The GOP: A party That Cannot Be Saved

Faces of insanity - Rueters

As a former Republican I have reached a point where I no longer believe the GOP can be saved and brought back into the sane world.  The metastasizing cancer that afflicts the GOP - i.e., control by Christofascists, Tea Party lunatics, and those who glory in embracing ignorance - cannot be cured and/or driven from the Party.  Death or permanent fringe party minority status of the GOP seemingly are the only cures for the nation's political landscape.  A piece in Salon looks at the struggle for the GOP's soul that does not promise any positive revival or reform.  Here are excerpts:

The last couple of weeks have been a coming out party of sorts for the “Reformicons,” the group of conservative intellectuals who have taken it upon themselves to reform the Republican Party into something less dogmatic and more electable. They were the subject of a New York Times Magazine profile and countless think pieces. 

It all came down to variations of the same question: “Can ‘reformicons’ save the Republican Party?”

As if to answer that question and underline the challenges facing the conservative reform movement, the cranks and the dead-enders rose up as one this past week to put on a muscular demonstration of political stupidity.

Let’s start with Ted Cruz, since there’s no better avatar of the modern Republican Party’s aversion to responsible governance than the junior senator from Texas.

Ever since McDaniel narrowly lost the primary runoff to Cochran, the whole situation has spiraled into chaos. McDaniel has been angrily disputing the election results and making allegations of voter fraud. His supporters are claiming Cochran bought the votes of black Democrats. It’s desperate and obscene and a rolling calamity for the GOP – and Ted Cruz just made it worse.

On Mark Levin’s radio program yesterday, Cruz called for an investigation into the allegations of voter fraud in Mississippi, giving a boost to McDaniel and challenging the legitimacy of the candidate backed by the campaign committee he serves on.
On the policy front, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee took the first step toward what could be yet another partial government shutdown. When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled its new rule limiting the amount of carbon that can be emitted from existing coal-fired power plants, Republicans (and a few Democrats from coal country) vowed to oppose it.

And that’s exactly what they’ve done. The Appropriations Committee unveiled a bill yesterday that would prevent any money from being spent on developing or enforcing the EPA’s power plant rule. Senate Republicans are also spoiling for an appropriations fight, and Democrats are lining up behind the EPA and the president.

Whether we actually arrive at the point of shutting down the government (funding runs out on Sept. 30) depends largely on how far the Republicans would be willing to take this game of chicken. Shutdown politics tend not to favor the GOP and common sense would suggest that they won’t precipitate yet another government crisis a month before Election Day, but common sense is, we’ve learned, a poor predictor of Republican performance.

And then there’s Sarah Palin, whose latest bid to reclaim her faded relevance was to toss up a word salad for Breitbart.com calling for President Obama’s impeachment. The piece itself is largely incomprehensible, but it’s nonetheless an interesting political artifact. Six years ago, Palin was the duly elected governor of a state and on her way to becoming the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Now she’s writing barely coherent, mixed metaphor-laden columns for the website responsible for “Friends of Hamas.”

But as fast and far as she’s sunk, there are still lots of people out there who think Sarah Palin is the very soul of conservatism.
[Y]ou get a clear picture of what the conservative reform movement is facing. How can they convince candidates and elected officials to embrace non-dogmatic policy ideas when the party is tearing itself to pieces in a futile quest for ideological purity? How can they get the difficult work of policymaking done when Republicans are constantly looking to force crisis situations and score political victories? How can Republicans quit antiquated modes of thinking when they can’t even quit Sarah Palin?

In other words: How can the reformicons “save” the GOP when the party clearly doesn’t want to be saved?

The GOP base has become one big insane asylum.  And many of its so-called leaders are just as insane as the base.