Unless the Republican Party rejects its platform of hate and intolerance, it will cease to exist as we know it by 2016.
As Kossack John Campanelli points out in his diary "Huckabee: Gays Rights Less Important 'Cause They're Not Getting 'Skulls Cracked'" :
"Huckabee is saying that civil rights are only important if you're getting your skulls cracked open, that we have to wait to protect a minority from the beliefs of the majority only when it turns to violence. Interesting, coming from a Christian minister."
It's definitely interesting that the majority of GOP hate-mongerors identify themselves as Christians, like Sarah Palin.
"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom."
And from Michelle Bachmann, another Christian gem:
"Remember it was Michele Obama who said she is only recently proud of her country and so these are very anti-American views. That's not the way that most Americans feel about our country. Most Americans are wild about America and they are very concerned to have a president who doesn't share those values."
The future of the Republican party is at jeopardy because the hate speak has lost momentum with the average Joe. If the Republican party would like to avoid fracturing into smaller factions--hawks, fiscal conservatives, and evangelicals--by 2016, they're going to have to abandon the hate in lieu of this healthy alternative:
"I'm also troubled by - not what Senator McCain says - but what members of the Party say, and it is permitted to be said: such things as, 'Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian; has always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, 'What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?' The answer's 'No, that's not America.'"
-Colin Powell, "Meet the Press"
Republicans must reject hatred for all things "different" or "unlike" themselves in favor of logic and acceptance.
"I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia'... That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."
-Senator Chuck Hagel (R, Nebraska)
Don't get me wrong, fellow Democrats. It's a lot easier to defeat a party that runs on a platform of exclusivity and hatred. But that sort of rhetoric isn't helping unite our country; it divides us. At the end of the day, this land is still your land, and it's still my land.