The parties took economics off the plate of issues by 1978. They've both been whores to Wall Street ever since. Tho current events may end that status quo. That left only social matters for the population to pick and choose on.MSimon wrote:The parties no longer represent the electorate.
The base are the center right social conservatives. The GOP has been using and humoring them for 30 years, but the party machine does little more than throw bones to them. The odd strict constructionist judge. Which does not mean Christian conservative judge.MSimon wrote:I blame the base. The base has done a piss poor job of selling their ideals.
Which has been a disaster for the GOP since 2005, since the ground level organization for the GOP was all run by the base. PO them and the organization below the RNC ceases to exist. And has largely done so. Donation pleas by the RNC have gone unanswered to a spectacular degree.
Different factions.MSimon wrote:However, I can tell you the root cause of that. They are confused. They thought that being strong on defense and economical government required a religious basis.
The religious conservatives wanted social stability. An end to the revolution of '68 and some rollback.
The Libertarians want SMALL government. And are all in favor of libertine social policy.
The Wall Streeters and Libertarians want ever lower taxes. The Wall Streeters want zilch financial regulation and feel good save the world social policy.
Neocons (ex Trotskyites) and various fragments of the other factions are national security conservatives.
The Reagan Coalition GOP was designed to win the Cold War. Its member factions were very poorly matched in most other ways. After 1990 the question was when would that coalition come apart, not if.
End the revolution social conservatism is more than the Christian coalition. Blue Collar hereditary Dems, Blacks (one of the most militantly anti-homosexual groups in the country), some others.MSimon wrote:The Terry Schiavo debacle is where they first started going wrong.
A human dignity arument could've been made in the Schiavo case. Once you move from killing fetuses to killing living mature humans who were once fully functional, matters start becoming very iffy. Europe has already taken the next step (the Groningen Protocols) and is quickly moving toward the functional equivalent of the T4 Program. A dying continent killing even its dysfunctional children says something. And the Dem Social Left all want to be Euro Social Democrats.
There were questions about the husband's motivations, the parents were willing to absorb all costs, and the Federal Judiciary defied the plain intent of Congressional law, which is particularly scary. The Schiavo case was bad all around.
Huckabee? The man stuck his foot in his mouth recently, but is a killer orator with a first rate sense of humor. In different circumstances he could have been a very effective candidate.MSimon wrote:Yahoos like the preacher who ran in the Republican primaries may be popular with the base, but they will never sell in a nationwide election.
Socially the country has been mildly center-left since the 1930s. The difference is that the Dems moved uber-Left after '68, making the Christian GOP social conservatives more attractive than the Hollywood avant garde social liberals. The country is not opposed to honest religiousness, just to 700 Club extremists. And besides his ordination, the rest of Huckabee's record is very centrist to liberal.
MSimon wrote:The '04 Illinois Senate election debacle should have wised up the base. Leave religion out of politics. Stick to common principles. In fact I voted for the communist over the religious nutter. I knew what I was doing.
Shrub's greatest enduring achievement will be moving the country effectively to the Left. Best since Hoover for doing that, and the GOP's current insistence on "market solutions" to the various market meltdowns is only doing it all the more.
The 40-40-20 country we had in 2000 (conservative - centrist - liberal) is now more like 35-30-35, with the centrist 30 leaning left.
Tho in 2000 the parties were 50-50 in identification. 40-10 conservative - centrist for the GOP, 20-30 liberal - centrist for the Dems. The centrists were not reliable bases for the parties. Meant the GOP only needed 11/40 of the center to win, whereas the Dems needed 31/40.
Shrub killed that. Well done. Idiot.
NOT what the people want, and the population is tired of being lied to. There have been too many bait and switch lies for the politicians to be believed on this anymore.MSimon wrote:The way to solve the border problem is to make it easier for people to come and go from this country. Right now we have a one way valve. Is the base listening? Nope. Ultimately (if we survive for another 100 years) North America will be one big open border area. It is inevitable. The only viable choke point is the Isthmus. In the mean time instead of holding back integration we need to figure out how to best accomplish it. Instead of the haphazard way we are doing it now.
Regardless of the press hype, pro-immigration enforcement crosses the aisle. Blacks, Hereditary Dems & Blue Dogs are all on the same page with the national security and social conservative GOPhers on this one.
The medium term solution is fairly clear. Crack down on the employers and starve the social programs. No work + no support and the illegals auto- deport themselves. Long term you may be right about cultural homogenization in North America, but the trend for the next 40 years is not in that direction.
"End the Revolution of '68 & respect traditional social institutions" social conservatism remains widely popular, but is divided between both parties, whose respective leaderships have zilch interest in acting on it. The one adaptation IMO will be an acceptance of monogamous gay marriage. GenY is going strongly for that, but is traditionalist in other ways.MSimon wrote:The base can't abide that. They can't be patient and work to move the electorate in their direction (if they only knew how). The base is out of air speed and out of ideas. Why? They no longer appeal to the basically libertarian (leave us alone) middle. When a certain RR was running for office they knew how to do that. When a newt presented his plan they knew what to do. Have you seen his current plan? Thinner than water soup.
The GOP will either rebuild in the next 10 years to a new model of factions, or the US again becomes a 1.5 party country on the 1930-1990 model.
The inherent contradictions of the two parties are becoming clear to the people. Patience with the eternal fobbing off by the party leaderships is very close to an end. And the refusal of the parties to put economic policy on the political table is about to implode.MSimon wrote:The American public IMO is not tired. The parties are.
The GOP is further along the road of disintegration, but IMO the reign of Jimmah 2 (POTUS Obama) and the immanent move of Wall Street over to the Dems, where they're more socially comfortable, may well do that to the Dems as well. The ground is ready for a realignment.
Depends. Do the Mullahs want power, or do they want to usher in the coming of the 12th Imam from Occultation? If power, the Ahmadinejad problem is solved with one 9mm slug to the base of the neck. So long as the Mullahs are marginally sane, Israel may be willing to live with a MAD balance of power. It semi-works on the Indian subcontinent, and advancing Missile Defense makes it increasingly viable as there is no direct land border between the two.MSimon wrote:Well, if the current trajectories continue we will have a nuke war with Iran. That should sober everyone up. My hope is that the Decider will take matters into his own hands and do the right thing. He will have 80 days. Better a war that Americans hate than a nuke conflagration. YMMV.
Duane
