For
various reasons, mostly concerned with Obama's performance as
President, it is assumed the Democrats will take a bit of a beating
in the 2014 off-year elections. The Republicans will increase their
edge in the House and will gain Senate seats as well. Whether they
will take control of the Senate is uncertain---most analysts predict
it will be “close”---but that would appear to be the only area of
suspense.
The
mainstream segment of the Republican Party has spent a great deal of
money defeating conservative candidates in primaries (often in close
races and sometimes, as in Mississippi, by cheating). Behind the
scenes, much time and treasure has also been expended in subverting
and co-opting the larger tea party groups so they no longer represent
the views they did just two or three years ago. Conservative
Republicans have been largely neutered for the 2014 elections. It is
the Boehner-McCain-Graham-McConnell Republican caucus---the “good
old boy” wing---that has won the primaries and will win the general
as well.
And
then what? What if, for example, the Republicans win control of both
houses of Congress beginning in January 2015?
Will
they vote to repeal Obamacare? Well, they haven't exactly promised
to do that, have they? There has been no discussion of it for almost
a year, though because of the way it was passed, Republican
majorities could vote to repeal with no danger of a Democratic
filibuster in the Senate. Obama could veto such a bill, of course,
but some Democrats might feel considerable electoral pressure to go
along with the repeal. In any event, what's the downside for
Republicans in doing so?
One
thing Republicans could certainly do is cut back federal spending.
The government continues to borrow $2.5 million per minute, each and
every minute, either from foreign governments or from the American
people (by debasing the currency), and the House of Representatives
could put a stop to it by refusing to appropriate more funds than
there are tax revenues. The House could shut down Obamacare, or the
Department of Education, or the EPA, or it might simply pare down all
expenditures for all departments. But under the control of the Good
Old Boy wing, it won't. The Republicans could have done that at any
time since taking over the House in 2010, but they haven't done so.
And
that's the problem, of course. The GOB wing of the Republican Party
is simply hoping to benefit from Obama's manifest incompetence and
unpopularity, but it is not promising to do anything with the
additional power they will obtain in November. And they won't
do anything. If they were going to, they would have done it already,
or some of it. Gaining control of Congress, in fact, will be a fatal
blow for the Party. As they decline to use the Constitutional powers
of the legislative branch, their electoral base will melt away. Much
of it already has, but the decline has been masked by Obama's
even-more-precipitous fall from grace. Doing nothing, with
majorities in both houses of Congress, will anger and disappoint what
is left of the Republican base.
And
that will be the end of the Republican Party, at least as it is
currently constituted. The GOB wing might succeed in nominating one
of its own (Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney), for president in
2016, but it will never succeed in electing another president. This
was the (unlearned) lesson of the 2012 presidential election.
What
happened in 2012 had never happened before. Never in our history
(barring a few oddball situations with third-party candidates), had
an incumbent president been re-elected with fewer votes than he had
in his first election. Incumbents either get more votes the second
time around or they lose. Elections of this sort constitute a
referendum on the first term.
And
viewing it as a referendum, Obama was soundly rejected. He won ten
million fewer votes in 2012 than he had in 2008. However, he was
returned to office anyway. This happened because America's fondness
for the prevailing brand of Republicans had fallen even farther and
faster than Obama had. The trend is plain enough. McCain was not
embraced. Romney was flat-out rejected. Jeb Bush or Chris Christie
will be laughed at.
The
conservatives and libertarians will inherit the party or forge a new
one, and it's even possible this could happen before the 2016
elections. Even if it does, however, will the new opposition party
be powerful enough under Rand Paul or Ted Cruz or any of the others
to derail President Hillary? Doubtful, especially since the new kids
are hated by the Boehners and McCains of the world and will
get no assistance from them.
But the
Republican Party, as we know it, is finished. The Karl Rove party is
history, and the future custodians of liberty and freedom in America
will be constitutionalists, libertarians, conservatives and the like.
It is not the immediate future, however, and there may not be any
liberty and freedom left by the time there is once again a political
party that wants to protect it.
Copyright2014MichaelKubacki
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