Any party that welcomes the John Birch Society to its conventions and gatherings is not a party that I can ever vote for. The strategy of the Republicans to limit voting rights is another reason.
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Just mailed off my check to the Paul LePage reelection committee.
Assuming the majority of us do not agree with the TP on many issues, why do GOP politicians publicly repeat TP ideology without any kind of blowback?
From McCain to Boehner to McConnell and all the rest of the âestablishmentâ GOP, we hear the same political and ideological rhetoric that an intelligent 14-year-old wouldnât accept.
Why are GOP leadership so secure in public acceptance of their antics that they can threaten to sue the President, for activities that his predecessor practiced with impunity?
Why does the public at large appear not to react to Issaâs never-ending âinvestigationsâ?
Why arenât they shamed by any of this?
I have never endorsed violence of any kind,and I never will. But if the senile half wits in the Grumpy Old Party want to tear each other to little bits with words, and do it in public too, then all I can add is that Iâm also a passionate believer in freedom of speech 
Iâm also a believer in the old political adage that says when your enemy is hurting themselves, keep quiet and watch the fun. (And maybe sell a little popcorn on the side.)
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If and when the TP(GOP) finally is politically exorcised, we can pray for an alternative further where the progressive left might actually once again get a hearing?
Something to hope for while avoiding the 2nd Amendment wackos at the restaurant.
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I sense itâs a deeper than demographics, although the reach to the bottom is implied by the appeal to southern strategy, a deliberately race-based reaction to civil rights.
But now it seems the bottom of the barrel holds all kinds of crazy, almost without any kind of limitation, and itâs been getting a hearing everywhere, from Congress to the Supreme Court, from every media venue and every politician that refuses to repudiate Limbaugh and Faux, from Maine to the North Carolina legislature, to the armed militias defending deadbeat ranchers on public lands.
When GOP leaders of the House and Senate daily assert their intent to thwart governance solely on ideological grounds, and use teahatter rhetoric to defend their actions, Iâm not sure campaign donations will reverse the slide to crazy, since those donations are often made to ensure very little occurs that doesnât benefit large donors.
I fear the future if the electorate doesnât decide - definitively decide - despite the power of political advertising - that right wing crazy is unacceptable.
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We take the House back in 2016. We pick up seats this year, but not quite enough. In 2016, it flips.
Which will be 3 elections since their big gerrymandering with all resulting in loss of seats in the House for them.
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Legislatively, we are pretty much already a one Party system. The obstruction side of our politics doesnât really take a named or organized Party, just a radically against everything group of mean spirited, shameless, committed representatives of the supposedly disenfranchised.
It is proven fact that unabashed whining is a fruitful endeavor even if it makes no sense and damages the whiner.
First, the GOP doesnât know the meaning of the word âshame.â
Second, after the last election, they said they were going to do reflection on what went wrong. What was the result? They took their policies even more out of the mainstream.
As I pointed out, Cantorâs loss talked them out of immigration reform (even tho the majority of Virginians and the majority of people in Cantorâs district favor it). But the Beltway Media repeated the false meme that Cantor lost because of immigration reform. And now, today, Boehner kills any chance of IR because he wants to hold on to his speakership.
I say let them sue the President; let them shut down the government; let them move even more extremely to the right (all in a bid for power â not governance). It will bite them in the arse come election time. That kind of extremism may win the odd election in a gerrymandered district. But it wonât win in a more widespread election.
You see, itâs not about governing. The GOP has given up on that and has moved solely to gimmicks and political theatre in order to keep their base happy. Ask yourself, if your base was that solid, would they need so much reassurance? In all honesty, I think the establishment GOP is freaking out.
I have been saying that, given what Iâve seen the GOP doing, I think the Dems will retain control of the Senate (and maybe even pick up a couple seats as well as win control of the House. (Some of these in surprising races in red states.) On top of that, I think youâre going to see the GOP lose governorships and state legislative races.
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We are witnessing a modern-day version of the Easter Islandersâ disappearance. They kept sacrificing the islandâs trees to their imaginary gods until there was no longer any wood for canoes to leave the island.
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I donât agree that Harry Reid would have lost, no matter what the early polling showed. Heâs a Nevada fixture and tough as hell to beat, at least in Nevada. I also donât think McCaskill would have lost. Maybe Coons but probably not, given he thumped Oâdonnell by 17 points. Indiana, Iâll give you. Colorado, no way. Thatâs the first state to legalize pot. Bennett was not going to lose to anyone, especially not a lightweight like Gale Norton.
I donât thik itâs so much that the base is not solid, but that itâs been whipped into a frenzy of irrational fear and loathing.
The political work of the GOP has for a long time been concerned with nothing but gaining power and thwarting it when it fails.
What really worries me is a society that would allow the lowest possible denominators to steer the rudder. Seems to me it signals a deeply disturbed culture, full of unacknowledge fear.
It may be the time of homo sapâs period is coming to an end, and we know it.
It is true that the GOP needs to build a new constituency. However, the biggest failure, and the largest roadblock to doing remains the absence of any concrete proposals to address the basic problems of society. Even if I were a âconservative voterâ how can I be expected to support candidates and a party that refuses to present a cogent, cohesive program of what they would do, or attempt to do, if elected.
Itâs fine to be against something, but if that âsomethingâ deals with an obvious problem, youâd better have your own solution to the problem spelled out. Repealing the ACA only makes the mess worse, yet the GOP wants to do away with it. âSecuring the borderââŚwhatever that means, is pointless if youâre not going to explain what to do with those already here, who have jobs that support the economy and pay taxes (often without filing returns because that would call attention to their status).
In short, the GOP is, as we all know, the party of No, and that only leads the voters to say No! also. I canât begin to evaluate and possibly support your candidates when their positions are all defined by âIâm againstâŚâ
Prof. Parker, I very much appreciate your comparison to Goldwater-era frictions in the Republican Party, so rare in the amnesia-afflicted Tea Party discussions. But while I agree with you that the moderates fended off the insurgency in the 1960s, subsequent Republican conflicts argue against your thesis. The New Right in the late 1970s and Gingrichâs Republican Revolution in the 1990s were more successful conservative revolts. In those eras, many predicted that âsuicidalâ purges of moderate Republicans would alienate American voters, yet the GOP emerged far more popular and powerful than it was in the 1960s. Perhaps the demographic shifts will finally doom the party this time, but a long line of failed predictions (most recently in 2010 when James Carville rejoiced at the Tea Partyâs emergence), warn against underestimating the right wingâs ability to win elections.
ââŚneither [Dole] nor the late President Ronald Reagan would be able to make it in todayâs partyâŚâ
Meaning they disagree with the conservative movement, as do most people.
Let 'em go down. Thereâs nothing left in the repube party worth saving.