"The GOP’s new reality"

[applegrove]

The GOP’s new reality

By Michael Gerson at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-a-republican-party-in-upheaval/2013/11/04/ee7d49d6-4585-11e3-b6f8-3782ff6cb769_story.html

"SNIP...............................



Following the recent tea party Tet Offensive — tactically disastrous but symbolically important — the Republican establishment has commenced counterinsurgency operations. Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee — both facing primary challenges from the right — are responding more forcefully to their populist opponents. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has cut ties with a Republican advertising firm employed by tea party challengers. “We’re not going to do business,” says a spokesman, “with people who profit off of attacking Republicans. Purity for profit is a disease that threatens the Republican Party.”

This vivid turn of phrase — “purity for profit” — captures the main reason Republican leaders are edging away from a strategy of accommodation. The Obama era has unleashed a great deal of genuine populist and libertarian energy. But a good portion of it is being channeled into business and fundraising models that depend on stoking resentment against the GOP itself (at least as currently constituted).

The result is a paradox. Over the past few decades, Republican members of Congress have become more reliably conservative (as their Democratic colleagues, to a lesser extent, have become more liberal). Liberal Republicanism has essentially ceased to exist. This means that tea party conservatives are revolting against a more uniformly conservative party. The RINOs they hunt are actually an endangered species. So they have transformed tactical disagreements — over, say, a hopeless attempt to defund Obamacare — into defining ideological struggles.

Some of this results from a deep, even apocalyptic, conviction that Obamacare represents the final ruin of the old republic, requiring desperate measures. But the political change we are witnessing is also structural and technological. Matt Kibbe, the president and chief executive of FreedomWorks, described it well: “You’re really seeing a disintermediation in politics.?.?.?. Grass-roots activists have an ability to self-organize, to fund candidates they’re more interested in, going right around the Republican National Committee and senatorial committee. That’s the new reality. Everything’s more democratized and Republicans should come to terms with that. They still want to control things from the top down, and if they do that there will absolutely be a split. But my prediction would be that we take over the Republican Party, and they go the way of the Whigs.”



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[Laelth]

1. Excerpt from a comment by dsspa following the article.

What does the Republican party have? Nothing. It has no program, no vision, no principle, nothing positive at all. Just lots of no's, lots of nastiness and bigotry ... and lots of longing to turn the clock back to a fantasy world of a past that never existed.

The Tea Party hasn't destroyed the Republicans. The Republicans have destroyed themselves. The party has imploded because its core is a vacuum: an intellectual, ethical and political vacuum.

A platform of tax breaks for the wealthy, deregulation for the robber barons, governmental control over women's bodies and a service cuts for everyone -- just won't cut it. If the Republicans want to be relevant any more, they have to look at the future as something more than a chance to turn the clock back.

Spot on. Pass the popcorn.

-Laelth

[sendero]

2. This quote.....

.... (as their Democratic colleagues, to a lesser extent, have become more liberal) tells me all I need to know.

The author of this article is a moron.

[JHB]

4. There's a widely-accepted tracking of that over decades, but I'd like to be clearer...

...on its methodology. What counts and how is it counted?

I thin a large part of the "more liberal" is mostly a matter of conservative Democrats switching to the Republican Party, and thus no longer contributing to the Democratic tally, making the Democratic pool "more liberal" just by removing the ones dragging down the average.

The Democrats certainly aren't more liberal in real terms than they were in, say, 1972. If they were, they'd be the Yippies that the Teabaggers hallucinate that they are.

[Laelth]

3. This was heart-warming.

Part of a comment by srm68 following the article:

The Republican Party is dead. It just doesn't seem to realize it yet. It committed suicide when it eagerly climbed into bed with the racist, sexist, misogynistic, xenophobic and homophobic extreme fringe of American politics. Now the GOP has contracted a particularly lethal brand of political HIV. There's no cure. No amount of maneuvering is going to erase the ugliness and hatefulness of Republicanism from the memories of most Americans, whom the party deliberately went out of its way to alienate and offend in permanent ways.

Interesting.

-Laelth

[Laelth]

5. Here's what rrider1 had to say:

As a person who has admired both Republican and Democratic representatives over the years, there is not a single living Republican in office today that presents a well thought out approach to governing that is relevant to the needs of all the citizens. I will go so far as to say that the Party has become bizarre, being more like a rodeo festival than an actual organization. It has no redeeming values left, at all, and at times the best one could say is that it has become ugly in spirit and practice. I would never vote for a Republican again at any level, period.

Music to my ears.

-Laelth

[Myrina]

7. +10

I like this! Why do relatively reasonable people like this get drowned out by the witch-burning hillbilly mob that has become the GOP?

[Laelth]

6. Then there's this from JERiv:

It's sort of sad that the Republicans have zero platform on which to promote a future.

The Republican Platform of Today (as seen by Joe Smith Sr., Joan Smith, Johnny Smith Jr., José Herrero, and everyone else): "More tax cuts for wealthy, no to gay marriages/protection, more guns for everyone/say no to any gun regulations, no to any kind immigration reform (they should self-deport), eliminate any and all regulation helping regular Americans and instead favor Corporations, eliminate the social safety net (Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc), and no to fixing our crumbling infrastructure (too much money)".

How is that a bright picture of the future? Truly brings to mind pictures of a brighter tomorrow, right? ... Actually, it reads like a plot line for a dystopian alternate timeline flick.

Then we have Democrats, who want to close tax loopholes exploited by the wealthy (to the tune of $Billions$), pass protections for gays (they just did in the Senate), pass sensible gun laws, already passed an immigration bill in the Senate, keep working on implementing regulation to prevent another Wall Street meltdown and protect consumers (CFPB), protect and even try to better the social safety net, and have tried multiple times to pass bills to start fix our crumbling infrastructure.

The major achievements of the Republicans in Congress for the last 5 years are 40 tries at repealing the ACA, and the Sequester.

Until they fix their horrendous platform, Republicans will continue in a downward death spiral.

More music. I think I am going to get sick of popcorn, but I am loving it at the moment.



-Laelth

[Laelth]

8. This little exchange is priceless.

boblesch
the GOP's new reality can be summed up by their platform on poverty - starve to death or get sick and die.

anyone who doesn't have enough money to invest, isn't worth having around.

ExposingLiberals
as your president drags the country down, you think we're the problem.

boblesch
i do - and so does the rest of planet earth

Ain't that the truth?

-Laelth

[Laelth]

9. Another kick.

Read the comments, people. You will enjoy them, I suspect.



-Laelth

[bemildred]

10. Fascinating, thank you. nt