Looking Ahead at… a Republican Civil War?
Political scientist and sometime Democratic political advisor, Bob Shrum, offers interesting things to think about in his column today, following Romney’s possibly terminal couple of weeks. Some excerpts:
There is a civil war gathering in the Republican Party. It looks more and more like a dispirited and disappointed collection of factions, preparing to lay blame for a lost presidential election and to do battle to shape a new direction for the Grand Old Party.
Last week the view hardened that the Republican nominee was in close to terminal trouble. …Daily Beast
What then, if Obama wins?
… With Romney consigned in 2013 to his four-car elevator mansion in La Jolla, Calif., the president may face daunting challenges to governing even as he once again reaches across the aisle. His mandate could prove momentary, which is what happened to Harry Truman, who achieved almost nothing domestically in the four years after his upset win in 1948. At least this time, the Supreme Court will be saved from a right-wing coup and health-care reform won’t be dispatched to extremist defenestration. And Democrats could hold the high ground for elections to come.
This outcome—in an Obama second term, in 2016, and campaigns beyond—will be magnified or modulated by the course of the irrepressible conflict between the Jeb Bush Republicans and the Paul Ryan Republicans. The two men represent very different paths. Bush stands for a tempered conservatism; he understands the impending demographic doom of a reactionary, anti-Hispanic Republican Party. He’s writing a book on immigration; as he said this summer: “Don’t just … say immediately we must have controlled borders. Change the tone … think we need a broader approach.” Ryan, on the other hand, champions a hardline approach on immigration, along with virtual repeal of the New Deal and the social progress of the 1960s. …Daily Beast
But this isn’t going to be a quick and easy demise of the extremists in the Republican party.
…In an America where the party of angry white men increasingly speaks for and to a permanent minority, it could take another defeat and maybe another before the GOP comes to its senses. …
…Hovering over [Romney's] apparently desperate march toward a concession speech is the specter of Republicans fighting their protracted civil war. Someday, somehow, someone will do for the conservative side of our politics what Bill Clinton did as the progressive who brought Democrats back to the mainstream. But post-2012, maybe even Ryan won’t be pure enough; it could be full-Santorum ahead. …Daily Beast
Having behaved like spoiled — “entitled” — children for several decades, it’s going to take time for Republicans to simply grow up. Unfortunately, short of moving to a functioning democratic country overseas, we have to be here the whole time, watching and waiting. Or, in this blogger’s opinion, selective corporate boycotts — particularly of the media conglomerates fueling extremism and division — could help speed the process along…
Cross-posted from Prairie Weather
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Karl Rove will crush Ryan. Jeb Bush is going to cake walk to the Rep nomination.
I fear the Republican party will have quite a long hangover after overindulgence in the “Tea”. How ironic that the Republican party decimated by one Bush might be saved by another.
Shannon time will tell. If we are doing well economically by 2016, I agree the sane will retake control of the asylum. If we are still in trouble or some other misfortune befalls us the inmates could stick around another cycle or two. Ultimately, I think their chances of actually gaining power are demishing (demographics). This could result in the GOP shrinking and becoming little more than declining regional party. We really need more than one party to maintain a healthly democracy. Of course as often discussed here this could lead to the formation of a new more moderate party. However it’s beyond my crystal ball’s power to see how this would come about.
WW, in four years, we will be broker than we are now and employment, before counting those that have stopped looking for jobs, will be above 7.5%.
A new and improved set of Dems will raise enough money to overcome the amount raised by Reps equivalent the the GNP of a third-world country or the amount spent on ensuring our food supply is safe, and promise to stop the train coming down the tunnel at us.
dduck, you’re right and this could be the big negative consequence of not having two functioning parties. We need both parties to keep the other honest and warn us about the approaching train.
WW, so true, but the ..are instesd looking at each other and never mind the train.
The GOP ain’t going nowhere. They are going to get a trip to the woodshed, maybe, but they are in no more danger of disappearing as a major party than the dems were in 2004. The pendulum swings is all.
I think the question is whether or not the ultra-ideologues will leave the GOP to shift to making something like the American Conservative Party stronger. If they can’t get someone as far to the right as they want nominated yet again in 2016 it might be a possibility. That would certainly change the dynamic of the Senate and House elections a great deal.
First of all they should stop calling themselves “conservatives” since they are nothing of the kind.
It’s gonna take more than that. Mortality will do the trick… hopefully the Jebsters will take over the party before that happens. I agree, we need two HEALTHY parties. For some time now we’ve only had one – which is not enough to do the necessary work when the other party has dedicated itself to being a wrench in the works.
And for most of those several decades, the choice the Republican party has given itself essentially boils down to “should we go even further to the right, or further than that?”
They haven’t figured out that the country at large isn’t behind their idea that “maybe the last time we just weren’t conservative enough.”
After Bush left office, everyone thought the GOP would learn a lesson from their failures and learn a more conciliatory style of governing. Instead we got the leaner, meaner Tea Party–that made traditional Republicans look like pussycats.
I doubt that the crazies are going anywhere, because they seem to be able to get campaign funding no matter how outrageous and dysfunctional they seem to us.
Don’t be so sure that a different kind of civil war is not in the dystopian future. Colin Woodward has a very keen outlook on what is going on in North America (north of Mexico). http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/real-u-s-map-a-country-of-regions-part-1-commentary-by-colin-woodard.html
I believe that it is not impossible that the United States of America may have a short time left to exist.
Getting back to the GOP, I expect an implosion if they lose the White House. They already are an exclusionary party, having drummed out moderates and insulting libertarians. They are a party of blame, with their anti-immigration, anti-poor statements. They are difficult and arrogant, with their unwillingness to even say the word “compromise”. They are wholly owned by moneyed interests, who aren’t too forgiving. None of these characteristics are capable of making positive change, they are characteristics of a failed institution.
Rcoutme, great link! I don’t think the USA is quite ready to fall apart yet, but the Woodard article IS fascinating reading.
I think Barky’s right. The GOP is already in need of serious therapy. If they lose this election there isn’t really any further they can go to the right… so what happens?
That is a neat link. I had never thought to look at things in those terms. I do disagree we are ready to fall apart anytime soon though, things are pretty messed up and might get worse before they get better, but I’m still pretty sure we’ll all be ok in the end.
Thanks to Romney’s “off the cuff” derogatory remarks about his own supporters, the republicans true feelings about the well being of Americans has been exposed. According to what I’ve read, Republicans make up at least half of the 47%! Romney has let the whole world including his own supporters know, how he feels about them. Those in the 47% previously voting Republican should leave the party as soon as they find out the truth about how Romney feels about them.
Furthermore, once the Christians realize that Romney and the party he represents platform of no health care, no food, no help for the poor and more and more for the rich, is an anti-Christ platform, they should flee the party immediately.
Party pooper.
Rcoutme
That link explains why I never feel at home even when I’m at home.
Having lived in several of these regions and adjusted to them only to move on to another, I find that I finally “fit” nowhere. I suspect there are a lot like me out there and we’re all now in one or another of these regions which makes us the glue that keeps them from flying apart. I hope, I hope.
Thanks Rcoutme! I went to your excellent link and read all 5 parts I was especially impressed with the authors conclusion:
I was so impressed actually that I went to Amazon and bought the book – American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
Being the full time optimist, I think ‘we’ would be better with the change and, if younger, would be excitedly looking forward to whatever happens next.
.
This was part of the quote that I posted and in re-reading it felt it needed to be highlighted.