I recently returned to online activities after a ninety day 'vacation'. I decided to see some new country, so I created a Free Republic login, and what I found in the day and a half my login survived ... has interesting implications for the 2008 elections.
We've seen the 43%/43% Democratic/Republican split shift to a 50%/35% split and after just a day with the FReepers I'm sure that trend is going to continue. In fact, I think we can help it along ...
First, a little background.
I washed in here on the rising tide of the 2006 midterm elections. I'd been a registered Republican (RKBA, people, RKBA) until the 2004 election. I'm not sure if it was Swift Boater slime or the vote recounting antics in Florida, but the final straws were tree trunk thick and falling fast. I'd never liked the religious right component of the party and it was obvious where things were heading. I held my nose with one hand, my Glock with the other, and voted a straight Democratic ticket with my teeth for the 2004 election. When 2006 rolled around I'd pretty much completed my metamorphosis - ActBlue contributions every time there was an article here with a link and I volunteered a bit for Jim Esch in NE-02.
I registered on Free Republic April 4th as "Thomas Pained" and began posting. They expunged my account and postings the night of April 5th, but you can still see it with the Google's cache feature. Use this search string, include the quotes, and click the 'cache' links:
"Thomas Pained" http://site:freerepublic.com
I've been struggling with how to cut a tidy example of what I saw out of the boiling pot of FReeper spaghetti logic and after three attempts I've given up. If you're already familiar with them you know what goes on there, if you aren't I suggest you go and perform the same experiment I did; register, comment as a Libertarian Democrat(fake it if you must), and see for yourself.
As an executive summary I'll say that what one will see as purely an observer will be:
1.) The articles are consistently over the top. Extremist views, few or no outside links to support claims made, no fact checking, etc.
2.) The follow up comments are of three types: Enthusiastic supporters reinforcing or directing to related stories, one liner cheer leaders, and very rarely a short, well thought out response that runs against the community standard but appears to come from someone with a conservative/Libertarian viewpoint.
3.) Though not formally stated as policy there are 'brown shirts' - a sort of equivalent to the trusted user construct here, but they share the same murderous tendencies of their namesake. Rather than the progressive (there's that word again!) discipline of DKos' troll ratings on a post by post basis the 'final solution' is quickly applied to those who fall out of line.
None of this is news to those who visit DailyKos on the regular, but what it means is rarely covered, and I think it has big implications for 2008.
Lets sharpen this up a bit:
FreeRepublic squelches dissent. Even loyal dissent from within the ranks. This is a huge problem in human endeavors since a few control the tune and new voices, no matter what insight and energy they might bring, are not welcome. God has spoken, ya'll will get in line, just in case you hadn't picked up on where the right gets their management consulting.
FreeRepublic is hysterical. I don't mean hysterical funny, I mean hysterical, uhh, not rational. Rational people prefer rational discourse and Free Republic just can't get there. Objective truth does not support their prejudices nor the End of Days myth, so it is shut out of the discussion stream.
FreeRepublic is devotional and affirmational. I think this point, more than any other, confuses progressives. When a FReeper ignores a primary source because it disproves the initial thesis of a given thread it isn't that they're failing to think - they're there to reinforce a creed handed down by a higher power, and you'll be demonized if you try to interfere.
What does this all mean for the 2008 election?
Republican membership dropped from 43% of total voters to 35%. 8/43 is 0.186 - 18.6%% of Republicans jumped ship in time for the 2006 midterm election. That is a seismic shift in what has been a nearly even balance for the last couple of generations and it happened when the Republicans controlled Congress.
Why did those people jump ship? I believe something like 60% named corruption as the number one issue driving their change. Now that Hammerin' Hank has subpoena power I think this rich vein of angry swing voters will continue to produce new Democratic voters purely due to the side effects of a fair and balanced application of oversight. Yes, Virginia, the Republican party really is that dirty.
43% claimed the Republican party prior to 2006. 25% of all U.S. citizens are evangelical/fundamentalist Christian. I'm going to go out on a limb here and make the assumption that 100% of them were part of that 43% who were Republican.
So ... 35% claim the Republican party and 25/35 or 71% of them are religiously motivated and won't change. Fine! I want the other 29% and the 300 Democratic House and 70 Democratic Senate seats that will come from peeling the two groups apart.
Don't start planning a same sex wedding in a newly created national forest because it won't play out like that. Are you ready for a lot more blue dog type Democrats? When those districts turn from red to blue they're changing parties but they're not changing temperaments all that much. The flag, apple pie, and pregnancies that don't start until after the wedding bells stop ringing will still be the order of the day.
What do we do next?
Don't say Hillary. Or Barack. Or John. This is much bigger than the 2008 election. Neoconservatism is totally discredited. Faith based initiative bribery of Christian Right leaders will disintegrate under the attentions of a Democratic majority House. The money is going one direction, the foot soldiers another, and Free Republic's ejection of a former Republican such as myself is a proxy for what is happening all over the country in many different ways.
The Republican Party is dying.
Our Constitution was written by men with a visceral distaste for religious fanaticism. Many of those 35% of voters who still claim the Republican party are going to change anyway as the Bush administration comes under scrutiny, but many more will shift if an appropriately framed message is delivered.
I've been thinking about how to communicate this for a long time. I keep watching this site, waiting for some other wise guy to present the solution in a slick, well written fashion. That hasn't happened yet. Some time in the next week or two I'll take up my pen again and try to express how I believe this 'saving' might be accomplished.