Just they got slapped hard in the face with a dose of sanity, and it stuck to some of them

to be honest, both major parties have been written off for dead many times, only to come back.

i remember when people said the republican party couldn't recover from watergate. that actually has a *lot* to do with why they turned ronnie into a saint. sure, they loved his tax cuts and other conservative crap, but what they really liked about him was that he made people forget watergate and what crooks lying, cheating, criminals republicans are.

i agree that democrats have a good shot at being the dominant party for some time, but the republican party isn't going anywhere.

Chambers and we ended up with the tea party.

They'll just find a new empty suit to shill out with a different label on it.

I recall that after Obama was elected the MSM was saying that the GOP "brand" was severely damaged by the mess they caused during the Bush administration. Then, in no time and with the aid of the MSM, the AstroTurf tea party was launched by the influx of Koch money. From that point on the hatred for Obama and the opposition to everything he tried to achieve began. This movement encouraged by the GOP, including the "so-called" moderates, gave birth to Trumpism and other deranged politicians of the far right.

Could not agree more... I was having a talk with our neighbor last night about this very subject. While I agree the old school Republican is the minority these days the party will live on.

I wish it were true but if I had a dollar for every time I heard I would be rich - with a moral compass, but rich...

to manage society through the exercise of various powers. A car needs brakes as well as an engine.

there isn't a constructive role for a white nationalist one.

Hat tip!

You have described many sane republicans that I know, none of whom are voting for trump.

And one realizes they don't really care about limited government. They just use it as a crutch to justify their white nationalism, since they are comfortable in their white privilege.

It's funny/sad someof the conversations I have about politics with my Bernie-lovin' hubby. His first FIL was a Republican, and he respected him and understood his point of view. Sometimes I have to remind hubby that those days are decades gone, and so is the GOP as it was then. His late FIL would not recognize today's GOP.

There is no constructive role for a white nationalist, "blood and soil," party in America.

...oh yes it can, and the preliminary indications are not good. A Trump/Pence Presidency could begin the degenerative slide into Amerikan nationalist madness.

I have been saying for years that we are not immune from fascism. The German people are not stupid but they allowed a fascist to seize control due to a combination of circumstances in Pre- war Germany. One man played on fear, hyper nationalism, resentment to place blame on minority groups for their problems and promising to restore Germany to its former greatness. Sound familiar?

...for the worst for just about everyone.

Welcome to DU!

You can debate with a person who says "You people spend too much money" but not with one who says "You people are going to roast in Hell" or "You people don't deserve to exist."

Whatever political evolution is underway, I do hope it happens quickly. This nation needs (at least) two functional, viable political parties to function. At 65 years old, my thoughts are with my younger relatives and the kind of world they will deal with.

and for balance. The problem w/ the Republicans today is theirs is solely a party of obstruction and profit taking for the already very wealthy.

Not only do they have to acknowledge white racism in their electoral success, they ALSO have to acknowledge that their dog don't hunt. The GOP wanted to roll back the New Deal as an affront to "free market principles". But nobody really wants that to be rolled back. So they have to use white resentment as a Trojan horse to sell it to racist white working class voters (Reagan Dems and the like) so that they associate government intervention with "handouts to THOSE PEOPLE". Take away white resentment and then what do you have?

On top of that, even if a right-of-center party drops the white resentment, it still has to get past the fact that even "color-blind" free market policy will tend to hurt marginalized groups (because free markets tend to reward access to resources, which marginalized groups don't have) and marginalized group voters at this point associate "free market principles" with "racism/white resentment" the same way the 1964 election made Dems the civil rights party and the Repubs the anti-civil rights party.

racism to attract voters… what did they expect?

Their eyes are on the past.

of the GOP will survive and move on. After Reagan won, they wrote off the Democratic party and it did take a while (1981-1992) for us to get reestablished as a national party.

They dragged everybody to the right for generations to come, not just themselves.

attempted a sea change and tried to steer the party away from the hate and fear and towards something reasonable?

They would trounce her, remove her funding and backing, her committe seats, and denounce her in the media.

So, how on earth could they even attempt to right the ship?

Given their current trajectory - from well measured political philosophy (one I am adamantly opposed to) to screaming lunatics with sidearms. There is no way that putrid party can survive.

The old guard Republicans fudged the truth and told outright lies for political gain.. but their ignorant sheep believed every word of it and became enraged when the old guard GOP did nothing year after year to fix the "problems" so they turned to a fire breathing lunatic outsider.

We can see the beginnings of that in the Democratic party already. The Republican party will go extinct, but the Democratic party will fracture into a new conservative party and a new liberal party. One of the two will probably keep the name "Democratic Party". That's the way it has always happened in American politics.

So, ten or fifteen years from now when the split fully forms, will DU split in two as well, or will it follow one or the other of the factions?

Old Elm Tree, and that died off.)

most Americans combined with authoritativeness and a lack of equal rights for ALL, they certainly will die off. They've become the way-back machine to some points in time many would like to forget. And their handling of foreign affairs seems they want to only trample on other nations. The US is only about 5% of the world's population. In fact, the GOP is disgusting and the laughing stock of the world!

point of that post is this "when I caught up with Roy at a bar". While crying in his beer.

Look at all the state legislatures and governors they have, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Hell, they re-elected Brownback for gosh sakes.

Peace!

If we were like most other industrialized democracies, the Democratic Party would be the major center-right party, and the Greens would be the major center-left party. The Republicans would be a crackpot racist fringe, and anytime they even polled in the double digits it would be a cause for widespread concern.

That's not the USA, though.

The GOP has the brand loyalty of scores of millions of voters. It survived the Goldwater debacle, it survived Watergate, and it will survive Trump.

He forgot the part where he is culpable.
Look who he worked for, it was right in front of him the whole time.
He helped push their apple cart down the mountain. Trump just so happens to be the bottom of the Hill. His "Guys" were the top of it.

Now he laments what the gop'ers have become.

Republican have quite happily -- and deliberately -- been very good at sewing the seeds of their own destruction. The monsters they created have outgrown their cages and have become too dangerous to control. No one should be surprised by this all too predicable denouement.

they act like their party has suddenly become very distasteful, when in truth, Donal is just showing the world exactly what they stand for