You can find hundreds of explanations for why the Republicans lost the most recent elections. I think the simplest explanation is that the conservative movement has developed an ideology that is basically hostile to the idea that the federal government should do anything. And that is tough for a candidate for federal office. Another contributing factor is lack of sincerity. If you take an issue like public education, this becomes pretty obvious. I can run for federal office saying that the federal government should have a smaller role in setting education policy. In essence, I am passing the buck. I am saying that you should go ask your state senate or state assembly candidate what they think about your local schools. That might fly with a concerned parent if the local Republican candidates have a robust plan for improving the schools. The problem is that the local candidates don’t have any answers.
The GOP sends a message that they are for more local control but they don’t really mean it. They are opposed to public education regardless of what level of government is making the decisions.
The result is that they have no solutions. They run for office but they have nothing to say about what they would do if they win. You can argue that voters prefer Democrats because they want free stuff, but what they really want is someone who will take some action to improve things. The GOP is no longer is willing to even pretend they want to use the government (on any level) to solve problems.
I think that is why they lost and it is also why they will continue to lose.
Why would you hire someone for a job that they think can’t be done, or isn’t worth doing?
They are for more private control and always have been. That message didn’t originate with the Tea Party. In their true unspoken view, the government only exists to assist and maintain the existing private control over the economy and society, i.e. corporations and the rich. Therefore the only legitimate government functions are the police and military and the occasional financial bailout financed by taxing the peasants. Libertarians, modern Libertarians, that is, drink their own Kool-Aid and propose privatizing even those minimal functions.
Is not part of the reason they want more local control of education the fact that they can then enforce the teaching of creationism, school prayer, and getting rid of liberal teachers – at least in GOP controlled areas?
Perhaps. What they really want is to break the teachers’ unions and to put education in the hand of private, for-profit companies.
Look, you have put this about as well and succinctly as it can be put. The monstrous “conservative” movement has nothing to offer ordinary people or the nation as a whole.
The problem is our Heroic Dems simply refuse to tell this story, let alone tell it 24/7 for years on end.
They can’t even explain the opponents who want to destroy them. Feeble. Political malpractice. What can one say?
And you can run for state office saying that the state should have a smaller role in setting education policy; it is a local matter.
And you can run for county commissions on a platform of lower property taxes, implicitly promising to starve the schools.
And you can run for school board saying that the public school system is broken and needs to return to neighborhood schools and be supportive of parents who are home schooling.
All down the line, the logic is that the government should do nothing and households (families) should do everything.
that’s why I’ve long thought the “fear of rightwingnuttery” would be determinative, and BHO’s reelection almost a foregone conclusion since he was elected the first time, absent any scandals or moderation on their part.
The latter was always unlikely imo, because they are not gonna give up on their privatization, etc, schemes, because of who owns them and pulls their strings, and their endless quest to seek vindication and validation for their failures of the past. Turning their back on their “trickle down” etc, schemes means acknowledging they’ve been wrong, which jeapordizes their strength as a political force, given the effect such would have on their well programmed minions, who would no doubt lose a significant part of their self-identity and world view, and over many issues, risk finding themselves floating in the Sea of Shame.
As I’ve long seen and argued it, only the brutal realities global warming and the socialistic solutions it is gonna impose on the entire world, can be the “proverbial wall” they crash into, burning their current “conservatism” up. I also think that the health care, jobs, etc problem, in conjunction with the rising demographic tsunami/problem that finally arrived, will soften them up before the crash.