The best way for Republicans to fix their party is to hasten the end of this era by voting Democrat down the ballot. If they can't stomach that, then stay home on voting day. Voting Republican during this determined push to the bottom has only enabled it.

prepared to turn its' back completely on Union Labor for the death blow, it may not. I can't vote for one of the candidates under any circumstances, and she knows it.

In my opinion, Ronald Reagan was at least in part responsible for where the GOP is today. To be certain he was not entirely responsible, I would not give him that much credit for much of anything, but he certainly helped set the direction and tone.

Don't forget the Nixon crew...... who resurface during Reagan and Poppy Bush and Dubya...

Haven't you noticed that the GOP thinks the President is just a PR job?

It was Reagan where the sickness took root.

Nixon would have been the source, but he undid himself. So it had to wait until the Sainted One.

The Baggers however, formed their particularly toxic version because of racism against Obama. Combine that with Reagan economics and religious zeal over controlling sex and women and you have systemic, unthinking madness.

Reagan really started the rise of the rapid right wing. If my memory is correct, Nixon knew the religious types were important, but did not like how powerful they were.

Trump represents the worst of Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush, combined with the anger generated by hate radio and Fox News.

Republicanism in the 90's too a turn for the weird, going from a coalition of paleoconservatives, hawks, and business insiders, to a jump-and-holler tent revival full of people who keep campers full of ammo and canned goods buried in their backyards in expectation of Democrats enacting martial law and starting the Tribulation.

the disaster capitalism economics along with the Chicago Boys who carried it out.

We took the wrong path in 1980 and we have been following it ever since.

If the corporatist candidate succeeds then the party coulee legitimately fracture. The DNC had been acting more and more like the RNC than I can ever remember, and there are plenty of people that are pissed off about it.

This could be a very interesting year for both parties...

place to become the R parties replacement while the progressives finally get their party back.

This could be very interesting. I cannot imagine Al Franken who has endorsed Hillary as a member of the NEW R party.

Conservatives are anti-everything by nature.
They're pessimists. Defeatists. Nihilists.

They did a serious assessment after the last election and determined that they needed to reach out to minorities. The result is a Cuban-Canadian-American candidate who wants to "build a wall that works." https://www.tedcruz.org/cruz-immigration-plan/

Anyone who expects introspection from the Republicans has forgotten to take their meds this morning. The consequence of a Trump rout will be the conclusion that he lost because he was not a true conservative and they will push someone as far to the right as they can. Bank on it. The Republican Party is not like an addict who hits bottom then seeks help; it is like the addict who hits bottom then takes one more hit and fatally overdoses.

sort of stuff that defines today’s Republican coalition. And I just think it’s awful. It’s terrible for the country in a great many ways that I don’t need to tell you. And I think that we need to have a healthy two-party system. We need to have a sane, functioning conservative party and a sane, functioning liberal party. And I think that half of that equation, at least, is not working, and it affects the other half."

This guy voted for Trump in the Virginia primary apparently to hasten the demise of his own party? Who needs Democrats messing with republican candidates in open primary states when republican voters are voting for their own party's destruction?

For turning conservatives into babbling, drooling, ignorant, useless tools bent on the destruction of our democracy.

We owe you.....

the 700 club, gerrymandering districts, Rove, and the save the babies right to life idiots who all served
the GOP well until all that hate and stupid morphed into "the Trump Monster." Nobody stood up to Trump
and called him out as a liar with his sending "good people to Hawaii" to see if the President was really
born there and now the monster has life.


As a little kid our next door neighbor's brother was Governor of PA, Ray Shafer and he was a good
guy who was quite liberal in his views and he was a Republican too and he would have no home in the
GOP today.

Of a world without social conservatives. Seriously though, social conservatives are just a bunch of backazzwards morality warriors who believe in using the power of the state to punish those who don't comply with their version of social norms. I live in Utah and it feels like living in a damn theocracy sometimes. It's all the more painful considering there's a wonderful progressive state in CO right next to us.

who don't comply with their version of social norms"


Well said. That is precisely what has happened with HB 2 here in NC and all the legislation being proposed around the country
to to discriminate against LGBT people. The morality warriors--mostly rabid evangelical "Christians"--were so pissed at
the Supreme Court for allowing marriage equality that they've now created a way to discriminate against LGBT AND anybody
who has supported the efforts for equality.

They are a hateful bunch of ignorant bigots. Just hateful. The world would be a better place without them, IMO.

...would be fine. Please proceed, GOP.

(Wasn't that one of the best lines ever?)

Maybe what we need is an extinct Republican Party and a new left wing party. I mean, Obama has openly described his policy positions as those of a Reagan-era moderate Republican, so it seems like these sorts shouldn't have to look far to find an ideological home.

for anti-Democrats to develop their ideology into something more worthy. Go for it! Forums are available for free. Go make one, Marr.

for Potus.

That does not compute for Hillary supporters.

We already are starting to see it now. You have the liberal democrats and the conservative democrats. The divide is very sharp even here on DU.

Social conservatism is dying. Demographics and everything else is changing. look no further than the change in acceptance of homosexuality in our society over the last 20 years.

I've been calling for that for years.

We don't have a liberal party.

played a big part in all of this, so fuck them. They're getting exactly what they deserve.

They have been dog whistling and enabling their racist, homophobic cohort for DECADES. And then they gerrymandered the districts to the point that no Dem had a hope of winning in any of them. But the racist base figured out that they didn't need the GOP anymore, they could elect anyone they damned well please and there was NOTHING the party could do about it

They built this monster. They did it by disenfranchising voters through redistricting and voter disenfranchisement. They whipped up the base with Fox News, dog whistles and endless made-up OUTRAGE year after year after year. And now they are SO SAD about the unintended consequences of what they built? Fuck 'em. They get what they deserve.