The GOP Knows They're Screwed, But They Don't Know How To Fix It

It's so obvious even Chris Cillizza can figure that out.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor spoke Saturday -- a speech in which he tried to offer a vision for how the party can start winning again. Here's the crux of the Cantor argument: 

Winning elections is about convincing the voters that the we have their back, that we’re on their side. If we want to win, we must offer solutions to problems that people face every day. We have not done this recently and it has allowed Democrats to take power, it has allowed them to push their partisan politics, and even worse to enact their leftist agenda. 

Cantor is right. Republicans have lost recent elections -- both in Virginia and nationally -- because they have been unable to a) prove to voters they have a positive vision for the country and b) effectively push back on the picture that Democrats have painted of them as cold, unfeeling plutocrats. In the 2012 presidential election, for instance,Barack Obama won 81 percent of those voters who said a candidates who "cares about people like me" was the most important attribute in deciding their vote. 

But, simply diagnosing the problem is not terribly new -- or all that effective. The problem for Republicans at the moment -- particularly those in Congress -- is that the party is most animated not by its positive vision, to the extent one currently exists, but rather by its opposition to President Obama's vision. (Cantor described Obamacare as "one of the greatest attacks on hardworking taxpayers this country has ever seen.") And, attempts to re-imagine party positions on issues like immigration -- by the likes of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio -- have been met with passionate disapproval by the party base.

The reality of course is that the GOP doesn't want to fix their problems with women, LGBTQ, Latinos, African-Americans, young people, and anyone with a working conscience.  They want to punish them until those groups stop voting, and then win from there.  Nobody believes the GOP has the backs of anyone but themselves.  They'll never win on that nonsense.  But convincing voters that armies of leftist brownshirt thugs will harm them and their loved ones, and that the people supporting Democrats no longer should qualify as Americans?  Well, they'll still get at least 40% of the vote that way, every single time.

The only reason Republicans haven't won on the fear vote nationally yet is because the last guy from their side is currently painting cats and dogs, and from 2001 to 2008 they had that fear vote locked up tight.  It can happen again, and at the state level it already has.  Outside of Delmarva, New England and the West Coast, and a couple of Rust Belt states, the Democrats are fighting for their lives.

Better vote while you still can.