The following is connected to the post I did the other day, Switching Political Party Partners, and it’s also related to the one I did yesterday, Being mean, rude and uncivil, in the sense of the need for Centre-Right parties to change their political strategies of dumping their ideologies and even their principles to chase The Precious Midpoint – and all because they’re frightened of being labeled as “extremist”:

Illinois Republican Senator Charles Percy said Reagan’s candidacy was “foolhardy” and would lead to a “crushing defeat” for the Republican Party. “It could signal the beginning of the end of our party as an effective force in American political life.”

Back in 2010 a Republican Party that had been on the ropes for two years – after losing the House and Senate in 2006, then losing even more seats during the Obama wave of 2008 – miraculously found itself beating the snot out of the Democrats in the 2010 Mid-Terms.

They grabbed an incredible 63 seats to win the House and came within a whisker of getting the Senate as well. For the Democrats it came as a hell of a shock after two years of taunting the GOP as “The Party of Old, White, Southern Men” who needed to get onboard and vote for all the fabulous Democrat policies or face extinction.

The key piece of such legislation was “Obamacare” (otherwise known as the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act), and the GOP continued on for another six years claiming that if only voters would give them the power of House, Senate and President they’d get ‘er done and repeal the damned thing. They demonstrated their commitment by passing meaningless one-page one-sentence repeal bills.

And then, on January 20th, 2017, the GOP was stunned to find its wishes granted. Yet nothing happened until, nearly two years later, on the cusp of losing control of the House they finally concocted a watered down, pseudo-symbolic repeal – which McCain turned his thumbs down on anyway. As this guy notes:

The bitter truth is they never wanted to repeal it. Seven years worth of one-pagers with the simple statement “The Patient Protection Care Act of 2010 is hereby repealed” and all they had to do was hand it over to President Trump and that would have been that. Two things: once a government program and bureaucracy is created, especially one that devours fully one-sixth of our economy and the power to control over 330 million people, there’s no way it will ever be abolished. Second, and perhaps more crucially, with Donald Trump as their president, they for sure didn’t want to get it done. They hated him (still do) and they hate us (ditto), perhaps even more because we forced their hand by electing him. Which means, rejecting them. QED.

And now here we go again on another Day One, with the McCarthy-led GOP in the house voting a bill to abolish the IRS which they know will go nowhere in the face of a Democrat President and Senate. But it’ll keep the GOP voters excited, amirite?

But perhaps this is less a case of cynical GOP politicians teasing their voters than the stupid bastards actually believing this themselves, as evidenced by this message sent out on December 29:

On Twitter they got ratioed to death, with the following response from The Hodgett Twins being the best summary:

What they’re referring to is the $1.7 trillion “Omnibus” bill, crafted by the losing Democrats in the House but supported by eighteen GOP Senators to be passed in the lame duck session, a first for such a spending bill. The uniparty strikes again:

This is what responsible, moderate, bi-partisan government looks like in America, the sort of legislating stuff approved of by Moderate PoliticiansTM everywhere – as opposed to all that annoying “performative” stuff like investigations of corruption.

The ones who did oppose this monstrosity are notable though:

“Tell that to the Republican politicians who voted for the Omnibus,” – DeSantis aide Christina Pushaw.
…
“We have completely and totally abdicated the power of the purse. Republicans are emasculated. They have no power, and they are unwilling to gain that power back,” – Senator Rand Paul.

That article goes on to point out the brutal truth about the GOP:

At this time, the Republican Party is under the leadership of people who spend more time self-serving and making sure they maintain their own influence and power than actually doing the work of the people. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s behavior during the midterms alone should disqualify him from consideration.

And this is at the heart of why Republicans and the GOP now find themselves sneering at each other. Republicans have no leadership on the national stage. While Republican governors are doing great work, D.C. elitists either aren’t putting it together that voters really do want conservative values and merciless opposition to the radicalized Democrat Party…or they simply don’t care.

Nothing will change until Republican leadership does.

The following takes are even more harsh. First with the fantastic sums of Ukraine spending:

The only countries that should be funding the Ukrainian armed forces are the European ones that are (possibly) threatened by the Russians. That they are reluctantly kicking in a tiny portion speaks volumes about the reality of the threat. They see the catastrophe that is the Russian military, so they are in no rush to fund Ukraine because their assessment is that Russia will, at best, eke out some measly long-term gains, and at worst fail and be humbled.

McConnell’s laughable and insulting comment that Ukraine is the most important issue among Republicans is functionally identical to him pissing in our faces, and not even bothering to claim it is raining.

Second on the outright betrayal this Omnibus spending represents, Republican Senators Betray Conservatives for Last Time:

#Rexit. Or a #Conexit from the GOP.

There is no other way. They will not listen to us, they will not compromise with us.

We have to break with the GOP and simply leave the party to form a third one.

They have left us literally no other choice.
….
The current Republican Party is making it really hard to care whether they win or lose. When it’s election time, we all rally around them, doing our best to pull them across the finish line. Yet, when push comes to shove, they can’t even be counted on to oppose massive omnibus packages full of leftwing priorities. They beg for power and then refuse to exercise it to protect the very people who elected them.

I can’t agree with Ace’s take on this regarding a Third Party – yet! Most Third Parties just don’t make it in most Democracies and although it does happen, the ones that do take decades to achieve mainstream success. The slow failure of the Whigs in Britain and the USA in the 19th century; the rise of the Democrat Party and then the Republicans in the US; the slow failure of the Liberal Parties in Britain and New Zealand in the early 20th century, followed by the rise of the Labour Parties.

But the time is not yet. At a minimum the leadership – and more pointedly the attitudes of the leadership – have to change. Only if that also fails will we see the abandonment of the GOP, as happened to the Liberals and Whigs.

But if cynical “moderates” in the Western democracies think they can forever get away with claims of “You Have No Alternative” – because the other side is worse – they are mistaken in the long run. If the constant churn of “good management” and producing ever-more legislation fails to fix our failing institutions then the voters may well reach Lenin’s point of “The Worse, The Better”, and vote (or perhaps not vote) in order to pass through the worse, destroying mainstream political parties like the GOP in the process and getting something better.