Republican Rot

7 Comments

1. 

   idredit on July 11, 2008 at 9:58 pm

   via Huffpost – Top GOPer: even in Kansas, No safe senate seat this year and some incumbents will not run with an R behind their name.

   Thanks to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and pals.

2. 

   boran2 on July 11, 2008 at 11:43 pm

   Where both conservatism and Republicans went wrong: Extremists now dictate the lockstep marching orders for the party.  True conservatism is dead, as dead as the Rockefeller Republicans that represented a more moderate and responsible segment of the party.  After years of extremism that is at odds with much of the population, it is likely that many voters are ready to move on.    

3. 

   eagleye on July 12, 2008 at 12:33 am

   I’m on board with Boran2’s comment.  The media, the Democrats, and way too many progressives have long been making the mistake of referring to right wing maniacs as “conservatives.”  It’s a semantics thing, I realize– but it has huge consequences, because the term ‘conservative’ confers a mainstream respectability to a political viewpoint that has no place in a decent society.

   Real conservatives went the way of the snail darter and the spotted owl– there aren’t very many of them left anymore, and they don’t have an effective voice.

4. 

   fullerg on July 12, 2008 at 1:09 am

   Unfortunately , with the Democrats seemingly dedicated to suckling at the “double E corporate tit”  – the political rebirth could result in political orphans in a couple of years .  

   I think the American public’s patience with more of the same will be short indeed .    

   The Congressional Democrats failure to stem the “economic succubus”  of free trade and their  vote for telecom immunity smacks sufficiently of GOP Lite to suggest : that with some moderate retooling – the GOP will be dinning on Democratic carcass again in a an election cycle or two .

5. 

   liberaljournal on July 12, 2008 at 1:27 am

   I agree there are deep problems with the Republicans. It could last for a while. But, there’s a panacea for all their ills: a big, fiery terrorist attack.

   You’ll see the following on the bottom of the screen on all the networks: “Is this a political game changer?” “How can the Democrats win if they’re weak on national security?” “The GOP is Back!”

   The fear will get the media going, the media will get the donations going, and the money and the media and the fear will tap into that scared little American’s head, and the GOP will assume the position it was in circa 2002.

6. 

   YY on July 12, 2008 at 4:28 am

   I sort of half listened to the podcast and was struck by how these two reasonable sounding conservatives were still stuck in worship of Goldwater and Reagan.  If the height of the so called conservative ideals are embodied in these two historic relics of no substance, as a political idea it is better that conservatism dies a painful and permanent death.  The real problem is that this political philosophy which consists of nothing but justification of greed, exploitation of the weak and worship of bombast will not die but keep coming back in uglier zombie manifestations.  

7. 

   Knut Wicksell on July 12, 2008 at 11:32 am

   I’m not convinced that the Republicans, which represent the moneyed interest that runs the United States, are going to be long in the wilderness.  I would like to believe it, but they have so conditioned the American public to the belief that ‘government is the problem’, and have such good ad men and so much money behind them, that they can come back strong in 2012 on the strength of the cyncism they foster among the electorate.

   I’m not at all confident that anything short of military and economic collapse, both of which are now possible, will change the basic layout of American politids.