2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMy Advice to the Republican Party
Now, I know how much they have been waiting to hear from me, but still, I feel the need to lend my help.
After reading Bob Dole's advice, I have some of my own. The problem with the Republican party is very simply that they let these new kids take over without getting to know them first. The Tea Party was this bright shiny new hope to them apparently. It turns out that they are inexperienced in governing. They are ignorant. Many are racists and bigots of all kinds. Sure some of the traditional Republicans are that bad but the reasonable ones have let them take over. I am pretty sure they did it to win elections...but they have sold their souls. Some of those Tea Party people simply have easily diagnosed psychiatric problems.
So my advice to the Republican Party. Take a stand, throw them out. Make them form their own party independent of you. They are poison. They have made all of you look like racist ignorant fools. Sure, dividing the party is good for the Democrats, splitting up that vote is good for us. In the long run however, you need to regain your integrity. When I read that someone in the Republican Party says "we need to change our message", I know that is bullshit. You need to change your hearts and souls.....you cannot change the message from ignorant racists. You need to throw them out.
You are welcome.
Freddie
(9,279 posts)There just is not enough of their true base--the money folk, business owners and other wealthy sorts, plus defense hawks--to keep the party going without keeping the bigots and religious nuts in the fold. The *true* Republicans don't give a flying f*ck about abortion and gay marriage so long as they don't have to share their wealth. The party made a deal with the devil years ago, shame that. I once asked a Repug friend why misogyny was an essential element of "fiscal responsibility" he had no answer.
TNNurse
(6,931 posts)They do not like questions. They do not have coherent answers.
gordianot
(15,253 posts)...... know that is Bull Shit. The Republicans reject non violent transfer they are at this point too lazy to employ violence and have to settle for lies, rumor, inuendo, bribes, hate, rascism, obstruction, treason, and sabatoge.
Violence not yet, there are not enough Republicans and the vast majority are chickenhawks.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)'Tea Party people' because there is no Tea Party. Those elected officials are Republicans. Those who voted for them, Republican voters. They are not different from Republicans, they are Republicans. They can not throw 'them out' because they are them, they are racist ignorant fools and always have been my entire life. There are no 'reasonable' Republicans, they are all exactly like Ted Cruz, some might talk a more uptown talk, but they are all the same, they vote as a block, you know this, everyone knows this.
To me, your OP is pro Republican, an attempt to say 'Jeb is not like the radicals' or that Tom Coburn is some saint like Obama says.
My advice to Republicans is that they stop participating in elections and step down for the good of the United States.
madinmaryland
(64,934 posts)Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)They were apparently doing pretty decently under Reagan and Bush l when their party was less crazy. No doubt that Reagan was a race-baiter (Welfare Queen, anyone?), but even he and Bush l weren't really into the weirdo social conservative stuff, like trying to restrict what women can do with their own bodies. They were doing okay running on a platform of just lower taxes. Where Republicans have went wrong IMO is when they started not only condoning misogynist policies, but have also been increasingly alienating gays and minorities via their rhetoric. Romney lost among gay voters by roughly 50 points, and among minorities by about a 1-to-5 margin. Even Bush ll won among Asian voters and had 40-something percent of Latino support. If I recall correctly, Bush ll had tried fighting for immigration reform. But the GOP's xenophobic comments about "illegals" and building "electric fences" haven't helped matters at all.
If their party would just stop being haters and stop trying to control people's private lives, then maybe they can regain glory.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)fact the first of the national Republican anti choice crusaders. Read this essay by Ronald Reagan and then come back to tell us how he was all about low taxes.
http://www.humanlifereview.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:-abortion-and-the-conscience-of-the-nation-ronald-reagan-the-10th-anniversary-of-the-supreme-court-decision-in-roe-v-wade-is-a-good-time-for-us-to-pause-and-reflect-our-nationwide-policy-of-abortion-on-demand-through-all-nine-months-of-pregnnancy-wa&catid=54:special-archives-spring-1983&Itemid=6
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)Thanks for the article.
Myrina
(12,296 posts)When he realized he couldn't get the nomination as a pro-choicer, he switched.
Ultimately I don't think he - or his ilk - give a damn one way or another, they just want access to everyone's money.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)is to disband so their won't be a GOP
DFW
(54,502 posts)The time for this advice was 2008. The fungus has spread and taken over the host.
illegaloperation
(260 posts)I would rather just let it implode.
Kablooie
(18,646 posts)Conservative voters have always been part of the equation and always will.
You can't eliminate them.
But parties have dissolved in the past and since the Grand Old Party has become the Grotesquely Obsolete Party it probably is time to pour salt on it and watch it bubble away into nothingness.
jmowreader
(50,589 posts)The Republican party is a thin veneer of public respectability camouflaging a mile-deep cesspool of hatred and corruption. Be proud of what you are, GOP! If you don't like the president the American public chose because he's black and pro-choice, come right out and say you hate the president because he's a baby-killing n-word (except proudly pronounce the n-word, don't call him a n-word or a nit or any of those other euphemisms). Tell us how you really feel about Mexicans. Propose summary execution for anyone who has an abortion, or who performs one.
'Course, if you did that there wouldn't be a Republican anywhere in Washington after three more elections, but it'd do your soul good.
tiffany_willis
(9 posts)Bye bye GOP
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)My advice to the Republicans would be much simpler: drop dead
Bake
(21,977 posts)Just keep a-doin' what you're doin'! Everything will be just fine!
Bake
BlueDemKev
(3,003 posts)...you pushed the once-proud Republican Party off the cliff. Now would you please join them?
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)In regards to the Republican Party and Word Association:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=188398007
CORNISH: Now, another prescription from the report: Capture the brand attributes of intelligence, hard work and responsibility. And I'm going to presume that Mitt Romney's campaign definitely tried to do exactly that. But in focus group surveys, young, winnable Obama voters, they used the words like close-minded, racist, rigid and old fashioned when you did word association with Republican Party. So what went wrong?
SMITH: Younger voters self-selected that they themselves wanted to be seen as intelligent and hard-working and caring and responsible. In terms of the current word associations with the Republican Party which weren't favorable to us, we think, you know, to us, that shows the disconnect between how younger voters see themselves, where we think we can be seen as a party in the future and how they currently see us.
CORNISH: But did that surprise you to hear those word associations with the Republican brand name?
SMITH: It was more, I think, hurtful to me as a lifelong Republican, because all of the attributes that were described, you know, rich and uncaring and close minded, those are things that I don't consider myself. All the people that I work with in College Republicans I know certainly don't view themselves that way.
But at the same time, I think that there's an absolute opportunity for us to regain ground as a party by capturing those brand attributes of intelligence and hard-working and responsibility.
The problem I have with this, is that whatever she is talking about is merely cosmetic. They would just want to explain that "Big Government" is the inefficiencies done by government. Unfortunately, they themselves are complicit in that. From bloated defense spending, to their rabid protectionism on already established industries which only serves to give more money to those that don't need it. That is the inefficiencies that I want to correct, and those are what they want to protect...
GOP inefficiency and misplaced priorities involve further misuse of government funding towards established and stable industries that should have their government subsidies cut in favor of emerging technologies.