The GOP IS divisible. The wedge is reality vs. faith.

[BurtWorm]

I think it is happening right now. The GOP is heading toward a crackup. Praise Jesus!

[dave123williams]

1. Pat Buchannon's book is all about that...

Scary that the guy looks like a moderate these days...

[CrispyQ]

4. Recently, someone on TV said . . .

...it terrified them that they actually agreed with much of what Pat has said.

I want to say it was Rev. Jesse Jackson on the Bill Maher show, but I may be wrong. But it was someone well known. Wish I could remember.

[grumpy old fart]

6. Ain't that the truth, 'cept on gays of course...

Yeah Pat does sound like a moderate compared to the chimp. Most anyone slightly less right wing than Hitler do. Except on the gay issues, where Pat's still in caveman mode......

[calimary]

2. We should be thinking up ways to encourage this.

If we're to repair the horrendous damage this regime has done, it will help us buy time by doing everything we can to encourage such a schism. We need them in disarray for a good, long time. There's almost too much work ahead of us.

[Irishladdie]

3. That right!

I totally have the non-religious REeps at my office all wroked up about this and have been talking about it for months. It irritates them to the point where they don't even want to vote!

[scottxyz]

5. This is an excellent point

The Suskind article ´Without a Doubt´ in Sunday´s New York Times is giving the ´reality-based community´ (which includes many Republicans) its rallying cry.

Most conservatives like to see themselves as realists - not starry-eyed believers in fantasy.

[Search Party]

7. i've been e-mailing that article to everyone i can think of

it will be their undoing, it has some people very freaked out

(including ME)

[scottxyz]

9. I think the Suskind article was a turning point

It was one of the most important articles published in the last few years in the American press.

Rather than himself attacking Bush, the reporter simply let Bush supporters hang themselves with their own rope, by letting them go on the record proclaiming their scorn for the ´reality-based community´.

Remember, it´s usually conservatives who accuse liberals of being starry-eyed idealists out of touch with the real world. The Suskind article shows that it´s actually Bush and his cronies who are out of touch with reality, living in a bubble.

I have also sent this article to lots of friends. I think it can be a turning point. Even most people who identify themselves as a Republicans or a conservatives probably don´t want to base government policy on fantasy, wishful thinking, or blind "faith".

The Suskind article will enable many, many conservatives and Republicans to justify defecting from the Bush camp.

[grumpy old fart]

8. Wedge Cheney on Gay Issues

It's a simple matter of using the Evangelicals' "abomination" language and forcing it down the Dark Lord's throat. Use all the great biblical language that fundamentalists use to draw bright lines between "right and wrong". If I'm not mistaken, Mary "the abomination" Cheney is due for a stoning according to their thinking.

[BurtWorm]

10. Last week I was thinking you could drive a wedge and siphon of fundies.

This week I think our best hope is to appeal to the conscience of the reality-based Republicans to not let the zealots steal their party away. I don't think there's any hope for the fundies.

[grumpy old fart]

11. Can't Siphon Fundies

The Christian right is too practical to leave the fold of the Rethuglican party...they know that if they go off and form their own Jesus party, they become immediately marginalized. What needs to happen is for the fudies to become a dead weight around the party's neck, so that reality based (love that term) republicans will quit kow towing to them and advancing their theocracy agenda.

[BurtWorm]

12. That is exactly right. The reality-based need to wake up and realize

that the fundies are dragging the party toward a dead end.

[DinahMoeHum]

13. The Washington Monthly thinks so, too, but because of other factors.

Link:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.wallace-wells.html

(snip)
"GOP is hidebound, corrupt. . .and doomed."
(snip)


:kick:

[BurtWorm]

15. Great article!

Thanks! :toast:

[PurityOfEssence]

14. They'll march on in their jackboots until the election

and don't you think otherwise. Yes, there is a bit of internecine warfare coming over the horizon, but they'll hold it until the election. The good news is that their enthusism is dampened, and that translates into limp support. In a contentious election, that's helpful.

If you're hoping for sizeable defections, then dream on.

[BurtWorm]

16. Not sizeable enough to give Kerry a landslide, I don't think.

But I have been seeing a LOT of pieces about Republican defectors and not very many at all about Democrats. There is a fissure opening up there. Read the Washington Monthly piece linked to above. Read the Robert George piece at TNR. Look around and you'll find a few other editorials by old school Republicans (an ex Senator from Kentucky, an ex governor of Ohio, I think). Not to mention the ones mentioned in Suskind's article. It's a real phenomenon.