Quote of the Day: Reclaiming the Republican Party

I write about the Republican Party and its descent into insanity often for several reasons.  First, because it demonstrates how a group of know nothing types and religious extremists can destroy a once honorable political party.  Second, because the GOP in its present incarnation in my view poses a major clear and present danger for America and constitutional government.   My blogger friend Bob Felton in North Carolina is another refugee from the GOP and he often writes on the party's toxic state.  In a post today he sums up what has happened to the GOP and what will be required to save it.  Here's the relevant language:

Though many of the Republican Congressmen with actual responsibility for fashioning some solution to the country’s financial problems appear prepared to stand down from the Party’s recent recklessness, it appears that few of the base are prepared to do the same.

[I]f the Republicans want to win elections then it is at the precinct level that the party will have to be reclaimed, and the precincts are in the hands of resentment-filled loonies who believe that Bill O’Reilly is a Great Man.

Recall Barry Goldwater’s remark:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

Well, Bush/Rove invited the preachers in, and now the party has exactly the “terrible damn problem” Goldwater foresaw. Thus, even as the Party’s grown-ups are tippy-toeing away from them and back toward reality in order to solve some genuine-article problems, the “Republican Street” is rebelling and complaining that they need even crazier nominees.

Then — and they honestly believe this — everybody will see that they’ve been right all along, and be grateful for their godly perseverance. It is going to get worse before it gets better.

Letting the Christofascist and their Tea Party cousins take over the GOP was the equivalent of allowing oneself to be infected with a deadly disease.   Becoming infected is easy, find a cure and avoiding death is another story.