The Crack-Up of the GOP: No Way Out

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/1/6/105318/4727

The Crack-Up of the GOP: No Way Out

by BooMan
Sun Jan 6th, 2013 at 10:53:18 AM EST


The Washington Post reports that there are divisions within the Republican Party about whether or not they can effectively use a threat to destroy the country's credit rating and cause a global recession to extract spending cuts from the Democrats. If they did it before, why not do it again?

Meanwhile, the New York Times focuses more on the big picture divisions like immigration, women's rights, gay marriage, and letting the NRA dictate the GOP's policy on guns.

In both cases, it is really a divide between conservatives and Republicans. The near-total capture of the GOP by conservatives has created a situation which has now come to a head. They call it the Conservative Movement for a reason. They have places to go. The problem is, the American people do not want to go there. The conundrum presents itself in stark terms in the debate over the debt ceiling. Countless Rush Limbaugh fans and Fox News watchers have been seduced into an alternative reality where they are both the good and the aggrieved. But they don't want to see the party destroy the country's credit rating, millions of jobs, and the value of their nest eggs, all in the name of reducing the worth of their earned benefits and eroding their retirement security. The conservatives carried the ball so far down the field that people are in the shadow of the goalposts. And they don't want to score.

snip//

The disastrous culmination of a 28-year campaign to make the rich richer and the middle class poorer was interpreted as the perfect time to launch a tax revolt on the behalf of people who had never paid lower taxes. At the peak moment for government spending, they launched a war on the only available economic stimulus that might save them their job, their home, and their savings. It was no surprise that the whole venture was financed by plunderous plutocrats in their desperate (and successful) attempt to cause a distraction big enough for them to evade accountability for their actions.

The conservative movement is too stupid to live, but the Republican Party is too advantaged by law to die. It would like to remake itself into a party that reflects the values of enough Americans for them to win. But conservatives would rather wallow in their own impotence and rage than change their core beliefs. The GOP will remain bitterly divided for quite some time. The splits will grow when we debate guns and when we debate immigration and when we debate climate and energy. The coalition cannot hold. The most reactionary of the bunch have the advantage of being correct about one thing. Without race-hatred and religious tribalism and gay-bashing and attacks on women's rights, the GOP has no coalition at all. It would simply scatter to the winds. So, they will persist.

[patrice]

1. K&R !

[Still Sensible]

2. K & R

[BainsBane]

3. Perhaps they should start

By specifying the particular cuts they want--a radical concept, I realize.

[flamingdem]

4. I hope they split up like a giant iceberg

and melt into the sea.

[Populist_Prole]

5. Was just listening to Media Matters on XM 'Left'

The guest brought up an interesting point: Long term, the GOP is in trouble. The control that Fox News has on the GOP, which caused it to move so far right, is known by the party leadership to be a major or even insurmountable problem in maintaining viability of the GOP. The problem is, that the Fox News machine itself is doing very very well; and so they have no interest whatsover of doing anything other than the same demogoguery that works so well for them. The GOP can't yet ditch them because many believe they were instrumental in their success of 2010 and are still afraid of them.

[Ikonoklast]

7. And the answer to their failures to win in the last election

is being given to them by Teabaggers: "Move even further to the Right!"


The GOP has no clue as how to stop it.

They are going to be eaten alive from within by a parasite.

[daleo]

28. That's a powerful image. n/t

[coldbeer]

6. I'm an old man

I try, but reading left to right I am good for about this far.
The sentences fall off the page. When I swing back left
I guess where to start.

[randome]

9. The GOP is fucked.

That about sums it up.

[Flatpicker]

15. It's more

We're fucked.

I can't see how the Cons go down without causing damage to the country.
They will shoot the hostage before they surrender. That's how sick they are.

[bluestate10]

18. They may shoot some hostages, but Cons won't come out alive. Afterward, there will no more

hostage taking.

[wandy]

8. K&R This describes things perfectly.....

Now what "GOP co". Do you give up ground and work toward a reasonable solution, even if it ticks off you're owners.
or
Do you bury you're head in you're ideology and continue to perform you're owners bidding.

Going to be a hard choice for a party that "is too stupid to live".

[ReformedGOPer]

10. The thing is, they really are inept, but they are too stupid to realize it. They

are a dying party, and our POTUS is running circles around them. They have no central core. And its rich to think that Faux noise is aiding and abetting their downfall.

[bluestate10]

19. Welcome to DU. Donor state republicans are going to soon have to make a decision.

Peter King, Michael Grimm and Chris Christie are just the tip of the iceberg, things will get worst for that trio and other donor state republicans before they either get defeated for office or quit the party. The shenanigans over Sandy relief funding highlights the start of that fight, Chris Christie pointing out rather starkly several times that New Jersey is a donor state that wouldn't ask for help unless it needed that help further drives a wedge into the republican party's core. Republicans ask for funding for Alabama and Louisiana, but demand offsets for aid to Joplin and midwest flooding for a reason, their objective is to damage places that have a tendency to vote blue on occasion, but their hatred for places that conservative republicans consider impure will be the factor that destroys the republican party.

[ReRe]

11. Yeah, no other way...

K&R

...to look at it: The GOP is definitely cracking up. They have Foxed-up themselves, right into a basement corner.

[xtraxritical]

12. If the GOP is history why are we bargaining anything with them? Why are SS and Medicare

"reforms" bandied about? I'm saying the current administration does not seem to think they're "out for the count".

[randome]

20. It will a long, drawn out process. The GOP corpse will be stinking up the place for some time.

But they HAVE boxed themselves into a corner and are much weaker now.

[bluestate10]

22. Don't be so certain about what the Obama administration is doing. I suspect that

republicans are being led into another trap. Republicans must be forced to state exactly what they want to cut and how deep they want to make cuts. There shouldn't be an easy path out for republicans.

[randome]

31. As Obama pointed out recently, it's the House that is supposed to propose the bills.

If these fuckers want the Senate or someone else to do their jobs, then we can call them on that.

[xtraxritical]

24. I surly hope you're both right.

[SunSeeker]

13. These types of articles make me worried that we'll let down our guard, like we did after 2008.

The "conservatives" (regressives) have more money than God. The fact that they are on the wrong side of history and demographics has not stopped them from taking over a majority of governorships and state legislatures. That is how they have been able to implement their voter suppression. Yes, they have a lot of clowns representing them, but their Koch Bros. overloads and others of their ilk are busy figuring out how to subvert the people's will. We can't assume they will die of natural causes.

[bluestate10]

23. I think we learned from 2010. I watched Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris Perry

this morning. Both them and most of the guest described how we can't repeat 2010 again. The issue that worried me was the most progressive member of MHP's panel, he didn't seem to get that we need to establish coalitions and train candidates in the interior West and South and that those people won't mirror a northeast or west coast candidates. Fortunately, most of the panel got it, in particular one sharp operative got it and clearly pointed out what needed to be done. Howard Dean showed up as a guest and he clearly understood what needs to be done.

My biggest concern is with people that call themselves steadfast progressives and can't brook any one that doesn't fall within their idea of an "acceptable" democrat. Will steadfast progressives abandon the party was they did in 2010 and allow republicans to catch a breath? The hatred that I see for blue dogs posted all over DU causes me to question whether the people making those statements are willing to accept in true democrats that aren't their perfect model of a what a democrat is. My position on blue dogs is that if those people weren't true democrats, they would have gone independent or registered as republicans long ago. There is little to nothing for them in the districts that they run in when they identify with democrats. What but a committed person would face ridicule and rejection to run under a banner whose core values they don't share deep in their hearts? As things are, they share our core values, even as some of us work hard to reject them.

[MissMarple]

27. You make a very good point. We should be making viable coalitions.

Demanding ideological purity in politics is naive. It has certainly gotten the gop into the fine mess they are in now. We certainly don't need a redo of that. I admire Howard Dean.

[SCVDem]

14. Nicely put! nt

[TheKentuckian]

16. Sounds wonderful but so have such proclamations every few years for a generation or more

I think they face some structural obstacles that make their electoral math increasingly difficult in the next twenty years or so and has been tough for more than a decade despite Bush stealing/slipping away with two but their power is not that diminished at all.

I think the two terms of Reagan followed by the Poppy Bush term has created an overcompensation that began to show its faults almost as soon as it began, the hold on Congress began to falter and has been dicey ever since the "centrist" wave came in. Nobody considered maybe those perceived as technocratic weenies might not be the sweet spot for Commander in Chief or that on the heels of the civil rights act that there was a realignment that had to play out that impacted national elections that wasn't an issue in local ones the DLC busted up the economic connection.

I think they have successfully cross pollinated their ideology to the point they control the frame even as a minority and have enough political and media heft to overly influence the national conversation.

They are going nowhere until their ideology is rejected.

[randome]

21. McCain/Palin. Romney/Ryan. Rove's immense failures.

The signs are there. This time the GOP truly is down and getting weaker.

[Raine]

17. Totally on point, THANKS! nt

[libodem]

25. Big Fat Idiots

[RDANGELO]

26. This nails it.

"Without race-hatred and religious tribalism and gay-bashing and attacks on women's rights, the GOP has no coalition at all. It would simply scatter to the winds. So, they will persist."

This is what is really holding the Republican party together and why it is so cultist. They pretend that there is some wisdom and logic to their ideology, but what is really behind it all is tribalism.

[malaise]

29. Excellent read

Rec

[Motown_Johnny]

30. I think immigration will be the big one.

Some of them understand that without changing the percentage of their votes in the Hispanic community that they have no hope of continuing as a national party.

Others simply can't grasp the math and will resist any form of truly comprehensive reform.

The beautiful thing here is that we have already been outflanked on our left twice on this issue. Once with Reagan's reform and again with Shrub's attempt at reform. I doubt very much if we will allow this to happen a third time.

If the entire (R) party came out en mass for an open boarders policy we can counter with the demand for an open boarders policy, and a pony. If they agree to give us a pony we can then demand a monkey in a cowboy hat riding the pony. They will counter with just the monkey and not the hat which will give us the opportunity to demand not only a cowboy hat but balloon animals, and then a parade.

The (R)s will either need to accept a deal that will enrage a large portion of their base or continue to wear the label of being anti-immigrant and the party of white male privilege.

With any luck we can get a good immigration reform deal done And piss off the (R) base at the same time.