GOP hasn’t fallen off a cliff

[Kablooie]

Basically, the Republican “strategy” on the current self-inflicted looming debt crisis is to constantly sabotage themselves and, eventually, the nation as a whole. Either they will just totally lose completely, or they’ll somehow manage, through nihilism and intransigence, to pull out a deeply unpopular “victory” that will end up hurting the already crappy economy.
...
I think, though, that regardless of how completely lost the Republican party is — and they are well and truly lost, and not currently “negotiating” with anything resembling a coherent plan or unified voice — they will emerge from the current mess unscathed.
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It really doesn’t matter how awful the Republicans are, because a) they’ve got a gerrymandered House majority that is practically guaranteed through 2020 and b) American history teaches us that Americans vote for each party about 50% of the time almost no matter what. The GOP currently can’t scrape together national popular vote majorities, and they keep losing gimme Senate races, but that’ll self-correct in a couple of years, even if they spend those couple of years acting like lunatics and purposely blowing up the economy. Americans don’t really punish political parties for longer than a few election cycles, and they save that punishment for truly monumental disasters. In the meantime, Republicans still control a majority of state legislatures, and they have complete control of the government in 24 states. They have the power to enact the entire conservative agenda in nearly half the country. They’re fine. If they blow up the economy, do you know who people — and much of the press — will blame? “Congress.” Or “partisanship.” Or “dysfunction.” Or Obama. Bob Woodward already wrote a book about how irresponsible it was for Obama not to somehow force House Republicans to act reasonably and rationally, and he will definitely be happy to write another one.
...

Let's hope there's a little more true justice in the world than this but I don't have my hopes up.

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/28/the_republicans_will_be_fine/

[Freddie]

1. So sad and true

As long as they control Congress and the governors' mansions, they really haven't lost anything, and can do what they want with impunity. Thanks to gerrymandering the fix is in.
There has to be a way to persuade rational Americans (most of us!) to vote in mid-year elections to get the slime out of local and state governments.

[dballance]

2. When they're still able to muster 47% of the voters to vote for them

they have not fallen off a cliff or really lost much of anything. Romney was one of the most deeply flawed candidates in my memory and the anti-women, anti-imigrant messages the GOP was happy to keep repeating during the campaign didn't cause them that harmful a loss. If they'd lost 60 or 70 to 40 or 30 then perhaps we could say voters actually woke up. But they didn't really. Forty-seven percent of voters voted for Romney. In my math classes that still rounds up to almost half.

I would be very curious to see how the voting might have been different if we'd had a white Democratic candidate. All other things being equal I'd be willing to bet a white Democrat could have probably kicked Romney's lying ass in some of the South. Perhaps we'll see in 2016.

[ThoughtCriminal]

5. Keep in mind, Romney was the best they could do

Really, all the other "Front Runners" in the GOP primaries were a clown-car load of screwballs, psychopaths and imbeciles. I do not think any of them could have kept the spread much below 10 points.

[dballance]

6. Yep, I Think Jeb May Have Missed an Opportunity

Yes, the Bush name was still not very popular but I think Jeb could have done a better job than Mitt. And frankly they really screwed themselves by eliminating Huntsman in my opinion. I think he was the only real adult in the group. If they'd actually backed him rather than screwing him over because he was sane they might have had a viable opponent for Obama.

[unblock]

3. until we find a way to open the eyes of those who for some reason are STILL republicans,....

yeah. the vast majority of republican congresscritters are in no great danger of losing their seats no matter how poorly they treat the country. sad but true, and an unexpected consequence of highly partisan gerrymandering.

[zbdent]

4. trust me ... the "liberally-biased media" is setting up

those "air bags" that stuntmen use when the take a "fall" for a film ... if a GOPer "falls off the fiscal cliff" ... the GOP itself will be saved ...

how many times has the "liberally-biased media" saved the GOP?

1929, Watergate, Katrina, even 9/11/2001 should have been enough to kill the GOP ... but 1929 was "forgotten", the Ayatollah and 52 hostages killed Carter, Katrina dented the Repubs ... and with 9/11/2001, the "liberally-biased media" not only let Dumbya not be forced to testify ON THE RECORD AND ALONE, they polished him up so that the world could see what a "strong, wonderful leader" he was ...

[JDPriestly]

7. To the extent that your pessimism is warranted, it is the fault of Democrats

who don't work to get the progressive or liberal message out there.

We need to learn how to explain why we stand for what we stand for.

Just claiming to be "better" is not good enough.

That's why we need free discussion and dissension on DU rather than lock-step loyalty to one person or a prescribed set of ideas.

We learn to talk to Republicans when we listen to and argue with Democrats.

So let's all keep posting. It helps us become better at explaining our points of view and persuading our families and friends.

Republicans own the media. We have to make more sense than the media.

[4dsc]

8. This is result of weak democratic party leadership

This is what we get for a couple of decades of weak democratic party leadership. When the party will not stand up to republicans has they have many times over the past couple of decade we deserve this kind of shit.

[Pakid]

9. you can't fix stupid

and that is what the republican voter is stupid