Ship of fools: The Fall Of The Republican Party

[wyldwolf]

The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.

The Republican Party’s divorce from the intelligentsia has been a while in the making. The born-again Mr Bush preferred listening to his “heart” rather than his “head”. He also filled the government with incompetent toadies like Michael “heck-of-a-job” Brown, who bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr McCain, once the chattering classes’ favourite Republican, refused to grapple with the intricacies of the financial meltdown, preferring instead to look for cartoonish villains. And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba, he appointed Sarah Palin to his ticket, a woman who took five years to get a degree in journalism, and who was apparently unaware of some of the most rudimentary facts about international politics.

Republicanism’s anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. The party’s electoral success from 1980 onwards was driven by its ability to link brains with brawn. The conservative intelligentsia not only helped to craft a message that resonated with working-class Democrats, a message that emphasised entrepreneurialism, law and order, and American pride. It also provided the party with a sweeping policy agenda. The party’s loss of brains leaves it rudderless, without a compelling agenda.

This is happening at a time when the American population is becoming more educated. More than a quarter of Americans now have university degrees. Twenty per cent of households earn more than $100,000 a year, up from 16% in 1996. Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster, notes that 69% call themselves “professionals”. McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the number of jobs requiring “tacit” intellectual skills has increased three times as fast as employment in general. The Republican Party’s current “redneck strategy” will leave it appealing to a shrinking and backward-looking portion of the electorate.

more...

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12599247

[SpiralHawk]

1. Down down down goes the S S AWOL

Or is it the SS Fail?

[suston96]

2. Yeah, I remember when it fell before, after Watergate....never recovered......nt

[Jennicut]

3. They hate elites but elites have brains. Somehow this is all so fitting

for a party that declared that having a beer with someone was a way to choose a president.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. No ideas, just empty slogans and power plays. Very predictable.

[Peacetrain]

19. No ideas is exactly right..just hate.. and fear

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Stale Brands

[NewJeffCT]

6. I posted this article the other day, but I've stated numerous times

If causing the Great Depression and enabling the rise of Hitler & Mussolini didn't do in the Republican Party, the Bush Recession and the invasion of Iraq certainly won't.

[Pab Sungenis]

9. Enabling the rise of Hitler?

It was the Versailles treaty, negotiated in part by Wilson, that caused the conditions leading to Hitler's rise. Conditions in Germany were terrible even before the Depression hit, and that's what provided a fertile ground for Nazism.

The Republicans rejected the Versailles treaty. Maybe if you want to make an argument that if we had joined the League of Nations it might have been strong enough to stop Hitler, you could then pin it on the Republicans, but that's a stretch.

The Great Depression did kill the Republican Party, at least until after World War II. 16 years of no power at all, and 20 years without the White House.

[NewJeffCT]

16. If you look at high profile conservatives from the 30s

both in the business world and in Congress, they expressed admiration for Mussolini and Hitler, and advocated allying with them - many Right Wing corporations traded illegally with the Germans as well. Heck, Prescott Bush's company continued trading with the Nazis after the Nazis declared war on the US.

There is a book that Thom Hartmann has promoted on his show several times that collected all the quotes from RW politicians and businessmen from the 30s and early 40s. I think it was published in the mid 40s and is from somebody relatively famous, but I forgot who did it and the name.

[matchstick]

7. and idiots anti american succes Hannity and Limbaugh don't help

they have become the party of retarded rednecks.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. An interesting read.

K&R.

[Demeter]

10. GOP Lost Their Minds As Well As What Few Brains They Had

not a recipe for success at any time,

[Honeycombe8]

11. Don't close your eyes too long. They will rise again. The parties take turns in power.

Anyone who thinks the Republicans are done for, haven't been paying attention.

After Clinton won in '92, and the Dems won Congress in '92, the Repubs turned it around and won back the Congress big time in '94.

They govern horribly. But they are pretty good at winning elections.

[Mudoria]

12. I remember in 2004 that the GOP

was crowing about majorities in the House and the Senate fro the forseeable future. And I thought so to because the Democratic Party was a damn mess. Where are we politically today? Nothing ever lasts forever and if the Dem's blow this opportunity between now and 2010 things could start looking radically different. I hope President Obama has a solid economic plan coming out of the gate that can get the country turned in the right direction. Otherwise, the voters, who have a short attention span, could make Congress look like 2002-2006 again in a damn hurry.

[apnu]

13. That's a very interesting article, thanks for posting. (nt)

[workinclasszero]

14. Republican Party = The Idiot Party

The thugs have given their party over to morons like Rush and Hannity and the total f'in idiots that follow their every venom dripping word. The dumbest assholes and the biggest haters now rule the GOP.

The whole country sees the results in a cliff diving stock market, highest job loss in 16 years and the rethugs threating a Great Depression 2 by killing the entire US auto industry and its hundreds of thousands of supporting jobs.

All the while their thieving buddies on Wall Street throw parties paid for by Walmart door greeters taxes!

The Republican Party are dead white men walking...the living dead zombies of politics. They are DEAD, but they don't realize it yet! Maybe after they get their asses kicked once AGAIN in 2010 they will get it? Or again in 2012...

Who knows.:shrug:

Anyway...

The GOP is fucking DOOMED!

I just want to be at the funeral so I can piss on their un American grave!

[Ganja Ninja]

15. I'd love to see this posted over at freerepublic.

The “redneck strategy” and "party of white trash pride" lines fit them to a T.

[TheKentuckian]

17. They'd be dead if anyone had the guts to kill them

Their entire ideology needs to be repudiated and mocked as a failed mess in the history books. They also must do something about their tiny tent or demographics will do what Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, and too many Bush's could not. Being the party of lizard brained old white people and uneducated hicks is only going to carry you so far.

I say the best inoculation against another flare up of the Republicanism is to discredit the entire failed philosophy at each and every opportunity until people look at Republicans like they do Communists and in time like we see the Whigs, aka extinct. We have a party that has pretty much run the country into the ground at every opportunity for a century. I think if we care about our country then its past time to insist they be accountable and seriously rethink some things or go the way of the dinosaur and actively foster new competition, our counterbalance is toxic.

[workinclasszero]

18. And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba...

"And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba, he appointed Sarah Palin to his ticket, a woman who took five years to get a degree in journalism, and who was apparently unaware of some of the most rudimentary facts about international politics."



Thats a great line from the article.:rofl::rofl::rofl:

[jmondine]

20. I hate to nitpick, but is the $100k a year number adjusted for inflation?

If not, it's rather meaningless, especially over a 12 year span.

[Reader Rabbit]

21. Needs lyrics:

Ship Of Fools

World Party

We're setting sail to the place on the map
from which no one has ever returned
Drawn by the promise of the joker and the fool
by the light of the crosses that burned.
Drawn by the promise of the women and the lace
and the gold and the cotton and pearls
It's the place where they keep all the darkness you need.
You sail away from the light of the world on this trip, baby.
You will pay tomorrow
You're gonna pay tomorrow
You will pay tomorrow

Save me. Save me from tomorrow
I don't want to sail with this ship of fools. No, no
Oh, save me. Save me from tomorrow
I don't want to sail with this ship of fools
I want to run and hide right now

Avarice and greed are gonna drive you over the endless sea
They will leave you drifting in the shallows
or drowning in the oceans of history
Traveling the world, you're in search of no good
but I'm sure you'll build your Sodom like you knew you would
Using all the good people for your galley slaves
as you're little boat struggles through the warning waves, but you don't pay

You will pay tomorrow
You're gonna pay tomorrow
You're gonna pay tomorrow

Save me. Save me from tomorrow
I don't want to sail with this ship of fools
Save me. Save me from tomorrow
I don't want to sail with this ship of fools
Where's it comin' from?
Where's it goin' to now?
It's just a It's just a ship of fools

[ladjf]

22. Republicanism is a philosophy based upon unrealistic, therefore untenable

premises. In the long run, Republicanism was destined to fail while taking down others who did not share their beliefs. This has been a most unfortunate episode in human history.

[codjh9]

23. Yeah, they just fit in w/these lyrics, which I should've posted in 2004 (and 2000)

http://www.lyricsdownload.com/world-party-ship-of-fools-lyrics.html