The downward spiral continues
The smartest man in America offers some dispiriting words that invoke The TBR Rule.
It is easy to say “the parties are no different” or “things couldn’t get any worse.”I'll admit that my last post may end up hyperbole, but for several years I've been thinking about the Whig precedent, and in this case the parallel is more than historical reflection - it feels like precognition.People have said that before — and have been proved wrong before. Before the election of 1860, abolitionists said it would make no difference whether Lincoln or a Democrat was elected. But millions of people were freed because that prediction was wrong.
In Germany, the Weimar Republic was nobody’s idea of an ideal government and, in the desperate days of the Great Depression, no doubt many German voters thought that nothing could be worse. But they discovered during the dozen years of Nazi rule just how much worse things could be.
Karl Rove always comforted any fears of mine by telling people that he was following an historic example set by the McKinley administration when they re-established Republican governance for a generation. But that plan has now fallen apart, and as a result the party seems bent on tearing itself apart. The idea that the leadership of my party is so ignorant of the political dynamics occurring within the rank and file is... well, it's beyond my ability to characterize effectively. Hell, I was even one of the Republicans trying to convince people that comprehensive immigration reform wasn't such a bad idea, and even I can see that handing the Democrats a victory on that issue now will completely capsize the Republican ship. I suggested to Steve the other day that perhaps the President's plan might allow us to claim victory over the situation the way the Democrats siezed the Civil Rights mantle in 1964. That's obviously what the President is hoping for, but - as Sowell points out in his piece - at what cost?
"Maverick" John McCain and social liberal Rudy Guiliani are the leading contenders for our Presidential nomination in 2008. Senator Arlen Spector is telling us we're too conservative, and we should become just as liberal as the Democrats. And now an Hispanic empty suit is named to be the head of the RNC. Are we trying to ensure Hispanic loyalty to a party that won't exist in a few years?
