I like Brian Beutler’s piece, and I agree with it. In particular, I like the part about the carpet not being big enough to cover the room. I think the Republican Party has outlived its usefulness. I don’t see it morphing back into something socially acceptable to decent people. I don’t see it organically fixing itself the way you would expect a losing party to. It just needs to die. I don’t see why the GOP should even be considered a major party in Massachusetts or California. Why attach that label to yourself if you’re running for office in those states?
Let the South and the prairies have the GOP. Give everyone else something real to choose.
Yeah, it really seems beyond repair. We are in Whig territory here.
But there are plenty of people who simply hate “liberals” and anything the government does and Obama and Democrats and Yankees, etc.
They are all over the place. I have in laws in Brooklyn who are like that.
Where would they go? They really aren’t bothered that the party isn’t interested in actually governing or winning a national election.
But you are right about it being silly to call them a major party in big parts of the country.
Yeah, but look at Canada. They did manage to get rid of the Reform Party, but the current conservatives are turning into Son of Reform, complete with a nutty teabagger-style mayor in Toronto and a former Reformer who opposed universal health care as their current Prime Minister. Why? The divided left. Same in Britain, for that matter.
The last great hope of the GOP is a divided left. Can California govern with a supermajority long enough to avoid that? Can the rest of the country push the GOP aside without splitting? Remains to be seen.
Anyone know what the polling in Canada looks like? Trudeau the Younger is a clueless dolt, especially on economics. He’s a right-winger there.
The rightward drift of the Democratic party makes it impossible to offer a reasonable, widely-popular, and conservative alternative to the Republican Party.
We’d need a ‘something else real’ that fits in the space between Joe Manchin and Susan Collins. That’s not a big enough gap for a broadly-attractive party.
I’ve got an idea!!!
Let’s break up the US!!!
Really.
That’d solve everything!!!
We’ll hold a referendum. Everybody gets to vote. “Do you want to join the United Sttaes of RatPublicanism or the United Staes of DemocRatism?”
Whoever votes for the losing side in each state has to move to the corresponding side in…oh, let’s say a year.
What?
You say it won’t work? The countries would not be composed of contiguous states? That’s no problem. We live in a digital world now. Who needs contiguity? We got digitalness.
Who’d get what?
It’s like a divorce. Everything’s negotiable.
What, more complaints?
What’s that you say?
The economy/economies would fall apart?
So nu?
You mean they haven’t fallen apart already?
I choose Vermont, myself. Maybe it will join Canada. That’d be nice.
Awwww, man…enuf wid dat “Whaddabout da Military” bullshit!!!
You know they’d like it.
Shit…they’d have their own country.
What?
You’re afraid they’d take over the other country?
I hate to be repetitive but…so nu?
They haven’t already done so?
They’d just be free of the incessant whining from the DemRat-kinda people. They wouldn’t be afraid of the US of D…”Hell what’re a buncha pencil neck geeks gonna be able to do to us!!!” they’d say. An’ they’d be right. They could go invade every living corner of the globe with absolutely no resistance. Furthes, the US of D people would have free reign to complain about what the bad guys are doing without the responsibility of actually thinking that they have to do something about it. Which come to think of it is not that much different than what’s happening now. More “So nu“?” stuff.
SoNuism.
The next great sociopolitical movement.
The perfect synthesis of the dialectical “COMMUNISM!!!/NO, CAPITALISM” thesis and antithesis.
And its prophet.
Goodnight.
It’s been a long week already.
Sleep tight.
Or…
WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!
Later…
AG
P.S. Wait a minute, here!!!
We already tried that!!!
Nevermind…
Beutler’s piece is great. To me, things are just beginning to get fun. As of now, if Democrats run any decent candidate, we should win the presidency. The Senate is still a challenge but, as more and more states trend blue, maintaining a majority should become ever less challenging. The House is another story, but I think it’s just a matter of time until Democrats hold all three branches and, when that happens, it might not be all that difficult to begin some serious reforms such as, for instance, adding on a public option to the ACA.
I’m optimistic about what we’re seeing. The Republican party is in free fall but they cannot do much about it because they would get crushed, at least in the short term. We’re witnessing a slow but inevitable realignment that’s running in our favor. As one who lived through the Reagan years and the Bush years and the shrub years, I can only feel great about what’s happening now.
But they hold the House, are virtually certain to keep it, and are widely believed to be about to take the Senate. The Democratic Party is doing it’s best to capture the crown of Reaganism. Witness making the Bush tax cuts permanent and the fact that the (D) Party is ever TALKING about the Trans-Pacific abomination.
Patience, my friend. Patience.
I never said it would happen in one cycle. I said we’ve turned the corner. Now, over the next 20 or so years, we get to watch things unfold. Relax and enjoy.
I don’t see why the Democratic Party should even be considered a major party in Alabama or Texas.
As long as the GOP wins major elections in New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, it will be a major party.
What we have to look forward to is a string of Democratic Presidents in a bunker facing hostile Republican Congresses. Both sides defer to the 0.1% and the military-industrial complex. It is only in social policy that they differ.
Recent Supreme Court decisions upholding Democratic social positions and Republican tax and voting policy point out things to come. Except for abortion, Sotomayer’s cert tells me that the Catholic majority will finally scrap Roe v Wade.
The Republican Party is still considered a major party in California because it still scores Congressional seats and legislative seats there. It in no way has become like the Republican Party in the South prior to World War II. It is still a major party in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic because it can control the state government. And they are not going away quietly and even will try very hard to flip a supposed Democratic stronghold like the victory that stunned Democrats in Wisconsin.
In principle, the something real that people have available to choose are the Democrats. Why does it so many times not seem that way to voters?
It gets tiring to have folks where there are still Republicans want to burden the South, and now we add the prairies, with the conservative brand of lunacy that the GOP represents–in perpetuity. You get Franklin; we get Calhoun. Haven’t we suffered enough already? And you evolve from Franklin and we devolve from Calhoun.
I don’t agree with the premise. Why should the GOP change if they control the House, the supreme court, and the MSM (though they deny it) and have been adept at using these tools and coercion to push their agenda?
As long as enough people agree with them to keep returning them to the House and cushy lobbying or pundit jobs await when they are done – where is the incentive to change?
Well Booman, I do believe you are finally starting to get a bit fed up with America’s Grand Old Party.