As Left Wins Culture Battles, G.O.P. Gains Opportunity to Pivot for 2016

NY Times ^ | June 27, 2015 | Jonathan Martin

[C19fan]

A cascade of events suggests that 2015 could be remembered as a Liberal Spring: the moment when deeply divisive and consuming questions of race, sexuality and broadened access to health care were settled in quick succession, and social tolerance was cemented as a cornerstone of American public life.

Yet what appears, in headlines and celebrations across the country, to represent an unalloyed victory for Democrats, in which lawmakers and judges alike seemed to give in to the leftward shift of public opinion, may contain an opening for the Republican Party to move beyond losing battles and seemingly lost causes.

Conservatives have, in short order, endured a series of setbacks on ideas that, for some on the right, are definitional: that marriage is between a man and a woman, that Southern heritage and its symbols are to be unambivalently revered and that the federal government should play a limited role in the lives of Americans.

[C19fan]

We all know the GOPe was uncorking champagne bottles this week as the SCOTUS decisions came out. Look at the roster of GOPe quoted in the article: Frum, Pawlenty, a pollster for Rubio.

[ClearCase_guy]

At this point, I’m not sure I know anyone who wants to vote Republican.

[madprof98]

I don’t. I am not voting anymore at all. I wonder if I will live long enough to see the country implode. These days, it seems likely that I might.

[Nextrush]

The propaganda machine will be ginned up to scare you about Hillary and Democrats, they’ll use Benghazi, Obama, Amnesty whatever to suck us all into thinking the Republicans are better than Democrats.

A lot of sheep will buy that message and head for the slaughterhouse........

[CharlesOConnell]

The Massachusetts Supreme Court 2003 ruling Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health was widely cited as pushing W over the top in 2004.

[ClearCase_guy]

I'll tell you the truth -- I'm kind of hoping for a reverse Cloward Piven -- push hard left. Vote Democrat. Bernie Sanders? Elizabeth Warren? $25/hr minimum wage? Bring it on!

We need a brand new start in this country. That's what the Left has always wanted. Now, I want it too. But to have a new start, you need to dismantle the system you see in front of you.

[Alberta's Child]

The GOP loves these Supreme Court decisions because they think it takes these issues out of the political realm, and therefore helps them avoid taking any principled stands on anything.

From what I've seen, the exact opposite may be the case. I can quote the exact words of a friend of mine in a recent fundraising call from the Republican Party:

"I now live in a country where two men can marry each other. Do you think I give a sh!t who gets elected in Washington anymore?"

[skeeter]

"Winning" = two or three robed phonys arbitrarily handing down edicts.

*&^% that.

[icwhatudo]

Marriage is between one man and one woman.
Abortion is murder.
If GOP caves on either, count me out.

[SmokingJoe]

Exactly how is Bernie Sanders more left wing than Obama ? No one can be as evil and as disastrous for America as Barack Obama. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and Frank Marshall did a very good job of making Obama the most virulently anti-American president by far this country has ever had.

[expat2]

Let's not go down that road again. That is how we got Obama, twice!Do we want a continuation of Obama policies from 2016?
We need to fight our battles very hard at primary time, but we need to all vote AGAINST the leftists in the General.

[a fool in paradise]

A cascade of events suggests that 2015 could be remembered as a Liberal Spring: the moment when deeply divisive and consuming questions of race, sexuality and broadened access to health care were settled in quick succession

by unconstitutional acts of judicial tyranny.

As with Lawrence v. Texas, Roe v. Wade, and Dred Scott, Democrats don't care by what legal construct they got their victories, they were happy to see faggotry, abortion, and slavery upheld by the false gods in black dresses. Not every decision is 'correct' or stands the test of time.

[hinckley buzzard]

I wonder if I will live long enough to see the country implode. These days, it seems likely that I might.

Compare the country between now and thirty years ago. The implosion is underway, and accelerating.

[expat2]

I agree with your main point. But
"I now live in a country where two men can marry each other. Do you think I give a sh!t who gets elected in Washington anymore?"

He should. Cutting off your nose to spite your face is no way to run your life. Failing to vote AGAINST the leftists is what got us to this point.

[Alberta's Child]

Has nothing to do with "cutting off your nose to spite your face."

This guy just decided -- appropriately, I might add -- that voting doesn't matter all that much anyway. And a donation to a political party is one of the worst "investments" any rational person could possibly make, when you consider how many of these idiotic Supreme Court decisions are written by justices who were appointed by Republicans.

Go back and read the Biblical admonition for Christians to "shake the dust off your sandals" at some point. That's exactly what this guy has done -- and I can tell you that he's now a free man, unfettered by any obligations to a bunch of @ssholes and a stupid political process that has brought us to this point.

[x_plus_one]

The GOP does not know where the battle lies let alone what war they are fighting. Two presidential elections were won with identical MO's. Stuff the ballots in the minority districts of the swing states. It will happen again in 2016. There is no chance it won't. The GOP fools every one with their bluff and bluster about this or that strategy. The GOP is dead meat and the political class is feasting on the carcass of a dead democracy.

Say hello to Hillary, her shrill screaming voice and the gestapo left gun control agenda.

[Yardstick]

I think the left has shown just the opposite, namely that you don’t need a new start to change a nation. What you need is will and persistance.

[LS]

Actually, the history of American elections is that to win you must move AWAY from your opponent, not toward him. The Whigs failed repeatedly because they would not address slavery and separate from the Dems; the GOP in the late 1800s vacillated between supporting a gold std. and "free silver" and lost two of four elections before McKinley moved heavily toward gold and set off a 34 year run where only Wilson got elected (when Republicans split the ticket); and Dems trying to "move right" won with Clinton but lost 1994 house, and won only 3 seats and 4 seats in 1996 and 1998.

Just about the only successful historical record you can find of a party moving toward the opponent's position (or pretending to) was 2006 when the Dems recruited all these military people like Webb and southerners like Manchin to pretend they were centrists. But many of the House reps that won in 2006 were kicked out in 2010.

So history suggests that you cannot win for long adopting your opponents' posititions.

[Yardstick]

persistence (doh!)

[greene66]

When you don’t have a country anymore, what does it matter? Elections and voting become comically moot for many of us. I’m not necessarily saying I won’t vote in 2016, but the chances have become extremely slim.

A country that is so sick and deviant as to legally regard two perverted homos as a “married couple” is no longer a country I’m particularly invested in, in terms of its health or survival.