As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.
Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.
I’m bathing in holy water as I type.
To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.
Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we’re setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.
[…]
Suffice it to say, the Republican Party is largely comprised of white, married Christians. Anyone watching the two conventions last summer can’t have missed the stark differences: One party was brimming with energy, youth and diversity; the other felt like an annual Depends sales meeting.
[…]
But, like it or not, we are a diverse nation, no longer predominantly white and Christian. The change Barack Obama promised has already occurred, which is why he won.
When you espouse single-religion-based political positions (anti-stem cell research, anti-contraceptives, etc, etc) that the rest of the country doesn’t support, why would anyone except true believers vote for you? Times and the public have changed but the GOP hasn’t.
1
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
Won’t happen. How would the GOP organize their base if they can’t use tax free pulpits?
The Republican was once were for fiscal discipline and fairness. They were respected and my family and I always felt they had the better answer and voted Republican all the time. As a young adult, I loved to watch Buckley on Firing Line and his incredible vocabulary, I might ad.
What happened?
The Republicans got infiltrated by the Christian Taliban in this country. Then, the rest of the ‘holier than thou’ crowd. Then, the racists, bigots found a banner they hide under. The result? It has all come to a head.
The party brand is tarnished – really ruined. It will take a decade or more. You can forget the 2012 Palin/Plumber ticket. It’s a loser. They GOP needs to start from scratch and ween themselves from the Taliban and find another William F Buckley like leader.
In the mean time, they are rudderless with a collection of criminals and goofballs at the helm.
BTW, that quote is from Kathleen Parker’s latest column.
Parker is taking a serious beating on many (most? all?) of the wingnut blogs. I saw a couple where she was slightly defended and the unruly mob shot down the defender harshly. My tolerance for pain is low, otherwise I’d love to hear Rush bust a forehead vein today.
The better Republican politicians will deftly shift with the breeze, but the hardcore supporters will move like cold molasses.
#2- Well said. The first step to recovery is to overcome denial and deal with reality. The Republicans are far from this, although self-examination, such as Kathleen Parker’s piece, are vital. It’s going to take some time though.
The way I see it, the problem with the more left-liberal leaning side is that they’ve always mixed higher taxes with ideas of equality and fairness, and the problem with the right-conservative is that they’ve always mixed lower taxes with bigoted views on religion, sexuality, equality etc.
The first side to mix ideals of equality and freedom with lower taxes and “keep-religion-outa-politics” I reckon will win, no just in the US, but in all English speaking countries.
I simply can’t believe that I am the only person who could give a monkey’s if same-sex couples marry, thinks religion is a personal matter and not a political one, who could give a damn if someone is black, white or green, but also thinks that anyone who doesn’t pull their own weight should fuck off….
PS You guys sure talk a brave game. Save it for Judgment Day, which is coming for all of us…unless, 1st messiah BO “Changes” that conclusion.
…and, BTW, the demographics for the democratic party will invariably shift toward conservatism when “energy, youth, and diversity” with age and experience, has something to conserve and protect, like families, personal wealth, property and futures.
America is a liberal country.
Jesus was a Liberal.
The GOP needs to focus on learning what fiscal responsibility means (take notes from Clinton on that).
#8, funny, I don’t remember Jesus, forcing at gunpoint the theft of someones property in order to give to another. Now he did advocate giving, of their own free will, but giving people choice of giving or not is definitely not a Liberal ideal.
GOP “Thinking”: The GOP – the “Big Tent” for all WASP Millionaires and Billionaires !!! Well, it doesn’t need to really be that big !!! But we will have the MOST BALLOONS AND CONFETTI AT OUR CONVENTION !!! That ought to WOW THE WAGE SLAVES and get them to vote for us so we can CUT OUR TAXES YET AGAIN !!! Then we can PUMP UP DEFENSE SPENDING, WITH NO-BID CONTRACTS TO ALL OUR CRONIES, WHILE TELLING THE PEOPLE THEY CAN’T HAVE NATIONAL HEALTHCARE LIKE ALL THE OTHER “ADVANCED WESTERN DEMOCRACIES” !!! WOO HOO, HAPPY DAYS WILL COME AGAIN !!!
Here is the link to Kathleen Parker’s article at Townhall.com called ‘Heresies and Other Truths‘.
I didn’t leave the Republican party, it left me.
It’s ironic to see the Democrat posters here giving advise on how to save the Republican party.
The Republican posters defending/rationalizing the state of affairs in their party or outright redirecting blame to Obama for being elected.
The Republicans will lick their wounds. I just hope they don’t waste their time undermining the opposition as a tactic of improvement. Then again maybe I hope they do. They will come off looking like the mean-spirited narrow-minded bigots they are.
While blaming the “Christians” may suit Uncle Dave’s religion extermination campaign, if anything in this election cycle the evangelicals were *less* prominent than in recent history. They mostly disappeared after Huckabee bowed out. Bush himself did more than enough to doom the GOP.
The Democrats could have nominated a dead dog and won this time around. There is no evidence that voters fled the GOP because they don’t like white Christians. They fled because they wanted to vote against Bush and his legacies like Iraq, No Banker Left Behind, etc.
The thesis therefore doesn’t hold water. Maybe Parker should socialize outside of Washington “intelligentsia” cocktail parties once in awhile.
#15 unlike the gop, we liberals actually heed the words of jesus and love even our enemies.
we know that even though we disagree with republicans, we respect and know that the GOP wants the same things we want: a stronger, better america, and that the GOP has much to offer.
so yeah, we wish them well.
@Billy Bob
the religious right wants America to be come an Evangelical theocracy, which would kill the Republic and make all of our founding father roll over in their graves.
no true conservative would ever want religion foisted upon them.
my catholic republican parents have a strong distaste for the far right’s hatred of catholics.
While I don’t like theocons, they are not responsible for the downfall. It was the neocon’s crazy war in Iraq and the wall street crowd that ‘leveraged’ us into the fiscal crisis we now find ourselves.
Stem cells and abortion had nothing to do with the current state of the GOP. If anything, they cushioned the blow, politically speaking.
You want to see the future of the Republican party? Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger. To bad he can’t run for president.
What the GOP needs to do is stop running campaigns where the candidate simply agrees with virtually anything his opponent says.
The 2008 election was won by Obama because he promised to withdraw the troops from Iraq. McCain said they would stay.
On almost every other issue, they agreed.
Imagine if McCain had said he was opposed to the $700 billion bail-out, instead of ridiculously “halting” his campaign to rush back to the Senate – and do nothing.
Conservatives would have rallied to his side. Instead they stayed home.
Remember, McCain lost by 3%. 5% of the Republican base stayed home on election day.
#18
My point is that scapegoating evangelicals (Parker goes as far as to generalize this to “white, married Christians” in her article) for the GOP’s losses makes as much sense as blaming the stock market crash on Obama’s victory (another silly idea which is making the rounds in the GOP). It suits certain people’s political viewpoints but is inconsistent with the facts.
The electorate gave a big middle finger to “neoconservatism”. That has nothing to do with the presence of the evangelical wing within the GOP. Issues like stem cell research, school prayer, and abortion registered barely a blip in this election.
Where were the (so called) Conservatives when Bush and his thugs were destroying the Constitution? Never mind the policies and lies – The Constitution ! ! !
Republicans claim to be conservative. They are not. Republicans are authoritarian. “Conservativism” to Republicans is mainly an umbrella under which they can marshal their wedge issues, in order to divide and conquer…and rule.
Above all else they must rule.
“By their fruits ye shall know them,” no matter what they call themselves.
I wish it were true, but it ain’t. “Basically” this country is 50/50 or “center right” as the pundits like to say with the religious right voting more consistently than other groups.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008
If 4% of voting folks had switched, McCain would be the Pres. Bush called his squeaker in Florida “a mandate” but it too was just the coin flip of circumstances giving the nod to one part over the other.
Obama will have to take unpopular steps to react to the “Obama Depression.” He will have a tough re-election campaign no matter what he does, no matter how old the Repuglican candidate is.
Stupid is as stupid does.
People who believe in myths as central and _complete_ basis for their lives AND then wish to impose these myths on others should have no rights whatsoever to run OUR government.
This, in my mind, is a reason to keep a firearm handy. No bible thumper is going to tell me what’s moral. Seems to me that respecting others is a primary tenant to the bible.
The Republican thumpers need to absorb that if they wish to regain power.
what part of “render unto Ceasar” don’t you people understand? I always laugh when so-called “followers of Jesus” say they aren’t their brother’s keeper, or we should kill our enemies, or any other number of ridiculous hypocisies that Christ would beat the shit out of (he did beat the moneychangers, you know) people for being such putzes.
#25–Flip===”People who believe in myths as central and _complete_ basis for their lives AND then wish to impose these myths on others should have no rights whatsoever to run OUR government” /// Like guns protect you? HAW!!!!!!!
Republicans who want to screw Palin: 94%
Republicans who want to screw Parker: 6%
Quick! Shoot the unRILF!
Republicans claim to be conservative. They are not. Republicans are authoritarian.
There is an element of truth in this, but the theocons were mostly following the lead of the Bush admin and the neocon media elements.
The phone tapping, torture and other reduction in civil liberties are not core issues to the theocons. They would probably just rather kick out all the muslims rather than undergo the police state stuff, but that is not on the table.
I dont agree with the comments about the age of republicans. There were a phenominal amout of young people (18-30) at the county and state repulbican conventions where I was a delagate. Most of these young people were Ron Paul supporters. I was in total amazment how Ron Paul han been able to energize young people into action.
Yup, if they get rid of their stance on science, art, gays, diluted interpretation of the 1st amendment, election shenanigans, and pseudo morality I’d vote for them. How’d that campaign slogan go? Country First or was it Corporations First no no it was Church First!
this link summed it up so well
http://www.imvotingrepublican.com/
#31,
that would only leave them with limited goverment, not punishing people for being successfull and literal reading of the constitution.
I Love America!
and I used to be a Republican!