Stop trying to save the GOP. It's hopeless.

[struggle4progress]

Jennifer Rubin
Feb. 12, 2021 at 7:45 a.m. EST

... This is a party that is immune to facts and bereft of decency. It has proved that it cannot function within the ground rules of our system — that candidates concede when they lose, that they respect a free press, that they stick to facts and embrace majority rule. Such a party cannot exist in our democracy.

The Republicans who rally around a pathological demagogue are not a “fringe” in the party. The 10 House and six Senate Republicans who have expressed the view that impeachment is not only constitutional but essential are the fringe. That is a mere 12 percent of Senate Republicans and less than 5 percent of House Republicans. Those people are the outliers.

We are not talking about a trivial difference over policy — or even a major one. It is a fundamental division over whether the party should become a right-wing populist cult willing to subvert democracy to keep power. That is too much for some to swallow, thank goodness. The two sides cannot coexist.

... decent politicians and patriotic voters should leave the GOP. Then they can work with the one remaining party to demolish the cultish, right-wing populist party that is closer to fascistic European parties than to American political parties that traditionally have competed for votes. When the existing Republican Party has been reduced to political rubble, those who do not have a home in the Democratic Party can clear away the rubble, find a governing philosophy and develop a constituency. None of that happens so long as the party willing to harbor and defend a demagogue who threatens the republic stands in the way ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/12/stop-trying-save-gop-its-hopeless/

[Wounded Bear]

1. K&R...nt

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. The Radical Republican Reich, formerly the Republican Party, consider democracy an obstacle.

[TomSlick]

3. The problem is that we need an effective opposing party.

The Democratic Party needs an effective opposing party to hone its positions.

The fact that the GQP has become - well - the GQP could be disastrous for the country. We can only hope that the GOP manages to find itself or that a new conservative party arises.

[JonLP24]

4. I don't think so

At least since the 2000s but I'd argue as far as back as Nixon the Republicans operate in bad faith especially Fox News & RW media. Even a non Trump Republican favors tax cuts for the wealthy & foreign policy blunders like the Iraq war.

Democrats need to win a landslide then the GOP will have to move to the left to be competitive.

[TomSlick]

5. Our political process is based on a two-party system.

If the GOP is not an effective political party, it will go the way of the Whigs and another party will arise to fill the vacuum. I have concerns that the new party will be more extremely right-wing.

[thucythucy]

6. The Republican Party did little or nothing while FDR was president

to hone the positions of Democrats.

During that period we had essentially one party rule (though the Dixiecrats were like a party within the party, and bolted for the GOP after 1964 and 65).

One party rule under FDR and his Democrats gave us Social Security, the WPA, the GI Bill of Rights, the New Deal. And the Democratic majorities after the 1964 landslide gave us the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, not to mention Thurgood Marshall as a Supreme Court justice.

And there still would be primaries with the party.

I'm more than ready for the demise of the national GOP, though I don't expect to see it go away on the state level. Especially not in the deep south and Midwest.

[TomSlick]

7. If the GOP manages to kill itself, a new party will surely replace it.

It seems likely to me that the replacement will be openly anti-democratic. If our democratic republic dies, it will because it votes itself out of existence.

[maxsolomon]

8. I'd rather put a stake in its heart.

Other than occasional "moderation" from one member here or there, the GOP has never done a fucking thing I agreed with.

Keep in mind that Rubin was all in on the GOP until Trump.