Facts Our Party Will Not Officially Admit, That It Must

[starroute]

41. I don't think these things can be done artificially

It would be nice to have a sane conservative party -- but we're more likely to see the pro-corporate Democrats become that, while a new progressive party springs up on the left. That is, if our entire system of electoral democracy hasn't already been fatally compromised.

Right now, much of the GOP seems to be obsessed with how to maintain control despite becoming a minority. They look at the election figures that show them with a comfortable majority of white men and think about how to disenfranchise women and minorities. They dream of repealing the popular election of senators and having them chosen by easily corrupted state legislatures as they were in the Gilded Age. They cook up schemes for having states chose their presidential electors one per congressional district plus two at large.

And meanwhile, they're making no effort to win over Hispanics, blacks, young people, or working women. But all those groups are a natural Democratic constituency. So who does this leave as the possible core of a new, legitimate conservative party?

* Small business people
* Farmers (if there are any left who aren't agribusiness types or back-to-the-land hippies)
* Socially conservative immigrants
* Reagan Democrats and aging yuppies

Frankly, that's a pretty thin list. You might describe it as a combination of "people who work hard, know the value of a dollar, and don't look for handouts" with "people who have profited from the system and know it but also retain a sense of social responsibility." But do those people really exist any more or are they just a vanishing historical myth?

And meanwhile, the financiers and CEOs are going to stick with the presently-existing GOP for all it's worth, as will the the angry-white-male voters, both urban and rural. And the Paulites have swept up whatever more youthful energies there are on the right and sent them on a dead end road to nowhere.

It's like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle with too many missing pieces.