Okay, 'Pubs, listen up. I know that there are always a few of you hanging around here, looking for some extreme comment to feign outrage over, trying to pick up on the secret liberal strategy to take over the world or whatever.
In this diary, I'm going to go against all my political instincts and offer my opponent a hand up. I'm going to tell you exactly how you can bust out of your current slump and get back to a rough electoral parity with your foes the Dems.
I'm offering this wisdom free of charge for two reasons.
The first is that I worry that your current skattershot, clusterf--k of a party is so disjointed, disoriented and divorced from the realities of US demographics and public opinion that you are making beating you too easy, and that beating you like a dirty rug cycle after cycle is going to make my own beloved party cynical and complacent, leading to more corrupt and ineffective government.
The second reason I'm handing you the keys to the kingdom is a deep conviction that you simply will not use them. To do so is going to require a great sacrifice on your part, and, honestly, y'all just ain't the sacrificing types.
You see, if you ever want to have a shot at numerical parity with the Democrats, let alone majority status, you're going to have to lose a bit more. On purpose.
Let's take a look at who you are right now. Independents and moderates have been deserting you in droves and your credibility among single-issue fiscal conservatives is pretty much kaput. This leaves you with the religious fanatics and the educationally-challenged who believe the government should put out the wildfire racing toward their house but, god damn it, nobody should have to pay taxes. In essence, your party is made up of the >25% of Americans who approved of Junior when he left the stage.
If that. The latest numbers show your leadership getting less love than Junior ever did. You are, in fact, less appreciated than Dick Cheney.
Think about that a second. Let it really sink in. By trying to appease your ever-shrinking, tea-tossing "base," you have become less popular than a guy compared unfavorably to Darth Vader.
And, if you continue on this path, your numbers will only further diminish. Those "tea party" wackos you tried to co-opt last week? Their numbers, stoked by weeks of free advertising on some of the highest rated shows on TV and radio, were laughable. I've been to bigger planning board meetings. Hell, you sit in bigger traffic jams every day.
So let's get real, GOP. Trying to herd the same batch of flat-earther, xenophobic, tax-phobic, homophobic old coots spells doom for your once-proud party. Time, demographics and common sense are not on your side if you continue down that road.
You are left with only one option: you're going to have to throw them overboard.
That's right. The last loyalists you have, the ones who've stuck with you through lies, betrayals and bankruptcy, have got to go.
If you want a shot at relevance in the future, you are going to have to pull some one-eighties that are going to whip most of your last hangers-on from the back of the truck.
Gay marriage? It's coming, dudes. It's going to be the law of half the states within ten years and tomorrow's voters couldn't give a shit.
Reproductive choice? A solid majority of your countrymen, while personally torn on the issue, don't want government to have a say in whatever a woman, her family and her physician decide is best. That train's done already left the station.
A couple of years back, you were able to get cheers from about half the electorate by yammering about immigration, but most folks these days understand the guy floating the sheetrock in the garage isn't the one who took away their job at the Maytag plant. I doubt that's going to help you now.
No, the only hope you've got is to emulate your most loathed bugbear Bill Clinton and learn to triangulate. Toss the base under the bus and say yes to marriage equality. Embrace a woman's right to choose. Endorse real energy solutions and take climate change seriously. Admit that there really is a role for government regulation. Hell, shame your Dem foes and get ahead of the curve on an issue like cannabis legalization.
Make no mistake, such a pivot will hurt you sorely. Kicking your last supporters in the teabags will guarantee at least another three electoral cycles in the wilderness.
However, if you can demonstrate to the American people that you believe in rationality, in fairness and in good government, you stand a chance of regaining a viable place in US politics.
Within a few cycles, you will again be competitive with the Democratic party, albeit in a vastly changed landscape. Your former base will likely have moved to the Libertarians or the Constitution Party or some other group as yet unknown. Perhaps all presidential contests will come to resemble 1992, when no party could claim a real majority.
All fascinating prospects, but tangential to the main point here: if you don't dump the nutcakes and make like rational grownups, and that right soon, you will never elect another president. You will join your predecessors the Whigs and Know-Nothings as questions on history tests. And, sooner than you realize, most students won't even know the answers.
As I said earlier, I'm pretty confident in giving you this advice. You've shown over the last few cycles that you are ignorant of the vast changes happening in the American electorate and that you believe your Incredible Shrinking Base, like the Confederacy to which it increasingly corresponds, will somehow rise again.
And if, by some miracle, you should actually heed these words and remake your party as a true advocate of good governance, however our views on some policies may differ, I'll be delighted.
Because I so dearly love my country and want for her the best leaders that can be found. And I dearly love my party and want for it the finest competition.
Good luck, elephants. And think about what I've said here. Or not. If you do choose extinction over evolution, I won't cry too much.