Defeatism is dominating this thread.
I can’t believe so many GOP Party Apologist are so naive as to the parties tainted origin. It has been an “Owned” party as in cash for results ever since the days of Lincoln. Why JP Morgan {the man himself}, Carnegie, and John Rockefeller {founder of Standard Oil} even bought themselves an election literally a POTUS till an assassination messed up their playhouse.
Defeatism? I call it realism. You are hermetically sealed and a slave to a political party. Everyone here sees that. Takes this as a call for you to reflect on what’s going on and what the situation is.
Conservative better get used to defeatism till we man up and accept our own responsibility in this mess.
Conservatives are never going to win until we grow the hell up, accept that we are never going to get everything we want and stop putting good people on the enemies list for the slightest offense.
We don’t all agree among ourselves and have no realistic reason to believe any politician will come along and manage to agree with us.
Who’s being a defeatist?
The GOP doesn’t represent conservatives. I’ve been on the inside of elections. I’ve been a GOP candidate.
I’ve had party operatives “forget” to invite me to events specifically related to my race (while donating to my primary opponent). I’ve been refused admittance to GOP events -AS A GOP Candidate.
The GOP wants your votes, not your opinions and certainly not your activism unless it supports the establishment.
The problem is that the donors and the base hold two very different points of view. GOP candidates need the votes of conservatives and money from the establishment. So. The establishment spends tons of money calling it’s candidates “conservative” at primary election time in order to muddy the waters. In the last election I was in, 43 PACs did this very thing for my establishment opponent.
Conservatives can’t compete against that. Brat vs. Cantor is an exception, not the rule. The RULE is that money is message and when 43 PACs scream that your establishment opponent is really a conservative, it’s hard to be heard over the shouting. Indeed, Brat won because his opponent underestimated him and those PACs didn’t bother because they didn’t think they needed to do so.
No. It’s not defeatist to point out reality. The reality is that so long as conservatives vote and donors gives, the donors will be heeded. Winning candidates need both and the current formula is that the money buys the votes and conservatives have nowhere else to go. See 2014 election results:
It’s a winning formula for the GOP to take its money and ignore the constituents with nowhere else to go (The DNC does this same thing with the black vote).
Until the GOP has to deal with defections from its base, the current formula holds.
Acknowledging that the GOP doesn’t represent conservatives isn’t defeatist; it’s reality. It’s necessary to understand what is going on in order to fix things. The only strategy that will work is giving MORE money or fewer votes. The establishment doesn’t care if individual donors withhold money. In fact, it only makes it easier to listen to donors that support the establishment POV. In the short term, conservatives aren’t going to out-donate the COC and their PACs.
You say a third party is a losing formula for the GOP. It’s not conservatives that need to get that message: it’s the establishment. The GOPe needs to be forced to confront what a third party will do to its electoral chances.
You want to take back the GOP? Only a third party at this point will force the establishment to re-evaluate their current formula. Only outright defections will alter the current electoral math within the party.
Fortunately, I don’t have to leave the GOP to help form a third party. They left me.
Conservatives are so used to defeat at the hands of the GOPe that it won’t really bother us much to see the next “moderate” Republican candidate be defeated by Hillary Clinton in ‘16.
If conservatives have truly had enough abuse by that election and stay home or only vote for local candidates leaving the federal election lines blank, the GOPe will be smashed once again. This shouldn’t bother them because hey will get along better with Hillary than they do with conservatives.