No, No, No...not what you're thinking. I mean as in "political party" as in Republicans have a lot in common with the British chanteuse, beyond their retro stylings.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again...The Bush Years were the
absolute, worst possible thing that could have happened to the
Republican party.
From 2000 to 2005 the GOP was utterly fucking invincible and they knew
it. They waved their dicks in everyone's faces with aplomb. And why
not? They had the presidency, they had both houses, they had a
shitload of governor's mansions and Supreme Court nominees.
But more than just dictating the agenda, they knew they had to dictate
the culture. They know the power of the airwaves and mass media and
made full use of it. With help from Fox News and the like they were
able to reform Conservatism as fashion, not just politics.
Conservatism was the natural state of things, while liberalism was
defined as a virus, an invasive species. Something to be shunned, if
not outright banned. ("Hey Suzie, all the cool kids are anti-abortion and pro-gun! Why aren't you?"}
Inevitably, the GOP got drunk with power. Chronic alcoholism really,
and we've all seen that movie. For a moment, the saying about God
protecting little children and drunks holds true, and the boozer is able to get out of a few close scrapes.
But inevitably, the luck runs out and one incident -- a fatal car
crash, a bar fight that ends horribly -- sends the protagonist
spiraling. Finally, the guy has fallen so low, that there's nowhere
to go but up, and he's in rehab, getting counseling with the help of a
good woman. Lessons learned the sun sets in the west while he's
standing barefoot on the beach, humbled, but happy.
The GOP has been in a number of bar fights in the last few years:
Katrina in 2005, Nancy Pelosi in 2006, Immigration reform in 2007,
Barack Obama in 2008, and now the PPACA in 2010.
However, they can't seem to get to the final act. The part where nice
young men in extremely white suits come to take them away. (ha ha!)
The part where the psychiatrist asks them to reveal their innermost
thoughts and desires. That part where they spend house looking into a mirror, and then fall weeping and sobbing in that classic "come to Jesus" moment.
Republicans need rehabilitation. But they're saying no, no, no.
They are still carrying themselves like the cock of the walk. Like the
spoiled high school quarterback or the aging European gigolo, they
can't seem to grasp that the glory days are over.
They still believe they're relevant to major policy decisions, and yet
Barack has blown past them with his personal popularity, his Supreme
Court nominee, the S-Chip program, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay act,
the Stimulus package, Stem cell research, and now PPACA.
They have lost so much -- Sarah Palin, so embraced at first, has now
become a punchline. Hilary, is now Secretary of State, and no longer
viable as reliable liberal boogeyman. Neither is Ted Kennedy. Arlen
Specter's party switch, the adultery of John Ensign and Mark Sanford,
NY-23, etc etc etc.
Even their few bright spots of the last few months -- the election of governors in New Jersey and Virginia, and the almost divinely-supported victory of Scott Brown in MA -- must now seem like they occurred 50 years ago. Brown's victory was supposed to stop HCR dead in its tracks. It didn't. Instead the newest senator voted (along with a few other Republicans) to support Obama's jobs bill. Meanwhile Virginia's Gov. McDonnell is fine with accepting stimulus funds for his cash-strapped state.
As are dozens of governors and congressmen from the Republican Party.
Far from doing the sensible thing and checking into a nice facility,
they have gone running with bad company. The ostensibly libertarian
"Tea Party" has become the GOP's shock troops of choice, but to call
them unruly is a bit like calling Tiger Woods "randy".
They do not care for political niceties. They want war, revolution,
heads on plates. How is a political party supposed to successfully
harness an audience that hates politics? It is as if the GOP Drunkard decided to take up residence at a crack house.
Oh, they certainly know what they should do: They've heard from their well-meaning friends like David Brooks and Kathleen Parker, who've told them they need to ditch teh crazy. They should scrub themselves up, get nice haircuts, throw themselves on the mercy of the judge (i.e., the American people) foreswear extremism and play nice with the new President. That's how the Republicans picked themselves up off the floor after Goldwater in '64 and Watergate. Those were hangover days for certain, then.
But the GOP today doesn't want a hangover. And the only way to prevent
one is to keep drinking. Full of liquid courage, they cried foul over the PPACA, but it's proving hard to avoid the stink of loserville.
But they're so addicted to getting what they want, to setting the
tone, to getting political cover from Rupert Murdoch, that it's
difficult to shake the power. They are like Muhammad Ali who was in no condition to fight Larry Holmes and got walloped for his efforts.
They were spoiled rotten, and we know what happens to spoiled children, they grow up into spoiled adults. Adults who have trouble with relationships, parenting, etc.
The Democrats have problems for certain, but the last 14 months have
shown that the very liberal wing was able to hold their noses and let
this defanged version of the original health care bill pass. Bringing
Dennis Kucinich on board was a huge coup in that regard. Better to get
some gains now, better to get our foot in the door, than suffer
another defeat.
Democrats learned much in the last 10 years: They first couldn't run to the right fast enough, trying to appropriate NASCAR and Jesus (and who's to say which was more important?) But after the Bush Administration showed vulnerability they learned better. They learned more about defining themselves, instead of letting the GOP do it for them; they learned that they can pre-emptively strike at the GOP/Fox/Rush Machine; they have also (for better or worse) jettisoned some of the more unpopular facets of liberalism such as gun control. Clinton's "triangulation" has made a comeback.
Adaptation. Evolution. Flexibility. Just Win, Baby.
The GOP meanwhile believes that defeat after defeat is building scar tissue. At least that's the best strategery I can guess at. They stood by and just let the debate on HCR be between the conservative Dems and the liberal Dems, while the GOP sat on their hands. It's hard to do that and simultaneously dig a hole of irrelevance for yourself, but they managed to do it.
They have fundamental fissures: many GOPers are disappointed in their chairman, the religious right complains they're not doing enough for them. Republican homosexuals, hispanics and blacks (the few that are left) feel unwelcome in the party. Conservative stalwarts like Lindsey Graham and Robert Bennett are now being called "RINOs" and being targeted by the Tea Partiers and RedState.com and the like.
Altogether the GOP is aging and getting whiter, while the Democratic
base is far younger. Some GOP's want to expand the party, while others
just say NO to the Big Tent Theory.
And the Scott Brown victory, again, looks worse in retrospect because
it was a wake-up call to Dems that NO place is safe. By occurring nine
months before November, it gave Dems time to prepare. Barbara Boxer
and Barbara Milkuski will probably doing more campaign stops then they
would have been doing previously if not for that. A foe forewarned is
a foe forearmed.
Something will happen to change the GOP's fortune, at some point. The Dems could make a huge mistake or someone could fall into a huge scandal. The question is, what will be left of the GOP at that point? Will they be subsumed by the Fox/Tea Party crowd (which is quickly merging into a single entity?)
One thing is for certain, if they're not going to be an all-inclusive Eisenhower/Reagan type party, and if they continue to lose their grip on the culture, they have huge problems far beyond the PPACA.
Altogether now: "My name is Mitch McConnell, and I'm a Conservative."