Dave Brockington hypothesizes about the structural difficulties facing the GOP:
I’m not going out on a limb when I speculate that the 2008 Presidential election in the U.S. featured the latter, especially in relation to certain racial categories. The question that many will ask is whether or not these new voters hold. This will make the 2010 Congressional elections informative for several reasons. My suspicion is, backed by what we know from past elections, that the surge in turnout the youth cohort demonstrated in 2008 will hold. It will fluctuate, of course, but it will hold in the main.The problem that this presents for the Republicans is two-fold. First, voters tend to maintain the party loyalties that they establish in their first few elections. Again, this is on average, and there are anecdotal exceptions to the rule, but it is a general principle. Second, the surge in turnout in the young cohort was not limited to African-Americans, but also Latinos and Asians. If the Republicans continue pandering to their open-minded, inquisitive, generously tolerant Palinesque base, they’re only going to solidify these voters as Democrats.
To the extent that the system “works,” one of the things that keeps it working is the expectation – on part of the opposing party – that they will eventually be in a position to control the levers of government. Not only does that expectation keep the minority party from sabotaging government, but it (usually) incentivizes positive behavior like working with the majority to get something done.
This shouldn’t be taken lightly; in a fairly calcified two-party system like ours (with an institutional arrangement as insane as ours) it doesn’t take much sustained obstinacy to cripple the system. Indeed, we’re seeing that play out in California right now. Part of California’s problem is that it is overwhelmingly liberal and will continue to be dominated by Democrats. In said environment, Republicans have rationally concluded that – absent a full on collapse of the state – they literally have no chance at ever again attaining power. And so, accordingly, they have decided to do just that: bring on a collapse of the state in an attempt to wrest power from state Democrats.
Given the institutional arrangement of the federal government, this isn’t terribly unlikely. As Brockington notes, if Republicans continue to isolate themselves from young voters and minorities, they will find themselves in an electoral box, with little chance at regaining either house of congress (the presidency is a different story). I’ve said this before, and it’s worth repeating: I don’t want the Republican Party to relegate itself to the ash-heap of history. In fact, I want the Republican Party to be viable enough to win national elections (on occasion, of course) so that they have at least some incentive to work for something productive.
The only thing to add is that the members of the Republican party – and by this I mean the vast majority of Republicans, from their top officials to politicians at all levels all the way to grassroots members – have decided that they are perfectly happy with destroying their own state and/or nation in order to make it easier for them to achieve their political goals.
They are actively trying to sabotage every program and system this country has to bring about widespread suffering so they can then cynically and hypocritically scapegoat the Democrats for it. That so many average Republicans are hysterically supporting politicians and policies that will hurt them as much as their supposed liberal enemies doesn’t make it any less despicable.