What's next for the Republican party?

It’s time for a serious third party because I’m not getting behind either. I still vote in local elections but that’s about it.

This is not unlike 1964 and Goldwater’s sharp swerve to the right. In fact I am surprised he hasn’t been quoted by any of the candidates.

But the Republicans recovered after 1964, and elected Nixon in ‘68. And maybe if they get trounced a year from now, some of the grownups will take the party back.

Who knows, maybe Pelosi can cobble together a coalition.

I am saving money and grief by canceling the news package and ignore this election. In fact I will cancel everything until the Election is over. I will keep it for the Canadian election on the 19th of October, then poof I’m gone. I will keep one half gig data plan from Rogers until July because I’m trapped in a $80 a month plan til July then by then I should be working. I will keep Fluthering.

@zenvelo Goldwater was a Moderate, arguably even a Socialist, compared to what we have nowadays. We’re not talking about a few people either, but rather nearly the entire party including the voters who support them. (To be fair, I suspect many Conservatives only remain loyal out of fear of being utterly disenfranchised.) That isn’t a “maverick” candidate, that’s a fundamental shift in the party as a whole.

This situation has also been growing for multiple election cycles, starting absolutely no later than 2008 and arguably further back, so it’s not a “flash in the pan” thing or “just a phase” either.

Maybe it is a bit like 1964 in flavor, but not in magnitude.

I think that the GOP is doomed. Why? Not by so much what they think or do, but by the propaganda spread by the liberal media, liberal schools and skilled Democrat leaders (Like Obama). Liberal policies tend over-spend and keep the ever growing population of poor folks dependent in government (and voting Democrat). Also the never ending flow of illegal aliens into the US are all likely to vote Democrat especially when no photo ID is required.

The up coming Presidential election is crucial for the GOP. But even if they win, it just buys them a little more time. The tidal wave of the growing poor and illegal populations as well as the powerful liberal media/schools is just too much.

The U.S.A. on it’s way sliding down a slimy slope into a sinkhole called socialism. At some point the GOP will be totally neutered and irrelevant as the Democrats emerge as the kings of a one party ruled system. When will that be? I hope later than sooner.

@gondwanalon Considering the number of “Old-school Republicans” that have held true to their ideals regardless of where those ideals are considered on the political spectrum who express feelings of disfranchisement, I have to wonder if this all isn’t a schism amongst Conservatives where whichever side loses will call their loss “The death of the GOP and of America!” while the victor will retain the Republican™ copyrights and go on to become credible opposition for Democrats once again due to no longer being distracted by infighting.

And if that’s the case, will the losing side form their own party and break the two-party system or will they simply not have the popular support to survive as an independent political entity capable of winning an election.

It also raises a few questions about how reference points drift. There are some who are so conservative that they would consider you a Liberal, just as there are those that consider Bernie Sanders to be far too conservative.

There seems to have been a major shift by both parties. The Democrats have moved left while the Republicans do have a split between the establishment which has also moved left while the Tea Party and rank and file, have attempted to get back to the will of the people.As the Democrats have moved left they see the Republicans as further and further right but it is mostly a relative position.

The Republicans still hold both houses of congress so premature at best to pronounce their demise. The Democrats are having difficulty even finding a reasonable candidate to field in the upcoming elections. The party of Kennedy or even Bill Clinton is gone and has been replaced by socialists such as Bernie Sanders. The old ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats are gone as well, purged from the ranks of Democrats. We are struggling to regain control of our country and that struggle will define us for years to come. As with any struggle of this magnitude, it’s not easy. Eight years of Democratic rule have left us in financial ruin and an international joke.

I would think it is more likely that a repeat of the ‘68 Democratic convention is likely on the Democrats side than it is on the Republican side. So far the Democrats are counting on Witch Hilary or socialist Bernie to pull them together. Maybe if they get real lucky they might get Crazy Uncle Joe. I would hate to have to put all my marbles in any of their hands.

No I think the Republicans will sort out their issues and do just fine.

We do live in interesting times.

Republican faithful are pulling hard to the right electing No Quarters Tea Party conservatives, trying to drag their political leaders with them while the Democratic voter is looking further left, backing a Democratic Socialist over the chosen candidate of their own political leaders.

Both parties are no longer representative of those they purport to represent.

Eight years of Democratic rule have left us in financial ruin and an international joke.

“We really need to return to the financial heights of 2008 and the prestige we earned from the Iraq war!!”

LOL funny stuff! Thanks!

We earned prestige from the Iraq War? With who? sorry, whom?

@Jaxk ”...while the Tea Party and rank and file, have attempted to get back to the will of the people.”

Given that the combined numbers of Liberals, Moderates and the disenfranchised Republicans exceed 50% of the population, I’d say that “the will of the people” is a lot more opposed or indifferent to the Tea Party than supportive of it. If you were correct then we would either already have a three-party system or have a ton of Republicans defecting, leading to the Democrats holding about 80% control of both houses.

I do find it funny that you feel that the Democrats have moved Left while continuing to refute with 25,000% of your soul and being that there is even the slightest hint of a possibility that maybe Republicans have slid even a Planck’s Length to the right. I mean, I’ve tried for years to just get you to admit that being to the right of center in a nation that itself is a bit to the right of center by global standards puts you somewhere noticeably right of center, so I cannot help but be amused when you speak of it being a matter of perspective and thus relative. Thank you for FINALLY implying that you at least acknowledge the subjective nature of political opinion!

“The old ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats are gone as well, purged from the ranks of Democrats.”

I thought they migrated of their own free will to organizations that were closer aligned to their ideals, often the Tea Party or some minor Libertarian sect. And there is no denying that the old conservatives are being purged from the ranks of the Republicans wholesale.

“I would think it is more likely that a repeat of the ‘68 Democratic convention is likely on the Democrats side than it is on the Republican side.”

The Democratic party has been rather diverse and fractious for a looong time. The nature of the party is rather amorphous or fluid. Just as you cannot cut a rope with a baseball bat or nail jelly to a tree, you cannot really say that the Democrats of today are much different than they have been for decades; leading the DNC is still like herding cats.
In short, they are practically impossible to split because they are not as brittle as the “marches in lockstep” Republicans.

Yeeah, I’ve been a registered Democrat for 13 years… but I’m actually a Socialist. I’m only registered in the D party because I know how math works, and I can vote in the primaries.

No one quotes Goldwater because he lost.
Oddly, of all the candidates, the one closest to Goldwater was Hillary. She was what was known as a Goldwater Girl.

@jerv – I curious to know how you measure the center. Globally I mean. I’m not sure where you get your facts. Whether we are right or left of China, France, Russia, or maybe Venezuela doesn’t seem to be a significant point to me for domestic politics. As far as Democrats holding 80% of both houses, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

As far as the amorphous nature of the Democrats, I agree. They tend to lead with their emotions like a mob and like a mob they respond to the loudest amongst them. They respond quickly to things like chanting, demonstrations, rioting and such.

Demonstrations… like open-carry rallies and loudmouthed county clerks?

Demonstrations like brownshirts threatening religious sites?

@Seek Can’t independent people vote in the primaries as well? That’s what I understood when I registered as being independent.

Not in Florida. Closed primaries here. It is different depending on the state.

Found this quote and thought it apropos:

The picture is further complicated by the fact that because conservatism only really exists to say “no” to whatever liberalism asks for next, it fights nearly all its battles on its enemy’s terrain and rarely comes close to articulating a coherent set of values of its own. Liberalism has science and progress to pursue—and ultimately immortality, the real goal but also the one that rarely dares to speak its name—whereas conservatives have … well, a host of goals, most of them in tension with one another. Neoconservatives want to return us to the New Deal era; Claremont Instituters want to revive the spirit of the Founding; Jacksonians want to rescue American nationalism from the one-worlders and post-patriots; agrarians and Crunchy Cons pine for a lost Jeffersonian or Chestertonian arcadia. Some conservatives think that liberalism-the-political-philosophy can be saved from liberalism-the-Baconian-project and that modernity can be rescued from its utopian temptation; others join Alasdair MacIntyre in thinking that the hour is far too late for that, and we should withdraw into our homes and monasteries and prepare to guard the permanent things through a long Dark Age.

Liberals, on the other hand, dream the same dream and envision the same destination, even if they disagree on exactly how to get there. It’s the dream of Thomas Friedman as well as Karl Marx, as old as Babel and as young as the South Korean cloners. It whispered to us in Eden, and it whispers to us now: ye shall be as gods. And no conservative dream, in the 400 years from Francis Bacon until now, has proven strong enough to stand in its way.

Ross Douthat associate editor for Atlantic Monthly

@Jaxk ” As far as Democrats holding 80% of both houses, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I’ll try to rephrase it then. My point there is that there are three possible scenarios that I can see;

1) The Tea Party is a viable stand-alone party and has actually broken the two-party system or
2) The Tea Party is popular enough to win enough elections to hold a strong majority or
3) The views of the Tea Party are actually not the “will of the people”

Well, I’ve seen no sign of the two-party system yielding to a three-party system. I have however seen a lot of Tea Party candidates trying to win the Republican nomination. For that reason, choice #1 is ruled out.

We have enough Democrats in office to make Congress usually close enough to a 50/50 split that any majority is generally weak regardless of which party gets the advantage. But there are enough moderate Republicans who sometimes get elected to show that the Tea Party doesn’t even have a full lock on the Republican party. Choice #2 is ruled out due to the sheer number of Democrats and non-Tea Party Republicans.

That leaves the possibility that the Tea Party is a bit to the right of “the will of the people”; close enough to center to get some Republican votes but conservative enough to have only modest support from swing voters and virtually no support from left-of-center.

Put another way, it the Tea Party truly were “the will of the people” then election results would be far different. The will of the people is why we even have Obama as a two-term POTUS. The will of the people is why the Tea Party is turning a non-trivial number of Conservatives into Independents while also allowing “RINOs” to get the life-long Republicans who hold traditional GOP values as opposed to the radical agenda of those like the Tea Party.

The fact that elections have run the way they have speak volumes about how much the Tea Party represents “the will of the people”; the majority of voters prefer less extremely conservative candidates.

” They tend to lead with their emotions like a mob and like a mob they respond to the loudest amongst them. They respond quickly to things like chanting, demonstrations, rioting and such.”

Are you saying that the WBC, the Oath Keepers, Kim Davis and their ilk are all Liberals then? And are you saying this is utterly bogus without merrit or corroboration

To save those following along a little link-following on the second, here is an excerpt to save a long read;

” Not to say that liberals are unfeeling, but just more likely to set emotion aside when judging an idea initially, and factor it in later. Checks out scientifically = valuable. Liberals can get just as emotionally attached to an idea, but it’s usually not the primary trigger for acceptance of an idea.

Conservatives would be less likely to assign value primarily using the scientific method. Remember, their thinking style leads primarily with emotion. In order for them to find an idea valuable, it has to be meaningful for them personally. ”

It would seem to me that your assertion that Liberals are the emotional ones who love to riot is actually scientifically proven to be invalid at best, and likely outright wrong. And the sheer amount of yelling we here from people who are most definitely not Liberals is further cause to question that statement.

Only tangentially relevant but interesting.
Also interesting…

@jerv when I began reading your second link one of the first questions that came to mind was the chicken or the egg thing; could the differences in brain function be a result of beliefs and not a causal phenomenon. It was nice to see that they did address that later in the article.

@Jaxk ” I curious to know how you measure the center.”

I would measure the center as basically the average of where voters fall. Like many things, it’s a bell curve with the majority within a standard deviation or two from center. In this context, I am taking a few things into account, like polls and election results. If you follow that link, you’ll get numbers in the ballpark of other similar such polls, so I think the numbers there are close enough for this discussion. While there is some margin of error, it is safe to say that our country is relatively evenly split.

If you read the results of the 2008 and 2012 elections, which can be considered the voice of the voters or “the will of the people”, you’ll get similar numbers thus confirming that public opinion is fairly Centrist… as if it weren’t already so simply by definition. It would seem that the center of the spectrum of US politics is considerably to the left of where the Tea Party is. But lets work it out step by step.

Let us stipulate for the moment that the Republican party is more conservative than the Democrats are. That puts even right-leaning Independents slightly right-of-center, and Republicans to the the right of them.

Let us also stipulate that the Tea Party is primarily people too conservative to even consider voting for a Democrat at all, and may even consider those like McCain and Boehner liberal enough to be RINOs. Basically, you won’t find anyone like Bernie Sanders in the Tea Party, let alone anyone to the left of him.

One last stipulation; that voters will generally vote for candidates whose policies align with their own views; that “the will of the people” can be at least roughly discerned by looking at what sort of candidates win elections.

Do you disagree with any of those three stipulations? If you do disagree with any of those stipulations or the logic I used to draw that conclusion from those stipulations, then would you kindly explain how and why? I mean, I’d be dumstruck and fascinated if you did. But if you can somehow bring yourself to agree with me on those three stipulations then you also agree that the Tea Party to the right of the Republican party, which in turn is to the right of the center of voter opinion as measured by who wins elections.

Put another way, 6 is bigger than 5, 7 is bigger than 6, and 8 is bigger than 7 so there no way a rational person can say that 8 is smaller than 5 (or even 7) by calling the Tea Party “Centrist”, or even implying that they are by claiming that they support “the will of the people” when empirical evidence proves that the majority of people express their will by voting for someone who is a bit closer to the center.

When I talk of global politics, I generally compare us to other First World nations, and on many issues other First World nations are more liberal than we are, thus putting the global average somewhere to the left of the US, and placing the Tea Party even further to the right when viewed from a global reference point rather than an American one.

The funny thing about subjectivity is that it’s easier to imaging a conspiracy involving over 7 billion people than admit that you’re wrong. Or to accuse the entire world of shifting to the left than apply Occam’s Razor and simply admit that you’ve slid to the right.

The Republicans are in a crisis, and the recognition of this becomes apparent with the current debacle over the most powerful position in the Congress. While the Republicans in theory should control both the House & Senate, the fractious internal disputes render the party incapable of governing. There are those who would define the conflict as a struggle between entrenched career politicians and restless upstarts devoted to overturning “business as usual.” And while I have no love for bought and paid for career politicians, it is the nature of the upstarts that concerns me most. While these folks may well be in place as a reflection of what Jaxk calls “the will of the people”, the remedies they propose are only consistent with the will of the stupid people, whose numbers among us are clearly on the uptick. I know that what I’m saying is the worst sort of snobbery and elitism, but sooner or later someone is going to be forced to come to grips with the ever growing paucity of intellectual competence involving our brethren on the right. While there’s certainly no restriction on a dumb man earning a living as a politician, and God knows both sides have their share of dim bulbs, it is on the conservative side that such characters increasingly appear at the forefront, and such correctives as shutting down the government are increasingly entertained as viable solutions to the nation’s problems. In the end, I suppose we wind up with the government and politicians we deserve. But it’s certainly painful to watch.

The politics here are so confusing!

@jerv – A reasonable response except you are reading things that I didn’t say. I’m sure all that 6 is bigger than 5 stuff is very good but but it doesn’t pertain. What I said was that the Tea Partys want their representative to respond to the will of the people. that doesn’t mean the will of the Tea Parties. If we go back to the beginning of the Tea Parties, it was primarily a response to Obamacare. Obamacare was never above water in popularity. They pushed it through anyway. That is easily viewed as not responding to the will of the people. The Bailouts were another unpopular event yet they were pushed down out throats. Government was running amuck and telling us what was good for us rather than listening to the will of the people. You don’t need to support the Tea Parties to see that government was operating outside of the will of the people, still is. The Tea Parties don’t claim to be the will of the people but they want the will of the people to be represented. I hope you’re able to see my point and we can cut out all this Tea Party as a political party which they’re not.

Now let’s move forward to today. The frustration in the Republican ranks is primarily a strategy dispute. Bills aren’t being brought to a vote or even getting a hearing because Obama may veto or the Senate may not have 60 votes. Even the ones that do make it to a vote are so bastardized that they have no chance of passing both houses. The Republicans are cowering and seemingly intimidated by Obama and the Democrats in congress. Republicans are tired of losing the fight before they even get in the ring. That’s what all this turmoil over the Speaker job is all about. At least bring it to a vote and if we lose we lose but at least try. Make the Democrats go on record as opposing. Harry Reid ruled the Senate and shut down any vote that he didn’t like. The bills were tabled and never saw the light. Now that Mitch McConnel has taken over, nothing has changed. Same thing is happening in the house. Unless it’s a bill for renaming a post office, it never gets a vote. We can’t win every battle nor do we even need to fight every battle but let’s at least fight some of the battles. That’s at least one of the reasons Trump is so popular right now. He didn’t get to where is is by giving up before he started and there’s no way he would let himself be out maneuvered by the likes of Harry Reid and Obama. The Republicans took over the house in 2012 and the senate in 2014, since then nothing has changed. We want representatives with some backbone and leaders that don’t act like Democrat shills. That will require some changes and the Speakership is only the beginning.

But you speak as though the Republicans are unified with a solid front. No one wants the speakership precisely because there is no unified Republican party. Pelosi had a more or less iron grip on her party’s membership when it came to toting the party line. Your description of Republicans is exactly my view of Democrats allowing Republicans to dictate the do nothing no to everything agenda.

@stanleybmanly – No, just the opposite. The republicans may have a united agenda but the means of implementing that agenda are all over the map, We want a balanced budget but let’s not piss off Obama so nothing happens. It’s almost funny thast most of the Republican candidates keep arguing over who is the most conservative. Who gives a shit who is. If that was the criteria, Trump wouldn’t even make the debates let alone lead the polls. The establishment Republicans are trying to work as business as usual. Give a little, get a little but it’s not working. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are united and giving up nothing while the Republicans aren’t even clear on what they need or are willing to give up. That’s what all the turmoil is all about. When somebody like Ted Cruz makes a stand he is making it on what he won’t give up rather than on what needs to happen. Republicans want somebody that will do something positive rather than just being negative. Cruz is getting some support because he at least takes a stand but not a lot because it’s not productive.

We need someone like Paul Ryan that does have a positive agenda (you may not like it) and can garner the respect of most Republicans to carry it out.

Just as a side note we also have to stop letting the Democrats frame the issues. Most of us out here in conservative land have opinions on things like ‘Gay Marriage’ or ‘Abortion’ but it’s not the primary issue for us. Frankly who gives a shit which way it goes, those issues are not going to help the economy or make life better in general even if they had not already been decided. Those are the issues Democrats want to focus on to distract us from what’s important. If we can get the economy moving again and get Washington working, we’ll have plenty of time to argue over whether we should have a statue of the devil on the White House lawn.

We want a balanced budget

More comedy from you!

If you want balanced budget you will advocate cutting “defense” spending.

If you want a balanced budget, you will support tax policies that reverse the three decade shift of the burden onto the middle class.

If you want a balanced budget, you will support universal health insurance, which drastically reduces health care spending.

If you want a balanced budget, you will support taxing capital gains just like we tax the wages of people who actually work for a living.

Americans witnessed the results of conservative rule thanks to George W Bush. It sucked. You weakened America and made life worse for Americans.

@jaytkay – No we’ve tried all the liberal solutions and they don’t work.

The Sequester cut the military budget

We’ve raised taxes on the rich

We’ve passed the Democrats Health Care

If you want to tax hedge fund managers you don’t need to raise the capital gains tax that affects us all but rather close the loophole that allows hedge fund managers to claim their income as capital gains.

We’ve tried all your solutions to no avail. We need another path to prosperity. Obama and the Democrats have added (by the end of his reign) $10 Trillion to the national debt and that has made us weaker and made life worse for all Americans. We simply can’t afford to do it all again and I don’t here anything that would change under a another Democratic administration. If you don’t like what has happened over the past 8 years, it6 might be time to look inward and admit your policies haven’t worked.

We’ve tried all your solutions to no avail

None have been tried. If you claim that you are dishonest.

@Jaxk ” The Tea Parties don’t claim to be the will of the people but they want the will of the people to be represented.”

That actually clarifies things a bit, but also leads to a paradox that may have caused me to overlook that possibility in my quest for a simpler answer. You see, Tea Party doesn’t have a monopoly on that; many from all points on the political spectrum want that. Hell, that’s part of why there’s so much uproar over campaign finance as the will of the people gets drowned out by the cash flow from corporate “donors”.

However, the effect that the Tea Party has had within the Republican party has disenfranchised enough Conservatives that there are now plenty of people that have no voice in government. Imagine if you were a right-leaning Moderate who considered Ted Cruz too extreme. Your choices right now are pretty much either pick a radical who you disagree with, vote for a Democrat, or not have a political voice beyond internet rants.

For an entity that claims to want the will of the people to be heard, they do an awful lot to silence the people. If that contradiction is intentional, then the Tea Party are either hypocrites, or playing a subtle long game towards a secret agenda. Occam’s Razor favors the simpler explanation (hypocrisy) over the fantastically complex one (secret conspiracies). If the contradiction is unintentional, then the Tea Party is too inept for me to respect. When you boil it down, whether they intentionally silence dissenters that could have been allies or merely do so by accident is a moot point as intentional deceit and accidental stupidity are both things that many people (myself included) won’t stand for.

* * *

” I hope you’re able to see my point and we can cut out all this Tea Party as a political party which they’re not.”

It’s a little tricky as the truth is more complex than can be described in a reasonable amount of words within the confines of the English language.

Technically, they are “merely” a social movement among a subset of Conservatives. They have no party of their own, nor are the numbers great enough to overcome the two-party system’s inertia so most ballots only have two candidates listed; one Democrat and one Republican. While they have a congressional caucus, that isn’t the same as a party. So going solely by that criteria alone, yes, you are entirely correct.

But that ignores a few facts. For instance, you would have to ignore the Tea Party’s successes and retroactively annul any and all other effects that they have had on legislation. You would also have to concede that the Tea Party wants the same things the Republican party wants 100% of the time without exception.

Personally, I don’t feel either of those are reasonable to ignore; they are both pretty crucial facts of the matter. When you take those two things into account, I would say that, at least for all practical purposes, the combination of their effects upon government combined with the fact that they have some pretty big differences of opinion with “traditional” Republicans make the Tea Party a political entity with enough power to be considered on the small end of “political party”, mostly for the sake of not having to use some awkwardly long but more technically accurate phrase when I can use just a word or two. Take away either their independence or their influence and I will change my view accordingly; until then, I will consider them a political party.

And that leads us full circle back to the original question. Will the disenfranchised conservatives form their own party somewhere between Democrats and Republicans? Or will the Tea Party be ousted by more moderate Republicans? If so, will the Tea Party become a full-fledged, official third party, or will they lose political influence and fade away? Or will there be a reconciliation where the Tea Party moves far enough to the left to act in unity with the rest of the GOP? In short, what will things look like once the dust settles and the infighting is resolved?

* * *

” It’s almost funny thast most of the Republican candidates keep arguing over who is the most conservative. ”

Actually, that is a requirement to go after what many consider “the Conservative base”. It’s a sad truth, but the only way to get into office are to one base or the other. If you pander to the liberal base, you’re better off running as a Democrat. If you’re pandering to the conservative base, you’re just took a flying leap deep into “bread and circuses” territory. You have to be a caricature. You can’t just have a stricter immigration policy; you have to build a wall around Mexico and get Mexico to pay for it!. You can’t just cut costs by streamlining your processes to be efficient; you have to cut costs by tossing 50,000 people out on the street the first two minutes that you’re in office. (That one is from your dream VP, Fiorina.) If you don’t get outrageous and over the top, your polling numbers in a Republican primary will be somewhere trailing “Undecided”.

But is that “the REAL Republican party”? Is the GOP now in the same league as the WWE? Who are the “real” Republicans”? Who is allowed to use the trademark elephant as the symbol for their political organization? Aren’t “real Republicans” more like Olympia Snowe or Ronald Reagan than like Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee?

It seems that there is currently an ongoing fight to answer questions like those four, and the uncertainty of the outcome is what led to this question.

* * *

“We want representatives with some backbone and leaders that don’t act like Democrat shills.”

It could be argued that the Republicans that compromise with Democrats are trying to put the nation ahead of their party and personal agenda. That moderate Republicans are not shills, but rather a Conservative voice in government to curb the excesses of the liberal Democrats who are actually doing a great job of following the will of their constituents despite not being radicals, and effective in that they are pragmatic enough to allow themselves to settle for partial success when the only alternative to compromise is utter failure.

But, of course, there are some who feel that willingness to compromise makes one unworthy of the mantle of public office as willingness to give even a micron is a sign of weakness that will get you torn apart by your supporters. And people who see things that way will have other mental abnormalities, like thinking that all who disagree with them are Liberals and disregard for the consequences of their actions.

* * *

“Just as a side note we also have to stop letting the Democrats frame the issues.”

This is where most of my distaste for the Tea Party stems from. Left to their own devices, the Republicans would continue to be a credible opponent powerful enough to stop the Democrats from obtaining ultimate control while still relatable enough to not be considered a threat by all those who are not members of a particular dark cult.

However, that infighting between the Republicans who have managed to keep our nation somewhat more conservative than the rest of the industrialized world and the fanatical zealots who are half a breath away from declaring a Crusade to rid the world of non-believers like Boehner, Powell, McCain, and anyone more Liberal than those bastions of Socialism is a bit of a distraction. If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle with a yellowjacket in your helmet, you know how much a little distraction can hurt and how much damage it can do.

The Tea Party has actually strengthened the Democrats. I mean, when 90% of the population is “too liberal”, you solidify the opposition from the Liberal base while also disenfranchising enough non-Liberals that at least some will change camps after getting excommunicates from their old party. That seems counter-productive, and it’s counter-productivity at taxpayer expense. I cannot see how any fiscally responsible voter can tolerate that when it isn’t strictly necessary, and only a sociopath would endorse such wasteful destruction.

When you weaken your own side while strengthening the opposition, you forfeit the right to complain about the opposition exercising the power that you handed to them on a silver platter. Democrats frame the issues because the Republicans lost the strength to continue fighting when the Tea Party split the Conservative vote while alienating enough swing-voters to push a few elections in the Democrat’s favor.

It’s called “accountability”, and Conservatives must now live with the consequences of their actions. Consequences like losing public support, possibly a few political offices and being “go to” material when someone needs a laugh. (Hell, people of your political persuasion practically made Stephen Colbert; if not for the Tea Party then his Colbert Report persona would’ve lacked the credibility to be considered “quality satire” and he would’ve needed another job.) If that wasn’t clear enough, let me rephrase. Don’t complain about being marginalized when you crawl to the margins of your own free will. Don’t jump in the pool if you don’t want to get wet. You made the bed, now lie in it. Reap what you sow.

I didn’t read the answers above.

I thought that maybe since the Republicans chose Romney last time that possibly the party was not quite as far right as a whole than previously thought. Time will tell. If they put in someone who believes women never have to choose between their life and the life of a fetus I will go into a depression. Thank goodness Scott dropped out.

I think Trump might be the most practical regarding budget, God help me. The Republicans seem to want to wish the national debt away and not pay it down. I don’t see that changing soon. Mind you, Obama doesn’t seem to be getting the debt down either, but I believe most democrats are willing to pay more to reduce it.

I think the Republicans heard the Lewis Black standup bit from a few years ago where he said something along the lines of “The national debt – why not just stop paying it? Who’s going to come make us, China?” and they all said, “Heeeyyy…. that’s not a bad idea!”

@jerv – Now I am confused. Does this mean you’re not going to renew your Tea Party Membership? I’ll put you down as a maybe.

@Jaxk It always amazes me that you cannot appreciate the blinding reality that Obama’s 8 years in office were primarily about remediation of the destruction from the train wreck which preceded him. Just as the first Bush never gets any credit for the milk & honey era of Clinton, there isn’t a single one of your stated issues other than the ACA which was not directly the result of the bungling stupidity of you know who. Everybody wants a balanced budget. That isn’t the issue. The issue is about balancing the budget at whose expense. “We’ve raised taxes on the rich” But the rich clearly are paying less percentage wise than ever and the trend is INCREASING. We passed the REPUBLICAN Romney care/ insurance corporation enrichment act because it was the only thing that corporations and your darling Chamber of Commerce would permit.

@stanleybmanly – I understand that is the conventional Democratic talking point but it’s simply not true. Here is a chart from wikipedia that shows the percentage of income paid in taxes by group. The top 1% clearly pays a higher percentage of their income.

Every President inherits problems. It is how they handle those problem that make the difference. We’ve had three major recessions in my life that I can recall clearly, 1980, 2000, and 2008. We can haggle over which was the worst but they were comparable. The 2008 has undoubtably taken the longest to recover and we aren’t there yet. You don’t want to blame the liberal policies for extending the recovery but I place the blame directly on Democrats.

The ACA is a good example of how you twist the logic to blame Republicans. Not on single Republican voted for the ACA, yet you say they wouldn’t let you put anything else through. How could you have gotten less support. That was a Democratic bill that the Democrats forced through over the objections of both the Republicans and the general population. It has also played a significant role in extending the recession. If your not happy with the course Obama has put us on, you have only the Democrats to blame. Pointing and screaming won’t change that.

Your chart is one of supposed RATES. The fact which is excluded is that Nobody rich EVER pays at those rates, and everyone knows it. The rates may climb, but things are engineered such that people of means escape paying but a fraction of the supposed taxes. You are right that not one single Republican supported the bill which was all but a carbon copy of the bill they backed and enthusiastically helped design a few years before when they all championed Romney to pimp it out in Ma. The thing that makes the current recession (and it’s still here for all BUT the affluent) a lingering fixture. is that this is the one where people get to witness what “recovery” means without a manufacturing sector! This is the recession whic isn’t going away, and we’d better all get used to it.

^^You both need to look at the actual IRS charts. Here is 2013

Taken from this main page

@stanleybmanly – You’re in denial. The graph is made from IRS data from what was actually paid. The only estimate is the 2013 number and that is based on CBO estimates of the Obama tax hike.

As for the ACA whether Romney passed it at a state level or not doesn’t change the fact that Democrats pushed it, voted for it, and forced it on us at a national level. Any repercussions from it are solely the responsibility of the Democrats.

@Jaxk “Not on single Republican voted for the ACA, yet you say they wouldn’t let you put anything else through.”

The ACA was passed at a time when the combined number of Democrats and left-leaning Independents was sufficient for a super-majority. The complaints that Republicans were obstructionist came after the 2010 mid-terms that dropped the Democrat majority from 58 to 51; too low to stop a determined effort at obstructionism even with Lieberman and Sanders throwing in with the Democrats. I think you might want to double-check your timetable there.

I am almost dead certain that you will deny and refute this with every fiber of your being, but before even Romneycare, the whole concept was proposed by Conservatives as a market-based solution. If the ACA is so bad, then you should hate Conservatives in general for spawning the thing to begin with. And don’t give us any garbage about how it was acceptable until Democrats put in individual mandates, because Republicans were in full support of individual mandates in previous proposals, and the ACA even had some Republican support until some mysterious event turned it into GOP opposition for anything remotely connected to anything related to Obamacare overnight.

But regardless, I will say that your posts here are illustrative, and I thank you for weighing in on behalf of the “more conservative than Reagan” camp. While I disagree with a fair bit of what you say, the truth is that you are far from alone; there are a notable percentage of voters who feel much the same way you do. Whatever the future of the Republican party is, you and those like you will be key players in shaping it.

@jerv – The timeline makes no difference what-so-ever. Any complaints about the ACA are directly attributable to the Democrats. They wrote it behind closed doors (remember Pelosi’s comment “we have to pass it to find out what’s in it”), They voted it in, and forced it on the electorate against their will. It’s almost funny that Mass. got almost unanimus support from the state legislature and high approval from the electorate but when it came to Obama care, not so much. In fact they elected Scott Brown to replace Ted Kennedy and ran primarily as the 41st vote against Obamacare. What you and most of the Democrats don’t realize (and probably never will) is that a state law is different than a federal law.

@stanleybmanly says the recovery will never happen and we need to get used to it. I don’t doubt it will continue as long as we continue to pass jackass laws like the ACA. Virtually everything the Democrats push is designed to drive manufacturing (and business in general) out of the country. People such as yourself have helped to shape the new Democratic party and kept most of the country in poverty. You must be very proud.

@Jaxk ” In fact they elected Scott Brown to replace Ted Kennedy and ran primarily as the 41st vote against Obamacare.”

I am well aware. In fact, moreso than you given where I used to live. Did you see Coakley and her campaign? How well do you know Scott Brown? Hell, how well do you even know the entire Northeast corner of the United States? There is more to the story than what you heard from Fox News.

“What you and most of the Democrats don’t realize (and probably never will) is that a state law is different than a federal law.”

What you and most of the Republicans don’t realize (and DEFINITELY never will) is that we are a nation, not a federation of independent nations that just chip into a communal pot to have the largest military in the world. In fact, a fair portion of the Republican base seems unaware that the Civil War officially ended in 1865.

“People such as yourself have helped to shape the new Democratic party and kept most of the country in poverty.”

Looking at the maps of poverty rates and such, I find it funny where the poverty really is. Looking where most of the people in the US live and comparing them shoots down another part of your argument unless by “most of the country” you were talking geographically rather than by population. Looking at historical data for a variety of economic metrics on the federal level also seem to indicate that you are, at best, telling a half-truth, though the weight of the evidence is enough to tip the scales towards being either misinformed or outright lying.

People like you have shaped the new Republican party into what it is too. Between the theocrats, gun nuts (not mere owners, but the ones who want Open Carry everywhere) and pseudo-Nietzscheans in your midst, it’s really hard to find a Conservative that doesn’t seem like a caricature. Seriously, when one gets so outlandish that satirists can’t even get funnier or more surreal, you have an image problem.

But I digress.

Once again, you have provided insight into the most likely future for the GOP, or at least narrows down the possibilities. It isn’t pretty, and won’t end well.

As usual this has become an exercise in futility. I’ll sum up my point with a few details off the top of my head. Since the recession we’ve passed a $trillion stimulus, raised taxes on the rich, Passed the ACA, Passed financial reform, Expanded the food stamps, lowered or eliminated the work requiremnt for wellfare, Increased the debt ceiling multiple times, pulled out of Iraq and most of Afghanistan, and acquired an additional $10 trillion in debt. Hell we even tried to curtail CEO salaries (remember the Pay Czar). All Democratic programs designed to fix the economy. So what have we gotten for all this.

The workforce participation rate is the lowest since the 70s. The income gap is growing faster than ever before. New business start-ups are less than business failures (we’re losing businesses). average wages are declining, insurance rates are growing by double digits annually, and the poverty rate for the country is continuing to rise.

I can’t see any way to look at this and see anything but failure. I know the Democratic talking point is: “things would be a lot worse if we hadn’t done all this”. Hogwash with no basis in fact. Of course there always the Democratic misdirection tactic: “some guy three or four years ago wore a gun on his hip to a rally”. Who cares? He never hurt nor even threatened anyone and it was legal for him to do so. Even if there was some point to be made, it was one guy. Give it a rest. Or maybe the ‘I know more than you because I lived in Mass.’ So what, so did I.

We’ve had 8 years of Democratic rule and you’re right it isn’t pretty and it hasn’t ended well.

@Jaxk Workforce participation rate… that talking point is so tenuously linked to anything that may have a three-degrees-of-separation relationship with anything relevant that, under the circumstances, I am going to interpret as “I got nothing”. I could counter it more directly, but I know you cling to that talking point pretty tightly, and I don’t want to steal your security blanket and risk making you cry.

However, you may want to take note for future reference that mentioning that particular metric will be interpreted as a “Hail Mary” desperation tactic on your part, and be regarded as concession. I’ll give you a pass this time as you were unaware of my feelings on that issue, but seriously, that metric has barely any more impact on things than the batting averages of the 1954 Yankees. I tend to consider things like poverty rates, median incomes, effective tax rates, and the ROI on taxpayer dollars (like drug-testing welfare recipients; spending millions to save thousands is the epitome of fiscal responsibility!) to be better signs of our economy than some metric that merely says, “Our Baby Boomers are old, and our women are quitting jobs to go to school!”. It’s a joke so stale that it has gone beyond “running gag” status.

Now, I get your point. I think anyone within a hundred miles of you gets your point. You’re super Conservative, you hate Democrats, and you want the whole world to know in the hopes that we will elect someone who will do to the entire US what they did for the South where poverty is high, unemployment is above-average, and those who are not heterosexual WASP males have abridged rights regardless of what any laws (state of federal) say. You’ve made that point clear enough that vegans waving day-glo flashing neon signs seem subtle by comparison.

What I haven’t really heard from you is exactly what you consider yourself the future of the GOP to be. Will the party be full of those like you after you kick out all the RINOs like Boehner? Is that where you see the party heading? Or are you saying that the GOP will return to it’s roots as you and your brethren leave for a more conservative party because you can’t tell the difference between the whole world moving left and yourself moving right? I mean, as much as I sometimes like to have a go-round with you, the whole reason we’re even having this discussion is that I am curious what the future holds.

”....because you can’t tell the difference between the whole world moving left and yourself moving right?”

Reminiscent of Joe Walsh: “Everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed”

@jerv – Actually we’re not having a discussion. Your ability to grasp even the simplest relationships is astoundingly inept. Rest assured however, that I am not going away.

BTW – Boehner was not kicked out he resigned because he was ineffective.

@Jaxk Nice spin that I suppose is technically accurate. If you want a little more honesty, he was torn between his loyalty to his party and his loyalty to his nation. Party leadership was attempting to force him to (once again) go against his own principles, and he wanted no part of it. From what I’ve gathered, it was largely because, to be quite honest, the Republican party now has too many people like you in it for Boehner’s tastes. He got burnt out trying to keep the nation going while catering to an increasingly extremist bunch of “young gun” neo-cons and decided that he wanted out.

If I were into conspiracies, I might make something of the fact that it happened shortly after Boehner, a devout Catholic, met with the Pope. The tin-foil hat crowd might argue that it was a crisis of conscience; I prefer to think of it as an amusing coincidence.

And if by “ineffective” you mean that he wasn’t as much of a hardliner as you want in office due to his ability to compromise and willingness to talk to Democrats in any manner other than dictating terms of surrender, then yes, but using any definition more in-line with what you’d get from a dictionary, then I disagree. Putting a spending bill that Republicans don’t like on the floor instead of shutting down government until Democrats whimper and submit isn’t “ineffective” in my eyes. It’s “Performing the duties of a Speaker of the House”. His job is to make sure legislation moves, whether to the President’s desk or to the dustbin. It’s his job to make sure that the United States pays it’s bills on time. This is in addition to his duties to the voters of the 8th district of the state of Ohio.

So, if you have three jobs and the one that gives you the most headaches is easy to quit, what would you do? Before you answer, if finances are a concern then you’re doing the Congress thing wrong anyways; many Congress-critters manage to make plenty of money aside from their salary, so the pay cut will be pretty minor. With that in mind, can you at least see how one may be tempted to quit for reasons other than being ineffective?

“Your ability to grasp even the simplest relationships is astoundingly inept.”

In other words, my decision to look at the evidence and then draw a conclusion rather than dig for an obscure statistic whose graph is shaped the way that “proves” you correct marks me as inept. Or is it that I apply Occam’s Razor here and figure that the solution that requires fewer assumptions is more likely to be correct? I mean, there are a ton of other, better indicators of our economic health than that, so the only reason I can think of to cling to that one is

And no, @Jaxk I know you won’t. You’re the gift that just keeps on giving. That’s why we love you :)

BSOD ate part of that answer. Ah well…

I was going to abandon this thread but I can see you’re really worried about the future of the Republicans. This is not the first time a Speaker has resigned and I doubt it will be the last. Newt Gingrich resigned with similar opposition and we all survived just fine. I kinda suspect you concern is more for the Democrats than the Republicans though since they are in deep trouble trying to find a presidential candidate.

As for the labor force participation rate, it’s pretty simple. The government has been measuring this for many decades now. I am surprised you would write it off as retirees since you’ve said many times now that no one can afford to retire anymore. Doesn’t matter though because I gave you 6 separate measures that show economic failure but have chosen to rant and rave about one while ignoring all the others. You are very selective in your outrage but we already knew that.

@Jaxk Figure it like this; for better or for worse, the US is still a superpower, and therefore how it is governed has a dramatic effect on the entire world, both present and future. How our internal politics so therefore alter the trajectory of history. And since we are still in a simplistic two-party system rather than a coalition government as many other nations have, the actions of either party have a pretty big impact on humanity, both present and future. So yes, I am worried.

Gingrich didn’t face nearly the opposition, if for no reason other than the party wasn’t nearly as radicalized. One thing that is similar though is that, once again, a life-long Republican wasn’t extreme enough for the Republican party and decided to quit before he got ripped to shreds to have his entrails feasted upon by his former colleagues who he referred to as “cannibals”. (Source) And given his position of education being a top priority and grudging support of same-sex marriage (basically, legislature says it’s the law, and neither the executive nor judicial branches should take it upon themselves to legislate), he might be considered a Socialist Muslim pedophile by today’s GOP. At best, he’d be called a RINO. Still, I see enough differences between then and now to be a bit skeptical of the notion that we will have the same outcome as we did the last time something different but superficially similar occurred.

I don’t really worry about the Democrats as they are a relatively benign entity. Don’t take the fact that I don’t bash them nearly as often as endorsement. When someone covered in blood runs into the room dual-wielding machetes, I tend to pay a little more attention to them than to the cracks in the ceiling. That tendency to give most of my attention to obvious threats first and allowing the boisterous to grab more of what attention is left than the quiet leads me to pick on Conservatives far more. That the Democrats are squabbling amongst themselves with little/no unity is about as surprising as seeing blue skies instead of green or walking on the floor instead of the ceiling. I mean, there are certain things we just accept as “natural law”, and so far, nothing the Democrats have done has really been anything other than “just another day”.

The Democrats don’t really seem to be having an issue finding a candidate, though I will concede that the candidate the party leadership chose isn’t who the majority of those voters who can’t bring themselves to vote for any of the current GOP candidates want. However, if not for the poor history of third-party candidates, I am pretty sure that Sanders would not be running as a Democrat in the first place and November 2016 would be a three-way contestif not for the simple fact that our system pretty much locks out those who aren’t backed by either the DNC or RNC.

The inability to retire is less of an issue for those that already got the retirement saved/paid for. My mother retired from a job she got in the late-70s, and did so with a pension, which is something that you don’t see too much these days; most employers now offer a 401k or some other retirement plan. My stepfather spent enough years living frugally despite an income in the low six-figure range back when that was still “a lot of money” rather that, despite his portfolio taking a huge hit a few years ago, my folks manage to live about the same as they always have…. though they would not be able to even think of even considering retirement if not for the fact that their house was paid off years ago because costs have increased a lot more than wages since the Disco/Vietnam years.

Of the myriad of metrics I’ve seen, many require a bit of PR spin to be interpreted as “Democrats are bad at economics”. Some metrics outright refute that notion while others require enough interpretation to reach that conclusion that you may as well skip the data and go right to the conclusion to avoid confusion. Also, I’m looking at a little bit of history and doing a bit of trend analysis. While I am not quite as old as you, I am old enough to remember presidents before Clinton, while young enough to not have had those memories wiped by old age.

That right there might be part of the issue though. All of us have lived different lives, and some of us have life histories that occasionally border on surreal. Some of us have doors opened that remain closed for others. One funny thing I have noticed about Conservatives is that a large number of them appear to be utterly incapable of understanding that though. Many seem to feel that the entire world is the same as their little corner of it (in other words, there is no difference between Seattle, Boston and Cousinfuck, Alabama) and we all have the same externalities with our lives differing only by the choices we make.

I’m not sure about the cause-and-effect on that, though I am inclined to believe that it’s a matter of the Republican party attracting people of that mindset rather than the GOP causing people to lose that bit of perspective. Which leads to the possibility that the current kerfluffle between the parties is merely “spillover” from a larger cultural battle. That it isn’t really about Democrats vs moderate Republicans vs hardline Republicans so much as a battle between xenophobes and those capable of adapting to post-1800 life. And it seems to be one of those things that is just growing over time.

About the only comfort I draw from the situation is that there are still a fair number of “traditional” Republicans around who disapprove of the nonsense that is going on in “their” party; people who support traditional Conservative values without being “Obama was born in Kenya!” Kool-aid drinkers. People you would consider Liberals despite their straight-Republican voting record.

On a related note, maybe you could explain why Bernanke resigned. Strip out the economic angle to focus on the elements relevant to this question and you may see a traditional Conservative that couldn’t handle the Republican party’s drift to the right. I say “may” as those that have drifted to the right while claiming to not have moved at all would counter that Bernanke turned into a Liberal despite a lack of evidence that he moved at all. That seems to be a common enough theme to at least bear investigating the ideological schism within the GOP, an entity that unarguably has great influence on our nation and our world.

Personally, I think a nation that lacks an effective counter to the Democrats would be horrific. When one party offers nothing desirable to the masses then the other party will wind up with the majority of popular support, effectively turning us into a one-party state; a prospect I don’t enjoy. But with the GOP offering more slash-and-burn economists and Theocrats with fewer moderate adherents to Conservative ideology, I cannot help but feel some concern over what it all means for our future, as well as pity for the disenfranchised who just want fiscal responsibility and a small, unintrusive government without condoning acts they find morally offensive like lynching Muslims, arming kindergarten teachers or burning the social safety net while telling the poor that they chose to be poor and now can burn in Hell. Anyone who thinks that last part is hyperbole may be too liberal for the GOP already.

@jerv – “he might be considered a Socialist Muslim pedophile by today’s GOP”

Really! Get a grip.

@Jaxk Really? I think I have a pretty good grip. That sort of thing makes it pretty obvious that, in the eyes of many, Gingrich wasn’t Conservative enough for the party. Well, at least obvious to those who aren’t too blinded by ideology to have even a hint of true objectivity.

@jerv I heard Hannity pushing for a return of Gingrich to take over the speakership. Evidently you don’t have to be a standing congressman to do that. Who knew?

@rojo That’s a new one on me.