The Death Spiral
Time magazine, which is generally considered the more conservative of the pair of weekly news magazines, hits the nail on the head in next week’s cover story:
“As the party has shrunk to its base, it has catered even more to its base’s biases, insisting that the New Deal made the Depression worse, carbon emissions are fine for the environment and tax cuts actually boost revenues — even though the vast majority of historians, scientists and economists disagree. The RNC is about to vote on a kindergartenish resolution to change the name of its opponent to the Democrat Socialist Party. This plays well with hard-core culture warriors and tea-party activists convinced that a dictator-President is plotting to seize their guns, choose their doctors and put ACORN in charge of the Census, but it ultimately produces even more shrinkage, which gives the base even more influence — and the death spiral continues.”
It is a vicious cycle the Republican Party has placed itself into. And it has already lead to an entire generation of Americans being lost to the party, and now they are going through a purge, led by El Jefe, Rush Limbaugh, that seeks to cast out all remaining moderates that have not already left of their own accord (i.e. what Rush is doing right now to Colin Powell and John McCain (indeed that is strange, since Rush’s main complaint with Powell is that he voted for Obama over McCain, but Rush wants McCain gone too. I guess Rush is just insane)).
Here is more from the same cover story:
So are the Republicans going extinct? And can the death march be stopped? The Washington critiques of the Republican Party as powerless, leaderless and rudderless — the new Donner party — are not very illuminating. Minority parties always look weak and inept in the penalty box. Sure, it can be comical to watch Republican National Committee (RNC) gaffe machine Michael Steele riff on his hip-hop vision for the party or Texas Governor Rick Perry carry on about secession or Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann explain how F.D.R.’s “Hoot-Smalley” Act caused the Depression (the Smoot-Hawley Act, a Republican tariff bill, was enacted before F.D.R.’s presidency), but haplessness does not equal hopelessness. And yes, the Republican brand could benefit from spokesmen less familiar and less reviled than Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich, but the party does have some fresher faces stepping out of the wings.
The Democratic critiques of the GOP — that it’s the Party of No, or No Ideas — are not helpful either. It’s silly to fault an opposition party for opposition; obstructionism helped return Democrats to power. Republicans actually have plenty of ideas.
That’s the problem. The party’s ideas — about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else — are not popular ideas. [DD: and I would add they are failed ideas.] They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base. A hard-right agenda of slashing taxes for the investor class, protecting marriage from gays, blocking universal health insurance and extolling the glories of waterboarding produces terrific ratings for Rush Limbaugh, but it’s not a majority agenda. The party’s new, Hooverish focus on austerity on the brink of another depression does not seem to fit the national mood, and it’s shamelessly hypocritical, given the party’s recent history of massive deficit spending on pork, war and prescription drugs in good times, not to mention its continuing support for deficit-exploding tax cuts in bad times.
The main problem with all of this is that I grew up, politically speaking, during the late Clinton years into the Bush years. During that time no matter how crazy Republicans got, they won elections, so for some reason I still fear them, even in exile. I guess my real worry is that with the media’s need to appear even handed they give the “views” of the Republicans legitimacy when most of them are from the crazy brain of Boss Hog (Limbaugh) himself.
Liberals and progressives can not become complacent. The only party affiliation that is actually growing is non-affiliation, i.e. independents.
As Conservatives leave the hapless republican party, some will be joining the Democratic Party and pulling it to the right. It is critical that liberals and progressives continue to fight for our agenda inside the Democratic Party and outside to gain the support and votes of independents.
What the Republicans lost (besides ideas) is any sense of reasonableness. IMO, they have become a religion, seeking converts and casting people out who don’t agree with them on 100% of the issues.
I have no idea if it’s even possible for them to change direction at this point. Almost all of those who could help save the party have left, and those voices that remain are being drowned out, and, worse, driven out… to the sound of applause.
obstructionism helped return Democrats to power. Republicans actually have plenty of ideas.
What? Democrats obstructed what, exactly? The memories I have are railing at the Dems to actually do some obstructing.
And if there are ideas, they are the same ideas that got us into this mess in the first place.
More of the usual reach for some “balance” that basically ignores a huge hunk of really recent political history.
Good catch Cassandra.
The Democrats suffered when the base had too little power and the core beliefs were exchanged for corporate largess. When the Dems were down and out the base said, “We need to get to work.”
The Republican’s said, “We need to get even crazier.”
I just finished reading the whole thing. This is a media-meta comment, but it struck me as I was reading this article, that all of this territory has been covered by TPM, Politico, 538, dKos, FDL, Matt Yglesias over the past couple of months. In other words, there was little here that is especially new to someone who is reading top tier blogs and news outlets. Time did have to get their Dems are just as bad too business in there, but I guess it is just too tough to let go certain types of fakery.
I’ll add to Jason’s “We need to get to work” observation is that those who rolled up their sleeves and found each other in order to get to work already knew that compromises and even some really tough ones were always on deck because you can’t be a Big Tent without figuring out how to live with a bunch of views. The biggest difference between the Dems out of power and the repubs out of power, is that the repubs are busily remaking themselves into a 3rd Party — they have lots of principles, litmus tests, and an inflated sense of where they fit in the political spectrum. The test of any successful political party (in or out of power really) is if you can articulate a governing philosophy that is politically viable.
A1 is right that it’s not time to get complacent. Now is the time to work harder than ever, to try to consolidate power and increase our influence.
This is hysterical from the same article:
“Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, tells TIME he’s so outraged by GOP overspending, he’s quitting the party — and he’s the bull’s-eye of its target audience. But he also said he wouldn’t support any cuts in defense, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid — which, along with debt payments, would put more than two-thirds of the budget off limits.”
LOL! Just can’t make this idiocy up.
I see three potentialyl serious problems for the Dems:
1. With power usually comes complacency and corruption.
2. Obama’s Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan, two unwinnable wars.
3. Wall Street power obstructs the Obama economic recovery efforts.
The Repubs are gambling on failure, therefore play the “No” game so they won’t be held accountable, thinking that therefore they don’t need to change to regain power. People have short memories, especially when they get desperate.
The worst case scenario: If this strategy buys these Repubs back into power, we won’t survive with American core principles in place, and will probably become a military dictatorship, a Sparta.
What a terrible thought as the sun comes out again this afternoon as we speak.
I trust that Obama is a strong and principled enough leader that it is unlikely for his scenario to materialize; nevertheless we, as individuals, must be vigilant and active!