Dr. Democrat: The GOP Will Do Itself In, Just Be Patient


Dear Dr. Democrat,

I have very mixed feelings about cheering on the end of the Republican party. Not because I don’t want to see it shrunken and changed, but because I don’t see encouraging signs of declining power. I think the country is experiencing what we in Florida have gone through for years, which is minority rule based on gaming the system.

Republicans have gotten so good at this that it’s all they need to stay in power. They don’t need to convince the electorate of their rightness, they don’t need to win hearts or minds, they just need to keep suppressing the vote that would go against them and playing to their base. And if they all stick together, as McConnell has trained them to do, they not only win, they keep all the power and make all the decisions.

We got rid of Trump, maybe, but we are still in trouble. The work we still need to do is crushing and I don’t know if it’s even possible to succeed at it.

Please give me some encouragement that all is not lost.

Worried in Wakulla

Dear Worried,

I think you’re right on all counts, but I also see the Republican Party as weak and crumbling, which may be a product of my learned environment. But it’s difficult to operate politically for very long based on lies, which was the point of Tom Nichols’ recent piece in The Atlantic.

One of their biggest runs before now were the GOP’s anticommunist witch hunts. They started in the House around 1947-48, moved to the Senate in 1950 and then were obliterated with the “Have you no sense of decency?” episode in June 1954. A tremendous amount of damage was done in those few years – even though the lies were not promoted from the White House, either by Truman or Eisenhower (unlike Trump). And they didn’t have Fox News.

My point is, something will happen that will expose them or pop the bubble, but it’s going to have to be something irrefutable that even Fox, et. al., can’t ignore or spin – something like a Bush-Katrina moment that brings them down.

Crushing them at the polls would be a start. I thought we were going to do it last year, but … SOCIALISM! Thanks, Bernie and AOC.

I might sound like Paul E. Anna here, but I really believe it can’t last.

Sincerely,

Dr. Democrat

Obama Labels Repoblicans the ‘Minority Party’

“They have certain built-in advantages around power given their population distribution and how our government works. But the truth of the matter is that 60 percent of the people are occupying what I would consider a more reality-based universe, and those are the constituents we’re speaking to and that is a more diverse group.”

— Former President Barack Obama told the Daily Show that the Republican Party is “the minority party in this country.”

Trump’s Ultimate Loyalty Test for Republicans

“For the past six weeks, Trump has staged the ultimate loyalty test for the party faithful as he forced Republican officials to opt between siding with him and the nation’s democratic process. Through public displays of support and lengthy silences, the vast majority of elected Republicans chose to back Trump. … Nearly two-thirds of House Republicans and 18 state attorneys general signed their names to the failed Supreme Court lawsuit seeking to have justices overturn the will of voters in multiple states. Others have gone on television to parrot the president’s baseless conspiracy theories about vote-rigging. Some are using rhetoric reminiscent of the Civil War to express their fealty to the president’s cause.”

Washington Post

Flake: Republican Party Is on Trial with Trump

“This president won’t be there forever. He’ll either be gone by this time next year or four years from now. Then what happens to the Republican Party? My fear is people out there know that, even if this is not an impeachable offense, that the president did something wrong, and for Republicans to maintain that he didn’t is just wrong, and this has long-term ramifications for the party if we act as if we are just devoted to the president no matter what, and this cult of personality that we’ve seen, we certainly saw it in the House.”

CBS News that the Republicans’ “cult of personality” around President Trump will hurt the party even after the president leaves office.

McCain: There’s No ‘Voice of Reason’ in the GOP

“That was a tough torch to carry and, as John said, there were many lonely days because he always said what was on his mind. I don’t see anybody carrying that mantle at all, I don’t see anyone carrying the voice — the voice of reason.”

— Cindy McCain, telling ABC News that no one in the Republican Party has become the party’s “voice of reason” after her husband’s death last year.

Big Decline in Voters Identifying as Republican

5 points

NBC News: “From November 2016 to November 2017 there was a 5-point drop in the number of people who call themselves Republicans, from 42% to 37%, according to Gallup. In that same time, the number of people identifying as Democrats stayed flat at 44%. … Do the math and a 2-point edge for the Democrats in party identification, 44% to 42%, has been pushed to 7 points, 44% to 37%, in just one year. That’s getting up into the area that may be a concern for Republicans in the 2018 midterms, where a big swing in party allegiance could lead to a swing in House and Senate seats.”