As much as I love pointing and laughing at the GOP, I think it is wildly destructive for the country to have them implode to this degree. Dominant political parties are bad news, period. And within the next 10 years or so I think we're going to see a permanent Democratic majority at the federal level, including and especially in the executive branch:

1. The GOP presidential primary process ensures that no moderate or even semi-reasonable candidate can ever be the nominee, and there is no indication that this is going to change.

2. Demographics. People who vote Republican are either dying or having fewer children than people who vote Democratic.

3. Echo chamber. Of course you have the Jeb Bushes who see the nuttery, but within gerrymandered districts and in the pockets of idiocy like Utah, there is absolutely no understanding of just how much the GOP is turning off non-nuts.

4. Incentives. There is no incentive for any powerful party to change, which one possible exception, the ultra wealthy, who don't seem to want to. Republitard wingnut congresspeople are going to keep getting elected, what do they care. Wingnut media members rake in the dough the nuttier people get - they aren't moderating. Think tank types are necessarily partisan and are driven by the politicians and donors, not the opposite. You could say the incentive is 'winning the presidency,' but that's the wrong way to look at it. To get nominated a moderate has to court the people with the wrong incentives.

So what is the result? The best the Republican Party can do at the federal level over the next 10-15 years is to block stuff. Now that's not all bad, gridlock and be really productive. But if the Democrats ever take the House I think there are some real potential problems on the horizon.

1. I hate the GOP, but any real spending restraint will come from the right. To fix spending you have to fix Medicare and SS, and the Democrats simply refuse to touch them. Hell, they won't even agree to calculate inflation properly.

2. Dems will internalize the Obama lesson that they have to stay very hawkish on foreign policy so as to keep from getting swiftboated / labeled as pussies / whatever. They will come to see it as the only threat to their dominance, and our FP will continue to be a disaster. This concept also applies to the drug war (sigh).

3. Continued Keynesian fiscal policies. Obviously we can debate whether or not it works, I happen to think 'stimulus' is usually (but not always) bad policy. The point here, though, is that Keynesianism will be used as cover to financially reward political allies.

4. General patronage. In a one-party town, it will get worse.

Thoughts?

I think this current Republican Party needs to die and be replaced by a fiscally conservative socially not ******ed party.

It is a tragedy, but the republican party improved in 2010 and 2012 over 2008. Romney got a lot more votes than McCain, but lost the minority vote. Almost 60% of the white population voted for Romney and 88% of his voters were white. However, Puerto Rico voted a right governor. I just think it is education. When people realize to increase the wage of a McDonalds worker the most would be to end minimum wage, health care, and unions, then the masses will vote right. Increasing taxes only increases tyranny and homelessness. To vote left is evil.

ditto Jules.

considering Obama was pro-choice, pro increasing taxes for wealthy lowering the inflation tax, and not crazy on China and Iran I am not sheding any tears that he won.

The short answer is that the Republican Party will simply change the minimum amount needed to reverse the worst of these trends, especially as consecutive losses start seriously mounting. The alternative is total destruction in slow motion, and there are too many degrees of freedom at play here for everyone to just sit rigidly in place for twenty years while everything burns.

The one shared delusion that I think the leftists ITF kind of exhibited in post-election threads is this notion that OMG the Republicans are finished. The same was said in 2008 before 2010 hit. It's essentially a form of recency bias. When the Dems sweep everything like four or five election cycles in a row, then yes, there is problim.

That said, all of the factors you mention are pertinent obstacles that will make for some serious growing pains long term.

well this could have been posted about the democrats a couple decades ago too, so i'm sure they'll be fine

I think these eggs haven't yet hatched.

I completely disagree with many of your points but the bottom line (sticking on topic) is that at some point Republicans will feel the need to re-brand. They will just go through a period analogous to what the Democrats went through in the 80's. If they don't then they will be replaced.

This. The Republicans will turn down the crazy a bit, but they aren't going away any time soon. The country is still very evenly divided between Ds and Rs.

gop killin it at state level

Flip flop on immigration and the GOP is back in the lead.

They could have wafflecrushed 2012 if Romney hadn't repeatedly shot himself in the foot and if they could have toned down the creepy rape stuff.

How stupid do you think Latinos are? The GOP has just spent a decade or more demonizing Latinos as lazy, welfare-sucking leeches. A right leaning news anchor just shouted down a guy from Puerto Rico who had come onto his show to talk about the Puerto Rican vote for statehood, bitterly yelling that the only reason they voted for statehood was for the earned income tax credit. Arizona has gone hard to the paint for their right to be able to stop any Latino they please and check to make sure they are not illegal immigrants, and other GOP-controlled states have copied, or even surpassed Arizona. Supporting a few token measures on immigration that Democrats have been supporting all along is not going to convince anyone.

The GOP has made it very clear who they think Real Americans are: White, Anglo-Saxon, Evangelical. Trotting up Marco Rubio in an audience of old white people changes nothing. Asians are more affluent on average than white people. So are Jews. The GOP doesn't have anything specifically mean to say about them. Yet, Asians and Jews are strong Democratic constituencies.

Not only demonizing. But putting into laws that discriminate against legal and law abiding Latinos.

^^^ this

After Nixon the GOP was about as much a non factor as could be imagined. Nearly complete control of the Fed Gubment and a peanut farmer rectified the situation.

In 1994 the GOP took the house for the first time since Eisenhower was Pres. They thought and acted like they be there forever. Spending like drunken sailors and W. rectified that.

Rince and repeat.

This. 30 Republican governors plus holding the House forever is not exactly a harbinger of doom.

Wookie, How stupid do you think the lot of voters as a whole are???

Just a few years ago the Dems railled against the fiscally irresponsible congress, promissing to bring spending under control... AND PEOPLE BOUGHT IT. LOL

for some reason, minorities just don't buy the whole "we've hated you for x decades, but please vote for us now" thing

dunno why that is

They keep doubling-down on crazy and recently seem kinda desperate. A lot of the base reject science and embrace the notion of apocalypse. Cognitive dissonance induced dysfunctional self-fulfiling doom prophecy FTW?

Oh, you sure got me good! When I made that post, I hadn't considered that broken promises on government spending and racial discrimination were in fact the same thing, but they are! How could I not see that?! I consider myself zinged.

facepalm.jpeg

The difference now is the demographics. The key voting blocs for Republicans are all shrinking, and they're doing nothing but shouting louder and pounding the table harder. Or calling themselves Independents because Republicans have effectively all become RINOs.

Insane Republicans still call themselves that or conservative. Sane ones are slowly backing out of the moronic circle-jerk town hall and choosing to be Independent.

I don't even know why we still have labels anyway. It's stupid. It seems like everyone these days is a fiscal conservative and social liberal no? Or at least that's the clear trend...

Crazy plays well in non-presidential years.

Yeah, pretty much.

Except for, y'know, like, somewhere around 535 politicians in Washington.

Those guys aside, yeah, basically all of the beltway

Wookie's post was trying to point out that your post in response to his was a straw man.