May I humbly suggest that henceforth, whenever any of us refer to "the GOP" that instead, we refer to them specifically and deliberately as "the GOTP?" Here's why; there is a widening rift within the Republican Party between the moderates and the extremists. As the party gets more and more extremist by the day, moderate Republicans have no where to go. They have fled their party and their ideological brethren now make up the Blue Dog Democratic caucus. There is no longer any such thing as a "moderate Republican," yesterday's "moderate Republicans" are today's "Blue Dogs."
But among the electorate, lifelong Republicans that consider themselves moderates are increasingly turned off by the extremist Tea Party that has taken over their party. This point was made poignantly recently when a Kossack wrote a diary (a little help here...I don't remember the author or the diary title so I'm not sure what to search for to find it to provide a link...) that discussed a response he received from a letter he wrote.
The response was from someone that worked at the publication where the letter was sent and the response was a personal response, not an official one. But the contempt that the self-proclaimed Republican respondent had for the Tea Party was clear and evident as he sought to cast Republicans as separate from the Tea Party.
Ideologically, the Tea Party is made up of the more extremist elements of the Republican Party and try as they may, Republicans cannot separate themselves from those that share their ideology, albeit in the extreme. But try they do, as evidenced by the previously mentioned diary.
So what can we liberal activists do to help widen that rift within the Republican Party? I think we can start by not letting them separate themselves from the extremist elements within their party that they are actively enabling. So for this reason, I think that we should begin to exclusively refer to the Republican Party as the Grand Old Tea Party (GOTP). We should refer to them only as the GOTP and not "the GOP." When we need to refer to them as "Republicans," we refer to them as "Tea Party Republicans." When we need to refer to the "Republican Party," we refer to them as the "Republican Tea Party."
Words matter and rhetoric matters. How many moderate Republicans will want to be so associated with the Tea Party? And why should we help them enable the false meme that they are not really one in the same? That association obviously bothers some moderate Republicans, so let's make sure it really bothers them.
Never let them off the hook, never concede that the Tea Party and the Republican Party are different and/or separate entities. Make the Republicans own their Frankenstein (or more accurately, make them own their monster as Frankenstein was the doctor). ALWAYS conflate the Republican Party with the Tea Party, and the simplest way to do this is to refer to them from here on out as The Grand Old Tea Party (GOTP), Tea Party Republicans and/or the Republican Tea Party as I pledge to do. How about you?
Discuss...