Friday, December 21, 2012

Has the Republican Party Finally Jumped the Shark?

Ok, after the train wreck that was the 2012 election (especially the GOP primary), I really thought the "deep thinkers" in the Republican Party might finally prove me wrong and send the nut jobs to the back of the short bus and drag the circus of conservative politics back to the real world.  Based on the last 36 hours, I guess they won't yet.  First we had the loony tunes castrate Boehner and destroy their negotiating position just to prove their purity, then we had Wayne LaPierre say we need to pay good guys with guns to fight bad guys with guns.  I don't really think that's what people outside of the conservative bubble were looking for.  It is way past time for conservatives to turn off Fox News and actually talk to people they disagree with.  They are so far away from the mainstream of society that something has to give.  Otherwise, they risk becoming a total object of ridicule.

3 comments:

  1. You've been saying for months (at least) that the GOP might be heading towards an implosion/civil war. This could very well be a large indicator.

    Even a noted right-wing columnist is saying that the Republicans are pretty screwed up.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2012/12/20/boehner-plan-b-house-republicans-humiliate-their-leader/

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  2. The most interesting part will be whether the Republicans manage to undermine their built-in advantage in the mid term election in 2014 when they should have the greater percentage of turnout. They've driven more and more sane people out of the party, and if they manage to lose seats and governor seats in 2014, the saner elements in the party will have to take control or leave. At that point, the party will be toast. I think they might be able to mellow things out before then, but the current trend looks toward self-destruction.

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  3. And I've believed the Republican party was on the path to self-destruction by the time of the 2002 midterm elections, when they were pushing for war with Iraq to distract from Enron and other scandals (that was my view, because I couldn't imagine many people wanting to invade a country and overthrow the leader for no apparent benefit to our country). I think they just have to be getting damn close to actually blowing themselves up. But as long as they can win like 70 percent of the rural vote, they can be a pretty dangerous zombie party, as they are currently proving.

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