GOP asks "why?" and "where do we go from here?"

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite


By CHARLES BABINGTON

WASHINGTON (AP) - Having lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, Republicans plunged Wednesday into an intense period of self-examination, blame-setting and testy debate over whether their party needs serious change or just some minor tweaks.

The fallout will help determine whether the GOP might return to heights approximating the Ronald Reagan years or, as some fear, suffer even deeper losses as the nation's Democratic-leaning Hispanics increase in number.

"The party is clearly in some sort of identity crisis," said Rick Tyler, a past aide to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Hard-core conservatives, furious at President Barack Obama's re-election in the face of a weak economy, called for a wholesale shift to resolutely right positions on social and fiscal matters. Some demanded that party leaders resign.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20121107/DA2DE8GG1.html

---

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, talks about the elections and the unfinished business of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012. The first post-election test of wills could start next week when Congress returns from its election recess to deal with unfinished business — including a looming "fiscal cliff" of $400 billion in higher taxes and $100 billion in automatic cuts in military and domestic spending to take effect in January if Congress doesn't head them off. Economists warn that the combination could plunge the nation back into a recession. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

[L0oniX]

1. GO TO HELL ...because all you've done is obstruct everything!

Please go to hell ...you are hurting America!

[SoapBox]

2. Why?

...cause you're all STOOPID.

Where?

...out of existence.

Buh-BYE to the American Taliban.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

3. They need to move further right! We all need to let them know!

That's a sure winner!

[ProudProgressiveNow]

12. +1 nt

[Buzz Clik]

4. This is exactly where we were in 2000. The pendulum has swung.

Funny thing about pendulums.

Enjoy this moment.

[DollarBillHines]

5. Just go home. The times have passed you by, GOP.

You can only piss in the chili so many times before the difference is noticed by everyone around the campfire.

[wordpix]

6. why? These repugs are either stoopid or so rich they think everyone is like them on their private

islands and in their gated-community McMansions.

"Cut taxes for the rich, suppress the vote and control women's bodies, Repugs R Us."

[heaven05]

7. please

self destruct. You are irrelevant. Everyone talks of ron raygun being this great GOPPER luminary and he was the start of this rightwing, reactionary slide into fiscal and military chaos we've been through with the GD rethug party for the last 32YEARS. Please he was a royal POS! Raygun heights for who.? Me? Hell no! That was the start of the right wing reaction to ALL who had gained their civil rights. Fuck Raygun.

[boyedav1969]

8. Here's one explanation for "why"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/07/1158098/-Why-Romney-and-the-Republicans-lost

[GrantDem]

24. Very good read!

[riderinthestorm]

28. This is an excellent piece boyedav! Welcome to DU!

I presume you are the author? I really liked this part....

"... that's just a symptom of the same problem that lost the election for them: their ignorance. When a representative democracy, a government of and by the people, is dysfunctional, the problem is the people. They don't challenge what their partisans are telling them. The can't see beyond their own party lines. They choose not to see or believe anything that contradicts what they want to believe. They've essentially become surrogates and imitators of the same partisan posturing that we used to only hear from politicians. If they want to know what's wrong with government and why their party lost in this election cycle, the answer is no farther away from them than a mirror. But that would mean they'd have to take some responsibility. I don't see that happening."

Hope you stick around and play in the DU sandbox once in a while!

[Sophiegirl]

9. I might get pounded for this...

But I think that Boehner really does want to work across party lines. He just doesn't have the backbone needed. I wish he did.

He has been overcome by the radicals who have held the RW in handcuffs. And that is what is holding him back. Fear of losing his power and worse, fear of not being re-elected....which is effectively, the real bottom line.

Victims of their own making. Now they have to face the fact that their party is in rapid decline. They have no exit strategy, because they have no other thoughts beyond their current ones.

Who do they turn to now that the electorate isn't made up of older white males who long for their "good 'ole days."

This is the demise of the Republican Party. They have no future because they live in the past...long for the past...hope to restore the past. A past that is long gone. One that has become ashes in the fire pit of renewed optimism and hope for better days, equality, fairness and prosperity.

May FREEDOM persist. Especially within the confines our own Republic!!

[Volaris]

25. ...He just doesn't have the backbone needed. I wish he did.

THIS. The first Elected Official from that side of the isle to backtalk Rush, and have the stones to NOT bow down before the Fat Man the next day in slavering, apologetic cowardice, will get more useful shit done for this country than any Republican since Teddy Roosevelt.

Its not NECESSARILY Patriotism or "Good Ideas" they lack, its fucking BACKBONE.

[bhikkhu]

10. I hope they take it as a national rejection of their extremist positions

on women's rights, gay rights, unions, taxes, jobs, and government.

I hope they look at the asshats at the fringes of their party and realize they aren't the ones that should be setting policy, and if they are, they're going to wind up one sad little party that no one pays attention to anymore.

[argiel1234]

13. +100

[Acornsouth]

11. If they can't see why they lost...

then they can't see what to fix!...

The teabaggercon party will never win a major election as long as they vilianize:
Women, Blacks, Latinos, Elderly, Middleclass, Poor, Unions, Public Workers, Teachers, Firefighters, Police, Auto workers, and 47% of the rest of us....
As the teabaggercons continue to search for answers to their irrelevence, the world is pasing them by....

So grab your popcorn and a cocktail, and watch as the party implodes...

[meow2u3]

31. The problem is not that they can't see why they lost

The real trouble is that they WON'T see. They're so convinced that the American people will embrace their extremist, anti-democratic views that they're shocked for us rejecting them.

As the old saying goes, There's none so blind as those who will not see, and the GOP is the blindest of them all.

[cstanleytech]

14. I recommend that they head to the nearest surgeons that can

begin assisting them by extracting their heads from up inside their butts though I suspect many will die during the operations as their brains have been without oxygen for so long.

[gtar100]

15. a) because you suck; b) away

[Gemini Cat]

16. I have a few suggestions of where they can go and

what they can do with themselves once they arrive.

After completely screwing up the country for 32 years, they actually ask why?

[ReRe]

17. Why and where to go from here?

Well, as to "why", because of "God bless half-of-America" (referring to RMoney's 47% remark); because Ronnie Reagan's "Me-Me-Me" has to go-go-go. Democracy is a we-we-we type of society; what Bible are they reading from that says GREED IS GOOD? It's not in there, and any sane human being knows that greed is NOT good; ahhh heck, it's because nobody likes bullies; and on and on and on...

Where to go from here? I don't know. Surely there is an island somewhere where all 1%
of them could go live on, like the Cayman Islands? Yeah, they can go live with their money.

Or a maximum security penal/mental institution, since they're all sociopathic liars, cheats and thieves. My mind goes back to that scene in Andersonville Prison. NOBODY likes a liar, cheat & thief. We could empty out some of our prisons of folks that don't belong there in the first place and stick them all in there. Of course on their dime, since they have all of OUR money.

Whatever, they got themselves into this mess. Like my Mom used to say..."Grit your teeth and bare it", or "You made your bed, now sleep in it."

Logically, I truly cannot imagine how a political party can redeem itself after what they have
done.

[ReRe]

18. Wait a minute.....

..... resignations? Now there's an idea. First Mitch McConnell; then Rand Paul; John Boehner; Eric Cantor; Paul Ryan. Who else?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. Hard-core conservatives ... called for a shift to the right

Talk about driving off a cliff ...

[bloomington-lib]

20. They've painted themselves into a corner

They can't move to the left after teaching their people to hate the left

[RobinA]

21. Where To Go From Here

Ummmm....

1. Shut down the hate machine

2. Make some acquaintance with the "reality based world."

The rest should take care of itself. I say this not to help the Repubs start winning again, but if they would gain some semblance of sanity and move left to the point where they could see center with a high-powered telescope, maybe the Dems would move left a bit to compensate and we could get some discussion of a few mildly progressive subjects into the mix.

[GliderGuider]

22. The schadenfreude never stops, does it?

I love watching authoritarian bigots eat their own livers...

[Marrah_G]

23. If your party would get away from the racists, teabaggers and religious groups

THEN, maybe you might have a shot at making a comeback.

Frankly, Mr. Oompa Loompa, a good portion of this country is scared shitless of the insane clown car you call a party.

Even if you were 100% right on fiscal matters, your party has just become to extreme, to racist, to bigoted, to mysogonistic, to anti-science and way to evangelical to ever sit comfortably with the majority of America.

[olegramps]

26. Could the Republican Party's demise open the door to a third party?

[louis-t]

27. Two Star Trek episodes come to mind.

Both involved people who were led by forces that dominated their entire existence. When that force was taken away they wandered around, lost and confused.

[truthisfreedom]

29. Let's just sort this out for them and make it easy to digest... fuck off and die, repukes.

Pretty much sums it up.

[FiveGoodMen]

30. They'll go farther

This election won't stop them. After '08, they just stepped up the crazy on Fox. Beck became a household name. GOP statements became more extreme in every way.

They'll go farther.

They'll lie more outrageously.

They'll cheat harder next time.

We need a better-informed public or they will eventually win. And then, they'll never let go of power. It will take a revolution. If that's even possible then.

We must try the criminals among them.

We must investigate and expose their schemes.

We must demand that news outlets check their facts and tell the truth.

Otherwise, Tuesday's results will be a short reprieve before the final destruction of American democracy.

We should understand by now that the party of rape will stop at nothing -- no, really, absolutely nothing -- to get total control of everything.

There is not a day to lose in trying to stop them.

Bipartisan is the dirtiest word on earth.

Never compromise with these fucking NAZIs.

Or they will win it all pretty soon.