Has the G.O.P. Gone Off the Deep End? - Oh we hope so!

[liberal N proud]

Caught this New York Times headline and it gave me great joy to think of the possibilities.

Thomas Doherty, patronage czar and political enforcer for former New York Governor George Pataki, reached the breaking point last week when he read that House Republicans were preparing to “slow walk” the Senate immigration bill to death.

Doherty turned to Twitter:


If Senate Immigration bill gets ripped apart and ultimately defeated by House #GOP I’ve decided to leave my political home of 32 yrs #sad.

Doherty told me that he has


come to the conclusion that my party has elements within it that dislike homosexuals and think America is still in the 1940s. And while we talk about freedom and liberty, that liberty and freedom only seem to be acceptable for some.

Doherty, no liberal, is representative of the growing strength on the right of the view that the Republican Party has gone off the deep end.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/has-the-g-o-p-gone-off-the-deep-end/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130718

The more extreme and obstructionist they become, the more they will push their old core away. There could be a silver lining to all this obstruction and extremism by the GOP.

[MrSlayer]

1. And do what? Quit? Become a Democrat?

We don't want him in our party. We have way too many republican corporate types as it is. It's a no win situation. If he quits, a teabagger takes his place. If he flips, the Democrats become more Republican.

I don't see how this helps.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. Maybe it's to much to hope that some will be so disappointed

that they just won't vote.

[Proud Public Servant]

3. Exactly. This is the next battle

Here's a prediction (or series of predictions):

2014 - we hold the Senate (just barely) and actually pick up seats in the House. GOP civil war escalates.

2016 - we win the White House with 300+ electoral votes, pad our margin in the Senate, and take back the House. GOP civil war becomes a free-for-all.

2017 - the GOP defections begin in earnest.

202? - frustrated with the dominance of the DLC/ex-GOP coalition in the party, Progressive Dems set off the Democratic civil war...

[bluestate10]

6. Probably conservative Independent. Moderate and Liberal Independents tend to vote democrat.

The republican party is destroying itself, which is ok with me given what the modern republican party is. My expectation is that the democratic party will grow into a super party and then split into two large parties that will dominate politics going forward. The democratic party is already beginning to show strains along it's Left-Center and Center-Right line, but the party has remained sane and balanced when compared to the republican party.

[truebluegreen]

4. That's fine as long as they form a new party

instead of further ruining ours.

[byeya]

5. I see hope in red states like Texas and Kentucky and a couple of others as women get so fed up

with hostile legislation that they leave the Party of God for the Party of A Chance for a Half Decent Life.

[bluestate10]

7. Kentucky isn't a good example, North Carolina is a better example along with Texas.

Kentucky has the strange dynamic of all democrats holding top offices in the state and those democrats are restraining the republican majority legislature to keep laws in that state from going off the deep end. North Carolina had balance until it went all red, now republicans have gone insane there with brutal laws being voted out of the legislature under seedy conditions.