There are big problems a foot for the Republican Party, wracked by various scandals, alienating its base over ILLEGAL immigration and now having problems raising money, as a result.
These are certainly dark days for the Republican Party.
And the odd thing about that is that the GOP’s crisis is NOT an ideological one. That is, it’s not that liberalism is ascendant, or has even made inroads, it has not.
In fact, in the last election, the one in which the Republicans lost BOTH Houses of Congress, the vast majority of the Democratic gains were made by “New (largely Conservative) Democrats,” from former Reagan official Jim Webb to Evangelical Christian Heath Schuler. Gay Marriage was voted down in EIGHT of the NINE States it was on the Ballot and by wide margins. Americans oppose gay Marriage by better than 2 to 1! Eminent Domain, made an issue by the recent Kelo Decision, in which EVERY Liberal member of the Supreme Court supported Kelo (Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, along with swing members, Souter and Kennedy) and EVERY Conservative member (Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist and O’Connor) opposed the 2005 Decision fared even WORSE – voted down by huge margins in ELEVEN of the TWELVE States it was on the Ballot. Race-based preferences were voted down in very Blue Michigan and despite proponents of preferences outspending opponents by a wide margin.
Polls show Americans are overwhelmingly fiscally Conservative on taxes (they want them low and most Americans feel they are over-taxed) and they’re deeply opposed to the crime of ILLEGAL immigration – polls show that over 70% of Americans want an Enforcement First policy on ILLEGAL immigration.
In fact, it’s that last issue that is really hurting the GOP right now!
While the Bush administration has aligned itself with the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy on this matter, the Republican base, like most of America is aligned with Tom Tancredo.
The Republican base KNOWS that ILLEGAL immigration is NOT a “cheap labor” issue, it’s a CRIME issue. They also know that the argument, “You can’t just round up 11 million undocumented migrant workers and deport them all,” is a canard, as (1) you don’t HAVE TO, the most effective way of dealing with that aspect of the problem is to go after illicit employers (yes, it’s a crime to hire “undocumented workers” and pay workers “off-the-books”), drying up the jobs that serve as a magnet for migrant workers and (2) you certainly COULD, if you had the will, deport 11 million ILLEGAL migrant workers. We certainly COULD round up and deal with 11 million rapists or murderers!
So it’s easy to see where these days are frightening times for the GOP. Its Conservative base has always had a very uneasy truce with its “Moderate (Country Club) Republican hierarchy, the very same hierarchy that profits off “cheap migrant labor” at the expense of the American people – illegal immigration costs EVERY American some $19,000 over the course of their lives. Most simply pay that bill, others profit off that at everyone else’s expense.
Republicans gained big with Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America, but once Gingrich was ousted Party hacks like Tom DeLay couldn’t wait to line up at the trough, as though they were Democrat pigs at a pork fest.
The “Moderate Republican hierarchy have barely tolerated Conservatives – they haven’t shrunk government, as promised, they’ve merely cut taxes enough to raise revenues to record levels (income tax rate cuts down to about the 22% level raise tax revenues because fewer high income earners defer as much of their incomes when rates are lowered), they couldn’t wait to scuttle the term limits they’d ran and won on, and they couldn’t wait to sell out America for their own profits by supporting ILLEGAL immigration over the protests of their base.
So perhaps the Conservatives affiliation with the GOP is ending. It was a bad union anyway, an abusive relationship with its “Moderate” masters regularly slapping around its long-suffering Conservative voters.
So isn’t that GOOD NEWS for Liberal Democrats?
I don’t know how it could be.
America hasn’t and isn’t getting any more Liberal according to opinion polls, and while a Conservative Diaspora from the GOP might result in some short-term Liberal gains (though they DIDN’T in 2006), those Conservatives are going to go somewhere – the election of 2006 saw Conservative Democrats rise to over 20% of that Party’s presence in Congress!
Am I suggesting that Conservatives may move to and swamp the Democratic Party?
No, not at all, that seems to be, at best, a temporary haven for even the “Conservative Democrats.”
So where do we go, what happens if Conservative bolt the GOP and cede political control to a Party that’s run by people ideologically antithetical to Conservative ideas and ideals for a few years?
Bad things?
Bad, like rampant ILLEGAL immigration, a more intrusive government, and ever more government spending???
We already have most of that!
Sure, our taxes will rise, the rest will continue unabated. The WORST thing that may happen is that the Democrats well may scuttle the current conventional war on terror and in so doing open up America to another, even more devastating attack.
OK, so the Democrat’s domestic and foreign security policies may be as disastrous as their economic ones and yes, in BOTH cases the results would be disastrous, BUT while the results of their economic policies will no doubt be felt across the board, the major terror targets in the U.S. for better or worse are all in heavily Liberal bastions, like New York City, Washington, D.C., etc. That’s merely a fact.
In short, a more devastating terror attack in such a high value target area will impact American Liberals far more than it would Red Staters.
Is that a good thing?
No attack on the U.S. would be a “good thing,” but it’s comforting to know that Liberal policies in this area would put far more Liberals at extreme risk than others.
The last time Liberal/Keynesian economic policies were employed (1964 – 1981, LBJ thru Carter), the end result was STAGFLATION, the worst U.S. economy since the Great Depression and the U.S. had to be saved by the Supply-Side policies instituted ever since.
Another terror attack, especially one in the wake of a Democratic administration dismantling the Patriot Act, the NSA programs and the rest of our domestic security agenda would be something that American Liberalism probably could never recover from.
And most importantly, where would all those Conservative voters go?
Would they sit home?
Perhaps for an election or two, but many have proven that they WILL vote for Conservative Democrats, so long as they are true Conservatives.
Would they vote Libertarian?
Not very likely, since Libertarians tend to support a social agenda that many Conservatives find repulsive.
How about a reconstituted GOP?That certainly IS possible and it would beg the question that the Moderate hierarchy has asked for years, “Where would you (Conservatives) be without our money?”
A good question, and since the agenda of Moderate (Country Club) Republicans so closely mirrors that of Liberal Democrats, it would be well worth finding out.
Could the “Moderate Republicans” and the Liberal Dems forge their overwhelming advantage in support/money into a devastating win at the Ballot Box? In other words, could money alone trump the will of the huge majority of voters?
It may well be time to find out.
These are certainly dark days for the Republican Party.
And the odd thing about that is that the GOP’s crisis is NOT an ideological one. That is, it’s not that liberalism is ascendant, or has even made inroads, it has not.
In fact, in the last election, the one in which the Republicans lost BOTH Houses of Congress, the vast majority of the Democratic gains were made by “New (largely Conservative) Democrats,” from former Reagan official Jim Webb to Evangelical Christian Heath Schuler. Gay Marriage was voted down in EIGHT of the NINE States it was on the Ballot and by wide margins. Americans oppose gay Marriage by better than 2 to 1! Eminent Domain, made an issue by the recent Kelo Decision, in which EVERY Liberal member of the Supreme Court supported Kelo (Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, along with swing members, Souter and Kennedy) and EVERY Conservative member (Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist and O’Connor) opposed the 2005 Decision fared even WORSE – voted down by huge margins in ELEVEN of the TWELVE States it was on the Ballot. Race-based preferences were voted down in very Blue Michigan and despite proponents of preferences outspending opponents by a wide margin.
Polls show Americans are overwhelmingly fiscally Conservative on taxes (they want them low and most Americans feel they are over-taxed) and they’re deeply opposed to the crime of ILLEGAL immigration – polls show that over 70% of Americans want an Enforcement First policy on ILLEGAL immigration.
In fact, it’s that last issue that is really hurting the GOP right now!
While the Bush administration has aligned itself with the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy on this matter, the Republican base, like most of America is aligned with Tom Tancredo.
The Republican base KNOWS that ILLEGAL immigration is NOT a “cheap labor” issue, it’s a CRIME issue. They also know that the argument, “You can’t just round up 11 million undocumented migrant workers and deport them all,” is a canard, as (1) you don’t HAVE TO, the most effective way of dealing with that aspect of the problem is to go after illicit employers (yes, it’s a crime to hire “undocumented workers” and pay workers “off-the-books”), drying up the jobs that serve as a magnet for migrant workers and (2) you certainly COULD, if you had the will, deport 11 million ILLEGAL migrant workers. We certainly COULD round up and deal with 11 million rapists or murderers!
So it’s easy to see where these days are frightening times for the GOP. Its Conservative base has always had a very uneasy truce with its “Moderate (Country Club) Republican hierarchy, the very same hierarchy that profits off “cheap migrant labor” at the expense of the American people – illegal immigration costs EVERY American some $19,000 over the course of their lives. Most simply pay that bill, others profit off that at everyone else’s expense.
Republicans gained big with Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America, but once Gingrich was ousted Party hacks like Tom DeLay couldn’t wait to line up at the trough, as though they were Democrat pigs at a pork fest.
The “Moderate Republican hierarchy have barely tolerated Conservatives – they haven’t shrunk government, as promised, they’ve merely cut taxes enough to raise revenues to record levels (income tax rate cuts down to about the 22% level raise tax revenues because fewer high income earners defer as much of their incomes when rates are lowered), they couldn’t wait to scuttle the term limits they’d ran and won on, and they couldn’t wait to sell out America for their own profits by supporting ILLEGAL immigration over the protests of their base.
So perhaps the Conservatives affiliation with the GOP is ending. It was a bad union anyway, an abusive relationship with its “Moderate” masters regularly slapping around its long-suffering Conservative voters.
So isn’t that GOOD NEWS for Liberal Democrats?
I don’t know how it could be.
America hasn’t and isn’t getting any more Liberal according to opinion polls, and while a Conservative Diaspora from the GOP might result in some short-term Liberal gains (though they DIDN’T in 2006), those Conservatives are going to go somewhere – the election of 2006 saw Conservative Democrats rise to over 20% of that Party’s presence in Congress!
Am I suggesting that Conservatives may move to and swamp the Democratic Party?
No, not at all, that seems to be, at best, a temporary haven for even the “Conservative Democrats.”
So where do we go, what happens if Conservative bolt the GOP and cede political control to a Party that’s run by people ideologically antithetical to Conservative ideas and ideals for a few years?
Bad things?
Bad, like rampant ILLEGAL immigration, a more intrusive government, and ever more government spending???
We already have most of that!
Sure, our taxes will rise, the rest will continue unabated. The WORST thing that may happen is that the Democrats well may scuttle the current conventional war on terror and in so doing open up America to another, even more devastating attack.
OK, so the Democrat’s domestic and foreign security policies may be as disastrous as their economic ones and yes, in BOTH cases the results would be disastrous, BUT while the results of their economic policies will no doubt be felt across the board, the major terror targets in the U.S. for better or worse are all in heavily Liberal bastions, like New York City, Washington, D.C., etc. That’s merely a fact.
In short, a more devastating terror attack in such a high value target area will impact American Liberals far more than it would Red Staters.
Is that a good thing?
No attack on the U.S. would be a “good thing,” but it’s comforting to know that Liberal policies in this area would put far more Liberals at extreme risk than others.
The last time Liberal/Keynesian economic policies were employed (1964 – 1981, LBJ thru Carter), the end result was STAGFLATION, the worst U.S. economy since the Great Depression and the U.S. had to be saved by the Supply-Side policies instituted ever since.
Another terror attack, especially one in the wake of a Democratic administration dismantling the Patriot Act, the NSA programs and the rest of our domestic security agenda would be something that American Liberalism probably could never recover from.
And most importantly, where would all those Conservative voters go?
Would they sit home?
Perhaps for an election or two, but many have proven that they WILL vote for Conservative Democrats, so long as they are true Conservatives.
Would they vote Libertarian?
Not very likely, since Libertarians tend to support a social agenda that many Conservatives find repulsive.
How about a reconstituted GOP?That certainly IS possible and it would beg the question that the Moderate hierarchy has asked for years, “Where would you (Conservatives) be without our money?”
A good question, and since the agenda of Moderate (Country Club) Republicans so closely mirrors that of Liberal Democrats, it would be well worth finding out.
Could the “Moderate Republicans” and the Liberal Dems forge their overwhelming advantage in support/money into a devastating win at the Ballot Box? In other words, could money alone trump the will of the huge majority of voters?
It may well be time to find out.
Hi JMK,
ReplyDeleteyour article just verified what I wrote on a blog called stubborn facts. There, quite a few people were sweating it over the recent Craig scandal, worrying how it could destroy the Reps. As a lib, I wrote that they should be more concerned about the ideology rather than the number of R's and D's in Congress.
Great point Rachel.
ReplyDeleteStill, sad to say way too many people on BOTH sides see politics more as a "team sport," than a battle of ideas.
P.S. You can always link your blog articles here...