Its old news now, but the Republican Party is collapsing. You didn't need to be a soothsayer to see it coming, the writing has been on the wall since August of 2005 and the New Orleans fiasco. An ever lengthening war, a growing budget deficit, an economic collapse, a crumbling infrastructure, and lack of public oversight all overseen by a Republican President, Congress, and Supreme Court, it is no surprise that the American people voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the 2008 elections.
While all of these things represent enormous problems for Americans the problem facing the Republican Party is larger still. The Republican Party has ignored Americans and the result is they are becoming, not just a minority party, but a regional party.
The Republican Party turned its back on there enemies in the "Liberal East" much to their own detriment. America changed and what was once a rural country is now an urban one. By the 2000 census 76% of the population lived in urban areas. The largest density of people in the country is along the Atlantic coast between Boston and Washington DC. The most people live in the area that the Republicans have most ignored, no that is not true. The most people live in the area of the country that the Republicans have most slandered and maligned.
Basing their public policy around corporate rights and farm subsidies left a large population of Americans wondering what the fuck Republicans represent. This resulted in the 2004 "Red State v Blue State" election map. East, North, and West went solidly Democratic while the South and Center of the country went Republican. While G.W. was patting himself on the back and cramming more privatization down the Americans throats the real story went largely unnoticed. The Democratic base was growing. Bush rode his 3% (about 3mil ppl) and called it a mandate. By contrast, Obama, a racial minority candidate who until 40 years ago was de facto disenfranchised in a large chunk of the country (durr, did you forget yet), won a 6% majority (about 6mil ppl).
The election map spread Democratic victories to Ohio, Nevada, and even Colorado. These states went "blue" because the densely populated urban areas cast votes for Democratic candidates. The chickens had come home to roost. Republicans had blamed the Elite East, and Wacky West, claiming their urban blight was the cause of America's woes. Meanwhile the rest of the country started to look like the coasts, the spiteful elimination of projects and programs that would have helped New York or California were now being missed in Cleveland and Denver.
The Republicans look forward to this gigantic problem, and they look ahead cluelessly. I had the good fortune to attend the RNC Winter Meeting in DC a few weeks ago, and as luck would have it, I walked into the room just as the Chairman of the Washington DC Republican Party asked a panel of Republican strategist THE question. "Having ignored and thereby lost a base in the Northeast cities, how do we get back a presence there?"
The answer was sadder still. The experts confessed that the problem was bigger then the Northeast, and had spread to Central, Western, and some Southern cities. After another expert chimed in that the Republican Party was losing ground in such stalwart states as Indiana and Iowa, they went on to offer absolutely NO solution, none, zero, nothing. They had no idea how to get themselves back. They admitted that supporting the desires of this group of people would mean a desertion of values that they feel are so core to the party that they can't give them up.
When you reach a point in your evolution that the landscape has changes, your food source becomes scarce and you habitat dwindles, you have two choices: change or die. From the look of things, the Republicans are choosing die.
The Republican Party turned its back on there enemies in the "Liberal East" much to their own detriment. America changed and what was once a rural country is now an urban one. By the 2000 census 76% of the population lived in urban areas. The largest density of people in the country is along the Atlantic coast between Boston and Washington DC. The most people live in the area that the Republicans have most ignored, no that is not true. The most people live in the area of the country that the Republicans have most slandered and maligned.
Basing their public policy around corporate rights and farm subsidies left a large population of Americans wondering what the fuck Republicans represent. This resulted in the 2004 "Red State v Blue State" election map. East, North, and West went solidly Democratic while the South and Center of the country went Republican. While G.W. was patting himself on the back and cramming more privatization down the Americans throats the real story went largely unnoticed. The Democratic base was growing. Bush rode his 3% (about 3mil ppl) and called it a mandate. By contrast, Obama, a racial minority candidate who until 40 years ago was de facto disenfranchised in a large chunk of the country (durr, did you forget yet), won a 6% majority (about 6mil ppl).
The election map spread Democratic victories to Ohio, Nevada, and even Colorado. These states went "blue" because the densely populated urban areas cast votes for Democratic candidates. The chickens had come home to roost. Republicans had blamed the Elite East, and Wacky West, claiming their urban blight was the cause of America's woes. Meanwhile the rest of the country started to look like the coasts, the spiteful elimination of projects and programs that would have helped New York or California were now being missed in Cleveland and Denver.
The Republicans look forward to this gigantic problem, and they look ahead cluelessly. I had the good fortune to attend the RNC Winter Meeting in DC a few weeks ago, and as luck would have it, I walked into the room just as the Chairman of the Washington DC Republican Party asked a panel of Republican strategist THE question. "Having ignored and thereby lost a base in the Northeast cities, how do we get back a presence there?"
The answer was sadder still. The experts confessed that the problem was bigger then the Northeast, and had spread to Central, Western, and some Southern cities. After another expert chimed in that the Republican Party was losing ground in such stalwart states as Indiana and Iowa, they went on to offer absolutely NO solution, none, zero, nothing. They had no idea how to get themselves back. They admitted that supporting the desires of this group of people would mean a desertion of values that they feel are so core to the party that they can't give them up.
When you reach a point in your evolution that the landscape has changes, your food source becomes scarce and you habitat dwindles, you have two choices: change or die. From the look of things, the Republicans are choosing die.
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