I think we may be witnessing the demise of the GOP

[Spike89]

44. Wish it were so, but the two party system is durable

It is barely possible that the party dies and is reborn (ala whigs), but fundementally we will always have 4 major divisions in this country, social and economic splits on the right and left. Sadly, the republicans "own" the economy despite being dead wrong about how to run it. They do preach the simplistic and attractive (to many) "freedom to succeed" economic message. The progressive message is much more nuanced, difficult to sloganize, and for what it matters, workable.

The reality is that there really is a balance between the two viewpoints (you can chase investors away with punitive taxation vs. tax rates can be too low). We're at the point right now that it is extremely foolish and disingenious when the fiscal conservatives say we need lower taxes--any sane look at our fiscal policies say they are too low already. Someday (if the Repubs continue to lose influence) the tax code may once again verge on the punitive and "voila'" the repubs will be relavent again.

The social divide is really more intractable in many ways, but also much more open to morphing over time. Unlike fiscal ideology which is and always will be essentially binary, social issues are all over the place. New technologies are going to open the door to new social issues. Being "right" doesn't really matter politically--it wasn't long ago that the republican party could hurt democrats at the polls by bringing gay rights into the equation. Ultimately, though we having yet "won" those battles, it isn't an issue the republicans can depend on--the tide is shifting to the democratic platform.

Genetic science is likely to be a polarizing topic--if you can bestow disease resistance in children through gene manipulation, would you? should you? What if a byproduct of that therapy was a 20% increase in IQ for the child? Which party is going to choose which side? Could it be that choosing the "right" side of that or other battle actually costs us votes for a few elections?

The rupubs are down, but there will always be an opposition.