What Defeat Will Do To The GOP (Op-ED)

[Patrick Degan]

Several of us have come to some of these same conclusions, but it's still worth reading through Paul Krugman's perspective on what the GOP may well be turning into:

The Republican Rump

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 3, 2008

Maybe the polls are wrong, and John McCain is about to pull off the biggest election upset in American history. But right now the Democrats seem poised both to win the White House and to greatly expand their majorities in both houses of Congress.

Most of the post-election discussion will presumably be about what the Democrats should and will do with their mandate. But let me ask a different question that will also be important for the nation’s future: What will defeat do to the Republicans?

You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that they’ll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this won’t happen any time soon.

Instead, the Republican rump, the party that’s left after the election, will be the party that attends Sarah Palin’s rallies, where crowds chant “Vote McCain, not Hussein!” It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that “the other folks are voting.” It will be the party that harbors menacing fantasies about Barack Obama’s Marxist — or was that Islamic? — roots.

Why will the G.O.P. become more, not less, extreme? For one thing, projections suggest that this election will drive many of the remaining Republican moderates out of Congress, while leaving the hard right in place.

For example, Larry Sabato, the election forecaster, predicts that seven Senate seats currently held by Republicans will go Democratic on Tuesday. According to the liberal-conservative rankings of the political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, five of the soon-to-be-gone senators are more moderate than the median Republican senator — so the rump, the G.O.P. caucus that remains, will have shifted further to the right. The same thing seems set to happen in the House.

Also, the Republican base already seems to be gearing up to regard defeat not as a verdict on conservative policies, but as the result of an evil conspiracy. A recent Democracy Corps poll found that Republicans, by a margin of more than two to one, believe that Mr. McCain is losing “because the mainstream media is biased” rather than “because Americans are tired of George Bush.”

And Mr. McCain has laid the groundwork for feverish claims that the election was stolen, declaring that the community activist group Acorn — which, as Factcheck.org points out, has never “been found guilty of, or even charged with” causing fraudulent votes to be cast — “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” Needless to say, the potential voters Acorn tries to register are disproportionately “other folks,” as Mr. Chambliss might put it.

Anyway, the Republican base, egged on by the McCain-Palin campaign, thinks that elections should reflect the views of “real Americans” — and most of the people reading this column probably don’t qualify.

Thus, in the face of polls suggesting that Mr. Obama will win Virginia, a top McCain aide declared that the “real Virginia” — the southern part of the state, excluding the Washington, D.C., suburbs — favors Mr. McCain. A majority of Americans now live in big metropolitan areas, but while visiting a small town in North Carolina, Ms. Palin described it as “what I call the real America,” one of the “pro-America” parts of the nation. The real America, it seems, is small-town, mainly southern and, above all, white.

I’m not saying that the G.O.P. is about to become irrelevant. Republicans will still be in a position to block some Democratic initiatives, especially if the Democrats fail to achieve a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

And that blocking ability will ensure that the G.O.P. continues to receive plenty of corporate dollars: this year the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has poured money into the campaigns of Senate Republicans like Minnesota’s Norm Coleman, precisely in the hope of denying Democrats a majority large enough to pass pro-labor legislation.

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.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 3, 2008, on page A31 of the New York edition

Today, either out on the hustings or on one of the news/chat shows, the Gimp offered up a half-assed apology for even suggesting that Barack Obama was "an Arab" (as if, as Colin Powell might observe, that was itself some sort of crime). But it is far too late for him to cap the festering well of hatred his campaign eagerly tapped and which will continue to ooze out upon the political landscape for the next four or eight years, if not longer. Given the recent record of this party, it is not at all unreasonable to assume the rise of a version of the GOP not only determined to regain power at all costs but also to wreak vengeance upon the country that dared vote them out of their "rightful" position in the first place.

[Kodiak]

It gives me chills when I hear people talk about "folks like us" and "real Americans" because it starts to dehumanize the entire population and makes them easily hated for their caricature, and not their actual beliefs. It also gives me flashes of a sign that "Some Pigs are more equal than others", changed to read "Some Americans are more American than others".

[CaptainZoidberg]

My honest prediction:

The GOP is going to become more socially conservative, but will move to the center on economics and foreign policy.

I expect either Huckabee or Jindal to win the Republican primary in 2012.

[salm]

You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that they’ll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this won’t happen any time soon.

Why should they? They haven´t lost touch with national mainstream. They are national mainstream. After all it looks like they´ll get almost half of the votes.

[Darth Wong]

If it weren't for the economic collapse, the Republicans would have a very good chance of winning this election. America is proudly backward: they couldn't even pass a constitutional amendment explicitly guaranteeing gender equality. That tells you just how rabidly conservative the country is.

[Edi]

Besides that, the right wing spin machine has been carefully laying the groundwork for conspiracy theories about voter fraud etc so they can claim the election was stolen so they can avoid working toward any sort of actual compromise. It goes right back to what they regard as their rightful place, as Patrick said.

[Coyote]

I have to agree-- they see themselves as victims in all this, people who did all the right things only to have the citizens of America led astray by liberal media lies.

Actually, one of two things will happen-- the moderate, economic-and-business conservatives will kick out the reactionary racist religious whackos; or the religious nuts will kick out what's left of the moderates. All that remains now is who gets to claim the name "Republican/GOP", and which group has to slink off to create a new party name.

If the racist nutters keep the Republican brand name, a lot of moderate conservatives may well go to the Democrats, which will see a change in typical Democratic Party policies, which will go slightly to the right in some issues pertaining to economics.

Another thing that may factor into this is how the Democrats react to victory. If the D's sweep House & Senate with unstoppable majorities and over-reach themselves by assuming they have a "mandate" to push pet programs, then next election cycle everything will re-set and the business conservatives and whackos will go back to their uneasy alliance. But if the Democrats contain themselves, and pull off a miracle by doing a really good job without stepping on too many toes, then people will be comfortable leaving the Republicans and staying with the Democrats.

[Darth Wong]

Besides that, the right wing spin machine has been carefully laying the groundwork for conspiracy theories about voter fraud etc so they can claim the election was stolen so they can avoid working toward any sort of actual compromise. It goes right back to what they regard as their rightful place, as Patrick said.

What matters is not what they can convince themselves of, but what they can convince the Mindless Middle of. If they can get the Mindless Middle to agree with their shit, you can look forward to a lot of obstructionist bullshit. But if they can't, then all of this will only result in the nightmare scenario for GOP fans: the party will have to choose between moderation and irrelevance.

Of course, that hinges on a landslide victory for Obama. If it's close, then they must have enough of the Mindless Middle to keep them powerful without forcing them to change anything.

[Edi]

Besides that, the right wing spin machine has been carefully laying the groundwork for conspiracy theories about voter fraud etc so they can claim the election was stolen so they can avoid working toward any sort of actual compromise. It goes right back to what they regard as their rightful place, as Patrick said.

What matters is not what they can convince themselves of, but what they can convince the Mindless Middle of. If they can get the Mindless Middle to agree with their shit, you can look forward to a lot of obstructionist bullshit. But if they can't, then all of this will only result in the nightmare scenario for GOP fans: the party will have to choose between moderation and irrelevance.

Of course, that hinges on a landslide victory for Obama. If it's close, then they must have enough of the Mindless Middle to keep them powerful without forcing them to change anything.

True. The diehads are already convinced it's a conspiracy, but the right wing spin machine they've built up gives them a proportionally much louder voice that reaches a wider audience. Their bullshit tactics have been well-honed over the past three decades and they know how to pitch that shit to people who are either uneducated and/or ignorant. And you don't call the Mindless Middle just that for nothing. The pitch that I have seen so far has been aimed at both the true believers and the rightward leaning side of the Mindless Middle and I've seen it get a bit too much traction for comfort.

If the election does become a landslide for Obama, it will actually be a far harder uphill fight for the Republicans to convince anyone, but a closer election could put a lot of doubts in place.

[General Zod]

Of course, that hinges on a landslide victory for Obama. If it's close, then they must have enough of the Mindless Middle to keep them powerful without forcing them to change anything.

Is it a bad thing when Karl Rove is calling a landslide for Obama?

(CNN) – John McCain and his aides are still banking on a come-from-behind victory Tuesday, but the GOP's most famous political strategist has already called the race for Barack Obama.

Karl Rove, the man widely credited with engineering President Bush's two successful White House bids, is predicting the Illinois senator will take the White House in an Electoral College landslide, winning 338 votes to John McCain's 200. That would be the largest Electoral College victory since 1996, when Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in a 379-159 rout.

In an Electoral Map posted on Rove's Web site, the Republican mastermind predicts Obama victories in several key battlegrounds, including virtually all of the states where polls suggest he currently enjoys a slim advantage. In fact, Rove believes Missouri is the only crucial battleground state McCain will carry, while Obama scores victories in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Iowa. Rove also thinks Obama will win traditionally-Republican Virginia.

[Coyote]

The Mindless Middle are those people who still honestly think that there may be merit to what McCain & Palin have to say; they're the ones that randomly pick names when they're in the voting booth, or they decide by "who has nicer eyes" or "who would I have a beer with".

Sometimes I actually do think there should be some sort of basic civics test conducted by people standing in line waiting to vote; if they fail, well, start studying for the next four years.

[Edi]

The Mindless Middle are those people who still honestly think that there may be merit to what McCain & Palin have to say; they're the ones that randomly pick names when they're in the voting booth, or they decide by "who has nicer eyes" or "who would I have a beer with".

Sometimes I actually do think there should be some sort of basic civics test conducted by people standing in line waiting to vote; if they fail, well, start studying for the next four years.

We two didn't grow up in the civil rights era, Coyote, so we take them for granted. Just mentioning that idea in public would cause a (legitimate) shitstorm due to the historical context.

[Guardsman Bass]

The Republican Party will live. Even if they hate and blame each other, the Christian conservatives and business conservatives just have too many combined interests in staying together plus party inertia (I remember when Dobson pulled a group together to see if they wanted to form a third party back when Giuliani was in the lead in the Republican Primaries, and it went nowhere).

On top of that, they've survived worse landslides - the GOP survived through 20 years of Democratic Presidency (1932-1952), along with being driven down to a rump party back in the 1930s (just 16 senators after 1936, versus the Democrats' 76). They'll just start preparing heavily for the 2010 mid-term elections if Obama wins, and see if they can make hay off of any of his screw-ups (and there probably will be some).

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Of course, that hinges on a landslide victory for Obama. If it's close, then they must have enough of the Mindless Middle to keep them powerful without forcing them to change anything.

Is it a bad thing when Karl Rove is calling a landslide for Obama?

(CNN) – John McCain and his aides are still banking on a come-from-behind victory Tuesday, but the GOP's most famous political strategist has already called the race for Barack Obama.

Karl Rove, the man widely credited with engineering President Bush's two successful White House bids, is predicting the Illinois senator will take the White House in an Electoral College landslide, winning 338 votes to John McCain's 200. That would be the largest Electoral College victory since 1996, when Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in a 379-159 rout.

In an Electoral Map posted on Rove's Web site, the Republican mastermind predicts Obama victories in several key battlegrounds, including virtually all of the states where polls suggest he currently enjoys a slim advantage. In fact, Rove believes Missouri is the only crucial battleground state McCain will carry, while Obama scores victories in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Iowa. Rove also thinks Obama will win traditionally-Republican Virginia.

I will be both amazed and astonished (enough to contribute my own "eat my own socks" picture to the board, godsdamnit) if Obama gets more than 300 electoral votes. I have near-absolute faith in the general incompetence of the Mindless Middle, the maliciousness of the new Republican party, and I won't consider this election over until Obama is safely sworn in on 21 January.

But, on-topic, yes, the Republican Party isn't going anywhere. Even though they're probably going to take the absolute-wrong message away from this campaign (i.e. McCain didn't campaign hard enough, and he was too far from the ultra-right base. The next slate of Republican candidates, I expect, will be politically-savvier versions of Sarah Palin,) and will probably do nothing to make up for their losses for at least the next two or three midterm election cycles. (They won't lose too many more seats, though. I'm just cynical enough to think that the Democrats, with enough of a victory margin today, will get it in their heads that they've got a mandate to aggressively push a progressive agenda. Which, while objectively good, will earn them push-back from the Mindless Middle.)

[Coyote]

The Republican Party will live. Even if they hate and blame each other, the Christian conservatives and business conservatives just have too many combined interests in staying together plus party inertia (I remember when Dobson pulled a group together to see if they wanted to form a third party back when Giuliani was in the lead in the Republican Primaries, and it went nowhere).

On top of that, they've survived worse landslides - the GOP survived through 20 years of Democratic Presidency (1932-1952), along with being driven down to a rump party back in the 1930s (just 16 senators after 1936, versus the Democrats' 76). They'll just start preparing heavily for the 2010 mid-term elections if Obama wins, and see if they can make hay off of any of his screw-ups (and there probably will be some).

I don't know about that-- back in the 1920's and -30's, the Christian Right wasn't a recognised, independent, courtable power bloc in the Party. Since the Reagan era, they've courted as a seperate power bloc and had their pet projects & special interests catered to (plus things like interracial marriage, abortion and gays, which weren't even on the radar back in the 20's, had since come to be noticed). So the Christians Right got used to being special and having a powerful voice, and realize that the GOP doesn't get very far without them, so they can hold the party hostage.

But deep down inside, the Christian Right and the standard small-C conservatives have very, very divergent goals. It is incompatible to have a small-government/states-rights platform sharing power with a group that wants to use Federal power to mandate what happens in a bedroom or in a woman's womb. Or, in the case of Terri Schiavo, the hospital bed of a brain-dead person.

Even the pro-business conservatives will run afoul of the Christian Right sooner or later; I'm certain the Christian Rightists will want some sort of restrictions on businesses selling things to certain peopel they find unwholesome. Give them time to think of something...

[Guardsman Bass]

The Republican Party will live. Even if they hate and blame each other, the Christian conservatives and business conservatives just have too many combined interests in staying together plus party inertia (I remember when Dobson pulled a group together to see if they wanted to form a third party back when Giuliani was in the lead in the Republican Primaries, and it went nowhere).

On top of that, they've survived worse landslides - the GOP survived through 20 years of Democratic Presidency (1932-1952), along with being driven down to a rump party back in the 1930s (just 16 senators after 1936, versus the Democrats' 76). They'll just start preparing heavily for the 2010 mid-term elections if Obama wins, and see if they can make hay off of any of his screw-ups (and there probably will be some).

I don't know about that-- back in the 1920's and -30's, the Christian Right wasn't a recognised, independent, courtable power bloc in the Party. Since the Reagan era, they've courted as a seperate power bloc and had their pet projects & special interests catered to (plus things like interracial marriage, abortion and gays, which weren't even on the radar back in the 20's, had since come to be noticed). So the Christians Right got used to being special and having a powerful voice, and realize that the GOP doesn't get very far without them, so they can hold the party hostage.

They've been courted in elections, but it wasn't until Bush II that they really got anything major out of a Republican President. Reagan used them to get elected, then immediately dumped them afterwards with the exceptions of a few judicial nominations like Bork. Bush I did the same thing.

[quote
But deep down inside, the Christian Right and the standard small-C conservatives have very, very divergent goals. It is incompatible to have a small-government/states-rights platform sharing power with a group that wants to use Federal power to mandate what happens in a bedroom or in a woman's womb. Or, in the case of Terri Schiavo, the hospital bed of a brain-dead person. [/quote]

Maybe, but keep in mind that many GOP voters, particularly those that originally formed movement conservatism (the originals were the Orange County Middle to Upper Middle Class people), live in both worlds. They belong to these evangelical churches and groups, but they also represent middle class and upper-middle class families with strong ties to the business world. It sounds contradictory, but apparently not hard to rationalize (they've been doing it for 40 years).

Even the pro-business conservatives will run afoul of the Christian Right sooner or later; I'm certain the Christian Rightists will want some sort of restrictions on businesses selling things to certain peopel they find unwholesome. Give them time to think of something...

Perhaps, but you saw that letter in the other thread. Hypocrisy and doublethink aren't exactly new to this group.

[Honorable Mention]

The Republican base didn't even like McCain. Even a cursory glance at a right wing blog like Michelle Malkin's will show just how much disdain that had for the man during the primaries (do a quick search for "Shamnesty", even.) It will not cause a soul search because McCain has never represented the current base's soul (barring the past few election months where he has continuously attempted to pander to it.)

My father's a die-hard "red blooded" Republican and having a political conversation with him has become difficult as his positions are increasingly more conspiratorial. I am almost beyond certain that such a loss will be taken as a sign not that the party has to reevaluate its platform but rather reaffirm it.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Republican base didn't even like McCain. Even a cursory glance at a right wing blog like Michelle Malkin's will show just how much disdain that had for the man during the primaries (do a quick search for "Shamnesty", even.) It will not cause a soul search because McCain has never represented the current base's soul (barring the past few election months where he has continuously attempted to pander to it.)

So we have to wait 'till Palin runs for President in 2012 and then kick her ass too?

[cosmicalstorm]

I've been hearing a lot of rightwingers mentioning that "blacks will riot if Obama loses", what are they trying to say? That you should vote for Obama to avoid that? Can anyone explain this to me?

[Count Chocula]

Nahh, riots won't happen. By the time all the votes get counted and a winner's announced, it'll be late. No-one's gonna go out at 12AM to raise hell or wait to riot at 9AM Wednesday. The Rodney King jury verdict should have been given at 11PM instead of in the afternoon.

The "blacks will riot" line is one of those throwaway FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) lines that doesn't really mean anything. In fact, it makes little sense that right wing folk would raise that specter - it'd be more plausible if grass-roots Demos had said it. Or maybe Reverend Wright!

[General Zod]

I've been hearing a lot of rightwingers mentioning that "blacks will riot if Obama loses", what are they trying to say? That you should vote for Obama to avoid that? Can anyone explain this to me?

I think it's the crypto-racist way of saying "a black candidate is a bad idea". Of course I'm not fluent in assholese so I could be wrong.

[SirNitram]

I've been hearing a lot of rightwingers mentioning that "blacks will riot if Obama loses", what are they trying to say? That you should vote for Obama to avoid that? Can anyone explain this to me?

I think it's the crypto-racist way of saying "a black candidate is a bad idea". Of course I'm not fluent in assholese so I could be wrong.

Close. What they fear, and project through 'rioting', is the consequences of their own actions. They're thinking 'These people I've treated like shit and encouraged others to treat like shit.. They might get the power to do something about it.' And they think, because humans tend to assume others think like they do, that this means the Blacks will riot and thrash Whitey, because of their actions.

[The Romulan Republic]

I've been hearing a lot of rightwingers mentioning that "blacks will riot if Obama loses", what are they trying to say? That you should vote for Obama to avoid that? Can anyone explain this to me?

Self projection? I find it just as likely if not more so that the shits from the Palin rallies will be engaging in violence if they lose.

[Darth Wong]

I've been hearing a lot of rightwingers mentioning that "blacks will riot if Obama loses", what are they trying to say? That you should vote for Obama to avoid that? Can anyone explain this to me?

They're trying to convince everyone that black people are dangerous savages and their influence on American politics should be resisted.

[Kodiak]

I've been hearing a lot of rightwingers mentioning that "blacks will riot if Obama loses", what are they trying to say? That you should vote for Obama to avoid that? Can anyone explain this to me?

They're trying to convince everyone that black people are dangerous savages and their influence on American politics should be resisted.

Don't forget their influence on White Women. They can't be trusted with the white women