For John, BLUF: Republicans becoming the incredible shrinking party, or so they say. Nothing to see here; just move along.
Over at The New Yorker, Commentator Steve Coll goes after the Tea Parties, again. The EMail version of The New Yorker teases this with "The Crackpots Boil Over". Somewhere in the article Mr Coll writes:
The Tea Party’s anti-intellectualism reflects a longer, deeper decline in the Republican Party’s ability to tolerate a diversity of ideas and public-policy strategies, and to adapt to American multiculturalism.Ouch! That really hurts. On the other hand, I did try to counter this with a blog post back on 17 October.
In summary, this is another article saying the Republican Party is through. Sort of like Kad Barma's views. If the GOP is to go away, then it reflects the changes in the electorate and a new party will rise up to take its place. What will not happen is the Democratic Party dominating American Politics for the next 50 years. Heck, even back in the 1930s and 40s the Democrats couldn't hold Congress for twenty years.
Here is the penultimate paragraph:
As recently as 2007, when the Bush Administration almost passed a similar bill, it still seemed possible that a modernizing Republican Party might build a formidable political coalition of Latinos, evangelicals, disaffected Catholic Democrats, high-tech entrepreneurs, libertarians, social and educational reformers, and eclectic independents. Instead, as Geoffrey Kabaservice puts it in his history of the Republican decline, “Rule and Ruin,” movement conservatives have “succeeded in silencing, co-opting, repelling, or expelling nearly every competing strain of Republicanism from the party.” Political purges have no logical end point; each newly drawn inner circle of orthodoxy leaves a former respected acolyte suddenly on the outside. That a Tea Party-influenced purification drive now threatens such a loyal opportunist and boardroom favorite as Mitch McConnell seems a marker of the times.Remember me likening these so called Tea Party Republicans to the Bolsheviks in October of 1917. If that analogy holds true, now we have the terror. All real revolutions have a terror phase.
So what is a boy to do?
By the way, the article states the Republicans got nothing for their efforts. I am not sure that is quite true. The Sequestration is still there.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Yes, I am taking liberties here. In the previous post I suggested that they wished to sweep aside the Democrats. They failed. Now they are dealing with the clutter of "soft" Republicans. The real question is, if the Republicans become more like the Democrats, why would anyone vote for them? The Democrats already have the Democrats, and an invincible ignorance of any alternatives. Republicans who abhor the Democrats aren't likely to vote Democrat light. What is a City Committee Chairman to do?
7 comments:
HA!!! the fallacy of the whole dialogue is summed up by the quote contained, "The Tea Party’s anti-intellectualism reflects a longer, deeper decline in the Republican Party’s ability to tolerate a diversity of ideas and public-policy strategies, and to adapt to American multiculturalism." In other words, what the author is saying is that anti-intellectualism is synonymous with being anti-Democrat. The entire purpose for a political party to exist is to cleave to a set of enduring principles....NOT a diversity of ideas. BTW..."diversity" has become such a tiresome cliche.
As for "multiculturalism" I posit that it is the death of a nation and a society. Multiculturalism speaks to the disintegration of a culture (in this case....the American culture...which seemed just fine for over 2 1/2 centuries) and replacing it with what by definition is a NON culture..but rather...a gaggle of all sorts of cultures not connected by anything. Maybe it's time for "real" Americans (the ones born with the golden spoon hanging from their mouths) to inquire of "naturalized" Americans what it means to become part of the "American culture." Americans are so fat, dumb, and lazy that they don't appreciate what they have....and it is nearly gone.
Mathematicians and Priests.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2013/10/28/the-gop-civil-war-mathematicians-vs-priests
"The battle in the Democratic party at the time was quite similar to the battle going on within the Republican party today. The strategists in the party knew that America was changing and that the party could either change with the times or be left behind; the priests demanded purity, arguing that the party would destroy itself if it did not stand up for segregation. We all know what happened. The party chose to support civil rights and the Dixiecrats, the conservative Southern Democrats who demanded adherence to the tradition of segregation, left and joined the Republican party en masse.
The Republican party now faces a similar problem today. Do they continue to appeal to their shrinking conservative base in the face of massive demographic shifts that make the electoral math more and more difficult? Or do they adapt to a rapidly changing society? Only time will tell."
Fine comments, but did you guys VOTE in the Poll?
Regards — Cliff
Greg Page has your answer.
I voted in the poll.
Ok, ok.
I voted "other". My real answer is I don't know. "What's a boy to do?" That depends on who the boy is and what the desired outcome is. What's obvious is that these questions are important because, as you pointed out and my link supports, there is differing opinion out there. If the boy is you then I really don't know. I think you'd have to declare your desired outcome (without dodging on issues like ideological purity) before anyone can answer. If I'm the boy, then my desired outcome is a reasonable and loyal opposition. I still don't know how to get there but I suspect whatever it is there is more hurt in store for the GOP before there is relief (if it's still the GOP or some other new party paradigm that emerges). I just hope that this serves as a lesson to anyone that would fan the flames of the Birtchers again for short political gain (or any other group of activist dogmatists insistent on ideological or tribal purity). So that's if I'm the boy, but I'd point out that as a non-Republican, most of those choices don't apply to me or aren't things I could enact. Moreover, the current ideology of the GOP (even the milder form) doesn't match with my actual ideals or goals enough for me to join in good conscience in order to enact such change.
Reagan had the right idea about big tents, but the current GOP misremembers him so badly they I don't think they can adequately listen to him anymore.
Personally, I sort of detest some self appointed intellectual labeling my beliefs according to some political party guideline. I am not certain that there are many instances of PURE Democrats.....and certainly no longer PURE Republicans. America IS at a crossroads...and perhaps that is at least on some subliminal level....the reason for such political unrest. At the moment, most Americans are adhering to Yogi Berra's advice regarding coming to a Y in the road.
Frankly.....and here's the problem......the purists preaching from their precious party programs have SOME good points. I am not a Democrat....but I like SOME of the ideas that they float. Similarly, I am not a Republican, but I like some of their ideas too.....like....running the country with a REAL budget. And, I resent the label Tea Party. I venture that most of the folks who bear that designation are simply folks dissatisfied with the status quo of either party.
BOTH the parties of record have become "the party of NO." And I can think of few...if any....members of Congress who shouldn't be tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail. But then.....WE THE PEOPLE are the idiots who elected the idiots....
We can change the "politics" by changing the politicians....but we can't overcome the stupidity and self absorption of the folks who do the electing.
Thus, it isn't the GOP in Big Trouble.....it is the whole of society.....the folks the politicians pander to.
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