Posted on 03/24/2013 1:55:44 AM PDT by zeestephen
For the first time, I am wondering about the long-term viability of the Republican Party. I say this not as an advocate of its demise or restructuring but as an observer of troubling signs.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Then there's no need for me to read the rest of his article.
There once was a party called Whigs,
RNC? It might as well be the right arm of the DNC.
It is just another bullet in the demise of America as we knew it.
Sorry, Davy -- those are the options available. Failure to choose one of these is to affirmatively choose the other.
OK, advocate its demise and it will take decades to replace it. Advocate its restructuring and who is going to do it? The GOP is controlled by the RINO establishment whose idea of restructuring is to get rid of the social conservatives. I sure don’t have an answer but someone needs to come up with one soon.
Over here, the ‘Tory’ party (helped by its coalition with the LibDems and led by ultra-wet Cameron) seems to stand where the British Labour Party was about 40 years ago. Up springs the UK Independence Party which seems to be where the Tories were 40 years ago. Politics is like a caterpillar track - disappearing off to the left and being renewed from the right. The Tea Party is the hope for the future.
Well, duh.
Leaders describe a goal and people follow them...dictators say you will go here - you have no choice but to follow ...but a free people choose whats good for them and their families....
The guess here is both political parties have their problems. Wait til next year when the full force of Obamacare kicks in, along with gun control in the red states, and Obama’s incompetence. The pubbies with their back stabbing spineless hacks will also suffer. Neither one will have a lock on the electorate.
The article develops the idea that not only the party, but the conservative movement itself is split.
That’s one of the deep complexities that troubles Mr. Limbaugh.
If only, if only the problem were simple enough for, as Reagan said, conservatives to retake the party. But Reagan’s three-legged stool of economic, foreign policy and social conservatives is collapsing. The libertarian strain of conservativism, plus the usual RINOS, are signaling that traditional values must be dropped.
Then there’s the push to normalize those here illegally without bothering to SECURE THE BORDER. That is, lip service is paid to securing it, but the policy of refusing to consider what to do about those here illegally until the border is fixed, is going the way of traditional values.
Limbaugh ends by saying these ideas, which transcend the Republican party itself and now threaten the entire conservative movement as Reagan structured it, are a death wish.
Not just to Republicans, but to the conservative movement itself.
That’s why bothering to read the article is worthwhile. What Limbaugh is saying is, the Republican party is more beside the point now than it is the main point. The main point is conservativism itself and whither it goes...
McCain/Portman in 2016?
I hope so. The GOP is a joke.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/republican-party-founded
I wondered how the Republican Party formed. Above is a concise story. I have not heard of any meetings held to discuss the formation of a new party as was the case when the Whig party dissolved. I would think that our Senators and Representatives and governors could quietly meet to gauge the interest. Then, a few of the more courageous among them could form a new party and set up the apparatus.
You won’t find any “leaders” on their own willing to do this and nobody would follow one who did. No politician wants to be seen as the subservient follower of another. They’re like tomcats in that regard. However, all the tomcats will show up to howl over a female in heat. Now, if we can just get the Democrats to threaten succession if the new party comes to power…
The single member district system ~ which is universal here ~ leads to the development of a party that needs just 50% + 1 vote to win. That party consists of a variety of factions or 'coalition partners' who tend to share SOME values one of which is IT'S BETTER TO WIN THAN TO LOSE".
Over time ~ a decade maybe ~ there will be enough disgruntled 'coalition partners' that efforts will begin to go win on their own. This may result in a local, or possibly regional party, and it may win here and there. The larger coalition party will react, and the local parties will be moved aside by 'the big gucks' ~ which will lead to more 'disgruntled partners' ~ and a national party will arise which can win in local, state and national elections!
We called the first such large national party to grow up dedicated to winning the Democratic-Republican party, and the second was called The Whig party.
At no time did either party seat itself in Congress according to the layout recommended for the first revolutionary assembly in France ~ one reason was NO ROYALISTS. They'd been sent to New Brunswick. Secondly, Jefferson and other Founders had a lot of free land to give away to the people. Thirdly, the Whigs, once formed, grasped the handles of porkbarrel politics handily ~ they favored ROADS, CANALS, Public Buildings.
NOTE: my analysis glosses over the National Bank issue because I think the rise of the Whigs proved far more important to future events and political posturing than did the Bank.
Americans had their own revolutionary theories too so why adopt the nonsense popping up in France.
For a very long time though there were political theoreticians who pushed the normal curve from left to right with a large bulge in the center where you could find Moderates, or Middle of the Road people who were 'undecided' but could be persuaded in campaigns to move one way or the other and favor one large party, or another large party, and their candidates!
Over time coalitions shifted and new issues arose. In their attempt to avoid dealing with slavery the Whig party broke!
A regional party made up of Abolitionists and some former Whigs rose up and ran John C. Fremont for President. He lost, but the smart guys in the meaningful factions and special interests began to change sides rapidly. By the time the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln for President in 1860, the Republicans had absorbed ALL the Northern Whig adherents as well as the Abolitionists ~ who'd never really become a party on their own. Abe, BTW, had been a Whig railroad lawyer!
There were other dislocations taking place in the Democrat party, and a couple of other regional parties began growing ~ Abe was elected ~ the South attacked ~ and those regional parties became a whisper echoing down the corridors of history.
Afterwards what can only be described as a BIMODAL SADDLE developed an iron grip on American politics. You would be a Republican or a Democrat, the names of the two large poles around which American politics gravitated, or you were part of a FRINGE ~ a really thin fringe. You would vote for your party's candidates even if you didn't like them.
This structure rapidly gravitated to a near 50/50 split ~ and finally, in 1876 ~ 11 years after the end of the Civil War ~ Tilden and Hayes split the vote so neatly no one won the Presidency.
The tie was broken when the Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction and withdraw the Army from occupying Southern states. That had the effect of abandoning both black people and Southern Republicans to Southern mobs who proceeded over time to murder in excess of 30,000 Republican candidates for public office in the South.
The Republicans, then, became a National party with a regional base outside the South, and the Democrats became a National party with a regional base inside the South.
And so things were until the rise of the Progressives.
Without belaboring the point it will suffice to say that we have a two-party system because that's what works here. We also thrash out our coalitions BEFORE running people for office, and you even see a bit of that going on in Germany these days ~ and some former East Bloc states have discovered that phenomenon as well. Europeans do the coalition thing after the elections ~ which, in my opinion, is just too late to result in meaningful cultural change. That's why the French keep drifting from Traditionalism to Socialism ~ with quite arguably destructive results.
The UK seems to be the only state that can run a relatively stable three party system. That is probably attributable to the system that allocates more representation to the Scots than is justified by population. More equitable allocation of seats/ridings would likely bring some order to that out of control situation
See your point but the rats would never do that ... there would not be anyone or a country to bleed for their sustenance. The rats love things the way they are ... you were being sarcastic weren't you ... like the idea just see no way the rats will ever leave ... they love to bleed us.
At this point, I think it can’t make a difference..Culturally, the US is going the way of Rome and anyone who objects will be vilified. No nation can survive political correctness to the level it is practiced in America today. Dr. Ben Carson is the voice in the wilderness, but did he reach true visibility too late?..Only time will tell.
“...but it does mean that conservatism is based on timeless principles that require no major revisions.”
Hence the problem.
No, it’s War and Chaos for us all.
More correctly, the party was founded by creating a Republican National Committee which accepted delegates from former Whig state parties and existing Abolitionist party-like bodies.
My proposal is to simply create a New RNC and invite the existing state parties to and their equivalent to send delegates to a meeting which has as its purpose the selection of a candidate to run for President.
You leave the old RNC sitting there flipping its lips ~
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