This morning the punditocracy are all huffin-puffin about what it could mean to have a Democratic White House and Congress. I won’t belabor the spin–if you know who was talkin’, you can fill in what their spin was. Right now, it’s all the same ol’ same ol’.
Even the last-ditch piss-in-our-bed Rethuglican airing of the Rev. Wright attack ad has a tired, worn quality to it. Sure it’ll gin up the base and GOTRV, but let’s face it, that segment of rightwing screeddom is getting smaller and smaller by the hour.
Just look at the Republican–former Republican or temporary independent–endorsements Obama has picked up. Iconic Republican names: [Susan] Eisenhower, [Ron] Reagan, [CC] Goldwater, Hagel’s wife, Senator Pressler, Governor Carlson….
So instead of handwringing with faux concern over what the Democrats may do, perhaps it’s time to consider what the Republican Rump will do. Krugman certainly thinks it’s more than time.
This is the core Rethuglicanism — and like a bloated, rotting corpse with maggots feeding in its belly, there is nothing right now that would appeal to any but the most ideological…or willfully ignorant.
Or as Krugman puts it:
But the G.O.P.’s long transformation into the party of the unreasonable right, a haven for racists and reactionaries, seems likely to accelerate as a result of the impending defeat.
This will pose a dilemma for moderate conservatives. Many of them spent the Bush years in denial, closing their eyes to the administration’s dishonesty and contempt for the rule of law. Some of them have tried to maintain that denial through this year’s election season, even as the McCain-Palin campaign’s tactics have grown ever uglier. But one of these days they’re going to have to realize that the G.O.P. has become the party of intolerance.
Win or lose, will new life emerge from that fetid corpse? I guess that would depend on whether the Greedy Ol’ Party is capable of evolution…or cutting off the mutated cancer that is the GOP today.
Time will tell.
.
(crossposted at homeblog Prairie Sun Rising)
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For so-called moderate Republicans to remain silent, while their party leadership committed crime after crime against the Constitution and basic human rights, has been incomprehensible to me. May they take note of what progressives in the Democratic party have been doing, and demand “We want our Party back!”
Prairie Sunshine:
Mr Klynn, before we were married was a Republican ticket voter. After we married, he became interested in how I informed myself as a voter. His decision making became more engaged in understanding policy platforms instead of passing articles and soundbites. Consequently, he became more of an independent voter with Democratic leanings.
After this election, he does not think he can consider another Republican again because they have branded themselves as the party of hate, devisiveness, greed, intolerance and champions of dishonesty. In otherwords, total disfunction. Mr. Klynn does exempt Lugar, Hagel and just a tiny few others from this viewpoint.
Mr. Klynn wants a call from a Republican just so he can say this. Otherwise, he plans to send a letter to the GOP.
P.S.,
The real question, the one Krugman leaves unasked, is this: “What shall we do about it? What can we do about it?”
The final removal of the moderate Republicans may lead to the death of the GOP. I think it highly unlikely that a party with any religious test can be viable for very long.
Do the now-deserted moderate R’s (both of them!) join up with Blue Dogs to form a new conservative party? Or (much less likely, IMO), does the GOP take heed of the lesson of 2008, and ostracize its religious extremists? Republicans built their government on the back of an unlikely coalition of economic and social conservative (Country Club Republicans and Talibangelicals). When the interests diverge, the coalition falls apart. It certainly appears that the interests have diverged.
Let me make a modest proposal. If the GOP really does go into receivership (it’s a little early to tell), maybe we should invade it and co-opt it.
Hmm. But, as we’ve seen in Iraq, an invasion would require an occupation. Lots of crap coming from the whackjobs on the Right. Do you really want to go there? *g*
P.S.,
I think that this rump of the Rethuglican Party will work very hard to thwart Obama at every turn. Instead of assessing internally why they are where they are at, their model will be along the lines of Gingrich’s ‘Contract with America,’ and they will continue to spread their vicious distortions and lies to achieve a reversal in Congress in the 2010 mid-terms and regain power.
Personally, I want the Democrats to stand up and at least try to become the true public servants that they claim to be. There is an opportunity here for progressive Dems in Congress to act in ways that repudiate the dishonesty, greed and hypocrisy of the Gingrich/Delay crowd, which will put that virtual stake through the rotten heart of the Rethuglicans. But I just don’t see this outcome coming to pass with Reid, Pelosi, Hoyer, Emanuel, or any of these other self-serving Dems that are currently holding the reins. In fact, I can project where this group of Dem leaders will blow it, and the Rethugs will come back from the morgue in 2010.
one of his best columns
What will happen, I hope, is that the Bob Barrs and Ron Pauls will find someone who is a decent organizer.
The struggle will be between the Neo-Cons and the traditional Republicans like Barr and Paul (yes, I know that Paul is really a Libertarian, but traditional Republicans and Libertarians are hard to tell apart on many issues.)
Bob in HI
Those who have lauded the Republican party through its decades of degeneration should be mocked for their lack of a moral center.
There are at least two levels to this.
At the grunt level, there’s the question of what will all these bitter, confused and demoralized xenophobes, racists, theocrats and true believers do from here on out.
At a higher level, there’s the question of the people who have been funding the RP, the conservative movement and RW talk radio – What will they decide to spend their money on now? Their billion-dollar investment in the RP has gone bad. Will Wednesday morning’s Republican Party be an adequate vehicle for the continuance of their project?
What the RW footsoldiers end up doing will be highly dependent on what the Scaifes, Coors, Schicks, etc. decide to finance.
And there’s talk of a conservatives meeting a coupla days after the election…bet this will be topic central.