It is with a certain level of schadenfreude (well, to be honest, an ENORMOUS level of schadenfreude) that I have been reading right-wing blogs and publications since Tuesday night. OK, OK, I've been gloating. The hated GOP is a smoking heap of fascist wreckage, and I couldn't be happier. What I was most interested in, apart from the moans, screams and gnashing of teeth, was what rightward people are thinking about rebuilding the party. For the true wingnuts, it's simple. Palin. Hate. Fear. Racism. Calling everyone to their left (that is, everyone) socialists and homos. In other words, keeping up the same set of theories and tactics that have kept them in power over the past eight years. I certainly hope they win out, because it will guarantee they will never get close to power ever, ever again.
There's another group who think Republicans just have to refine their message of small government and lower taxes. These people are brain-dead. This is not 1800. The government is not going to get smaller, and nor should it. They talk about cutting spending so they can provide tax cuts for the wealthy. They never, ever name something they want to cut. You can go through the budget and trim here and there, but it is possible to take a meat ax to only one part of the budget that will produce real savings: the military. That's it. We can save hundreds of billions a year by killing silly, corrupt programs like a missile shield and by cutting our number of troops in half. Let's see them propose that.
We need a large government to oversee an increasingly complex global economy. A few years back, the Bushies cut the number of inspectors at USDA and FDA drastically. The result? Record numbers of deaths from poisoned meat, spinach, bean sprouts, and tomatoes, among others. Not to mention poisoned baby food, pet food and other food products and toys coming from China. It's pretty obvious those jobs have to be restored, but of course, the Bushies deliberately threw away trillions so that there would be no funds to undo their evil agenda.
As for lowering taxes on the rich, forget it. These people have looted the economy of trillions of dollars, and now they can just pay it back. I'd go way past raising taxes to disgorgement of profits made from investments in the housing bubble, the gamed derivatives market, and so on. They invested a few million in bribing the Bushies to get rid of any oversight whatsoever, then went out robbin' an a stabbin' an a shootin' and a lootin'. Let's just seize their bank accounts and force them to prove what was earned honestly.
If conservatives really think the whole problem is just refining a low tax, small government message, they're just deluded. People who have watched their houses disappear, who have lost their jobs, who have lost their pensions and benefits want bigger government and higher taxes to spread the pain around. The country will never listen to that bromide, at least in the foreseeable future.
There is a third group. These are the people like Andrew Sullivan who bailed out of the GOP over the last few years. They have no idea how to rebuild the GOP and really don't care. A few have noted that there is no one left in the party who isn't a clueless, corrupt thug and they want the Republican Party to just go away, to be replaced by who knows what. They figure that after a time in the wilderness, what is left of the party will turn to them to develop an intellectual, principled and honest conservative movement. Yeah, sure. Good luck with that, guys. Remember who your voters are: ignorant, hateful, racist, thuggish morons. I'm sure that reading them The Wealth of Nations will get them to rally round you better than calling Democrats commies and nigger-lovers.
Remember how stupid the GOP has been. They started an optional war just for the fun of it, and became the first nation in recorded history to cut taxes during wartime and THEY ALL THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA. It was the most predictable disaster in human history, comparable to all those bozos you read about in News of the Weird who stick roman candles up their butts, light them, and then wonder why they blew their asses off.
And the Republicans had the nerve to chant, "Use your brain, vote McCain." It is to laugh.
I know that eventually the Stupid Party will be back. They'll find someone even more evil than Karl Rove to develop a package of lies and smears that will appeal to the moron class. But they have permanently alienated the following: Blacks, Latinos, the young, the educated, gays, urban livers, upscale suburbs and independents. What do they have left? Old white people in small towns.
Can they come back? Possibly. Will it be in my lifetime? Absolutely no chance.
I sort of like a two-party system. However, it will not work if one party is simply interested in power, has no ideas, cares only about the wealthy while lying to the poor that they have a chance to become wealthy (assuming they can go back in time and get born to different parents), and will go as low as necessary to gain and hold on to power.