Will The Last Republican In The Big Tent Shut Off The Lights, Please?

A new Gallup poll shows extraordinary and categorical losses by the Republican Party in nearly every imaginable demographic and subset, from college graduates (a loss of 10 percentage points) to Midwesterners (9 points) to single Americans (8 points). Even frequent churchgoers managed only to break even...and that was the best group. Not a single demographic group registered an actual gain in GOP voters from 2001 to now.

Naturally, the wingers are taking this as proof that 1) The rest of the moderates Megan McCain Republicans must be purged from the party, 2) The newly purified party will then magically attract more Ron Paul libertarian independents than moderates they will lose from the purge, 3) The Democrats will then eventually lose because they are Democrats.

While number 3 is actually 100% true, the Republicans seem to be acting like driving away everyone but self-labeled conservatives and frequent churchgoers will somehow allow them to earn the trust of everyone else, because they seem to believe that everyone is secretly in one of those two groups, and only those two groups matter.

The GOP seems to believe that the only "Real Americans" are religious conservatives, and that it's only a matter of time before everyone is shamed, horrified, and disgusted enough by what they see as Democratic Party excess to come crawling back to the party of religious conservatism. Nobody actually likes the Dems, they're just angry at the GOP right now. They'll be back because we'll tell them to come back, or they won't be Real Americans, you see.

That's the big plan, to demonize not only Barack Obama, but everyone who voted for him. Only the Republican Party can offer you salvation, boys and girls. They're awaiting America's "Come to Jesus" moment. They believe it'll happen in 2010 and 2012 and that Republicans can get right back to driving this country off a cliff into a bigoted, racist theocratic nightmare, because that's simply how the country should be.

This isn't a defeat. This is simply a test of faith. They intend to pass even if it kills the Republican Party.