09 February 2012

A more extremist Republican party?


The Republican nomination fight matters, we're told, because the future of the Republican party depends on what kind of nominee loses to Obama this November. If it's a nutjob from the Santorum / Bachmann / Paul mold, defeat will discredit the crazies and move the party back to the center; if a moderate gets nominated and then loses in November, the crazies will claim vindication and the party will become even more extremist (more here).

The problem is that the latter scenario is more likely. Despite this week's upset, Romney will almost certainly be the nominee; and while he embodies the evil and cruelty of the financial parasite class, by Republican standards he's sane and moderate enough to have already incurred the profound suspicion of the troglodyte / fundie base. And while nothing is certain in politics, he's almost sure to lose to Obama, possibly in a landslide.

So by this time next year, we may indeed be seeing the Republican party renouncing what moderation it now retains and becoming even more extremist.

But seeing the Republican party as it already is, the mind boggles to contemplate what that would actually consist of. I mean, what exactly could they do to become even more extremist than they already are? Will they want public schools to teach that the Earth is just 60 years old, not 6,000, and that anyone who claims to remember events earlier than that is deceived by Satan? Will the next "personhood" bill declare that life begins at the moment the rapist gets his pants unzipped? Will the next wave of "anti-voter- fraud" laws cut out all the obfuscating detail and just require you to provide proof that you aren't black? Will they push to execute scientists for stem-cell research? Completely exempt millionaires from all taxes? Revoke the citizenship of atheists and anyone with a college degree? Nominate Fred Phelps for President?

My point is, they're already halfway over the shark, in terms of what a political party can be and still remain viable in a modern nation. If they go much further, whatever the details turn out to look like, then the remaining sane members, the McCains and Frums and Christies and Snowes, will either be purged or give up and quit -- they'll either become a new economic-conservative wing of the Democrats, or form a third party and vanish into irrelevance. The remnant Republican party will be a broken instrument in the hands of the financial parasite class, who will find that fixing or replacing it is beyond even their powers.

If we can just get through this next election, it may be the last one that needs to be fought under the present circumstances -- the contradictions and rancor within conservatism may finally blow it apart into its constituent sub-movements, some of which we can do business with when they're no longer locked in coalition with the lunatics. If the Republican party implodes, then given the logistical difficulty of creating a viable new national party in such a huge country, the US could even become a de facto one-party state for a while. If so, the financial parasite class will redouble its efforts to dominate the Democratic party. The real battle of 2016 may be to nominate Warren or someone like her, and to elect a Congress with the same spirit, to take the bastards down once and for all.

12 Comments:

Blogger Andrew Hall said...

I wouldn't count Romney out automatically from attaining the presidency. I remember the Mitt vs Ted Kennedy senate fight in MA, and Mitt almost won.

09 February, 2012 04:55  
Blogger Sue said...

Really good Infidel! But I actually laughed out loud at your scenario of a more extreme Republican party, even tho there is nothing funny about it. It's quite possible we will get the opportunity to experience it!

I think today's Republican party will implode, what comes of it afterwards, well we will see. And Elizabeth Warren for 2016 sounds refreshing!

09 February, 2012 06:52  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Andy: Oh, I know nothing's certain, and Romney could win -- but I'm talking here about what will likely happen if he loses, as he probably will.

Sue: Republican extremism has reached the point where one really needs humor to cope with it.

Warren is certainly one of our best rising stars -- she'd be a good choice to finish the work Obama started.

09 February, 2012 12:47  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The saddest and scariest part of this whole mess is that as the conservatives get crazier and crazier while moving further and further to the right the liberals follow rightward right along and no matter who wins the nomination America ends up with just the bought and paid for conservative who represents the rich in direct opposition to the will of the majority.

10 February, 2012 05:44  
Anonymous Crosscut said...

Infidel! I am glad I found your blog. I have been so despondent watching the crazies get the press and having the impression that the whole US is going down the tubes. Although I still fear some of that, the scenarios you outline give me hope that maybe, just maybe there will be some rationality come back to the Republicans with time and we can have adult dialogues and work with them again.

10 February, 2012 07:32  
Blogger myerman said...

Good stuff. And I agree with the crazy getting worse. I mean, ink back to the bush/Cheney years. The neocons seem positively normal compared to Palin, Santorum and the group we have now.

10 February, 2012 07:51  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's hard to believe that there are crazier people in the democratic party than the people on this site.

10 February, 2012 08:41  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Infidel, your vision of the near future is one of the more positive scenarios I can come up with. The way the GOP is fanning the flames of fear, I worry about the nutjobs who actually are true believers and what they will do. I fear there will be violence and acts of domestic terrorism in our future. I hope I'm wrong, but considering the rhetoric that is put out there daily and the reception it's getting from some of these people...

10 February, 2012 09:34  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Anonymous 05:44: While the Democrats are further to the right than I'd like, there's really no comparison with the Republicans. No Republican President these days would have passed health-insurance reform or confronted the Catholic Church on birth-control coverage or made the kind of Supreme Court choices Obama has, to name just a few things.

Crosscut: Thanks and welcome. There's more where that came from. Sane Republicans do exist, they're just increasingly marginalized in today's party.

Myerman: They've definitely gotten more out there. It's very hard to imagine, say, McCain being nominated today. I'm starting to wonder if even Romney can make it.

Anonymous 08:41: I don't think we're the crazy ones.

Anonymous 09:34: Violence and terrorism are certainly pausible -- see Giffords, Tiller, the Hutaree, etc. The right-wing cranks are becoming as dangerous as the Islamists. It won't win them anything, though -- if anything, it'll cost them support.

10 February, 2012 13:03  
Blogger Murr Brewster said...

Aw, sugar, I rarely comment because you leave nothing unsaid, but I love coming here. I just wanted you to know.

11 February, 2012 00:32  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

MB: That means a lot coming from you.

Be sure to check out Murr's blog.

11 February, 2012 02:05  
Blogger Shaw Kenawe said...

"Republican extremism has reached the point where one really needs humor to cope with it." --Infidel753

And I can prove that just by randomly reading any extreme rightwing blog. One of them that I looked at today contained comments by seemingly rational folks. But it takes a dementedly twisted mind to actually write this sort of thing and be serious about it.

One can only shake one's head and wonder how these sorts of conservatives manage to sit up, nevermind actually get to a blog and type.

[The guy who runs this blog is a Bible toting Xtian conservative from Florida. The post was about Michelle Obama and he fitness programs.]

Lone Ranger said...
I'm trying to imagine Jackie Kennedy doing something like that. Nope, can't do it. I think whomever wins the presidency in November, Callista Gingrich should be the First Lady. She's classy enough to bring a semblance of respectability back to the position after Michelle and Hillary.

February 11, 2012 9:10 AM

Joe said...
To All: MO is all class...all of it low. She is also all dignity, the lack thereof. She garners and diserves no respect for herself or the office of First Lady.

February 11, 2012 9:28 AM


These Xtians actually believe Callista Gingrich [a woman who was in an adulterous relationship with Gingrich for 6 years] has more class than the devoted wife and mother and FLOTUS, Michelle Obama, who has an unblemished marriage fidelity record.

This is a depressing example of the partisan sickness that infects weak peoples' minds causing them to lose the struggle to be able to see what's in front of their noses.

11 February, 2012 14:53  

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