As the post-Orange-Gasbag era begins, and the likes of the Q-addicts take control of the remains of the Republican party and turn it into a GQP (h/t to Vyan for that), I’ve wondered about the expiration-date on this bag of nuts.
For a long time—since Bush the Lesser really—lots of people have proclaimed the final death of the Republican Party is just around the corner. Sadly, it never seems to happen—instead it seems to shed non-loony members the way a snake would shed it’s skin—or a zombie would shed...it’s skin.
So what sort of timeline is really involved here?
Let’s look at something comparable: the Whig Party.
Now, I won’t summarize the entirety of that Wikipedia entry—mostly because I’m lazy—but the interesting bits are under the heading ‘Collapse, 1853–1856’, especially footnote 141.
Essentially, after they lost the 1852 election, the Whigs seemed to have failed to develop a viable electoral platform and the fracturing of traditional party alliances saw them all but disappear from the national stage during the remainder 1850s. Interestingly enough, despite this, the 20th Governor of Alabama campaigned and won as a Whig, leading to his term in office as a Whig from 1965 to 1868—nearly a decade after the party had dissolved nationally!
So what does this tell us on the timeline of the death of the Republican Party?
From a timeline perspective (and only that since I didn’t do much research into the Whigs other than skim the Wikipedia article for dates—remember, I’m lazy) we can expect Republicans to continue to run (and win!) for almost a decade after the party disappears nationally—which is soon one hopes, but to be honest too many know-nothings are still voting for Q-addicts, so who the hell knows?
And the Know-Nothing party is a completely different story.