The party I joined in my youth, and am still a registered Primary voter for, is almost unrecognizable to me these days. It’s like every stupid racist, anti-scientific, arrogant attitude I despise has rolled itself into a tight ball to fight against Obama.
This can’t continue. Is the GOP going to self destruct?
I figure when the Republican party loses enough elections in a row they’ll change. It took the Democratic party a while to move to the center after the 60s and 70s, but they did. You may not think of the Dems as centrist because during that same time the 'Pubbies moved from a conservative but “big tent” party to purely conservative to more conservative than thou to utterly batshit insane.
Folks always take glee in the apparent demise of the other party from time to time. Republicans did in the Reagan-Bush era, and there were many threads here (being the very left leaning group that we are) post Obama election stating that the republican party was dead only to be unpleasantly surprised in 2010.
The American electorate will decide if and when a party is dead. I don’t see them killing off either one any time soon.
What we are seeing is a major power shift in America, and many people are genuinely upset about it in ways they cannot quite put their finger on.
Urban populations are gaining power from rural communities, this despite the deck being stacked against the cities. Virginia for example is seeing political power moving from downstate rural areas to northern suburbs. The same is true elsewhere.
More interracial marriages, PTA signs outside the school in Spanish, cars from overseas countries, a black president. No one thing is alarming, but somehow the entire picture is scary to a lot of people.
Call them racists or what you will, but we are really seeing a shift in our nation’s way of thinking. The GOP is trapped being the voice of the side that is losing the fight, a voice for the past. They have some valid points, but in the long run they will lose. In a century we will look back on this era and what the GOP stands for with puzzlement and shame.
I pick “racists.” The change that’s occurring now is that now the Republican Party is still a safe haven for racists. That’s not all that attracts them to the racists, but racists are largely unwelcome in circles to the left of the center, and their number (I hope) is dwindling . Eventually, the R party will come to terms with that number being so small that racism is driving away more voters than it attracts (not there yet), and then the R party can start growing again. But until that day, the demographics will cause the Dems to win more and more elections.
There was a local race here yesterday that illustrates this. The second-highest Republican in our state House of Representatives was up for re-election. This is a woman who successfully fought for tax cuts, voter ID laws, elimination of collective bargaining for teachers, and a host of other right wing pet causes. By almost any Tea Party measure she was their ideal candidate.
Except last year there was a bill proposed that would allow employers in the state to prohibit employees from keeping guns in their cars on company property. She saw this as a property right issue – companies should be allowed to prohibit firearms on their own property. The NRA disagreed, launched their own pet candidate (a retired military vet) and flooded the airwaves with negative attacks on the “anti-gun rights” candidate (who voted NRA’s way on every other gun issue during her term). They won. So now instead of a high-ranking right-winger, they have a freshman ultra right-winger who is in the pocket of the NRA because he owes his election to them.
Unfortunately, in a two party system, the complete death of either party is almost impossible. What would be left? Can’t happen, which is silly. Sometimes it needs to happen to reflect changing times.
Instead the beast is reanimated, back from the dead, confusing former adherents and forcing those trying, in earnest, to reshape the party, to bring them into the fold, no matter how, ‘out there’, they may be.
When’s it going to start happening?
I mean, the last national election was 2010, and that was nothing but good news for the GOP. Or did you just mean presidential elections?
The Republican party isn’t going anywhere. I do foresee a schism though as Tea Partiers and other assorted far-rights continue to drag the conservative name through the mud. Eventually we might have a legitimate third party in the Tea Party.
Well, try an historical parallel. Remember how widespread "leftism"was in the seventies? The pendulum has just swung back again.
In the seventies, the Dems were hijacked by extremists, yet their viewpoints were popular among a broad segment of the population. Well, not the actual viewpoints themselves, but rather the “I’ll wear my hair long ans smoke weed at parties and have a Che Guavara Poster in my dorm room and discuss Marcuse over a bowl of sangria” watered down version of it.
The way I see it, the right in the US currently has a similar outburst of popularity with irrational but attractive ideas.
Another parallel is the hostility the left felt, at the time for the right. “Fascist government dogs” almost was a term of endearment. The right didn’t go much further then “damn misguided hippie kids”.
Even those tables are turned. The right is the one foaming at the mouth now; the left in the US currently has the bigger percentage of reasonable people.
Anyway, that is my Dutch take on it. And it is the same in the Netherlands at the moment.
This overlooks the fact that there have been five two-party systems in US history, and at least one influential third party.
Well, then, it’s got at most 4 more years to play out. If this is all about Obama, that is.
As it stands, the GOP will almost certainly maintain control of the House and gain seats in the Senate. The Democrats could only hope for such self destruction.
Cite? I would really like to see you defend the racist fury and cultural rage bits.
This. The pendulum keeps on swinging.
I used to vote heavily Republican too, now I mourn that the party has, in my own words, become “The Party of the Ignorant and the Insane”. I hope some day I can vote for them again.
Can we just assign a number to this thread topic? It’ll save time when it’s raised again each month.
Here you go.
http://blog.sfgate.com/drader/files/2012/03/dont-re-nig-bumper-sticker-thumb-400xauto-32334.jpg
Moved to Elections from Great Debates.
The leader of an Arizona Tea Party group just wished death on Sen. John McCain:
I think the Tea Party will ultimately hurt the Republican Party. They are not going to attract enough of the moderates and independents to win elections over the long run.
And cueing the ‘No True Tea-Pot’ defense in 5 ..4…3
As long as there remain stupid, callous and/or racist people in America, there will remain support for a right wing party.
The future is bright for them.
