Discussion for article #224452
In short, if the Tea Party really retains its leverage – if it truly
wins the party’s heart and soul for keeps – then the Republican Party will ultimately lose, big time.
I swear, it makes me want to donate to some Tea Party candidates. Might be a worthy investment for the future.
11 Likes
“Tea Party supporters are pushing back by opposing and blocking legislative efforts favored by Democrats.” I think that statement is a little tame. The TP isn’t pushing back against proposals that are “favored by Democrats” but also favored by the majority of the American public – even most Republicans.
Cantor’s loss was supposedly because his opponent tapped into anger about immigration reform. Except that an overwhelming majority of GOPrs in Virginia are actually in FAVOR or immigration reform.
The litany of issues where the TP is out of step with the majority of Americans is quite long. It’s not about them pushing back against the Dems but pushing back against any and all change – which they perceive as a threat to their way of life. As such, it leads them into the pretzel of political hypocrisy time and time again. They hate the government but see no problem with the government telling a woman what she can do with her body; they hate government spending but gladly stick their handout for government largess (farm subsidies for wealthy farmers and corporations = good; food stamps = bad); government healthcare (i.e., Obamacare) = bad while Medicare = good.
Despite their claims of being “real Americans,” they want to do away with any number of the amendments to the Constitution (and, in fact, want to rewrite the Constitution in its entirety), dissolve the federal government (and his the union) altogether
To me, this goes back further than Eishenhower, Goldwater and Nixon. I believe the comparison goes all the way back to the Whigs who drove themselves out of existence due to their fealty to an ideological purity which was unable to govern or adapt.
18 Likes
“A Suicidal Republican Civil War”
Perchance to dream…
14 Likes
I sort of have to wonder whether McCain even remembers who his running mate was. He should really be the last man to call anyone wacko bird.
13 Likes
I imagine Cantor’s arrogance had something to do with his loss. I’m glad he’s gone, and I believe the Tea Party will eventually fail, as will all extreme conservatives. This is not a conservative nation, especially among the young, who are our future. And never rule out electoral fraud.
Until our elections mandate paper ballots, hand-counted at each precinct on election night, videoed with a live link to the internet, there are no guarantees that the votes have been counted with integrity. No one talks about exit poles anywhere, and they are always fairly accurate, and always have been.
4 Likes
Professor Parker is simply restating what has been obvious to those who have paid attention for the last 2 election cycles. Republicans might win 2014 (though 2014 is not as sure a Republican bet as a lot of beltway types think), but come 2016 and after the demographic tide runs strongly against the Tea Party. If the Tea Party continues to dominate the Republican party we run the risk of becoming a one party system like Mexico was for a couple of generations. That never works out well.
6 Likes
The Tea Party is what happens when your strategy to win elections requires digging to the very bottom of the barrell, and then giving a very loud voice to what you find down there. The Tea party is the Republican Party. It’s the base that’s alway been there, at least since the Southern Strategy. It’s the a.m. radio crowd and that crazy uncle of yours that fills your inbox full of racist email forwards like it’s an acceptable thing to do. The GOP gave it a voice, and now really needs to put these nuts back into the closet and grow a brain again, or a whole lot more damage is going to follow if Tea Party idiots continue to win important elections.
10 Likes
Seen on Facebook:
Grow Your Own Dope!
Plant a Tea Partier.
12 Likes
Claire McCaskill went after Akin in her ads by promoting his tea party bonafides, they nominated him, she won. It’s a sound strategy.
4 Likes
Well, apparently McTantrum in MS claims to have found 1500 negroes who done voted for Thad. So, it can certainly happen.
But hey, at least here in MS the GOTPers are keeping it classy:
1 Like
The Republicans won’t cease to exist as a political party, the system has much too much built into it pretty much guaranteeing there there will always be two parties in this country.
Steps have already been taken/are already built in, to ensure that some sort of two party system survives…that is why there is more emphasis being put on rural voters vs. urban voters right now, for instance. Even if the republicans have zero chance of winning the WH, Dems have an equal chance of turning Wyoming blue.
But the interesting thing to consider is, on actual policy issues, there is very little difference between establishment GOPers and TPers. Its more a matter of rhetoric and tactics. The combination of the the rise of the TP angst with Obama cornering them by adopting their own policies on major issues (see healthcare), they have had their policy corner reduced, and thus, its influence on the tug of war between rhetoric - policy. The GOP is dangerously close to being entirely rhetoric with no meaningful policy.
And eventually, campaigns are won with money, and campaign donations follow policy, not rhetoric. Why invest in someone who has no chance of getting anything you want done, actually done?
That’s when the pressure for the Dem party to split; its far more lucrative to all parties involved to actually run competing candidates, so you start having Progressives vs. Blue Dog elections…and eventually those two split.
4 Likes
You are quite correct. The Southern Strategy is an ultimately doomed strategy…its chasing after a declining demographic at its very core.
It was an effective, if unsavory, short term approach, but republicans adopted it as a long term strategy. And now they are reaping what it sowed.
5 Likes
Would imagine that were Barry Goldwater to appear on the scene today , he would be disgusted with what the GOP has become. There is no erasing what he was aligned with in the 50’s and the early 60’s - but did have a moderation of his thinking - and would want no part of today’s Tea Party.
3 Likes
Barry Goldwater saw these rubes coming before he retired and then died, and he had plenty to say about them.
It wasn’t flattering.
The teabag party isn’t at all a new invention, it’s been around for at least 65 years (Birchers), quite possibly longer.
3 Likes
May the Baggernuts and the rest of the GOTP wander in the electoral wilderness for 6 generations. And may they lose their House majority very soon.
3 Likes
Sadly, I think it’s going to be very tough to dislodge them from the House. They’ve got it rigged pretty tight.
We have to win every election that results in state legislators being seated during the post-2020 census Redistricting.
Amen… 2020 is HUGE… redistricting, especially in the South is the key
1 Like
hope they find some good guys with guns…ready aim fire
1 Like
Wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit if the internecine violence in the GOP turned from rhetorical to literal.