ve been taken for suckers. For decades they have thrown their weight behind any Republican that paid lip service to the pro-life cause. Now it seems they want to cash in their chits, only to see that their agenda isn’t necessarily of dire importance to the party. They feel betrayed by the Supreme Court picks, and it seems the days of the anti-abortion crowd being willing shills for the GOP are over.
YES! If you hold your breath it will happen anytime! The entire Republican Party is going to come unravelled, leaving the field completely to the Democrats from here on out…
Just to underscore Captain Amazing…isn’t this sort of like how the more radical left feels about the Democrats? They are constantly yammering about dragging the party further to the left. Flip a coin. If the manage that, how are the majority of Democrats (who are probably somewhere near the middle of the road) going to feel about that? If they don’t (I doubt they will EVER drag it as far left as the wet dreams of some on this board), then won’t they essentially feel the same way as the Religious Right currently feels?
Bottom line, what choice do they have in a two party system? The Religious Right is certainly not going to go Democrat (like the radical Left isn’t likely to go Republican)…correct? So, they could go 3rd party (and essentially just protest vote…both sides extreme’s do this anyway from time to time), not vote…or bite the bullet, close their nose and vote for the party that comes closest to what they want. Most choose the latter. Fools like me vote 3rd party.
Maybe, but what are they going to do? Start their own party? We know from American electoral history how well that works. Join the Democrats? The Democratic party tends to be more friendly to the idea of gay rights than the Republicans, and the only prominent pro-life Democrat I can think of is Bob Casey.
The attitude seems to be “We were okay with you lying to everyone else to get elected. But we’re shocked to discover you were lying to us.”
If you look at what the Bush administration has actually delivered instead of the things it just talk about, you’ll discover its real base - the wealthy. They promise to cut government spending and fight terrorists and restrict abortions and bring democracy to the Middle East and rebuild New York and New Orleans - but it’s tax cuts for the rich that actually got enacted into law.
You mean the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were just a bad dream?!? Hurray!! And all that money allocated for New York and New Orleans…we don’t actually have to spend any of it? Its not going to New York to clear away what was the World Trade Center and build a new building there? Wow…I didn’t know that. None of the families of 911 got a dime (well, maybe just the rich ones did, ehe?)? And we aren’t pouring money into New Orleans…billions? Well, that will save more money for the rich then…cool!
Sarcasm aside, I agree with you that Bush et al hasn’t delivered much to the Religious Right…and I don’t think they ever intended too do so. The Republicans decided years ago to only pay lip service to these folks…where else can they go? Thats why I always found it so funny when Dem’s or the left would fret about the growing power of the Religious Right in the Republican party…hogwash. Republican lip service to keep them in line. The Dems really need to learn this trick…
Did Bush promise to invade Afghanistan? No, he said he was fighting terrorism. Are the terrorists all gone?
Did Bush promise to invade Iraq? No, he said he was going to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. Did he do that?
New York is still waiting for the money Bush promised he’d deliver in 2001. If I was living in New Orleans I wouldn’t be counting on the money he’s promised there in 2005.
Bush likes to make the Grand Gesture. To stand before the crowd and say something people want to hear like “mission accomplished” or “we will rebuild this city”. But having received his applause he then walks away and never looks back.
Frankly, that’s the root of the issue. Both parties have many groups in them that are, at times, mutually antagonistic. Well and good.
But on the right there’s a much greater vote-discipline factor. That is, those who disagree will still get out and vote for their sides candidate even if they have to hold their nose to do it.
On the left that’s simply not the case. Those who disagree with the Democratic candidate are far more likely to not vote or go third party even if that vote helps someone ideologically opposed to their positions get in power.
Now if that started happening to the Republicans (that the religious right began staying home instead of voting) it could mean hard times. Without the 2-3 million evangelical votes Karl Rove once spoke of ‘coming out’ for GWB we’d be talking of President Gore or President Kerry right now.
Heck, anytime the vote is split as close as it is right now anything that decreases one party’s turnout can have a significant effect on election outcomes.
:dubious: Ya think? Black Democrats are in the same boat as religious-right Republicans. They know their vote is taken for granted and they get little in return, but where else are they going to go? Same with left-progressive Democrats and the labor unions. We all know the DLC’s POV predominates, that Howard Dean is the most progressive voice we can hope for in party leadership and he ain’t all that progressive. But what else can we do but support the Dems? Our current electoral laws and systems make a third-party route futile.
Frankly, this is a much worse problem on the Democratic side.
The Democrats used to be the majority party in this country, and controlled massive blocs of voters. They held control of the House of Representatives for decades, held tight contriol of many state legislatures, and were very competitive with Republicans in winning the votes not only of moderates, but also of conservatives.
This has evaporated. At best the Democrats have parity with the Republicans. And it is looking more and more like the Republicans might have an edge in raw numbers - in other words, that the country has already realigned.
This happened because the Democrats chased away nearly all of its conservatives and far too many of its moderates. The fringe elements left behind are at a competitive disadvantage. The split predicted for the Republicans has already happened on the opther side.
The strains in the Republican coalition are those of a growing and diverse party. Any party leader would welcome these problems instead of Democratic ones.
I love the current debate within the Republican party about Harriet Miers. It’s not political, it’s about ideas. It’s a refreshing change from the business as usual, predictable partisan sniping that we usually see in Washington. I think it’s very healthy for the party and conservatism will emerge stronger from it.
:rolleyes: Ya think? Compare the contemporary Democratic Party with FDR’s or even LBJ’s. Can you imagine a modern Dem leader calling for a “war on poverty”?
The “conservatives” that got “chased away” by the Dems were mostly white racists, who were attracted to the GOP starting with Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”. And religious conservatives who followed, after the GOP reinvented itself as a party for them. While valuing their votes, I have a hard time regretting their exit on any other level. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I think Debaser meant it’s not blindly partisan. Republicans aren’t just supporting Miers because a Republican president appointed her…they’re debating whether or not she’d be a good jurist.
However, it seems a lot of conservatives, at least of the religious-right faction, have softened their opposition to Miers following revelation of her anti-abortion stance when she was running for the Dallas City Council in 1989. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/18/supremecourt/main951062.shtml
Political debates are about ideas, among other things.