The Rift in the GOP

Across numerous topics most of us have mentioned at one time or another the rift that seems to be growing within the GOP. The two sides being the Tea Part and the slightly more moderate establishment Republicans. During this weeks regional elections several races were singled out as a representation of this divide. Several news outlets have played this up as the beginning of a fight for the future of the party. Just one of the recent articles:

There are other signs of an establishment fed up with the tactics of groups like SCF.

Back in August, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is seen as a possible 2014 target by tea party conservatives, penned an op-ed in the Nashville Tennessean in which he denounced the all-or-nothing tactics that some within the party advocate. Wrote Alexander:

“I learned to count in Maryville City Schools. So I know that if you only have 45 votes and you need 60 senators to get something important done like balancing the budget and fixing the debt, then you have to work with other people — that is, IF you really care about solving the problem, IF you really want to get a result, instead of just making a speech.”

...

The moral of the story? That after years of trying to make nice with the growing constellation of tea party groups, the GOP establishment has realized that there isn’t likely to be a peaceful detente any time soon. Groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund don’t want to win a seat at the establishment table. They want to tip the table over and take an ax to it.

Here’s how Piper, the McConnell ally, framed the fight in an e-mail exchange with The Fix Wednesday night: “It is not so much establishment versus outsiders as it is those who feel a responsibility to steer the country toward better times and those who seek to profit off of artificial measures of partisan purity.”

So is this the beginning of mainstream Republicans retaking their party?

Chasing ever-increasing ideals of "purity" doesn't get candidates elected or legislation passed. The GOP establishment gets that, but I don't think it matters. They aren't running their party any more.

I see it a lot like my impending dissolution/divorce. Things are going to get worse before they get better. I'm hoping that the GOP can retake their party from the Tea Party and work to fix some things together with Democrats. I'm hoping... but I'm not hopeful.

On day 2 of my personal situation, I have more hope for myself that I can make myself better and get myself going with a little time and attention to myself than I have for the GOP with the Tea Party. And that... is pretty f'ing sad, man.

RIFTS in the GOP.

GOP's problems could all be solved by Glitter Boys running for office.

IMAGE(http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u259/Nagneto/Rifts-glitterboy.jpg)

Found myself talking with someone who somehow both has my deep respect and who identifies (or used to) with the Tea Party. It seems clear to me that people have taken to painting the Tea label on anyone who's far right in any way, whereas it seemed to start as more exclusively more of a low-regulation, low-tax group. Whether the "group" has evolved, been co-opted, or whatever, I get the sense that this is just another of the standard cases where collections of individuals don't think or act cohesively. The trick for the GOP will be to recognize that and find ways to smooth out the rougher edges of the party rather than lopping off a limb.

The original roots of the party were simply in (profound) objection to the bank bailouts. But then it was hijacked by very unsavory people.

wordsmythe wrote:

Found myself talking with someone who somehow both has my deep respect and who identifies (or used to) with the Tea Party. It seems clear to me that people have taken to painting the Tea label on anyone who's far right in any way, whereas it seemed to start as more exclusively more of a low-regulation, low-tax group. Whether the "group" has evolved, been co-opted, or whatever, I get the sense that this is just another of the standard cases where collections of individuals don't think or act cohesively. The trick for the GOP will be to recognize that and find ways to smooth out the rougher edges of the party rather than lopping off a limb.

Well, what makes the above even more notable in this case is that the Republican Party has been extremely effective at getting out a clear and lockstep message out of its politicians for the last couple of decades. For good or ill, the GOP has this amazing track record of getting talking points and on-message choruses out to the public with alarming efficiency. So while the Tea Party is not particularly remarkable in that it has a broad message muddied by several people going off in different directions, it just looks that much more chaotic compared to the GOP that it says it is part of.

And honestly, it's somewhat not such a standard case of people acting differently. There are people who have organized political labels for themselves and created branded online and civic presences with the Tea Party name who are saying some really ridiculous stuff. While on some level I understand, what's been very frustrating to me for the past couple of years with the Tea Party is that every time someone says or does something crazy and wants to adopt that label (or others want to put it on them), there's always someone shrilly screaming "That one doesn't count!" On the individual level, what the Tea Party is seems to be a nebulous, ever-changing definition that adapts to avoid whatever criticism or crazy activity in the headlines this week.

What strikes me as particularly funny about that behavior is that it is an interesting microcosm of the GOP base in the last decade or so, as well. A lot of Republicans and conservatives are/were extremely embarrassed by the Bush Jr. administration. A lot of my friends, family, and people I don't even know but hear about from my Republican friends spend a lot of time saying, "Well, that's not how I am, that's just these crazy neo-cons!" But it's hard to reconcile pointing to the top of the Party and saying "wow they're crazy, but thankfully I'm not like that!" and then keep voting for them while trying to maintain your integrity. So, in that sense, the Tea Party has been an extremely big boon to the GOP - something that people who are bending over backwards to label themselves "rational conservatives" can point to, say, "that's not me!" and not vote for while still not having to face the notion of voting independent, Democrat, or not at all.

Hell, it's worked really well for the Democrats all these years. Maybe the GOP should give it a try and embrace it.

It depends on which way the Evangelicals jump. And right now, the Tea Party is banging the social conservative drum a lot harder than the older fiscal conservatives.

Robear wrote:

It depends on which way the Evangelicals jump. And right now, the Tea Party is banging the social conservative drum a lot harder than the older fiscal conservatives.

Yeah, because there is nothing younger voters and moderates love more than the social conservatism. The evangelicals are a dead albatross to whichever side they join.

I, honestly, think that what we are seeing is the result of the fact that the establishment Republicans were the only ones in the party that actually took the 11th Commandment (thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican) seriously for so long that they allowed the truly unhinged to hijack the message. Now, with little to lose, they are finally getting around to policing their own.

Thank goodness for it. Perhaps we can finally get around to ridding the riffraff.

That's what I mean, Demosthenes. Remember that analysis of Republican voters I posted? Basically, whichever side gets the activist social conservatives will lose at the Federal level if they run Cuccinellis in purple states, and the other side - the one that lost their numbers because the Evangelicals bailed - will not be able to win primaries in blue and purple states due to, well, not being able to get the numbers.

So you're gonna see more of the radical candidates at the state and national level if the Evangelicals keep imagining that the Paulistas are actually working in their interest. And that spells electoral failure.

As long as Republicans are terrified of brown people, they will be unable to adapt. That means that their impact will be limited to the state level, in states with a heavy rural population mostly. It will increase the gap between red states and blue, and help ensure that purple states, while they may be red in the state house, are blue on the national map.

Expect more rhetoric about devolution, states' rights and the evils of Federal power. And maybe someone taking a shot at the next Democratic presidential candidate.

Kehama wrote:

So is this the beginning of mainstream Republicans retaking their party?

If the Republicans actually want to win elections, let's hope not. The way I see it, there are three overlapping groups - the establishment big government social conservatives, the Tea Party "economic reform" movement, and the libertarians. The establishment social conservatives - the "mainstream Republicans" - are war hawks, anti-immigrant, and anti-gay in a country that is moving sharply away from those ideologies. They are destined to lose from here on out, and it's clear to everyone except the evangelicals, who largely belong to that group. The Tea Party is a mix of social conservatives who were interested only in economic issues, and libertarians. It was co-opted early by establishment groups looking to capitalize on the momentum, and they dragged it down by re-attaching the social conservative positions - thus they put forward guaranteed loser candidates like Cuccinelli. These least elections were the death knell of the Tea Party - they supported staunch social conservatives, and lost badly.

The libertarians are, so far, a relatively small fraction of the party - but as Robear noted, they are the future, because they aren't afraid of brown people or gays. They are also the only ones likely to provide real opposition to warrantless spying, military adventurism, and government overreach. Unfortunately, they've discovered that the Democrats and establishment Republicans are more than happy to gang up on them, because the libertarians are directly attacking their meal ticket. You can see this sort of behavior in things like the farm bill, FISA legislation, bank bailouts, etc.

I believe it is highly unlikely that the establishment can come to terms with the libertarians for precisely that reason. However, I'm not sure that the establishment is really in charge any more - as people noted, party messaging is chaotic and inconsistent. If the party conflict puts forward a candidate like Rand Paul in 2016, they'll have a shot - he'll attract enough disgruntled Democrats and independents to win. Otherwise, they're done for the next couple of decades, at least nationally.

Rand Paul, the guy who stated his wish to duel people who questioned his plagiarism? He's the voice of reason? Heck, his father supported Cuccinelli during the campaign...

I don't think libertarians have anything that will appeal to the middle without the extremist baggage pushing them away again. Telling people the economy should have been allowed to crash and burn is not exactly the best way to get the attention of the middle class or the workers... They tend to see that in catastrophic terms.

Yeah, I'm of the mind that the true libertarian Republicans are actually a pretty small group. There are a lot of Republicans who will call themselves libertarians right up to the point where their philosophy encourages any significant changes. I'm not sure there's a whole lot of difference between libertarian Republicans, Tea Party Republicans, and evangelical Republicans, especially where voting patterns are involved. These big dissimilar groups would not have formed such a strong, unified voting bloc for twenty years if there had not been significant views shared across the divisions. Libertarianism among Republicans has only ever meant "lower taxes" and occasionally, "more firearms". It's never meant an end to the drug war, belief in personal civil liberties, and protection of privacy; it just shares a name with the people who do believe in that stuff.

I also don't buy that the Tea Party was "co-opted" or anything like that. That kind of angry populism will ALWAYS attract guys like Ted Cruz and Michelle Bachmann: a weird mixture of charlatan and self delusion with an extremely keen eye for exploitable situations. Hell, Glenn Beck was one of the key figures from the start. You'll forgive me if I don't have a lot of sympathy for the rat king that it's slowly devolving into. As for it ever being entirely about economic issues, I'll point you back to the above paragraph. The Tea Party platform began putting out the same old social conservative ideas within a few months of its existence as a major political force.

The split between the GOP is the same as its always been: the country club Republicans who fund the campaigns and are largely in it because of threats to their personal wealth, the true believers who vote in the primaries, and the regular Joes, who vote more along reactionary lines than any real political philosophy. There's not a rational chunk in there that could be split off into some sort of productive voting bloc. Those guys bugged out back in 2006, either to the Democrats or to just not bother anymore. Any moderate Republicans that manage to get themselves elected in this climate are immediately frozen out of the political process, or otherwise co-opted.

I realize that Republican voters as a whole are pretty decent people, but I'm past giving them a cover for voting for these incompetents. We've been hearing, "no, no, that guy wasn't a real conservative," for at least 15 years now. There is going to have to be a fundamental change in Republican philosophy before they start winning major national elections without depending on gerry-mandering or voter ID laws.

Just as a refresher, this is a recent Democracy Corps report on in-depth discussions with Tea Party, Evangelical and moderate Republicans.

Evangelicals are strongest; the Tea Party is the second largest group, and moderates have been pushed to about a quarter overall. So they are there. And the moderates have some influence, as can be seen in the recent races in Alabama and New Jersey. So don't write them off yet. To me, the moderates include the women's vote, which is quite capable of splitting the Republican vote as they seem to have done in Virginia.

My prediction is that if Hillary runs, she could take her model from Bill, who peeled off fiscal conservatives in 92. If she does that, and get the female Republican vote, that's the election right there, with every purple state going blue. As a corollary, I think it's like that will have more impact at the Federal level; the states will continue to see more partisan and extreme conservatives elected to state office.

If Hillary runs, she most likely wins.

Robear wrote:

If Hillary runs, she most likely wins.

True. Christie seems to be considered the most bankable 2016 GOP candidate. But if Hillary runs, he won't be able to pick up any independents and crossing-over Democrats the way he did in NJ.

As a side note, 4 years ago it would sound downright surreal that Hillary would generate any kind of excitement, but here we are in 2013, and people are getting excited about her and want her to run.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:
Robear wrote:

If Hillary runs, she most likely wins.

True. Christie seems to be considered the most bankable 2016 GOP candidate. But if Hillary runs, he won't be able to pick up any independents and crossing-over Democrats the way he did in NJ.

As a side note, 4 years ago it would sound downright surreal that Hillary would generate any kind of excitement, but here we are in 2013, and people are getting excited about her and want her to run.

At this point, I think it is entirely possible that the GOP could not just lose any chance of winning the presidency, but stands a very good chance of losing the House if this Tea Party nonsense keeps up.

Robear wrote:

Telling people the economy should have been allowed to crash and burn is not exactly the best way to get the attention of the middle class or the workers... They tend to see that in catastrophic terms.

No ... but telling the truth is a lot more effective, that the catastrophic claims of the Fed were wildly exaggerated and were used as fear clubs by the mainstream Republicans (and Democrats) as a cover for bailing out the banks. There's plenty of people in the middle class and working class that understand that, because they are the ones being stuck with the bill. It is also a line of attack that is already understood and agreed with by many Democrats and independents, since it was one of the biggest driving factors behind the Occupy movement.

kazooka wrote:

Yeah, I'm of the mind that the true libertarian Republicans are actually a pretty small group.

That's true, but it's a much larger group than it used to be, and its growing. I mean, for 30 years, it was more-or-less one guy.

There are a lot of Republicans who will call themselves libertarians right up to the point where their philosophy encourages any significant changes. I'm not sure there's a whole lot of difference between libertarian Republicans, Tea Party Republicans, and evangelical Republicans, especially where voting patterns are involved.

Actually it's trivially easy to tell the difference, especially when it comes to voting. Typically, you just look for the handful of votes that oppose things like the farm bill. Occasionally, you'll get a bill like the defunding of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping that garners large numbers of bipartisan votes, but usually the libertarians are a distinct minority.

These big dissimilar groups would not have formed such a strong, unified voting bloc for twenty years if there had not been significant views shared across the divisions. Libertarianism among Republicans has only ever meant "lower taxes" and occasionally, "more firearms". It's never meant an end to the drug war, belief in personal civil liberties, and protection of privacy; it just shares a name with the people who do believe in that stuff.

Well that's the thing - up until about five years ago, as I noted before, the "libertarian wing" of the Republican Party was one guy - a guy known as Dr. No because he always voted alone against government expansion, foreign wars, and the crony state. So there weren't any serious divisions. And the libertarians who have been elected have put their money where their mouth is - who led the charge that came within a few votes of defunding the NSA's surveillance? Who is arguing for clemency for Edward Snowden, and who wants him strung up on the closest lamp-post? Who filibustered the nomination of the CIA director to get the administration on record that drone strikes would never be used inside the United States, a position they were clearly hoping to obfuscate and avoid? And who keeps putting up bills to end the drug war, audit the Fed, and end the Patriot Act? Who spoke out against war with Syria when both Republicans and Democrats were pushing for war and dismissive of diplomacy?

The Tea Party platform began putting out the same old social conservative ideas within a few months of its existence as a major political force.

And that doesn't strike you as odd? It also doesn't strike you as odd that, a few months after the Tea Party came into existence, major existing groups had assumed the banner and were funding events and candidates? That a movement started about taxation, and only taxation, was suddenly expanding to social positions?

I realize that Republican voters as a whole are pretty decent people, but I'm past giving them a cover for voting for these incompetents. We've been hearing, "no, no, that guy wasn't a real conservative," for at least 15 years now. There is going to have to be a fundamental change in Republican philosophy before they start winning major national elections without depending on gerry-mandering or voter ID laws.

And what is that change going to be? Voting more like Democrats, like the so-called moderate Republicans? That's not a winning strategy, see Mitt Romney - as "moderate" as a Republican is ever likely to get. The Republicans desperately need to differentiate themselves if they expect to survive as a party. They've really only got one choice - ditch the social conservatives and bigots, and attack the Democrats on liberty issues like the ending the war on drugs, foreign wars, surveillance, and government overreach. That's a message that a lot of people would respond to favorably - see Barack Obama and his campaign promises of ending the wars and reining in the national security state.

Edit: and one way to know that you've seriously pissed off mainstream Republicans is when they start to fundraise in support of your primary opponent.

As a fiscally conservative social libertarian I have sat out the last two elections. I grew up in a Republican house, pulled the lever quite a bit for them, but the last few years the insane crap that comes out of their mouths is too much for me.

Ultimately I guess I don't care who is in power anymore. The R's have their big rich interests and the Dems have theirs. I'm not in either of those interest groups, so no one gives a fark about me.

I hope the party does split. I hope we someday change the voting laws to a more "percentage of the vote" system so you don't waste your vote on a different party. Fat chance of that happening though.

I think a lot of libertarian-leaning people are not fully engaged with the entire scope of positions that Aetius outlines; when it gets down to it, they're just Republicans who want to be allowed to have freaky sex.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

I think a lot of libertarian-leaning people are not fully engaged with the entire scope of positions that Aetius outlines; when it gets down to it, they're just Republicans who want to be allowed to smoke weed.

FTFY.

OG_slinger wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

I think a lot of libertarian-leaning people are not fully engaged with the entire scope of positions that Aetius outlines; when it gets down to it, they're just Republicans who want to be allowed to smoke weed.

FTFY.

I just assume they're Republicans who are embarrassed by their Party but not to the point they won't vote Republican. They're looking for some way to dissociate themselves from the representation of the party while not actually having to be accountable for changing their thinking.

Bloo Driver wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

I think a lot of libertarian-leaning people are not fully engaged with the entire scope of positions that Aetius outlines; when it gets down to it, they're just Republicans who want to be allowed to smoke weed.

FTFY.

I just assume they're Republicans who are embarrassed by their Party but not to the point they won't vote Republican. They're looking for some way to dissociate themselves from the representation of the party while not actually having to be accountable for changing their thinking.

I think those people call themselves 'independent' and just hand wave away that they've only ever voted for Republicans.

The rift is showing again with the response to the recent Ryan-Murray budget proposal. As usual, the Republican leadership supports increased spending and taxes. I suspect that this vote will draw the lines quite clearly between the leadership and the Republicans who actually care about smaller government and reduced spending, so this'll be one to watch.

Don't worry though. They are working on reducing the impact of that division.

Looks like Boehner told the teabaggers to sit down and shut up.

Bet that goes over well.

House Speaker John Boehner escalated his criticism of outside conservative groups opposed to the budget deal, saying they lost credibility by rejecting the plan before it was announced.

This is like some sort of political version of the "I HOPE WHEN YOU GROW UP, YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH 10 JUST LIKE YOU" parent's curse.

Malor wrote:

The original roots of the party were simply in (profound) objection to the bank bailouts. But then it was hijacked by very unsavory people.

It's always a little strange to hear that. The roots of the Tea Party here in California were very much in the Minuteman Project. All the usual suspects that were touting the Minutemen back in the early 2000's quickly switched to the Tea Party once they popped up.

The Tea Party, as far as I can tell, mostly started with Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org. It was almost 100% a reaction to the bank bailouts, which he (rightly) thought of as a slow-motion disaster.

It was gathering speed pretty well, but then the current leadership showed up and took it over. Denninger has long since disassociated himself from the group.

I actually watched it start, although I didn't join it myself.

I'll just leave this here. Make of it what you will, with whatever grains of salt you feel are necessary based on the source.

Final Proof The Tea Party Was Founded As A Bogus AstroTurf Movement (Eriz Zuesse, HuffPost, 2013-10-22)

Yeah, see, those are the evil bastards who took it over: they had a firm agenda and just hijacked the Tea Party to be what *they* wanted instead of what the *founders* wanted.

Again, I watched it start. I saw it happening, right in front of me, and I saw it get stolen.