After last fall’s election, I thought the GOP would use their defeat as an opportunity to regroup and rethink their platform and agenda. I thought, perhaps naïvely, that the party would pull together its best minds, lock itself in a room somewhere, and when it emerged, stand before the American people new and improved and prepared to provide the leadership requisite to meeting the many challenges facing the country.
But I guess I was asking for more than the party could deliver. And in the panic and pandemonium that ensued, it suddenly dawned on me that in the first place, the GOP had no platform to rethink. Their entire game plan was based on appealing not to reason but to emotion and fervor. Their entire game plan was built around waking up the most base instincts in a segment of the population either frightened of change or seduced and exploited by ideology and dogma.
So, in their response to their election defeat, they decided to double down on this strategy. As time wore on and their numbers dwindled, the party reached even further right to solidify the support of its most ardent supporters. And instead of leading, the leaders began to follow in taking up even the most outlandish and outrageous conspiracy theories and assertions made by its most delusional, off-kilter supporters.
But this will eventually become the GOP’s undoing.
Last April when Texas governor Rick Perry excited and incited the Austin City anti-tax tea party crowd by hinting at state secession through the evocation of state sovereignty, he and his advisors probably spent much of the night congratulating themselves on their ingenuity and counting the political points they assumed themselves to have won. I’m sure the bourbon flowed freely. [Click here for the original story and audio.]
But take a look at the clip above. Governor Perry has lost control of the argument. The crazies have picked up the mantle of secessionism and run with it. Now he dares not repudiate his earlier statements because if he does, he looses the crazy vote, and there are more than enough candidates for the Texas governorship espousing secession who would be only too happy to claim those votes. But this is the precarious position the GOP puts itself in.
The GOP cannot suddenly switch gears now. But if it continues in its efforts to placate the crazies, those few remaining Republicans actually subscribing to reason will defect further diluting their already decimated ranks. However, if the GOP suddenly comes to its senses and moves back toward the center, then the crazies would more than likely jump ship and either form or move to a third party like, say, the Libertarians.
Additionally, more and more the crazies are getting a taste of power and are testing out their new found voice and importance within the party and eventually as they yell louder and louder, their voice will be the only voice that can be heard on the right. The takeover would be complete.
But no one on the right has found the temerity to call a timeout to regroup and rethink their efforts. They inside have chosen to continue to follow the nut cases down a slippery slope into a deep dark chasm of obsolescence.
Perhaps the best advice I can give the GOP is advice my grandfather gave me about choosing who I align myself with and the evitable outcome of flirting with foolishness: If you lay down with dogs you will come up with fleas; if you play with a puppy long enough, it will eventually lick your face.
