Now, I have a question for Philip Klein, and it is a serious question. He says that if the Republicans lose the upcoming presidential election they should just “throw in the towel.” The headline writers at the Washington Examiner chose to interpret this as a call to “disband the party.” I prefer the former formulation. In boxing, when your fighter is getting beaten so badly that you’re worried he might sustain serious and irreversible damage, you can signal to the referee that you want him to stop the fight by throwing a towel into the ring.
So, my question is this: in this analogy, who is the referee?
Who is supposed to stop the beating?
And how are they supposed to stop it?
And, really, the Republican Party has too many legal and institutional advantages to be disbanded or supplanted, so maybe what Klein really means is that the Conservative Movement should get out of the ring and let some other fighter vie for the prize?
I’d be very interested in this solution. I’d very much like to believe that we could beat the conservatives severely enough in the upcoming election that they’d abandon traditional electoral politics and go focus on home schooling their children on human civilization during the time of the dinosaurs.
So, Philip, do I have this about right? If you lose this next election, you’ll conclude that you will never win and go buy a shack in the woods and focus on salmon fishing?
Big deal. The GOP holds the House, and takes back the Senate, in 2018.
The White House is lagniappe, if all you want to do is not-govern.
From my deep red vantage point and a lifetime of observing, I’m afraid you may be right. At least you concede that Dems could get the Senate back next year.
I think they’ll pick up 8 seats.
Hillary will have coat-tails.
Disband please.
The most patriotic action the members of the GOP could do is ALL resign from any political office held and leave the country. Try their destructive policies somewhere else say the MOON.
I think you’ve invested a little too much thought into Klein’s “writing.” Probably more than Klein spent. My take is he used a tough-guy boxing metaphor, without getting too far into the implications and conclusions of that metaphor.
The GOP will endure because it must endure, because of those legal and institutional advantages it enjoys. Perhaps Klein is advocating for a shift in platform, but just doesn’t quite have the vocabulary to express that?
The WH-executive branch is only 1/3rd of the federal government. With Congress and SCOTUS in GOP hands, they control at least 40% (and perhaps a bit more by refusing to act on Obama’s judicial appointments). Add in the lobbying revolving door and corporate regulatory capture, and seems to me that the Oligarch party is firmly in the driver’s seat.
They’ll just have to refresh and update their their propaganda for the masses once the hot button issues of creationism/abortion/etc become cold.
The Republican Party does not know how to process losing (any more than it knows how to process winning).
This is because it has been lying about its situation within the polity for so long that not only has the ability to understand the truth been lost, but the rationale for understanding the truth has also been lost.
So, does the Republican Party:
Which is it? Well, let’s ask ’em. Take what time you need, we’ll wait.
…the envelope, please? And the answer is: {drumroll}
YES.
The practical result is that not only can they not deduce a rational course of action from defeat (or victory), they cannot even deduce a tactical course of action. All they can do is double down on strategy; which they did in 2006, and 2008, and 2010, and 2012, and 2014 — quick, what’s the next number in that sequence?
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33137582
Quote: “We don’t need a glorified tourist to go to Havana in support of a failed Cuba. We need an American president to go to Havana in solidarity with a free Cuban people, and I’m ready to be that president.”
He’s going to invade the Bay of Pigs? Really? That’s his foreign policy? Overthrow Castro? W is the smart brother!
Slim pickings on differentiating a Bush FP from Obama’s. For now, Cuba is it.
If/when a nuke agreement with Iran is completed, Jeb! and the others (including Clinton) will have something larger and fresher to pounce on.
Got a visual of Slim Pickens riding the bomb down in “Doctor Strangelove”.
The link wasn’t working. Here it is:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/if-republicans-cant-beat-hillary-they-should-disband-the-party/art
icle/2566207
The guy is a total hack, his piece is a compilation of one-sided jabs, and yet he has a point. The Republicans explained away the losses to Obama as something unique. If Hillary wins, they’ll have to confront the reality that they can no longer win national elections running the way they’ve been running (with hair on fire to pander in all ways to scared old white people).
That said, the bulk of the article is cow manure. Case in point:
“Republicans have a lot of easy ways to contrast themselves from Clinton by offering a bold policy agenda. One that creates a healthcare system that offers more choice and puts consumers first, alleviates the burden of payroll taxes on the middle class, simplifies the tax code to spur economic growth, attacks the unholy alliance between big government and big business, and reforms entitlements to put the nation on a sustainable financial footing so that younger generations won’t be burdened with debt.”
The jokers on their side of the aisle can’t even agree on a plan, no matter how filled with smoke and mirrors. One that does all that’s set forth above might look like a Medicare buy-in or public option.
1. “One that creates a healthcare system that offers more choice and puts consumers first,”
Translation – eliminates insurance regulations entirely.
2. “alleviates the burden of payroll taxes on the middle class,”
Translation – Eliminates SS & Medicare
3. “simplifies the tax code to spur economic growth,”
Translation – Eliminates middle class deductions and flattens the brackets, further reducing taxes on the 1%
4. “attacks the unholy alliance between big government and big business,”
Translation – We learned a new buzzword from Bernie, so let’s pretend we don’t want crony capitalism
5. ” and reforms entitlements to put the nation on a sustainable financial footing so that younger generations won’t be burdened with debt.””
Translation – We’ll cut the existing SS recipients out too along with those lazy civil servants. See point 2.
The sad part is except for intensity that is Obama’s and HRC’s agenda also. Watch for Summers and Rubin to come back.
Okay, now tell me that I have to vote for her because she’s not quite so bad.
What is Joe Stiglitz doing advising Hillary then? Is that just window-dressing to shut us progressives up?
Same thing Stiglitz did in 2008 when he “advised” Obama.
You were expecting maybe Robert Pollin?
You’d perhaps prefer to have the Koch brothers approving supreme court selections. Or maybe you’d like them to push through the Ryan budget. This election is really important. All presidential elections will remain really important until we begin seeing Republicans like Lincoln Chafee again. Once that happens, you can complain about Hillary.
You clearly don’t understand conservatives – last time that happened was 1860…
This time, let them go. Sorry, Oscar, I’ll help you relocate to Illinois. Colder than Louisville, but a warmup is inevitable. Right now we have buckets and buckets of unwanted rain that California desperately needs.
Their opening move was shelling Fort Sumter and then they moved on Washington DC. They were in it to win it, that the realities of demography and comparative industrial production always made that a fantasy didn’t make all the resultant death and destruction go away.
The South may have ultimately rationalized their defeat by calling it the War of Northern Aggression but in the end the Battle of Gettysburg was fought in Pennsylvania and not say Mississippi.
It is not like they said “Leave us alone”
yes
Disband? Much too early to thing about what the GOP will do come 11/16 when they loose. Did ya see the Donald is going to take control of the clown car….Toot Toot. The possibility of the Donald spending some of his money to take a chain saw to the Bush will be center ring entertainment.