Ron Brownstein has some interesting statistics that bear on what is happening to the Republican Party. The emphasis is mine.
In the Senate, for instance, Democrats hold 22 of the 58 seats representing the 29 states that twice voted for George W. Bush. And just 40 percent of self-identified Democrats consider themselves liberals, according to Gallup polling; the rest identify as moderate or conservative.
By contrast, the GOP is becoming an increasingly monochromatic party, dominated by the most conservative voters and regions. This process enormously accelerated under Bush and Karl Rove, who built their governing strategy on energizing the Republican base rather than on expanding it by courting swing voters. Today, Democrats hold their largest advantage in party identification over Republicans since President Reagan’s first term, and 70 percent of the shrunken GOP core identifies as conservative. After Specter’s leap, Republicans hold just two of the 36 Senate seats in the 18 mostly affluent and secular “blue-wall” states that twice voted against Bush — and that have now voted Democratic in each of the past five presidential elections.
It’s not really possible to know quite what people mean by the term ‘conservative’. What’s problematic is that the term evolves over time. In the broadest possible sense, conservatives are interested in preserving (or in some cases, restoring) traditional elements of American society. That could mean retaining or strengthening a belief in Christianity and God. It could mean maintaining America’s preeminent role as a superpower. It could mean restoring cultural attitudes about human sexuality, reproduction, and marriage. It could mean going back to a time when the federal government had less power relative to the states. It could mean maintaining the basic racial makeup of the country. It could mean maintaining a private/business-provided health care system.
We’ve recently seen Republicans emphasize a strong national defense, limited government (low taxes), and personal liberty as the three core issues that both conservatives and moderates can rally around. Here’s how Olympia Snowe put it:
It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”
Unfortunately, the Republican Party is now dominated by people who are uncompromising on other issues. They want to keep the country white and Christian-dominated and they want to roll-back sexual and reproductive ethics and mores to where they were prior to the 1960’s. That’s bad enough, but even within Snowe and Reagan’s confines, they are so rigid that they oppose any expansion of government spending even in the midst of deep recession.
So, you have two problems. The first is that the GOP is no longer representing the economic conservative. The second is that even the message of economic conservatives is being applied too dogmatically. Taken in combination, you have a party in deep disarray that cannot be taken seriously by anyone with a shred of decency or an iota of responsibility for setting government policy.
Just going back to Reagan’s Big Tent isn’t enough because his ideas have been so discredited. But the GOP is incapable of going back even that far. The country has simply moved on and left them behind. It would be simpler and more pragmatic for moderates to form a new party in most of the country than to try to come back using the GOP’s increasingly toxic brand. For the foreseeable future, the GOP is only going to get more White, more Christian, more anti-immigrant, more anti-gay, and more economically doctrinaire. We need an opposition party, but the country cannot afford for it to be the Republican Party.
how is it posible to have a “Big Tent” philosophy if you have a series of rigid requirements in order to enter the “Big Tent”?
The gop is faced with the dilema of either constructing a “Big Lie” philosophy or biginning the arduous task of forming a new party. The electorate has gotten too smart to believe for one second that the rigid pro-life position, coupled with the blind tax cut position and the small government position offer a realistic choice for success in national elections.
So, either they have to form a new party or they must accept the idea that or them to remain in the Gop means that they are willing to resign themselves to becoming a regional party for the forseeable future.
And, given the fact that the gops most prominent voices are the likes of limbough, hannity, gingrich, levin, boorst beck and the rest of the rabble rousers, it might be just possible for the progressive forces in this country to produce dramatic shifts in the direction this country takes.
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I am hoping that someday Republicans will qualify for the Endangered Species list.
Today at The Agonist, Numerian wrote a really long but well-put essay The Slow, Agonizing Death of the Republican Party.
Highly recommended.
As I’ve said, the GOP thinks it can be the party of 2010 by pretending to be the party of 1980, when it’s really the party of 1950 socially and 1920 economically.
I really don’t care about the GOP. The more interesting question is, what happens with the Democratic Party when the only conservative opposition is nuts and all the “moderates” (ie, dead skunks in the middle of the road) are Dems? Yeah, we do need a conservative opposition, but we need a leftist one even more, and the Dems will become increasingly incapable of meeting that need. The GOP is dying because it’s stuck on the right fringe and the Dems risk decline because they’re stuck in BroderLandt. I think it’s time to start thinking about the future of a left opposition (which Obama at the moment desperately needs and is not getting).
Yeah. I’m looking for an opposition party that strongly backs issues for labor and the working class. A party that goes for things like universal healthcare and a more stridently green approach to governance. A party that will break up the military-industrial complex.
The Republican Party isn’t going to go away because the state and local institutional infrastructure is too big. What will happen is that the people who bankroll the party will decide they want some return on their investment, and they will install a new set of leaders that can win. But it will take at least one more electoral drubbing before this happens.
Until then the Blue Dogs and Lieberdems are functional the opposition party. Unfortunately, they are going to fulfill that role all too well.
Blue Dogs and Lieberdems are the Party. We are the opposition.
I don’t put too much stock in self-identification questions because the responses differ from polling on specific issues. And in this case it was a question posed to voters (I believe – the sentence references Gallup), not federal elected officials.
Also, the House Progressive Caucus is the largest and holds 11 of the 20 standing committee chairs. So at least in that chamber “we” progressives have the ability to set the agenda to some degree. The Senate is an entirely different matter.
Why?
The separation of governmental powers are quite clearly stated under the U.S. Constitution.
From where things stand today, I agree. A year ago, I wondered whether the more moderate Republicans would try and retake the GOP, but I don’t know whether that is really possible now.
But the “moderate conservatives” haven’t yet begun to organize a new party yet.
Good analysis, but it couldn’t happen to a better group of folks.
Put a shorter way: the GOP catered so strongly to Dixiecrats that now that’s all they are. Their spiritual ancestor isn’t Reagan, it’s Strom Thurmond.
Jessie Helms would be a better comparison – Strom simply represented his constituents, but he eventually came around to a more correct view of things. Helms was pure Dixie to the day he died.