Future of the Republican Party?
- By Simple Politiks
- 28 December, 2012
- 24 Comments
OPINION
President Obama’s re-election is the second consecutive time the Republicans have failed to put forth a winning candidate in the race for POTUS. Obama’s first-term victory shouldn’t have been too surprising because of the catastrophic state America was left in after the Bush administration. In contrast, the President’s second-term victory was much different and it could be a signal for the Republicans need for change. After all, the Republicans had quite a bit to use against President Obama in the last election. However, their candidate turned out to be Romney and we all saw what happened there… A man with a long record of flip-flopping who also had disastrous organizational problems within his campaign simply could not win. And, keep in mind, this is even with President Obama’s faults (he is by no means the worst President, but the possibility of being defeated was quite viable when you look at his record).
So this begs the question… Are the Republicans becoming “unelectable” in the race for President?
I do not think they are becoming “unelectable,” but I do think they are becoming more unpopular. Here are the two most prominent reasons which I can think of, although there are definitely more:
- The polarization and fragmentation of the Republican party
- Refusal to compromise, especially with social issues
First of all, the polarization/fragmentation of the Republican party was extremely evident during the primaries. It took ages for Romney to gain some real traction and uniting the base was still difficult. Many major Republican players didn’t truly support the man until he was literally the only option remaining. Romney appealed to such a conservative base during the primaries that even he knew how he wouldn’t be electable during the main election. That’s why we saw such a drastic change in his policies as the election neared. His rhetoric during the debates with President Obama would not have been as successful to the Republican base during the primary elections. Such sudden changes only caused the fringe voters to become even more uncertain about Romney’s positions, swaying them towards President Obama.
The polarization also lead to some incredibly rash statements by various Republican Congressmen and/or candidates over the last year or two, specifically on the issue of abortion. Below are two quotations.
“If it’s a legitmate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
- Republican Congressman & Senate candidate Todd Akin (MO) on August 20, 2012
And then…
“When life begins with that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen.”
- Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (IN) on October 23, 2012 (1 day after being endorsed by Mitt Romney)
It would be foolish to think that the majority of the Republican party thinks this way, but these two individuals (among others) managed to hurt the entire party’s image by saying these ridiculous statements. This is just one example of outlandish and extreme views being detrimental to the Republican party.
Next… Refusal to compromise, especially with social issues.
Out of all of the major social issues presented in the debates, I think abortion is the only issue which has a sound argument on both sides. It is a true philosophical discussion; when does life begin and is it moral for humans to interfere with the developmental process? Sufficient responses to the abortion debate are most certainly not “they’re baby killers!” or “it’s my body and I can do what I want with it!” Neither of those arguments truly capture the complexity of the issue at hand. But as sound as the core argument may be once one wades through the partisan hackery, it almost doesn’t matter. The Supreme Court has made its decision on the issue. We’ve had so many Republican Presidents during Republican majorities in Congress, yet nobody was able to make ANY progress with the issue (in terms of overturning the Supreme Court’s decision). There is no way that the decision will be overturned and there are much more important things to focus on during this incredibly difficult time – like the endangered lives of the already born. A politician’s view on abortion shouldn’t be a deciding factor in an election.
Gay marriage is the other huge issue that the Republicans fail to budge on. I’ve already discussed this issue in one of my first posts (http://simple-politiks.com/2012/07/19/gay-marriage/), but I don’t think that the Republicans will be able to fight the gay marriage debate for much longer. So many people, especially in my generation, don’t see the point of refusing to let gay couples marry. The longer the Republicans allow gay marriage to be a political issue, the more bigoted they will appear and less support they will garner.
Legalization of marijuana is a difficult social issue for many people to overcome (particularly the generation from the War on Drugs) but it too will be an irrelevant issue in the coming years. In a much more recent post I also discussed this issue: http://simple-politiks.com/2012/10/10/revisiting-the-marijuana-debate-2/. Its restriction, for medicine in particular, is not logical at all when you look at the various other drugs out on the market (including prescription medicine which is surprisingly more dangerous in many cases). This issue isn’t as big as abortion or gay marriage, but it is another example of a failure to budge on social policy.
The future of the Republican party doesn’t look very good to me if they do not begin to make some serious considerations to their platform.
Fiscal and personal responsibility are great principles to support, but the true ideology of conservatives is being misrepresented by a fragmented and socially-challenged Republican party.
Copyright © 2013
Here are some things I really like about this post/blog in general:
(1) A clear writing style that makes a point in a rational manner and isn’t blatantly partisan based
(2) Good organization and use of pics and pop out quotes
(3) Long enough to be substantive, but not too long to bore
As far as an actual substantive reply to the post:
If the Republicans lost big in the next midterm elections, or lost presidential 2016, could you envision a party split between the fiscal conservatives and the social conservatives, resulting in a 3-party system?
Well, honestly, if I may butt in, it’s possible but if that were the case, due to our system of plurality elections, 2 Republican parties and 1 solid Democratic party would only result in further Democratic victories. If we had a system such as the UK’s proportional representation, where each party is represented in the legislature by the in rough proportion to the percentage of the popular vote it receives in the election, this might work. But in our system of plurality 2 Republican parties would only be detrimental to their cause.
So as a moderate Democrat who is STRONGLY against social conservatives, I say: “Yes, let them split!”
Yes, the older Republicans have to deal with the younger generation and immigrants. I have seen the obituaries for both the Democratic and Republican parties in my more than six decades of life and both have come back to life. I’m relatively sure the GOP will adapt.
Chances are you’re correct. Eradicating an entire political party is nearly an insurmountable task. It is a formation which thrives on public opinion, adaptation is inevitable. It’s just a matter of how fast the party is capable of adapting that will determine whether there is a 3rd party or not.
I think you’re right–our current electoral system is not designed very well for a multi-party system. But smaller third parties have historically had a spoiler effect that “gave” another party the win (i.e. Nader in 2000, Perot in 92, 96).
I think what would have to happen is that fiscally conservative, socially liberals join some sort of libertarian party with the fiscal conservatives who aren’t inflexible about social issues. But extremism seems to be the name of the game in Washington right now.
Once again, thank you for the feedback. I’m glad you think my style works well with this type of blog!
As for your question:
If there were to be a third party in our system then I think the only realistic third party would be the Libertarian party – which is essentially a socially-liberal Republican party (although there are key differences in each party’s philosophies, forgive my oversimplification). But do I think a third party will actually arise? I think it’s unlikely, even if the Republicans lose the upcoming elections. They should be able to pull themselves together before a sizable portion of Republicans abandon their own party.
The next decade will be very interesting though. I have a hunch that strong support for a Libertarian party could come to fruition sometime in the 2020s. If there is ever a time for a third party to come into the fray, that would be the decade. My first and foremost reason is if politicians fail to address the spending issue then entitlement programs will begin to collapse. Social Security and other programs will run out of funding sometime during that decade (most likely) and when that happens people will be forced to realize how unsustainable the programs were. Support for a smaller government which can actually live within its means will increase and the seeds that Ron Paul planted in the Republican party’s youth (which at that time will begin to make up a big portion of the voting block) could be enough to split the party. Maybe Libertarians will become a third party or, much more probable, maybe the Republican party will have a very strong Libertarian influence… I’m not sure. There’s a good chance nothing will actually happen and the politicians will just print their way out of the upcoming disaster without really fixing the problem.
Like I said, it should be interesting. I don’t necessarily want a third party but this isn’t the place for me to write about that haha. I’ll make an entire post about that sometime in the near future. I personally believe there shouldn’t be any parties.
I will be most intrigued to read that upcoming post, as the Founding Fathers, through Madison’s “Mischief of Factions” also were not huge fans of political parties, though they recognized a need for them.
The supposition that the Republican Party will ever again be unified is the real question. So far things look bleak. This begs the question, not if there will be a third party in the future, but rather whether a new party will arise and take over the number two spot, relegating the remains of the GOP to third party status.
The United States may need a two-party system to maintain a healthy balance in the government but no one can be certain that the Republican Party will be in the equation.
Mike could be right. I think simple demographic change in the United States might cause this.
Just throwing the wrench in this very interesting conversation, with the statement that all comments have very valuable points of view: the third party that “we, the people” gear toward, might be one that won’t serve to rebuild… but rather to accommodate the new American. Healthy balance and Founding Fathers are losing their meaning to so many lately… and those who don’t learn from history… you know the rest. At the end of the day, it’s not who will change, but who will exploit the change. Just politics…
Great post!! I was just talking about this subject, and I think the problem is the primary system. Moderates (and in general, most Americans) seem to want both parties to work together. The people that would vote in the primaries are more likely die hard Republicans – maybe even fringe nuts. A lot of states also have closed primaries (which I think is a major problem for both parties), so if you become too moderate there is a risk of someone from the far right running against you and winning (look at the entire Tea Party, and how they swept elections a few years back as an example). The problem is that the far right doesn’t give a crap about whether or not their candidate can win – it’s whether or not their candidate is ideologically pure. And basically, they’re looking for a unicorn – it doesn’t exist. If such a person *did* exist, they don’t stand a chance in hell of being elected nationally (provided the person they were running against is a somewhat reasonable candidate). I think you’re going to see the far right try to hang on to power, and that’s more than likely going to look like Republicans losing power for the next few cycles. When their ideology consistently loses (which I think it will, outside of the Bible Belt, or with the possible exception of a unique candidate), or are painted as nuts, they will lose all hold on the Republican party and the party will have to move more to the center. I think the more politically realistic among them already see the writing on the wall, but they’re locked in because of the aforementioned primaries.
Thanks for your in-depth comment! Glad you agree with my post, I think a lot of your arguments are valid. The primary system presents quite the dilemma, that’s for sure. The entire voting system is a daunting system to approach…
I like your discussion and the underlying assumption that we can still speak to each other about substantive matters in a civil way. Hurray!
I’m happy to hear that you think such a great underlying assumption is so prevalent! I personally try to keep all of my discussions in the comments (and my writing in the posts) respectful at all times. If I’m not respectful then how will my arguments hold any value to all audiences? Plus, the more hostile the environment the less productive it becomes. It’s a shame that political discussions are fueled by so much hostile emotion instead of mutual respect and logical reasoning. Nature of the beast, I suppose.
Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you around again!
I fully agree with Monica! I think we are actually underrated for our potential to talk sensibly and compromise. We have to get along with people we might disagree with all the time. Politics is tough, but good policy possibly.
Great post. I have a slightly different take. I feel the GOP platform, in general, is weak. Romney actually was the strongest candidate of an extremely weak field of contenders. So, he actually made it closer than it would have been if any of the others won the nomination. But, back to the platform, the GOP must embrace the impact of man-made global warming. How can we trust a party that denies as a group one of the greatest threats facing our planet? Also, the stance on gay rights is very harmful as they look very bigoted and out of touch. They staunch position against immigration rights is something they need to change. They are also very hard headed in their obstinance on considering any tax revenue increases, when the math has been shown to fall short on handling the deficit and debt, unless we do spending cuts and raise revenue. Trickle down has been shown not to work, so advocating that poorly named concept is not going to do the trick. We also have a huge poverty issue in this country and the GOP solution is to kick these people in the knees. We need to continue more job repatriation, encourage business leaders to stop sitting on cash and make hiring and business investment and support the President for his efforts with the community colleges on retraining. We have a skills gap issue, so this retraining is a key part of the solution. Not off subject, Obamacare is a GOP idea and while far from perfect moves the ball forward. The states that said they won’t expand Medicaid to be part of it will actually alter this position when the hospital executives pressure their governors saying we want and need that upfront money. On guns, their blind support for the NRA is not helping them with reasonable gun owners and non-owners. Thanks for writing this. BTG
Thanks for your support BTG! Good to see you again, I was worried I had lost my regular readers during my lengthy absence!
Great points, many of which I considered including (global warming and Grover Norquist’s tax pledge being two big ones) but I wanted to keep it around 1,000 words. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Always appreciated.
I think that the Republicans desperately need a make over. They need to show a more moderate face rather than courting the tea party members and the religious right. Zealots make people uneasy.
Enjoyed reading this post. Most countries have gone to an electoral system of proportional representation. The major holdouts are the US and UK. My country, Canada, is a third. We have a multi-party system but not proportional representation. The 2 parties of the right unified about a decade ago. They now rule this country like a dictatorship for 4 years with a majority, despite only 25 % of eligible voters supporting them. Voting in the US, to me, seems to be a choice between two parties that differ very little in their ability to realize meaningful change. I worry for the future of all our countries. As the saying goes: If voting really changed anything they’d abolish it. I’ve lived too long to be anything but a partisan cynic, but PR would at least let me vote for the party I want, rather than hold my nose and vote for the party most likely to prevent the one I fear most from gaining “absolute power” for 4 years. The Idle No More movement in Canada is due to the realization that all of us and our environment, not just our native peoples, are being desecrated by an economic system that is unsustainable. Thanks for liking my post on Sacred Geography.
Great opinion piece, non partisan, fair, balanced, well written. I have a feeling that I may not agree with some of your political stances, but I am going to follow and read along. I like to be challenged, rather than read things I only agree with.
I’m a senior and have seen the GOP deteriorate into the ‘good old boy’ and ‘my way or the highway’ camps. I don’t see the trend changing either. The country as a whole is getting ever more progressive. The GOP has no clue in some cases.what is wrong either. They have consistently passed laws trying to disenfranchise voters instead of addressing the root causes of the oppositions’ viewpoint to various causes.
Yes, for all those reasons and more. But it is politics and the name of the game is to get elected so I am sure changes are coming.
I agree. Soon the base will change, as it always does, which will lead to a change within the Republican party (and even the Democratic party in some ways).
Interesting post. I however, believe that the problem lies in the fact that social issues (i.e. moral issues) have become intertwined with politics. While at the same time, politics has attempted to keep God, and his opinions as presented through our faith organizations, out of the process. Thereby leaving Republicans open to ridicule when they take a faith-based position on an issue. How would our political parties look without these emotional issues? Which party would our country support?