Let Me Know How That Works Out For You...

by Charles Kunkle Jr. (aka fraterchaos)

Ever since the 2012 election, there has been an ongoing discussion about how the republican party can regain it's influence. Many ideas have been put forward, basically from two camps. The moderate republicans say they need to find a way to appeal to the general population more, basically becoming more "center-right" and then there is the bat-crap crazy, ultra-conservative wing (sometimes called the TEA Party) which firmly believes becoming even more intransigent, more unintelligent, and basically, far more bat-crap crazy, is the way to win elections... I think anyone with a bit of sense can see that we need not deal with that concept at all.
So we are left with the idea of the republican party must become more "center-right" and then they will win. And along those lines, we see a number of ideas... most of which boil down to a simple idea: repackaging the republican party. But what exactly does that mean?
Depending on who you listen to, it means a bunch of different things... some seem to believe that if you get a woman to espouse the "war on women" platform, then people will buy it... if you get a Latino to talk about deporting illegal aliens, people will like the idea, if you find a homosexual to preach against same-sex marriage, people will agree with you. Do we really believe that? It's something I mentioned before, you can make broccoli cookies, but people probably won't buy them, no matter what the package looks like or how well you advertise them.
The other idea, which I have heard from some of the more (occasionally) sensible republicans like former chairman of the RNC Michael Steele... they actually need to move more to the center, and then they can get the important message of the republican party out and people will listen. That certainly sounds better, but it raises more questions in my mind.

What I have to ask of someone with this point of view is, exactly what part of the republican platform are you willing to abandon and what part are you going to try to hold on to? I assume you want to abandon most of the bat-crap crazy stuff, like using anti-abortion and anti-contraception laws which are highly unpopular, you'll probably want to lean more center on immigration, providing ways for illegals to gain citizenship; you'll have to at least pretend not to care so much about same-sex marriage... but then, what's left?

I can only guess that the important message of the republican party is the economic platform... so you really believe people will buy lower taxes for the rich, continuing subsidies for corporations that don't need it, increased military spending, extreme cuts to programs as part of "deficit reduction" all at the expense of the middle and lower class? Yeah, that definitely sounds like a winning strategy to me.
On the other hand, it's very plain you can't possibly believe you can abandon the economic conservatism, while grasping harder at the bat-crap crazy social conservatism and hope that is the key to winning elections... and that leaves only two other alternatives.

You can keep on trying to win by pumping huge amounts of money into elections, suppressing the votes of people you don't like, and trying to commit voting fraud; or, you can become democrats... if you give up on social conservatism (taking away people's rights and freedoms) and economic conservatism (giving everything to the rich at the expense of everyone else) then you may as well disband and join the democrats, because there won't be any significant difference.

So what do you think they will do? My guess is (slightly) more intelligent heads will prevail (eventually) and they will drop the extremely unpopular social conservatism issues like abortion, contraception, gay marriage, violence against women, and issues of that sort, and try to run on the economic conservatism issues... giving tax breaks to the rich, subsidizing huge corporations, privatizing every government program so that huge corporations can make even more money and we all end up paying more for services we now get as part of our tax dollars at work, increased military spending to make certain America can keep sticking it's big nose into the affairs of every other nation on Earth, shipping jobs overseas, more tax breaks for the rich, and more tax breaks for the rich... yes, that's likely the program they believe will win them elections...

Let me know how that works out for you, ok?