Okay, I'm probably exceeding my quota of "the Republicans' Real Problem" for the rest of 2012, if not a few quarters of 2013, but this article by Charles Pierce highlights one I sort of stumbled around earlier: the plenitude of different and (in unison) toxic constituencies within the GOP, none of which will allow their own orthodoxy to be suppressed for the good of the party or its candidates.
'The Republican party is a cascade of symptoms right now. And it's very hard to see a way out of it. It has managed to construct an almost perfect Newtonian hall of mirrors — for each solution, there is within the party an equal, but opposite problem. There is almost no way to function within the party structure as it has been redefined by the various elements of the conservative "movement" without rounding a corner and colliding with the image of itself coming in the other direction.'
Supply-siders, nativists, theocrats, libertarians, neo-cons, etc. (not to mention the media rodeo clowns egging them on), they're all demanding their guy be nominated, or at least that their cause be highlighted in all speeches and policy announcements. And as a result, their opponents go fleeing over to the Democrats.
Pierce does say that "party discipline is a thing of the past." I'm going to disagree with that, to the extent that, as far as we can see, the party discipline in Congress (House and Senate) remain rock solid behind Against Anything the President Wants. Indeed, that seems to be the one thing the different factions can agree on enough to stick together.
(h/t +Paula Jones)
Reshared post from +Alison Marlowe
I'm really starting to like Charles Pierce…
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The Real Problem with the Republican Party
It is one of competing, self-negating orthodoxies, writes Charles P. Pierce, each with its own center of power within the Republican electorate
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