RIP: The Republican Party

I've been thinking about the current form of conservative ideology and realized suddenly how the Republican Party has boxed itself in. They're sitting around narrowing their message, limiting their thinking and candidates hunkering around a shrinking demographic (uneducated while males and The Rich). They are playing Seven Old Ladies Locked in the Lavatory.

You don't know the song?

It goes:

Oh, dear, what can the matter be
Seven old ladies got locked in the lavatory
They were there from Sunday till Saturday
Nobody knew they were there.

See here. Here for a video.

Here's the situation.

Conservative thought (read "Reaganism" here) says government is the problem, not the solution. The only solution presented is reduction of government. This means the ideology precludes intervention.

If you run your life like the Republicans say you should run your government, you don't repair the roof until it is not only leaking but already given way. Then, you have to save up your pennies (since low paying jobs are the right jobs) until you can repair the damage-- except, of course, it's not enough. The damage done by the rain must also be repaired so you have to save more pennies. No right thinking American would ever take out a loan for such a thing.

If your septic system leaks into the ground water and your water makes you sick, that's just fine. You should be boiling your water any way. Your neighbor doesn't have anything to say about it because your property rights don't just stop at the border of your property, they run right over your neighbor's, too. And if you're a corporation doing it, the RNC will not only bless you but pass legislation to pay you to do it.

You would never put oil in your car-- that's not the way things are done. You wait not just until the engine light is on and the car is shuddering. No, you wait until the engine explodes on the highway during rush hour. Then, you abandon the car and declare a national park around it.

That's the sort of government the RNC believes in. It's the sort of government Reagan believed in.

Where this gets truly nasty is the way the Republicans got in bed with far right and and religious conservatives back in 1994. The problem with aligning the party with such people, and social conservatives, is the Tom Paine syndrome: Give me Liberty or Give me Death. If you believe you're right absolutely than compromise becomes traitorous. That syndrome begets Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan.

Dwight Eisenhower and Nelson Reckefeller would not be welcome at the Republican Convention these days any more than Arlen Specter.

But it gets worse. Far worse. The syndrome is aided and abetted by the primary system where the more extreme of both parties participate and the moderate wings tend to ignore. So wingnuts like Romney and Huckabee manage legitimacy. Blessed by the talk show hosts, they win to go down in flames when the moderates realize what's being sold to them.

Remember, however, the demographics of the party. That means more of the same and worse.

The Democrats are a far more diverse party, for good or ill. It's unlikely any one movement will ever dominate them. This is Obama's problem since he has to herd these cats together.

The Republicans are like an inbred spaniel. Only outside blood can improve the breed. But, content with only its dimwitted, cross eyed cousins, the damn thing snaps at every mongrel brought by.

God, I miss the Republican Party.
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