Posted on 03/05/2012 12:55:08 PM PST by darrellmaurina
Of the various expressions of right-wing hysteria that have flowered over the past three years—goldbuggery, birtherism, death panels at home and imaginary apology tours by President Obama abroad—perhaps the strain that has taken deepest root within mainstream Republican circles is the terror that the achievements of the Obama administration may be irreversible, and that the time remaining to stop permanent nightfall is dwindling away.
“America is approaching a ‘tipping point’ beyond which the Nation will be unable to change course,” announces the dark, old-timey preamble to Paul Ryan’s “The Roadmap Plan,” a statement of fiscal principles that shaped the budget outline approved last spring by 98 percent of the House Republican caucus. Rick Santorum warns his audiences, “We are reaching a tipping point, folks, when those who pay are the minority and those who receive are the majority.” Even such a sober figure as Mitt Romney regularly says things like “We are only inches away from no longer being a free economy,” and that this election “could be our last chance.”
The Republican Party is in the grips of many fever dreams. But this is not one of them. To be sure, the apocalyptic ideological analysis—that “freedom” is incompatible with Clinton-era tax rates and Massachusetts-style health care—is pure crazy. But the panicked strategic analysis, and the sense of urgency it gives rise to, is actually quite sound. The modern GOP—the party of Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes—is staring down its own demographic extinction. Right-wing warnings of impending tyranny express, in hyperbolic form, well-grounded dread: that conservative America will soon come to be dominated, in a semi-permanent fashion, by an ascendant Democratic coalition hostile to its outlook and interests. And this impending doom has colored the party’s frantic, fearful response to the Obama presidency.
The GOP has reason to be scared...
(Excerpt) Read more at nymag.com ...
They left out deep seated racism and hatred of women.
-Drill rolls eyes.
The liberals believe, possibly with good reason, that demographics are on their side. Read this article in today's New York Times to see the way they think:
The Last Gasp of the G.O.P.?
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/04/is-the-republican-party-almost-over/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1
The two conservative candidates in the Republican primary race today are Roman Catholic. That could be good for the Republican Party long-term in reaching Hispanic voters, but we've got some hard work ahead of us.
this impending doom has colored the party’s frantic, fearful response to the Obama presidency.
Well, actually it’s Obama’s unconstitutional actions
that are striking fear into our hearts.
The constitution being the only thing between free men
and slaves.
Chait is right.
If we get our butts whooped again like we did in 2010 there will be nothing left to the GOP.
An attempt to instill a defeatist, panicky attitude among conservatives. Some of them are falling for it because they cannot think long term.
I thought we did pretty good in 2010. What did I miss? The issue here is that the GOP officialdom has lost its collective direction and thinks "liberal conservatism" is the route to success. Good luck with that approach...my purse strings are knotted.
"As U.S. real output grew 13 percent between 2002 and 2006, Massachusetts trailed at 9 percent.
* Manufacturing employment fell 7 percent nationwide those years, but sank 14 percent under Romney, placing Massachusetts 48th among the states.
* Between fall 2003 and autumn 2006, U.S. job growth averaged 5.4 percent, nearly three times Massachusetts' anemic 1.9 percent pace.
* While 8 million Americans over age 16 found work between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed Massachusetts residents actually declined by 8,500 during those years.
"Massachusetts was the only state to have failed to post any gain in its pool of employed residents," professors Sum and McLaughlin concluded.
In an April 2003 meeting with the Massachusetts congressional delegation in Washington, Romney failed to endorse President Bush's $726 billion tax-cut proposal."
[Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004.]
I think you mean 2006.
It’s not my quote...
Or was it 2008? LOL
I think you both missed some clever sarcasm on rogue yam’s part :)
Oh, I know ej.
I was just responding to you too cuz you asked “what did I miss?”
The Republican winning coalition since the late 1960s was based on convincing people to leave the Democratic Party on the grounds that it had been taken over by a radical secularist element that did not represent the majority of Americans.
I am seriously concerned that two generations of liberal school and college indoctrination, as well as radically immoral entertainment, **HAS** fundamentally changed what was once the American majority position on basic morality, let alone for an appreciation of the role of constitutional government limited by a written document.
Sit down and listen to young people under 30 — not just the college crazies, but average people whose morality has been framed by or at least affected by everything from Lady Gaga to soap operas. I'm sitting right now listening to the dominant radio station in a quite conservative Ozarks community, and virtually every song is glorifying promiscuity, rebellion, and various forms of immorality. Do we think that has no effect on our people?
Even conservative Republican young people are moving toward an amoral libertarianism. The rise of Ron Paul would have been inconceivable a generation ago, but he's managed to plug into a developing group of voters that (fortunately) he's too old to be able to ride very long.
Many of our social conservative fights are not just against liberals but against fellow conservatives. This article points out that American whites are becoming much less religious, and minority voters, while they may be conservative religiously, are voting Democrat.
Something must be done to change that, and must be done quickly.
Oh, my God. Such hyperventilation by Ms. Chait.
This is so true that many people fail to realize. If we lose 2012 there WON’T BE a 2016.
Obama will do everything he can to ram through his policies, we’ve already seen that things such as congressional majorities and the Constitution mean nothing to him.
Unfortunately too many people are going to sit out yet again and sit at home while Obama readies to deliver the coup de grace to the country.
Sooner or later the country will have to put its finances in order, and that means Republicans will either have Congress or the White House (maybe not both: too many people remember Bush).
But the article is a good explanation of what the Democrats and the media are doing this time: make the election about contraception and "sluts" to keep Obama voters in the Democrat column.
Really? It's crazy to think the opposite.
I understand Leftists enjoy gloating over the demographic and political decline of their most hated object; white Christians. I just don’t understand how they can be so fooled into an illusion of permanency: you don’t need to be a historian to see what happens with demographic change. The borders of the country will change as sure as it has with past demographic changes.
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