How should Democrats help the Republican party to continue fragmenting & marginalizing themselves?

[KittyWampus]

IMO, Obama is doing pretty much that by being and appearing reasonable, conciliatory and "bipartisan".

But what do I know?

Pretend you've gotten past Rahm Emmanuel and have Obama's and/or Axelrod's ear. Tell DU what the next few realistic steps are to help the process of Republican self-immolation.

Edit- My idea is to fund ads in swing and red states/districts that are sort of like the old anti-drug ones that went "this is your brain/this is you brain on drugs" only do something like "this is your country with a functional government/this is your country on a dysfunctional govt" meanwhile showing a picture of a beautiful modern airport or humming factory or wilderness versus shots of really screwed up areas.

[BlooInBloo]

1. Do anything that's good for the bulk of the people.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. By progressively governing the country and letting them just sit in the corner and rot!

I think that the irrelevance of the Republicans will just continue to show itself more and more as Obama focused on what needs to be done.

[KittyWampus]

4. I'll sum that up as ignore them?

[anonymous171]

7. I agree but with an exception. Obama and the dems should not call their reforms "progressive"

They should call them "common sense" just like FDR did.

[Catshrink]

3. Their leadership is doing a great job of that already.

At our local legislative district meeting last week, two Republicans showed up. They eventually introduced themselves and said they wanted to open channels of communication. They felt their party had been hijacked by the far right and the latest round of brutal cuts in education funding was the last straw for them. Someone in the group told them that "recognizing you have a problem is the first step in a 12 step program."

The main component of the right wind ideology is "cut taxes." Many Republicans are waking up and realizing that taxes are necessary to fund government.

[Sherman A1]

5. Precisely

They are doing a great job on their own, I don't think they need any help.

[SteveM]

6. By dropping the stinking "assault weapons ban" from its platform (nt)

[anonymous171]

8. Yep. Drop the Nanny State dems. nt

[safeinOhio]

9. More and more tax cuts for middle and low income, of course

paid for with more and more tax increases on the top earners.

[Dappleganger]

10. Be the adults in the room.

[northernlights]

11. we the people should encourage the rwnuts

call them up and egg them on. You tell'em Boner!!!! Go, McCane, GO!!!! Keep up the good work!!!!

Let them think their obstructionism is working in their favor, so they'll just keep backing themselves into a smaller and tighter circle... until they collapse in on themselves in a teeny little singularity and vanish into some other spacetime.

[Parker CA]

12. They clearly have their ideas in order, but if I somehow had that chance, I would suggest

that they work aggressively outside of DC with GOP Governors and Mayors in gaining support and confidence in a wide array of issues, both economic and those in other policy realms. I believe that enormous further damage can be unleashed on the GOP by creating a continually widening schism between their state and city front-line members and those that work within the bubble of detached reality from everyday issues in the Senate and House in DC.

If Obama and his administration can begin to marginalize the DC GOP'ers even further than they have already done to themselves from all but the most radical of their constituencies, the GOP faces an all but assured self-destruction in short order. By utilizing the strength of those GOP officials whom work on behalf of and with the American people everyday in cities around the country and whom have already begun to voice a dissenting view from their counterparts in DC, Obama has the opportunity to literally split the party into two even smaller halves. The result will likely be that one half drifts toward the middle, while the other, severely radical remnants drifts further toward the sudden drop-off into irrelevance.

[lunatica]

13. I would ask President Obama what HE would like ME to do to help

I'm not about to tell him what he should do!

Now if it were Bush....

[sampsonblk]

14. Easy. Take on their brand instead of their leaders

We should have done this long ago.

Reaganomics is the easiest hoax to disprove. There are many other bogus ideas they have pushed over the years.

[Still Sensible]

15. Just stay out of their way. They are imploding on their own

from the looks of it.

They have now contracted their party into a coalition of fundamentalists, neocons & supply siders. Under the reign of GWB, they literally kicked the libertarians and the fiscal conservatives to the curb. Only their post 9/11 fear campaign allowed them to maintain their base and scare enough independents and blue dogs to eke out re-election.

I know the remaining losers are crying about fiscal responsibility right now, but their party basically abandoned that when--to quote Cheney--"Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Given the last eight years, any level of real success now by the Obama administration and the democratic controlled houses of Congress, it will be very tough for what's left of the republican party. Without a collapse of democratic leadership, they are shrinking into a party that is primarily driven by what's left of the Confederacy.

The supply siders are the most responsible for the current economic mess and have no credibility. The neocons are responsible for the Iraq war and have no credibility. That leaves the fundamentalists, who only have credibility with other fundamentalists.

Either they find a way to broaden their party, or find a way to "scare" the aforementioned independents and blue dogs, or they (try to) destroy any chance of Obama being successful. Those are the three choices and, probably in their minds, the last one is the most realistic.

They are not going to broaden any time soon because the fundamentalists and the supply siders will not allow it, meanwhile the neocons are for the most part mute (but they have nowhere else to go). It is hard to see how they can come up with anything new to scare the middle with--although I am sure they'll continue to try the wedge issues--but will likely see if the "socialized medicine" attacks that worked early in the Clinton years will work again.

That leaves the destroy-Obama's-chance-for-success as the most viable alternative they have right now... and that's what most of them are already trying.

[salguine]

16. If I had Obama's ear, I would point out to him that the President who finally

brought single-payer, national health care to America would be irreversibly granted enshrinement among the greatest Presidents in history, right up there with Lincoln and FDR, and I doubt there would be much that could happen subsequently that would alter that. And if there were ever a window of opportunity to accomplish that, it's now.