As the Republican old guard furiously fights the pull of the tar pits I’m kind of surprised that so few Republicans seem to be stepping up to wrestle for control of the GOP. Where are the young Turk Republicans with new ideas? None of the young bulls seem to want to take on the old guard.
Well, in order to embrace new ideas, you have to be willing to let go of some of the old ideas. If recent history is any guide, any Republican who does that immediately has his buttons and chevrons ripped off, right before the door hits him in ass. The Republican party is vying for the smallest tent in the circus right now.
Well, there’s Eric Cantor…he’s 45. Bobby Jindal’s 37. Pat McHenry is 33, and Aaron Schlock is 27. They’re all rising stars in the party.
I’ve heard of a few of these names, but all of these guys (so far as I can tell) are studiously toeing the old guard party line.
Conservatives don’t want new ideas, they want somebody to polish up the old ones. Frankly, neither do we. Peace and justice are hardly new ideas.
The problem is that when someone tries to buck the old guard and dares to suggest that ideas from a quarter century ago (i.e. the age of Reagan) may no longer be feasible they get shouted down by Limbaugh and his ilk. I’m not familiar with Pat McHenry and Aaron Schlock, but I know one of the reasons Jindal is a rising star within the GOP is because he has so eagerly kissed the ass of the old guard. Look at how Limbaugh lambasted anyone who criticized Jindal when he delivered his famously flacid response to Obama’s speech in February.
One could argue about whether or not Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican party, but as long he and the other AM radio talkers are the loudest voices, there’s little chance new ideas will get much mileage.
They don’t, as a group, seem to be willing to admit that their old ideas failed. They just think they need to be repackaged, or screamed louder. Until they admit that new ideas are needed, none will be proposed much less accepted. Added to that, the Republicans seem to be focusing more and more on ideological purity - which is NOT the mindset you get new ideas out of.
I’ve said it before here: there are inherent contradictions in modern Republicanism just as there were in communism that make the belief system untenable. For example, the Republican party is the party of less government, yet it supports massive military spending; it is the party that promises to reduce government in people’s lives, yet it wants to force Christianity upon people, tell people who they can marry, and control women’s access to medical procedures. These contradictions prevent the rise of young Turks ready to change the system, any attempt to reconcile one contradiction upsets a significant portion of the base.
Liz Cheney?
There’s something to that. If they jettison the religious right, they won’t be able to put together a big enough coalition to win anything. Let’s face it: there just aren’t that many rich white guys.
What repub party is that? The one in America that competes in elections by claiming adherence to ideas that it really does not care about at all. The Repubs are the "deficits don’t matter ’ party. They are the wealth through military party. They have had ample power to do something about abortion and just ignored it when they were in. They did however work very hard to entrench the power of business over the workers and consumers. They have done wonders to make bankers outside the reach of courts . That is who they are.
I wonder, if this keeps up, whether we’ll see a bunch of these so-called Young Turks up and form their own party. Ehh, probably not…
We will always need a conservative wing. As lefty as I am, a car needs brakes as much as an engine. If the Republican Party folded up tomorrow, all that money would just flow into the “Blue Dog” Clintonista wing of the Dems.
Six of one, 6 point 1 of the other.
As a life long Democrat, I wish the Republicans would get it together. America needs different view points competing for votes and an opposition party to keep the one in power in check.
It’s three months since Obama’s inauguration. At this point in 2001, I don’t think there had been any such upheaval in the Democratic party.
The Socialist Party volunteers! 
I’d say it’s possible if unlikely; if the leadership is crazy enough to hang on to a losing strategy long enough it could happen. I see the sequence for such a thing as one of the Republicans losing at least one more election, probably more; the leadership both refusing to try anything new and managing to hold onto control; some of the less crazy Republicans getting desperate enough to form their own party; and the money men and eventually much of the support structure defecting to the new party in hopes of actually winning. At that point, the Republicans would consist of the Republican name, a crazy leadership and their crazy followers; while the new party would have the meat of the Republicans, some new people, and more money. Not too likely, but possible.
I seem to recall similar sentiment about liberals and the Democrats…
-XT
Irrelevant. First, the Democrats aren’t such a collection of mutually incompatible, intolerant ideas. Second, that was then, this is now; political parties aren’t immortal, and just because the Democrats AND the Republicans have survived crisises in the past doesn’t mean they will in the future. And third, liberalism is essentially dead; the Democrats are no liberals.
Right. I know this is a boring answer, but it’s going to take the GOP longer than a few months to figure this out. Few of them, at least among the leadership, realize they have to do more than repackage their ideas. So for now they don’t have much going for them, unless you count tiffs with Rush Limbaugh, warmed-over Newt Gingrich, and Michael Steele, who nobody within the party seems to support. I don’t expect much good to happen to them in 2010 or even 2012, but circumstances can always change.