GET THIS ONE PARTY STARTED
Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:00:34
Don't be fooled by the drubbing the GOP gave the Democrats in November. It was just a hiccup. We are watching the Republican Party melting down in front of our eyes.
Even if they weren't led by a bunch of bobble heads, bigots and corporate stooges whose antics are turning off every fair-minded citizen, the Republicans would still be doomed by the demographics. Their core constituency of over-fifty white dudes and dudettes is marching inexorably toward that happy home from which no voter returns.
They are being replaced by a rapidly growing cohort of wired X'ers, networked Millennials and no-nonsense, first-generation Americans who think that Rush and Glenn are odious gnomes, that God loves lesbians and gays, that a woman's right to choose is a given, that affordable health care is not a plot by Big Brother and that digging us out of this double-dip, deep-dish recession takes precedence over the right to bear extended clip assault rifles or the need to sniff out the President's birth certificate.
The turning point in the Republican's rush to destruction came in the mid-nineties when they rallied around Prop 186, California Governor Pete Wilson's attempt to criminalize the state's undocumented workers, bar them from emergency rooms and toss their children out of school. Their support of this cruel measure marginalized the GOP in California, and emboldened Republicans across the nation to come out of The Big Tent and declare their narrow minded nativism. Their ruthless xenophobia alienated the very Hispanic voters whose "family values" made them a logical target for GOP recruitment.
Then came Bush The Younger. Eight years of dry drunk stupidity, an illegal war, a drowned city, and a trashed economy. The election of Barack the Democrat was as much a signal of the center's disgust with Bush and his inner circle of seditious power brokers as it was their enthusiasm for the Messenger of Hope and Change.
And then the coup de grace, the rise of The Tea Party. Raging at the disappearance of white exceptionalism and unlimited credit, this gaggle of George Washington impersonators and gun show habitués drank the Koch Kool Aid and turned the midterm election on it's head. Result: five dozen, totally clueless, freshman Representatives and a handful of fresh wing-nuts in the Senate.
They soon revealed that it's one thing to win an election and another to govern. Less than three months in office and these fools are obviously over their heads, more passionate about trashing NPR and Planned Parenthood than creating jobs or educating the next generation.They're already eating their young, a beggar's banquet that will feed on itself for the next two years.
Come 2014, an underemployed, cash strapped and legitimately angry electorate will throw these bums out, return the Speakership to the dreaded Nancy Pelosi, increase the Democrats grip on the Senate and return the great Not Me to the White House.
Then the dynamics within the Republican Party will reach critical mass and shatter. The Tea Party and the Ayatollahs will go their own way (perhaps to form a third party or parties) and what's left of the GOP will face a long sojourn in the wilderness.
It will be a one party Congress for a long, long time. Instead of donkeys and elephants it will be Green Democrats on the left, Blue Democrats in the center and Red Democrats on the right. Perhaps, in the short run, it could be a good thing. Certainly, Obama will need a strong mandate to turn this mess around. But after that, whither the two-party system? Your guess is as good as or better than mine.