If (when) the Republicans lose this year

[Proud Liberal Dem]

who/what will they blame? What lessons are they likely to take away from ANOTHER loss to Barack "X" Obama?

The GOP clearly decided that John McCain, even though he chose Sarah Palin to be his socially regressive pit bull and Obama/Democrat character assassin, didn't "keep the faith" enough with the socially regressive "base" of the party and that's ultimately why he didn't win. So, with the help and encouragement of the Koch Brothers and Sarah Palin they went about creating the so-called (Republican) "Tea Party" in the wake of their 2008 debacle to continue to attack Barack "X" Obama and influence the GOP in their direction of the regressive "base" culminating in the 2010 Republican mid-term sweeps and are, as we speak, busy at work making Congress, the Federal Government, and states all over the country dysfunctional with their "policies" and their own unique "style" of governance.


They have also been busy jockeying for power and influence of the 2012 GOP Presidential primary process by supporting a rotating list of candidates -other than Mitt Romney- and are being presented with the possibility that the GOP "establishment" is going to give the gold crown to Mitt Romney this round and are freaking out- though it seems likely that they will wind up supporting Romney simply because they hate Barack "X" Obama with the heat of a thousand suns and realize (correctly IMHO) that Romney (or whoever the GOP nominates) will ultimately bend to their will once in office.

But what happens to the Republican Tea Party if (when) Barack "X" Obama wins again? Will they engage in some inner reflection and try to do what they can to broaden their appeal to more voters and look to more "moderate" candidate like Huntsman for 2016 or will they simply double down again and move so far to the right that they end up falling off the map completely?

Frankly, I have no confidence that they will engage in any meaningful reflection of themselves, their tactics, policies, etc. but a lot of them moved so far to the right and become so obnoxious that I don't know how much more they can handle before really *snapping* and become actually dangerous. My biggest concerns, aside from an increase in outright violence from them (like what we've seen in small spurts since 2009), are that their obstruction and sabotage of the proper functioning of Congress and the Federal Government will continue unabated, if not worsen, or they may decide, if they control one or both Houses of Congress, to simply go for broke and try to remove Barack Obama from office using whatever pretense they can think of, no matter how flimsy.

Anybody else have some thoughts on this?

[Scootaloo]

1. They'll blame anyone but themselves

For instance, they still maintain that Barack Obama only won in 2008 because "racist" blacks* voted for him. They insist their legislation doesn't pass because of conspiracies, rather than because it's bad and / or unconstitutional. Their reaction whenever voters turn them down for being too crazy is to get even crazier. They've developed this fantasy of persecution where everyone from Sesame Street to the National Geographic Society is plotting against them. And never once - not once in over fifty years have they stopped to go "Uh... maybe we're overdoing it?"

(* - I actually parsed the numbers on this. Barack Obama did, in fact, get a 2% increase over the average for Democratic candidates among black voters; putting him at 93% or so. Not exactly a surge. Kerry and Mondale both came in with very similar numbers, and I don't think many candidates have been whiter than those two. However, McCain saw the largest surge in white votes for a Republican Candidate since the passage of the 14th amendment; He got a whopping 25% increase over the average, which even put him past the big spike among white voters that Reagan's second run got. So if anyone was winning the "racial loyalist" vote... it was the guy who lost.)

[Live and Learn]

4. +1

Exactly!

[dimbear]

2. Whoever gets nominated isn't conservative enough, regressive enough,

or shall I say it! crazy enough.

There certainly can't be anything wrong with their ideas, it's the messenger that's defective.

sadly all too true, tho.

[intaglio]

3. The reaction to worry about is not the GOP

It is the moneyed sponsors of the GOP.

Essentially, these people want to deny the vote to those who oppose them and they will continue to do this by packing state legislatures and introducing both constitutional and unconstitutional laws suppressing Democratic party funding and votes. The GOP will become even more of a hand puppet of these regressive, authoritarian nabobs.

[Owlet]

5. Good post

The only point I'd argue with is the assertion "that they will engage in any meaningful reflection of themselves, their tactics, policies, etc".
As I see it, there are three major divisions within the GOP. They have always been there to some extent, but this year's endless debates and seemingly endless primary season have brought them into focus as never before.

1. The "Establishment Wing". These are the oldline Republican voters ala Ford, Rockefeller, Dole, etc. They are far fewer in numbers than they used to be, because they are from a vanishing demographic - upper middle to upper class, college educated, non-evangelical Christians. The folks you see having dinner at the country club on Saturday night. There is a lot of money in this group

2. The "Far-Right Loonies". The teaparty crowd, typified by their prom king and queen, Rick Perry and Sarah Palin. Gun-toting, poorly educated, tax-hating, Bible-thumping and ignorant of the basics of civics and civility. They are the shock troops for the looming fascist takeover of this country. The movement is financed by a few super-rich (Koch's, Swiftboat Perry, etc.).

3. The Libertarians. Government is the enemy. America should withdraw to its own borders. Free markets will solve all economic problems. A person should be free to do whatever so long as it does no harm to someone else. These are articles of faith, and this wing is as much like a religion as it is a political faction. Ron Paul is their prophet. Their financial backing comes from their devotees.

I don't see group #2 capable of any kind of self-criticism, as you point out. Group #1, I think, has already started the process of wondering where they got off the track as a major party. Group #3 has always and will continue to exist as a set of true believers.

So, here's what I think will probably happen. The far right folks will leave the GOP and form a third party. They will have four years to organize and will be a force to reckon with in 2016. The libertarians will continue on in an uneasy alliance with the Establishment but will gain greater influence in the party, for example, causing it to be less supportive of military adventurism.

Of course, none of this will amount to a hill of beans, as the next four years will be like every other four years - loaded with outside events that will trump party ideology. War? Natural disaster? Economic collapse? Take your pick. They're all there, waiting in the wings.

I'm convinced that elections are won or lost depending on the incumbent party's response to conditions. Everything else is just politics.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. Good breakdown of the different parts of the GOP

The biggest problem that the GOP is having right now IMHO is that their famous and once seemingly impossible-to-crack unity is beginning to fall apart. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to bring everybody back on board for the GE but none of the parts are big enough on their own to win the Presidency and that GOP really only works with all three are united- though their ability to expand their potential voter base is going to be increasingly difficult with their continuing rightward bend IMHO. The Democratic Party is large enough and expansive enough to capture a majority of the electorate. Our major challenge is to get people to show up at the polls (and make sure that they are eligible to vote once they're there).

[quaker bill]

7. It very much depends on the size of it

If they lose narrowly, keep the House and tighten the Senate, they will push to gain the seats needed to conduct an impeachment proceeding after 2014. But I do not see this as a likely outcome. I see them either winning or losing big, most likely losing big.

Now if they walk into 2013 with a re-elected President Obama, Harry Reid, and a Speaker Pelosi, things will get very interesting. A friend of mine through my profession happens to be a Republican elected official and a Republican party committeeman. We met the other day on a project and during the commute to the site he was needing to respond to a conflict within the party via e-mail. He showed me a couple of the messages, it was a flame war as bad as any I have ever seen here and far worse than most.

Some of the Tea Party types are actually considerably less polite than the people they put up on the podium to speak. My take is that they are on the verge of tearing apart. They are holding it together only for the possibility of defeating Obama. Once the election passes and they lose, all this bottled up hatred will need to go somewhere. I would not want to be in that room, and since I will be celebrating a victory, I will not be invited.

If they lose a big as I think they will, republicans will come apart at the seams. It will be ugly, but most of the ugliness will be internal.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. I agree that it will either be a big win or a big loss for either side in November

I think we will find on Election Night 2012 we will end up with either a Democratic or Republican trifecta. The way things are going right now, I'm betting the former over the latter.

[hedgehog]

9. Voter fraud

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. One of my family members said the same thing

It will be interesting to see who(m) they actually blame it on, particularly considering all of the new voter id laws they've enacted since 2009 and the demise of ACORN.

[zipplewrath]

11. End of the baggers

It will most likely mean the end of the tea baggers. The effect of lost elections is to figure out who didn't deliver the vote and marginalize them. The GOP will take note of Ron Paul and attempt to co-opt what they can. The social conservatives will probably re-group a bit. After backing Huckabee and losing, and probably losing with Santorum, they'll be looking for another W who will pay attention to them, but go out and win anyway. The money guys, Rove, Koch, and other "super Pac" folks will just continue to raise cash, it's what they do. I suspect they'll get to work on the whole "white old guy" situation and start pushing a Rubio, or some other "ethnic" (Jindal?) to be the face of the party. They already know they have a Hispanic problem.

Don't expect rapid change, but steady shifts in some direction. They are a tad lost right now and casting around a bit. In a way, they got "fooled" by the 2000 election. They lost it and didn't know. 9/11 confused the lesson greatly. But the country really wasn't buying into that whole "compassionate conservative" schtick. They lost the culture wars over homosexuals and the Schiavo fiasco. So they've found themselves here and they can't figure a way out. Quite honestly, we should hope that they don't notice that the dems and the unions aren't always getting along these days. A pro union GOP could be scarey.

[Johnny2X2X]

12. They move furhter right

The best thing that could happen to the Republican party would be for a RWer to get nominated and get thoroughly thrashed by Obama, this would force them to move back to the center. Romney is still the likely candidate and will get beaten soundly too, this is disaster for the Republicans. They will respond by moving so far to the right that only the fringe elements of society will be left in their base. They'll start running only Sarah Palin type idiots and they'll alienate the thinking and moderate part of the party for a generation.

Romney could very well mean the end of the Republican party as we know it and the end of their having a majority for a generation.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

13. Wouldn't they just conclude

that Romney just wasn't "severely conservative" enough? Of course, they just don't seem to get that there is no way that the party is seriously going to nominate somebody like Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman, et. al, at least until they overthrow the "establishment" which currently (correctly IMHO) considers people like them to be unelectable in a GE.

[AmateurPolymath]

14. People seem to forget there is a congressional election this year as well

The Republicans hold 47/100 Senate seats. The same assholes who elected a House majority may very well get a Senate majority as well, that is, unless we, the educated, the 99%, can use our only line of defense, a vote, against them. Luckily, congressional approval ratings have been in the fucking dumps since the tea baggers have taken office. I can see this year ending in six possible ways:

Democratic President, Democratic Senate, Democratic House: Ideal outcome. Conservatism as we know it is cast into Hell for a good two years. Hopefully this time, people are disillusioned to right-wing astroturf bullshit, and won't fall for the same ploy again.

Democratic President, Divided Houses: Prepare for more of the same shit for the next 4 years.

Republican President, Divided Houses: Well, we're at a disadvantage, but hope isn't lost yet.

Republican President, Democratic Senate, Democratic House: Beware the veto, show him no mercy. Whenever possible, find a reason for impeachment.

Republican President, Republican Senate, Republican House: Nightmare scenario: prepare for a second gilded age, Greek-style riots. In these dark ages, it is in the best interests of New England and California to secede from the medieval oligarchy America is doomed to become.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

15. The same excuses which are two: (1) The Liberal Media and (2) our candidate wasn't

conservative enough!!