Eugene Robinson: The GOP’s Long, Rough Road

[marmar]

from Truthdig:




The GOP’s Long, Rough Road


Posted on Nov 11, 2008
By Eugene Robinson


I could make the argument that all is not lost for the Republican Party—that last Tuesday’s across-the-board defeat wasn’t an unmitigated disaster. But it would be a pretty dumb argument, and I doubt many readers would take it seriously. The truth is that the Grand Old Party is on a Bridge to Nowhere and may have great difficulty changing course.

The essential problem is that changing course will require turning around and marching, if not sprinting, in the opposite direction. At least initially, this doesn’t look like something enough Republicans are willing to do.

What we’re hearing instead from Republican politicians, pollsters and pundits is reassurance that the United States is a “center-right nation” with an innate distrust of progressive policies. The problem, these soothing voices say, is that under George W. Bush the GOP strayed from its basic philosophy of limited government and adopted the big-spending habits of the Democrats. Republicans need to rediscover their bedrock principles, this theory goes, and after a few years of rule by Barack Obama and his Democratic enablers on Capitol Hill, voters will come running home to Papa.

So much is wrong with this analysis that it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s start with the basic premise, that of a center-right American polity. To the extent that such a vague label has any real meaning, that may once have been the case. But if ours were a center-right electorate now, one imagines it might have been kinder to a center-right politician such as John McCain.

After all, that’s what McCain basically is, or used to be. To win the Republican nomination, he had to swerve so far to the right that there was no way he could make his way back within shouting distance of the center. Not that he tried very hard: By the end of the campaign, he was suggesting that progressive taxation—a concept that most Americans accept, having been convinced of its wisdom by Republican icon Teddy Roosevelt—represents some sort of creeping socialism. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_eugene_robinson_gop_in_trouble/

[Lerkfish]

1. Eugene is right, of course, but I think smart people should STOP telling the GOP how to comeback

[struggle4progress]

2. Neck deep in the Big Muddy, Republicans say "Press on!"

Frankly, right now, I don't think the Republicans will listen to anyone except Republican extremists

The US thinks of itself as a centrist country, by which I mean that we typically pretend the political class is governing from an imaginary political center, which usually shifts only slightly. Of course, the BushCo years suggest that this view is unrealistic -- but the view still might explain why Congress so unfailingly rolled over whenever W squawked. Hardline Republican propaganda is also arguably based on such a view: it may simply aim to keep the imagined center shifted towards Republican priorities. Since the Republicans are concerned that an Obama Administration will move in a different direction, their natural instinct will be to move further right in an attempt to lockdown the imaginary political center; they don't want to move in the direction of real political accomodation because they believe that would free Obama's hand somewhat -- and they'll hope to repeat their 1990s successes as an opposition party.

Conclusion: Neck deep in the Big Muddy, Republicans say "Press on!"

A lot now depends on how our team plays. If Obama and the Congressional Democrats play smartly, of course, the Republicans will find themselves thrashing about in a swamp and will start backing out. At that point a far more liberal political center would re-emerge in the US. But if Obama and the Congressional Democrats can't dance well, Republican rigidity may pay off and we may find ourselves tethered to a new rightwing Republican majority and president after 2012

[The Traveler]

3. Fundamentally, they no longer have the ball

We do. So if we are successful at treating America's ills, if we are responsible and courageous and creative and disciplined ... they're fucked for the foreseeable future.

The big problem facing the conservative movement: They have no ideas that speak to the problems most people are having to confront. They have a philosophy that gives them no basis for establishing a direction that takes the nation towards a solution to those problems. And with their horrible campaigning and the empty rage of their pundits they have established this fact in the minds of the voters.