That’s because the Democrats have not been in total control since 1994. Just you wait.

I second that, and just ask Glaivester1 to lead with comments like that… so that we don’t waste time seriously considering his ideas.

Absolutely. The idea that the government has been actively subsidizing the destruction of the black family structure since the Great Society has been so disproven by the facts. The idea that liberal welfare policie helped to create a generation of dole dependent, resentful people in broken families is such a strange position that no one sensible could actuallly hold it, considering how low the black illegitimacy rate is.

And the idea that the Democratic Party is trying as hard as possible to dilute white voting power by trying as hard as possible to prevent immigration laws from being enforced (because such laws are racist!) cannot possibly be supported by actual Democratic Party policies.

Add to this the increasing latino population, the diminishing white population

Considering that the Dems are working hard to bring this result about, one can hardly say that “racial paranoia” by whites against the Dems is unjustified.

But in the short-term, the current realignment will likely pass. The Democrats are, ultimately, just as irresponsible in their own way as the GOP is in theirs.

The GOP is likely to survive reasonably well through at least 2020 because the Democrats, when they are in power, will start to overreach and alienate responsible voters just as the GOP did.

Firstly, there are racial issues which will keep the GOP getting a significant portion of the white vote. Democratic pandering to the illegal immigrants and their lobbies will alienate white voters. There also is a tendency to try to coddle anti-white, anti-American ideologues like Rev. Lowery, who spoke at the inauguration. Once whites understand that the Democratic Party more or less wants them to loathe themselves as oppressors, a lot of the non-self-loathing ones are going to leave the party.

Secondly, the Democratic Party is generally hostile to any form of Christianity that preaches anything deeper than generic do-gooding. People who have strong moral beliefs about, e.g., sexual matters or who do not agree with ecumenical, all religions are paths to God pablum, will increasingly be turned off as soon as the Democrats become comfortable enough to start unleashing their complete agenda.

Thirdly the general “moral tolerance” of the Democratic Party, which derides traditional family structures as one of many options, no better than any other, will eventually begin to alienate a lot of people.

conradg’s predictions are based on the idea that the Democratic Party is naturally more responsible than the GOP and that it will therefore attract the “responsible people” who will have more influence there than if they try to influence the GOP to become more moderate or to create a “moderate wing” of the GOP that will try to replace the current “immoderate” wing.

The fact of the matter is that once the Democrats are in power they will be shown to be as irresponsible as the GOP. Moreover, the “progressive wing” will gain as much control of the party as the “wingnut” wing has on the GOP, and attempts to reform the Democratic Party will likely be no more successful than attempts to join the GOP.

I think that “respnosible people” will likely have a third choice other than joining either of the major two parties and trying to make them more responsible. I think that a lot of them will beceme “centrist independents” and vote for whichever candidates seem the least extreme in any particular election, (or if they don’t bother to check individual candidates, whichever party is less extreme that year).

(Earlier predictions that were more – extreme – were based on my being tired and my acceptance of the (mis)interpretation of conradg’s position as being that the GOP would disappear entirely, at least as we know it today).

It’s certainly true that the Dems could self-destruct, and this seems to be the only strategy the GOP has. They are betting the farm on the Dems self-destructing over the next four years, leaving the GOP the field regardless of their previous incompetence. They are actively hoping, praying, and trying as hard as they can to obstruct the new Dem admin and congress, and ensure its failure. This is what seems crazy to me. The Dems certainly benefited from the GOP disintegration, but it wasn’t their strategy, whereas for the GOP its all they have. As if no one is noticing that they are putting their own political hopes above the welfare of the country as a whole.

As for Glaivester1, I can only say that your convictions about the Democrats is simply not shared by most of the country, and is a symptom of the decline of the right rather than its future triumph. The idea that the only “responsible” people in the country are in the Ron Paul wing of the GOP is just laughable, and part of the marginalization of that wing. Plus, the racial paranoia fits in well with a group that has no prayer whatsoever of gaining mainstream acceptance. But, please, keep it up, and see how far that takes you.

Nom you just said that responsible people will have no choice but to be on the fringe:

Where does this leave limited government conservatives? Well, about where they stand in most European governments – On the fringe. Sorry, guys, that’s how the wind is blowing.

Unless of course, by responsible you mean parasitic.

“Even more responsible” suggests that the Democrats are responsible, which they are not. Their goal is to take as much from whites and Asians as possible to give to non-Asian minorities, and to normalize as much deviant behavior as possible. People who join the Democrats will not be responsible by definition (except for a small cadre of people who are Democrats in name only, e.g. Bob Conley), because of the irresponsibility of the Democratic Party.

The truly responsible will join Ron Paul, or a third party, or become maverick Republicans (by which I mean Paul or B.J. Lawson, not McCain). If there are not that many people who do this, it just means that very few people are responsible.

I don’t think that the GOP will do quite as poorly as you suggest, because the Democratic Party is likely to self-destruct its own way just as the GOP has in its way. First, the Democratic Party is likely to alienate most non-self-hating whites if it doesn’t curb its affirmative action/open borders agenda; second, if they overreach in social areas (freedom of choice act, bills to provide public funding of abortion), they will lose a large margin of moderates, and thirdly, because the stimulus package is based on a “government will restore the economy” philosophy that failed when Hoover tried it, and is likely to result in this recession/depression lasting for four more years, ending only if the economy hits a bottom from where there is nowhere to go but up.

Now don’t get me wrong about Paul; I am not saying that the Ron Paulites will take over. But I think that their influence will increase a lot more than you think.

I think there was a fundamental distrust not only of what the GOP wanted to do, but of both it’s ability to govern at all, and its interest in genuine governing, other than “deconstructing” government as a front for raping and pillaging for the rich and privileged. The only solution they have for any economic problem is tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy, which means defunding government and enriching the upper classes. The financial crisis brought home the need to bring a different kind of governing philosophy to power, one that actually cares about governing. Obama represented the only real alternative to the non-governing, incompetent, trash and rape the place laissse faire philosophy of the GOP. My concern is that there ought to be many competing philosophies of competent, responsible government.

“So my argument still stands. Responsible people will not join the Democrats. There just won’t be that many responsible people, just a lot of parasites and friends of parasites (the Democrat base). And, of course, the neocon core of imperialists in the GOP.”

Responsible people won’t have any choice but to join the Democrats, which will help the Dems become even more responsible. They won’t join Ron Paul, because there’s no “there” there, just some kind of wonkish sense of purity and superiority, but no actual ability to govern in the real world. The GOP may indeed go the way of the Whigs, but that’s too far into the future to accurately predict. The GOP may reform itself into a party of responsible government, but it’s unlikely because the core of it not only doesn’t care about such things, it’s actually hostile to the notion.They only pretend to care to get votes from the middle, but no one seems to believe them anymore. It’s more likely that a split would someday develop within the large Democratic majority which would itself evolve into a two party system, squeezing the GOP even further into the margins.

Barry’s scorpion and frog theory is closer to the truth. The GOP simply can’t change its fundamental nature at this point. It believes it must actively work to destroy the country in order to promote its own political fortunes. Which seems like a strange strategy for the party which is always accusing the Dems of wanting to lose wars to win elections. They want to destroy the country itself in order to win elections, and they say so openly. Who’s going to support this except the hardcore true believers? What drugs are these people on? This is political suicide-by-cop.

“Even Rush admits that if the stimulus bill passes and the economy recovers, it will mean “the end of the Republican party”. I agree with him on that. What I can’t understand is why the GOP would suddenly make a stand here and now on this issue, when there is a very good chance they will lose everything, and even if they “win”, the country goes to shit in the process, and many people will still blame the GOP’s last eight years of mismanagement for it. So there seems very little serious upside, just a long-shot bet with everything to lose. ”

First, there’s the old scorpion and frog tale – ‘that’s just my nature’. The GOP has been highly irresponsible for quite a while, and has actually achieved quite a bit, in terms of sheer looting. Second, I think that they feel that they can cast Obama as Hoover. Remember, if things truly go to sh*t, most of the downslope will have occured under the Obama administration, which will hurt like h*ll in 2012. Unless Obama can pin four years of misery on the opposing party, which would be a first for an American president. It’s not like 1933, when the GOP had been thoroughly discredited by 3 straight years on the tobaggan ride to Hooverville.

“In terms of the short term, if the stimulus “works” or “appears to work” (ie the economy demonstrably improves before or around the 2010 midterms) then the GOP is in a no-win situation, ie even if they supported it- they would not likely make any gains based on this. But, if it doesn’t “work” or “appear not to work” then they will quite rightly be able to campaign against it.”

I agree, and the clear GOP strategy is to make sure that the stimulus won’t work. In the meantime, they’ll get more tax cuts for the rich.

“As for the long-term- even if the stimulus does appear to work in the short term, there is going to be in not so many years, a mighty reckoning concerning US debt etc. So in 8 years, if the GOP (a big if) even in opposition, manages to continue this almost unanimous opposition to massive spending- they will be putting a marker down towards fiscal prudence. This may, may help to erase their record over the previous eight years.”

First, it’s not the previous 8 years, but since 1980. Massive GOP financial irresponsibility dates back to *at least* Reagan – and not by accident. There was a clear and public change of course, which the GOP has adhered to.

Second, opposing the other party’s spending is not a marker on prudence, any more than Corp. VP A opposing VP B’s favorite projects would be.

Now, OTOH, it’s quite likely that enough of the American people will have forgotten (or can be persuaded to forget). In addition, the economic elites have clearly shown that they prefer corrupt and incompetant right-wingers, unless and until disaster is actually close enough to smell.

No, that argument was not rejecetd by the electorate, because that was not the argument that in real terms the Republicans made. The actual Republican argument has been to increase the portion of the government that is focused on killing Arabs and on surveillance.

I actually don’t think that the electorate was thinking about the size of government per se when they rejected the GOP, they just did not like the things the GOP was using the government to do.

Further, I think there will be a decent recovery relatively soon, and Obama and the Dems will get the credit for it.

I doubt it. What will happen is that the Keynesianism will make things better short-term, before it is discovered that our actual productivity has not increased and prices start rising rapidly as they did in the 1970s, and unemployment begins to rise again due to the fact that the government used too many resources away in the stimulus package.

The reason the GOP won’t disappear is that it has a core 25% of the population who will stick with it through thick and thin.

Okay, I was assuming that your talk about the GOP destroying itself were suggestng that it would go the way of the Whigs.

All the responsible folk will have left the GOP, and they will have nowhere to go but to become “centrist Democrats”.

Where does this leave limited government conservatives? Well, about where they stand in most European governments – On the fringe. Sorry, guys, that’s how the wind is blowing.

So my argument still stands. Responsible people will not join the Democrats. There just won’t be that many responsible people, just a lot of parasites and friends of parasites (the Democrat base). And, of course, the neocon core of imperialists in the GOP.

Much as I might sympathize with the Ron Paul movement, it has no chance whatsoever of gaining mainstream popularity as a viable second or third party. Your arguments are of the esoteric, wonkish variety that only demonstrate how futile that hope actually is. People fleeing the GOP will not go to third parties in any great number, and I don’t see any of them actually replacing the GOP in the near future. Rather, I just see a long term minority status for the GOP. Most of the action will take place within the Democratic party, as its progressive and centrist wings clash.

Further, I think there will be a decent recovery relatively soon, and Obama and the Dems will get the credit for it. The reason the GOP won’t disappear is that it has a core 25% of the population who will stick with it through thick and thin. They are the hard economic right-social right, what is commonly called “movement conservatives”. They aren’t joining Ron Paul, and they aren’t becoming Democrats. They are idealists, and they will wait out the time in the wilderness with as much faith as they wait for the Second Coming of Christ – literally. And who knows, maybe history will reward them for waiting. The Dems can certainly succeed in screwing things up if they try hard enough. But I think that will be a long time off. It’s just as likely that in another generation the GOP will really begin to fade out entirely, and another social/political movement will replace it. I wouldn’t want to predict that far into the future, but I imagine it will have a very technological flavor to it.

The real conflict will come when the economy finally does recover. The last time this happened, after the Clinton boom years, the Republicans were “trusted” with the budget surplus he created. But having destroyed that surplus and wrecking the economy, the Republicans will have a very hard time arguing that they should ever be trusted again. Greginak is right that they simply don’t seem to have any arguments in favor of their being able to actually effectively run a government. Their only argument has been that they are best at destroying government. But now and for the forseeable future, that argument seems to have been rejected by the electorate. They are looking for a party that can govern responsibly, not one that will simply try to defund and delegitamize government. The only party making an attempt to do that is the Democrats. So the real question has become, which faction of the Democratic party should rule. And “bi-partisanship” is going to be viewed as an attempt to bring these various factions together, rather than enter into negotiations with hardcore Republicans, who simply having nothing constructive to contribute to the discussion of how government should be run.

Where does this leave limited government conservatives? Well, about where they stand in most European governments – On the fringe. Sorry, guys, that’s how the wind is blowing.

any discussion of how to do this or that in the government, always starts with Conservative principles….blah blah blah. yes we all need theories and principles but the R’s are beholden to dogma and what ever might actually work is irrelevent…

ooops i slipped into rant mode