I don't foresee the GOP having either the courage or foresight to embrace that Sister Souljah moment like LBJ did and change their agenda by amputating the extremist wing of their party. They can't stop themselves now because without all the nuts, the clowns, and the crazies, there is no Republican Party. They don't dare to repudiate the extremists out of fear of alienating even a single voter and getting negative blowback from their king-maker, agenda-setting, corporate controlled rightwing media.

Republicans have spent over a half century developing tactics that have not only conditioned their base to support their agenda, but now the party leadership is a victim of their most excellent adventure in political propaganda. The GOP has become a shrinking, self-perpetuating cult, paving the path toward their own extinction. Its not so much a question of when, but what new right bent movement will arise to fill in the (more or less) sane opposition space the GOP has relinquished?

In a nation where 2/3 of the population cannot name a single Supreme Court Justice, over 40% believe in young earth, current-state creationism, and where Trump is taken seriously as a politician by, well, anyone, you give the rank and file Republicans too much credit in thinking they would accept a DLC alternative simply because from the far left they look, falsely, close to Republicans. It will never happen. Dems, ALL Dems, are commie effete traitors to them and trying to explain that trade deals or chamber of commerce support is what Republicans are really all about would be like playing chess with a pigeon. You are missing how visceral the Republican base is. The party will not fade away and wither no matter how many fantasies of aware and rational electorates we come up with. Even the facile surface level "analysis" ubiquitous these days about the dying off of older white voters misses the fact that they will simply be replaced by the next generation of older white voters with similar attitudes. Older majorities have been complaining about the decline of morality and the loss of what made their country great since writing began and probably far longer. It's that attitude that breeds kneejerk right wing support and it's not magically going to stop this generation.

But I think the GOP base continues to shrink as middle of the roaders become increasingly alienated.

The political earthquake Johnson set off happened just over 50 years ago. That's 2 and a half generations, technically. It may take that long again for things to change, but the current state is unsustainable in the long term.

I'll go out on a limb and say Texas is going to vote for a Democrat in 2024, too! (But yes, I'm an incurable optimist, sometimes. )

the Pubs swapped Dixiecrats for Weicker types 1988-94, turning it into the demagogic, Hitler-baiting, yet somehow empty hellbeast we know and love today: that permanently lost them the West Coast and New England (NH was the last to transition)

of course Pub voters are dying off and there's a whole passel of corpos well-versed in whitewashing economic disaster with "but at least *I* don't think gays cause hurricanes

The GOP is going to have to expand its platform to include things other than making sure gays can't get abortions.

One of their problems is that as soon as they latch on to a new boogeyman the Dems swoop in and pick that group up. It's a pattern established since th civil rights movement.

Demonize blacks = drive that block away from th Republicans to the Democrats.

Rinse and repeat with Latinos, gays, Asians, young women, Catholics, Jews, etc...

The problem for the Democrars is that not every group repulsed by the GOP is necessarily a natural liberal and/or progressive group. Right now the Decocrats are (barely) being held together by a common enemy. The weaker the GOP becomes, the weaker the democratic coalition will become.

I think the fracturing of the Democratoc party is actually an inevitable outcome of a weakened GOP. I also don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.

just got the ball rolling: the DLC made its appeal to "innovators" like chemical, tech, aerospace, media, and banking sectors rather than old-line "smokestack and assembly-line" industries, hence the favoring of raiding over manufacturing--tertiary over secondary in economist wonktalk (bleakspeak?)

speaking partywise, Trump really shows the appeal of economic issues to Republican voters (and even the Baggers insisted they were "taxed enough already" as often as they worried about the gay-run death camps or Islamosocialist takeover; other than "rouse the rabble" and "serve the donors" there's not that much consistency in the GOP

Reagan put together the "new GOP" out of four basic cores (each one so strong they all literally have publishing houses of their own)--big business (Murdoch, Dow, Boeing, Justice Powell, the Hunts, the Kochs), militarists (Haig, Secord, Singlaub, Kirkpatrick), right-libertarians (Randroids, Heinlein, anyone thinking they're better than the perishing sheeple), and fundies (Hargis, Robertson, Moon, Falwell): none of these cores is overly self-consistent and they all have shifting relations between each other, especially with the overlap (the Chicago Boys are all corporatists but also Pinochet-level monetarists, the entire libertarian movement was fabricated wholesale by Hunt money, and Gary North is all four factions at once)

the Dems are fare closer to a "Neapolitan ice cream" model, a bunch of "interest" sectors like women, enviros, unions, LGBT, etc.--but deliberately seeking out corporate money means that they have to back off on the economy--but they don't really serve the social sector all that well, with Emanuel setting up what they literally called the "veal pen" to block any bottom-up proposals

self-serving structure leads to self-serving rhetoric: if the party endorses Republicans (FL, NJ) and would rather lose with a game-player than win with a (AR); with Obama the schism between revolutionary promises and entrenchment of business as usual became critical: if the party reports how *relieved* it is that it lost the supermajority in 2010: the pressure heats up with a large majority to pass laws that the people want and need--which would in fact hit at the gravy train and force a progressive shift that'd strike at the party's "stakeholders"; a slender majority keeps liberals out of their hair since there's no chance at legislating now; this little game lets them keep playing the brave resistance: you're there to help THEM, and if this attitude drives voters off it's easy to point the finger at the traitorous constituents; there's less work as a minority party (repost from here)

Not that I'm fond of the CofC -- they're a major force behind "free trade" deals and the TPP -- but it's one more sign that a new centrist party based on the business wing of the Democrats could emerge fairly quickly.

Ten years ago, the CofC was getting a lot of its money from right-wing billionaires and putting that into swaying elections. Since then, the billionaires have decided to cut out the middleman. I don't know where the CofC is getting its money now, but it's got to be having an impact.

And the reluctance of the AFL-CIO to endorse Hillary is another sign of changing times. Capital vs. labor as the shape of the future? Could be. I just hope things don't break wide open in this election cycle and hand the GOP an undeserved victory.

I think the Dem coalition is safe for the next two or 4 elections. Sanders, for example, just publicly ruled out a3rd party run because he wouldn't want to "be responsible for electing a right wing republican".

Once Texas goes blue watch for a bolder left wing of the Democratic Party and make be a 3rd party challenge as they may feel that there is enough of a safety net in the electoral college. I thinksplit will be played out in the primaries in 2015 and 2019, with the looser railing behind the winner for now.

The sane ones know they are hosed and the social engineering nut cases just make them look unappealing.

They spent four years deriding Obama's economic plan, successes, etc. as not successes and problems for the future. Romney was their "bridge" they hoped, a business guy who could move the party more towards the "business minded" while transition to family values (while being platonic) and removing the stranglehold the evangelicals have over it (Romney being a Mormon, is not evangelical). But the monster they created, the Tea Party, which they used racism, fear, etc. to capture the House, and state governments, didn't disappear after they were done with it, nor did it come around to their side completely. And is still giving them problems.

If they want to start winning elections, they have to drop the rabid right/evangelicals and move to the center.

But the question they face is, when? If they do it in a cycle while Democrats are still looked favorably on, its going to be awhile. So they'll probably cut the life cord to the evangelicals during a recession. And they will probably do something bold, such as build on a Democratic success. I wouldn't be surprised if say during a recession they run on expanding on the ACA (they won't call it Obamacare then) and creating a public option...only they will call it something with more marketing appeal (America's Option, Patriotic Option, etc.).

Nor would I put it past them of putting in the DREAM Act (only a different name) under the guise "we can't deport job creators!" or something similar.

Heck, it may be this election cycle they are just trying to create a "memory", in that the next, the people remember "oh yeah, he sounded the most normal of those nitwits from last time".

You nail What they need to do exactly. But can that do it and if so, when. Seems like common sense to you and me, but radical surgery to a party where Scott walker is a moderate.

Someone (moderate GOP or pro-business Dems) is going to tack to the center to pick up this group of alienated voters eventually. I think that the Dems have a much better 50 year track record of attracting GOP refugees, however, while the GOP is addicted to alienation and hate.

They are soiling their brand.

In the end, it won't matter too much whether the middle party calls itself republican or democrat. The middle of the road folks are too big a demographic to ignore.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply!