Does anyone here or anywhere really think the GOP base is going to moderate? NO WAY IN HELL!

[RBInMaine]

The GOP establishment knows they took a wallopping and they know they need to get back to the GOP of Ike and Nelson Rockefeller. But sorry folks, AINT GONNA HAPPEN ! That base is VERY red in the deep south, certain sections of the bread basket, and lots of the west. Their fear-based ethnocentric and racist worldviews aren't going to change, nor is their greed and selfishness, nor is their LOVE of HeadRushLimpMind and FAKE-News. Their wild-eyed evangelical wing isn't going to change anytime soon either. In fact they are DOUBLING DOWN.

The Republicans lost and have a dim future because they are STUCK IN THE PAST and GRIPPED WITH FEAR OF THE MODERN WORLD AND MODERN AMERICA. And that delusional fear is only going to intensify. In fact, it already is. They will DOUBLE DOWN ON IT and alienate themselves even further.

The challenge for the Democrats is to continue to WIN the MODERN American worldview and economics arguments and CALL OUT Republican backwardness and radicalism and keep PROVING how out of step they are with today's America and today's world. We need to continue to prove that WE are the party of ALL of America, and that OUR ideas represent TODAY's America. If we keep our coalition engaged, we can beat the Republicans into a PERMANENT 2nd tier party of limited geography and limited democraphics that can no longer win national elections.

One of the first things I would do if I were Obama is call for new votes on the Dream Act and on fair comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship. Initiate legislation that forces the Republicans' hands and forces their votes on the record. If they say no, they remain DOOMED with Latinos. If they cave, WE win because WE initiated it and their base will go BATSHIT, fall to shit, and split apart in civil war. And of course we will WIN on the fiscal cliff issue. Either the GOP agrees to end the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2%, or THEY ARE DOOMED. FORCE IT ! It is all WIN WIN for us. If they hold out, we WIN with the MAJORITY of AMERICANS who agree with us on this and they will punish the GOP even more in 2014 and 2016. If they cave, their rank and file will have a civil war and splinter apart. We can not lose. But we must INITIATE the legislation and PUSH IT. They are in a corner bigtime !

Whadda ya think?

[patrice]

1. agree

[ProudProgressiveNow]

2. That would be just like this cartoon.....

Obama McConnell and Boehner Meet on The Fiscal Cliff! Literally!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101778431

[AlinPA]

3. The facts in your first paragraph on geography of the GOP core won't change. As you say, the

evangelicals' zeal is definitely not going to change and will intensify. Also on the Dream Act: yes, it will be done and the GOP will be seen as pushing back.

[RBInMaine]

8. BIG civil wars in the GOP IF they CAVE on Immigration, Dream Act, & Fiscal Cliff. GONNA BE FUN !

[vadermike]

4. agree

100% agree and from what i understand Pres O and his team are taking up immigration reform right away after the Cliff and Boenher has already signalled he will get support for immigration and some in whats left of the moderates in the Senate GOP will get behind it.. of course the teahadists and most of their base will rebel when it is passed.. and they will have a full on civil war in their party,.,.eventually one faction will win out. may take a little while to pan out.. but thats what will probably happen and the Dems will get 80% of the credit for passing it and those few Repub moderates that helped pass it will become more centrist and try to pull their party that way.. they may or may not succeed.. but either way it is a win for the country if the GOP goes back to Lincoln/Eisenhower roots!

[RBInMaine]

9. Mostly agree, but those ethnocentric rednecks dominating the R base aren't going back to Ike.

[FireandIce59]

5. Total Agreement

I have been saying something along these lines to my husband for the last few days. I think that you 'hit the nail on the head'.

[blue sky at night]

6. agree for sure...

this is making me oh so happy...meltdown at the funhouse!

[Trajan]

7. For the next four years ....

I am going to hammer home how the GOP is too moderate, and how they need to be pure, unadulterated conservative ... or they will lose again and again ....

[jambo101]

10. The GOP have gone insane

As they try to rationalize the failure of their alternate reality over on FOX..

[johnlucas]

11. The Southern Strategy dooms them from being able to change

When President Lyndon Baines Johnson, the once-Vice President to assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act in honor of Kennedy, the Solid South Democrats—the racist Dixiecrats—fled the Democratic Party in virtual exodus.
The Republican Party marginalized & struggling to hold onto power in the wake of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal Revolution knew that any chance they had to secure the Black vote was gone with the signing of that act.
They saw these Dixiecrats running away from the Democratic Party in leagues & got an idea.
The Republican Party opens their doors to these energetic angry racist Dixiecrats & forge a whole new coalition that can secure their grip on power while eventually allowing them to reverse the gains of FDR's New Deal Revolution.
This was the Southern Strategy.

Ironically the party that once freed the Black slaves 100 years ago is now courting the racists they once defeated.
After a few hiccups with interfering George Wallace's splitting of the Southern vote & non-racist Southerner Jimmy Carter curiously retaining the South, they locked down this strategy for good with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan.

By doing this, the Republican Party doomed themselves to extinction.
It would take decades to show but you cannot last long without a moral edge.
They absorbed a base that hates everyone not like themselves in a country full of diversity.
It's illogical to function like this & one day the Republican Party would receive their comeuppance.
They not only prolonged that short-sighted dysfunctional bigotry by providing a political & social platform for the bigots.
They also reneged on the Social Contract by denying that the Rich were supposed to pay back into society that made them.
No moral edge. Greed & Hatred won't take you far in the long term.

Short-term we had to pay for their recklessness.
But once that recklessness had taken its toll, the Balance came in.
Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, & especially Bush II spent all the power of that short-term strategy.
The election & re-election of Barack Obama shows that it's now time for the long-term.

The bigots hate the Blacks.
The bigots hate the Hispanics.
The bigots hate the Asians.
The bigots hate the Muslims.
The bigots hate the Gays.
The bigots hate the Democratic Women.
The bigots hate the Democratic Whites.
The bigots hate the Poor.
The bigots hate California.
The bigots hate Massachusetts.
The bigots hate France.
The bigots hate China.
The bigots hate Europe.
The bigots hate. The bigots hate. The bigots hate.

Can't go nowhere with a bunch of haters & now the Republican Party is married to them.
To keep power they had to please these bigots.
By pleasing these bigots they lost ability to draw in any of those other groups that the bigots hate.
Purge the bigots, lose numbers. Keep the bigots, lose power.
They CAN'T change. And because of that the Republican Party will die.

If they picked a better set of people in the 1960s, that might not have had to happen.
John Lucas

[rhett o rick]

12. Even though it looks like the R party is dying they still control the HOR and millions voted for

the wack-a-doodle Rmoney. I think Chris Christy revealed what is going to happen. The R party will change their face and look like a moderate party. Maybe Christy, maybe Jeb Bush and try to steal back the millions of conservatives that voted for Pres Obama.

[Myrina]

13. Split the party. Please.

Permanent minority of 1 GOP 'fiscal conservative but socially sane' party and 1 'former GOP batshit crazy Talibornagain racist party'.