GOP....will it survive as is? (Iraq, generations, global warming, ethics)

[Swampmonster]

Who really knows what's going to happen with the GOP in the next 4 yrs...the party is in turmoil and is now up for grabs ....either the conservatives can use this to push the rabid retards out of their party or they can continue to let morons like Rush be their voice and go farther down the sewer pipe.....TRUE Conservatives have lost their party and their voice and it started with Reagan's pandering to the neoCON nazis within the party and was finished by the Karl Rove tactics that have got them to where they are today(do you really think Palin would have been the face of conservatives in the party prior to the dumbing down of the GOP by the Reagan era?).....Are the conservatives going to take their party back or just burn what's left of it and start over?Are the true conservatives that are left going to end up voting Dem as the Dems continue to move a bit more towards the center? What do you think is going to happen as the power is being shifted within the GOP?

[cap1717]

Right at the moment, it looks to me as though the GOP is going to it's "base", the most rabidly conservative faction appears to be on the verge of taking power. They are "good at" advertising an easy, soundbite message, that oversimplifies any problem, and causes those who are "afraid of change" to and who do not do their own thinking to get onboard. . . I do not, however, believe that this will ever be "enough", again. The younger generations may well take up the message of financial conservatism, but they will not villify all those who are different from them, as the base has, and moderate as well as more liberal voices will be much harder to ignore after the fiasco of the Bush administration.

[Evenstar51]

The GOP has been reduced to hysteria, and with good cause. The disillusioned evangelicals have decamped because they're angry with having been
used so cynically, or have revolted against pols who insist that global warming isn't real. The neocons just proved to the world how vapid and ridiculous their
policies have become. Now they think that a 14 year-old boy is going to save them.
True conservatism has left the building, and there aren't enough delusional people
to keep their party afloat. Once Obama gets into ethics reform, the money they've
always relied upon will dry up. Frankly, judging from the nastiness of their posts
(not all, but a few too many) they reaize that they're headed for extinction.

[Swampmonster]

I agree with you...I would hope that they came out of this a better party,but I just don't see it happening...We NEED the balance,but I think it has tipped to far to ever spring back to center and they(the rabid right) have left to many in their party feeling disenfranchised and without a voice...the hipocrisy the far right has shown in the last few decades is staggering to most true conservatives....they have became a farce as they preach family values,but the big boys in the party have adultry issues,they preach against drugs and homosexuality and it goes without saying how many of the big boys have been pinched for that in recent years....only the truly stupid have stayed blind to this hipocrisy and continue to follow like sheep...where are the TRUE conservatives going to turn?Are they going to survive?

[Bluefly]

Well, keep in mind that 5 years ago people were saying the same of the Democratic Party and talking about decades of Republican rule. So, politics can turn on a dime.

That said, Idiocracy was on Comedy Central the other day and I couldn't help but see a comparison. The Republcans never had the "social" conservative angle until they realized they could exploit the Southern Democrats frustrated with the Civil Rights Act.

Suddenly, the logical pro-choice position focused on keeping government out of our lives became pro-life focused on getting religious votes.

I just don't know how you separate fiscal conservativism from social conservatism anymore. People seem to think they are one in the same.

[GregW]

The old money patriarchs of the Republican Party were forced out by the fascist quick money neocons. They cynically used, as pointed out above, the frightened and outraged Southern Democrats that were removed from their special status by the civil rights movement. These people provided the votes to elect the Republicans for the last forty years. Now they have developed enough politicians to remove both the old money patriarchs and the neocons from party leadership. IMHO these racist religious fanatics are trying to establish a Cromwellian tyranny to save their privilege by restoring white superiority throughout the world.

I do not know of any Republic that has been destroyed by leftist economics but several have collapsed under the rage of racist tyrants. I hope we avoid this fate.

[jojajn]

The downfall of the Republican Party began when they violated the very values and principles they supposedly stood for in order to stay in power. As a result, they lost control of the House, Senate, and Executive branch. But, most shameful, they lost themselves in this very process!

[Old Gringo]

I think the GOP is headed for minor party status unless it begins to see the light. At present, the indications of vision are few and far between. They've painted themselves into a shrinking corner. What's sad is that they continue to assert that they're in the center of the room.

[Swampmonster]

Originally Posted by Bluefly

Well, keep in mind that 5 years ago people were saying the same of the Democratic Party and talking about decades of Republican rule. So, politics can turn on a dime.

That said, Idiocracy was on Comedy Central the other day and I couldn't help but see a comparison. The Republcans never had the "social" conservative angle until they realized they could exploit the Southern Democrats frustrated with the Civil Rights Act.

Suddenly, the logical pro-choice position focused on keeping government out of our lives became pro-life focused on getting religious votes.

I just don't know how you separate fiscal conservativism from social conservatism anymore. People seem to think they are one in the same.

You should watch "Idiocracy" uncut and it shows the comparisons much better (CC cuts WAY to much out of it)

THAT is their major conflict....it's bassackwards these days within the repub party...the REAL conservatives were not so much about social problems and were more about fiscal problems and getting gov't OUT of social problems...the transformation from the old school repubs to the neoCONS have changed the party's game plan.

[Mike from back east]

The DEMs could capture the votes of 'fiscal' conservatives if if if, after the current incredible economic situation passes, that they act with restraint and move towards getting the budget back in balance.

If the DEMs do things that are "reasonable" to the majority of voters, rather than radical things like the neo-cons and evango-fascists dictated to the guy who said HE was the decider, then the DEMs can pickup many votes of the huge, centrist, "silent majority" that Nixon milked. So, you ask, what are reasonable things? Here are examples that I can point to:
- Repeal the ban on embryonic stem cell research. These cells exist in a pyrex lab dish and were headed for the trash heap. The entire argument against this research was nothing but evango-fascist voodoo, nothing remotely reasonable.
- Repeal the ban on using federal money for birth control in developing nations. Another evango-fascist non-issue. The ban means millions more starving babies in those nations. Repealing the ban gives those pitifully poor people the same chance to avoid unwanted pregnancies as we have here.
- Today, Obama is expected to put into place some frameworks that protect "science" from the political process. The lack of these protections have subjected scientific research to the politics of the extreme evango-fascist wingnuts who had the stem cell and family planning bans put into effect in the first place. We need to get ALL religion out of our politics and our government, and that includes our scientific community.
- Money for roads. Most any politician KNOWS that people hate potholes, yet the GOP starved the road budget in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy.
- Money for AMTRAK. As a career transport specialist, I can't tell you how smart it is to invest in rail, but since Nixon, the GOP has tried to kill AMTRAK. Anyone who drives in any of our overcrowded corridors knows that getting around by rail is a great solution, and will support any politician who supports rail mass-transit and AMTRAK.
- Reducing the troop count in Iraq. By now, only the blind and stupid believe there were WMD in Iraq and that the invasion was warranted. The vast majority of us want our guys out of there and for the Iraqi's to run their own nation.

Not bad for his first 7 weeks in office. Lots more good, common sense stuff is yet to come from this new President. The GOP can only watch and try to obstruct, becoming even more cartoonish and buffoonish as they fuss and fume.