Republicans Are Doomed
Eddie Valiant: So that's why you killed Acme and Maroon? For this freeway? I don't get it.Judge Doom: Of course not. You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night. Soon, where Toon Town once stood will be a string of gas stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food. Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Dear GOP - I'm out of work and can't find a job. What can you do for me?
Dear "can't find a job," - we are going to give rich people tax cuts. There'll be lots of jobs, you can bank on it.
Dear GOP - I'm a single mom with a sick child, and no health care.
Dear "single mom" - we are the party that respects the sanctity and dignity of human life.
Dear GOP - if I don't get a job soon I'm going to kill myself!
Dear "kill myself" - the GOP upholds your constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
Dear GOP - I'm worried that pollution is destroying our planet.
Dear "worried" - not to worry, we'll give big polluters a really, really big tax cut.
conservatism - con·ser·va·tism [ kən súrvə tìzzəm ] - noun
1. reluctance to accept change: unwillingness or slowness to accept change or new ideas
2. right-wing political viewpoint: a right-of-center political philosophy based on a tendency to support gradual rather than abrupt change and to preserve the status quo
3. desire to preserve current societal structure: an ideology that views the existing form of society as worthy of preservation
Encarta® World English Dictionary
On April 29th a new group, Resurgent Republic, headed by former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie released a report showing a Republican resurgence. Longtime Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg sent a biting letter to Gillespie refuting his data.
You would probably be surprised if I didn't have some reactions and advice to offer, as you explicitly state you are "modeled on Democracy Corps." Given your goal, I am perplexed that your first poll would be so outside the mainstream on partisanship. Your poll gives the Democrats just a 2-point party identification advantage in the country, but other public polls in this period fell between +7 and +16 points - giving the Democrats an average advantage of 11 points. Virtually all your issue debates in the survey would have tilted quite differently had the poll been 9 points more Democratic.
Greenberg offers Gillespie some pithy advice:
Greenberg doesn't hold back in his snarky criticism:The problem of partisanship pales before the problem of self-deluding bias in question wording that might well contribute to Republicans digging themselves deeper and deeper into a hole.
Your most important finding was the strong opposition to Barack Obama's budget when you describe it for voters. Ed, from your platform on Meet the Press you told Republican leaders they can confidently oppose this budget and expect independents to side with them.
In effect, your survey has you winning an argument with yourself. Indeed, that is where you start your analysis of the first poll - telling readers in bold and underlined type that you are winning the big ideological debate by two-to-one, which "verifies America remains a center-right country." In this seminal debate, one side says:In an interview with Huffington Post; GOP Defined As "Utterly Uncaring" In "Time Of Crisis", Greenberg summed up his view of the Republican party:Government policies should promote opportunity by fostering job growth, encouraging entrepreneurs, and allowing people to keep more of what they earn.
The other, pathetically out-of-touch side says:
Government policies should promote fairness by narrowing the gap between rich and poor, spreading the wealth, and making sure that economic outcomes are more equal.
The party leaders all personify the geographic and ideological base -- namely, southern white conservatives, he said. The emphasis on cultural issues is ill-fitting in the current climate. The strict opposition to the president's economic plans was almost transparent in its motivation. And the criticism of the stimulus was "defining their party as utterly uncaring during this time of crisis."On May 4th Resurgent Republic's Whit Ayres (not Gillespie?) responded to Greenberg:
Thank you for your critique of the first Resurgent Republic survey. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you should be flattered. We admire the work of Democracy Corps, and hope we can further public debate on important issues.Conservatives know only one way to define themselves; reluctance to accept change, and unwillingness to accept new ideas, as the world passes them by.
And that is why Republicans and their ideology are the party of the doomed.
doomed [ doomd ] - adjective
1. destined to disaster: condemned to suffer a dreadful fate, especially one that is imminent and inescapable
From that time, the creature was doomed to extinction.
2. in danger of the eternal punishment of hell.
Encarta® World English Dictionary
Judge Doom In Wheelchair For Obama Inauguration
Advertisement
"Republicans Are Doomed"
Good!
May 8, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
GOD I HOPE SO. (blesses himself)
hahahaha. This is funny. I am coming back later. hahhaaha
I live on the street.
GOP: That is why we need less regulation on the street.
May 8, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read the title and I suddenly felt hopeful. Even if it's a vain hope, I'm enjoying it while it lasts...
May 8, 2009 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excuse, what kind of response to any republican survey could possible come from "Longtime Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg"?
After all, hasn't Greenberg been the advisor to Clinton, Gore, Kerry and doesn't his current corporate client include Government Motors?
It wasn't necessary to construct such an elaborate argument about doomed republicans because nobody was planning to argue otherwise, at least not on TPM.
But perhaps it would have been just another boring republican-bashing post then...
May 8, 2009 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excuse, what kind of response to any republican survey could possible come from "Longtime Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg"?
Ummm, the kind of response that notes if the Republican survey is supposed to be modeled on Democracy Corp, it failed on the partisan bias. The DC survey deliberately tilts against Democrats, not towards what the party policy makers want to hear.
May 8, 2009 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
" if the Republican survey is supposed to be modeled on Democracy Corp"
- but doesn't that already answer every possible question?
May 9, 2009 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
But, Lalo, it was the Republicans themselves that said they were modeling it on the DC survey.
May 9, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lalo, you know we all love you...and look forward to your comments.
I blogged this because the country needs a strong second party and the Republicans seem to be going all self-destructive on us.
May 9, 2009 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know I'm old enough to rembember the exact same self-destruction of Democrats after "contract with america" and initial successes of W.
This, too, will pass.
The republicans will be back, for better or worse, and I'm pretty sure that for all those liberals shedding an amazing amount of crocodile tears over a loss of the hated Bush party, it will happen faster than they expect.
May 9, 2009 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can you say inductive fallacy?
Mmm hmm, I thought you could.
Seriously, Lalo, not just being a wiseass here (though anytime someone goes into Mr. Rogers mode, wiseassery is occurring by definition). You're probably right. At least since the 1896 election, the norm has been one of homeostasis between the Republican and Democratic parties. However, inducing that this norm is immutable is unjustified. In nature, outside events--or just chaotic variance--can destablize a longstanding homeostatic balance such that a local or mass extinction event occurs and new species take over the habitat.
Same thing can happen in politics and has happened in this country. Right now, the Republicans are in a trap that's strikingly similar to the one the Federalists found themselves in after the 1800 election. The Federalists continued to dominate in the Northeast for twenty years, but the policy positions that cemented their grip on that region--in the Federalists case, economic policies-- made them anathma to the rest of the country. They were in the classic "growing share of a shrinking market" slow death sentence. After Hamilton died, they lacked the leadership necessary to move their policies toward something that could get them back into power and, in any case, any such movement risked the political positions of the people who controlled the party.
They're in trouble, locked on a course straight into the icebergs and there is no immutable law that says they'll bounce back. Only thing I can see that could possibly save them would be if the left wing of the Democratic got enough power to act on its urge to purge the "anti-progressive" elements and didn't stop until they'd driven a third or more of the party into opposition. At that point, however, you'd be looking at the start of a new opposition party, regardless of whether it called itself "Republican" or something else.
May 9, 2009 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Has anyone here read the Proposed RNC Resolution Recognizing the Democrats' March Towards Socialism? (This is for real!)
It ends with this suggestion for Democrats:
Time called it a "kindergartenish resolution" that just contributes to the death spiral already taking place within the Republican party.
But the best line goes to Hari Sevugan, a DNC spokesperson.
Love the picture of 'Judge Doom', Steve. Great blog.
May 8, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmmm..... ok, well, we have an interesting grammatical clue there.
They only use the incorrect grammar when they put it before socialist. Which makes no sense. But they do use correct grammar for the party minus socialist. So that makes me wonder if their misuse of "democrat" when they mean an adjective is really code for "socialist." Or maybe they just don't know grammar or have any consistency.
Thanks seashell, for the nonsense. These folks are really running out of ideas. Just different versions of bash dems. Gosh, you think they'd find better things to do in their spare time.
May 8, 2009 11:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I see it Republicans are in favor of the exploitation of workers. I wonder how Joe The Plummer sees that. Wait a darn minute, HE QUIT THE PARTY!!!
May 9, 2009 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nice video of the Doomer - and audio too:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30648283#30650572
With Maddow.
May 8, 2009 11:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL - We love Rachel...
May 9, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Addendum-1
No Generation Gap: Democrats Have Edge in Every Age Group
May 9, 2009 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Addendum-2
GOP base rips Cantor's National Council for a New America
May 9, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Such pronouncements are just as vapid as similar ones made about the Democratic Party circa 1984.
Pendulums swing back and forth and neither party has figured out how to really evolve to stay up with the times once it is already in power.
May 9, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree pendulums swing back and forth but the Republicans keep kicking this one back to the Dems like a hot potato. Why?
May 9, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Same reason why the Dems' immediate reaction after Reagan's reelection couldn't figure things out. The first reaction to a crisis like that is to find an external, rather than an internal, circumstance.
It wasn't until the Dems found a way of dealing with the farther left end of their spectrum that they began the road to recovery. That took Bill Clinton. That's why Clinton and the DLC looks "conservative" to many of the the Dems in the party today.
In addition, I daresay that the Dems didn't win the 2008 election so much as the Republicans lost. The Indies in the middle were simply fed up with the Bush policies. That's similar to the 1980 election where much of the middle abandoned the Dems and the perceived angst they brought in favor of Reagan.
May 10, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Clearthinker, the pendulum swings back and forward. Political fortunes wax and wane, and then wax and wane some more. But that does not mean that political parties necessarily last forever. The Republican Party is currently caught in a death spiral. The extreme right-wing and unreal political philosophy encourages the less extreme members to leave the party, putting the extremists even more firmly in command and causing the political philosophy to become even more extreme. It's hard to see how this can end well.
May 9, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear GOP: Wouldn't a real American President order his cheezburger with ketchup and not just that French mustard?
Dear Real American: Obviously this is just another sign of the President's socialism. The GOP would offer a tax cut for Ketchup makers.
May 9, 2009 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
How silly, mustard rawks. Ketchup is for kids!
They really have lost it.
May 9, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dijon Derangement Syndrome has apparently infected the conservative media in a big way.
TruckNutz!!
Also.
May 9, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will, from now on, only have Dijon Mustard on my burgers. I haz 4 different kinds of mustard. I am such an elitist!
=D
Buttsecks
And. Also.
May 9, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please describe the elitist burger. Bun and all! Type of ground meat. How it's prepared and cooked. Etc.
Or not....
May 9, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
um
you mix the cheapest ground beef you can find with chopped spinach, breadcrumbs, and a secret blend of herbs and spices. Form patties around mild green chilis. Grill outdoors. Melt extra sharp cheddar on them. Serve on an honest-to-gawd-real hard roll from NYC, and top with lettuce (or arugula). Mustard is optional.
=D
May 9, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Awesome! :)
May 9, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, no! You had to go and mention arugula?
Some Republicans think that Arugula is part of a liberal plot to help the terrorists win.
Buttsecks!!! and TruckNutz!!!
May 9, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check out the animal burger, it has mustard cooked right in it!
Who knew In-and-Out Burger was elitist?!
=O
Republicans aren't allowed to eat there anymore.
May 9, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
No self-respecting (ha!) Republican would eat at a place that advertises a "Not So Secret Menu". You know how they like secrets in top places like torture, wiretapping and hamburgers with baked-in mustard. :-)
Also.
May 9, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Colbert haz his own Wiki now?
(buttsecks!)
May 9, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
A real president would order a hot dog and pretzles, chew with his mouth open and choke on it until he passes out.
May 9, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope he gets to do it in a cell with bars!
May 9, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
When the Democratic Party lost the 1984 election via 49 states and lost the South as a solid base for its party, many wags were talking about it being left for dead. The New Deal coalition had been broken and many in the middle class didn't see the Dems as representing them, only special interests. Reagan got elected by having many disgruntled Dems move across to vote for him.
The Democratic Party revitalized itself by moving rightward on the political spectrum.
The Republican Party wasn't able to hold onto the "Reagan coalition" of business, middle class, and evangelicals. Obama was elected by having many disgruntled Republicans move across to vote for him.
The Republican Party will revitalize itself by moving leftward on the political spectrum.
It's true that no political party is necessarily forever. It should be noted that when the last major political party collapsed (the Whigs), we were on the brink of civil war. That should give an indication of what it takes to collapse a political party. In the meantime, the two modern major parties (Dems and GOP) have morphed considerably:
Once upon a time
a) Most blacks were part of the GOP
b) The Dems were the party of segregation
c) The Dems had little to do with Wall Street
d) The GOP was about isolationism
And on and on we could go.
Times change, and the parties change with them.
And it's worthwhile remembering that most people in this country don't self-identify as Democrats. In fact, it's the middle that determines where the Democrats and the Republicans need to go to gain power.
May 9, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good grief. There are as many errors in this post as there are in the Republican's 'stimulus package'.
The Reagan coalition was not made up of "business, middle class, and evangelicals". Instead it was the three strands of conservatism known as the traditionalists, libertarians and anti-communists that had started "fusing" in the 1960's and finally came together enough to elect Reagan.
And it's worthwhile remembering that most people in this country don't self-identify as Democrats.
Ummm, no. 35% of the Americans self-identify as Democrats, the same amount as independents. This is contrasted with the 28% that self-identify as Republicans. In fact:
I'm out of link availability and didn't even get to the 1984 bullshit part. Maybe later.
May 9, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's some math:
Most rational people will assume that "most" means just a hair more than 50%.
By your own posting, the Dems are 35%. In other words, roughly speaking, the Dems, the GOP, and the Independents are all about 1/3 of the population.
Therefore, both the Dems and the GOP have to vie for the roughly 1/3 of the middle. Your source merely proved my point: for the Dems to get to 50% they need to capture a nontrivial portion of the 1/3 in the middle. This is how both parties have evolved, they have to keep capturing the middle ground.
The GOP did it in 1984, the Dems were able to do it in 2008. (We can talk about how Clinton was able to run as a Democrat but to the far right of where the "traditional" Dem values were -- that's why under Clinton, the fiscal policies stayed roughly the same and he was able to be quite cozy with Wall Street. Clinton was popular, in fact, because he was really more like an old school moderate Republican in many ways.)
Few of the "regular" posters on TPM are interesting reads because they tend to follow a propaganda line or what the facts to fit their theory (a la Fox News). Jason is an exception, but your zeal in trying to "prove" me wrong is a classic case and point.
Merely being able to Google a topic and post a link or two (like so many "rebuttals" here) proves little. Context and argument require a studied knowledge. I would recommend, Seashell, for your to read Kevin Phillips' well regarded book, AMERICAN THEOCRACY. Of course, it will require more effort on your part than merely pulling up a link and posting.
May 9, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I take it you weren't interested in the aggregate data that shows 52% of Americans identified as Democrats or said they were independent but leaned to the Democratic Party, while 39% identified as Republicans or leaned Republican.
Forgive us our sins for not being more entertaining/interesting here at TPM. Perhaps you and Jason could go start a whole new blog. It could be called 'Politics in Context of Something Studied'. Those of us who just Google up our politics would be grateful to have a template on how to do politics with a studied knowledge.
May 9, 2009 9:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but Independents lean greatly towards Dems and WE WON! YOU LOST! BIG TIME!
Okay, sorry for snark. Me bad.
May 9, 2009 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aunt Sam:
What makes you think I lost? Your "snark" would have been more effective if you said something sensible.
Clear thinking is required here. The simple minded here and elsewhere can gloat that the GOP is "finished" only to ignore the fact that the Dems have been proclaimed dead in earlier times as well. And both you and Seashell keep making my point: the Dems are required to capture the Indy middle -- they can't gain leadership on their own numbers. That Indy middle doesn't belong to the Dems and can easily shift back to the GOP as it has in the past.
Unlike many here, I don't believe it's required to bleat like sheep about a particular party.
If you look at the structure of the discussion, the problem is that I dared to whisper that the GOP is hardly dead, merely grouping just as the Democratic Party has done before.
May 10, 2009 4:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Woooohoooooo....Clearthinker is back! Let the games begin! Been pretty boring around here w/o you, bud...
May 9, 2009 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stilli, that's the second time you've tried to goad me into a reaction without making a single cogent remark while doing so. Care to make it 3, or do you just like playing the bully to one who isn't in your hive mentality here?
Psst: your high minded principles only count when you apply them on a daily basis.
May 10, 2009 4:42 AM | Reply | Permalink