Not All Conservatives Are Complete Whackjobs

Some of them, in fact, make very good logical arguments, such as Daniel Larison explaining why the GOP is in fact, completely screwed for the next several elections.

Robert Stacy McCain strikes again:

In other words, Rush’s 20 million listeners are what’s wrong with the Republican Party. If only they’d listen to these young Harvard graduates who know everything . . .

That isn’t what Ross said, as Ross was arguing against the obviously ridiculous claim from Limbaugh that it is somehow undesirable to win over independent and moderate voters during election campaigns. As McCain might say, even a Harvard graduate can see the flaw in this view.

However, in point of fact, yes, that audience is part of what’s wrong with the Republican Party. Part of what has been wrong with the GOP is that its rank-and-file members take their political advice and insights from radio entertainers who seem to understand little about political reality and even less about policy, and who substitute bluster for understanding. When they are confronted with an administration that does much the same, they have seemed only too willing to buy into the bluster. They remain steadfastly loyal to a failed President and his indefensible decisions, and they break with him only when he supports measures that are absolutely intolerable and even then they do this only when the President is profoundly unpopular and no longer very influential. This audience may have the right views about many things, but in practice that translates into reliable loyalty to a party that virtually never serves their interests, which enables the politicians who support all of the intolerable policies that they themselves reject.

The “young Harvard graduates” and the like may not have the right answers, and indeed I think they don’t have most of the right answers, but they at least recognize that there is something deeply awry on the American right that isn’t going to be fixed by repeating worn-out mantras and slapping oneself on the back. The Limbaugh approach recommended to his audience (which hasn’t been 20 million-strong in years) is that Republicans and conservatives have made no mistakes and need to learn nothing, except that they were not hard-core and true-believing enough according to whatever caricature of conservatism Limbaugh claims to represent, which actually might not be so very conservative after all. Being far to the right of Limbaugh, even I can recognize the absurdity of the argument that Republicans do not need to expand their coalition beyond core constituencies. Of course, it is only absurd if you assume that they want to win elections.

In other words, the lesson the GOP is about to take away from this election loss is "blame the moderates and burn them as heretics, purge them from the ranks of the faithful and rip out their lifeforce to feed our true masters!"rather than "maybe we should re-examine this whole purging thing, guys."

Which is fine with me, because it means the Dems will be in charge for quite a long time. Also, putting people like Eric Cantor in charge after the Great Losing will assure The Even Greater Losing later on.

I'm good with it. Let em work it out while the rest of the country does yeoman's work.