Republican Party Collapse

Occasionally a major party fails completely and actually disappears - but probably not this time with the Republican Party. From the perspective of the spring of 2009 when Barack Obama and the Democrats have taken control of the Presidency and both Houses of Congress - at a time when the remaining national leadership of the GOP has been stumbling around looking for new leadership and new issues - things look bleak!

But the reality looks more like this:

The so-called "far right" and the religious right have risen to high visibility in the wake of the Bush Two Presidency which was grumpy - generally incompetent - and really offensive to much of the American electorate - allowing doctrinaire appointees to run away with parts of the government. All that has snapped back into place with the advent of the party change. What happened in November 2008 was an election where the people wore out of it all and made an across-the-country change in many things. This happens from time to time in a citizen driven society.

When the national party leadership is wiped out, loud voices in the political media, or money driven commentators reach out to a diminishing listening audience to preserve their ratings and accompanying paychecks. Rush Limbaugh and Ollie North are current examples, as is the Fox Network when it deals with politics. As they say, everybody's gotta make a buck!

The Democratic Party put up with - and used - the southern Dixiecrats for a century after the Civil War until they finally bolted to Governor Wallace of Alabama after the Civil Rights Acts were passed after the Kennedy Assassination in 1963 - setting Richard Nixon up for a Presidential win in 1968 and 1972. That southern coalition played against blacks, Jews, Roman Catholics, women, gays and liberals in general. Southern Democrats became Republicans and have hung in there for forty years - playing to the worst inclinations of anybody who would listen. Republican leaders in general like Karl Rove, Roland Reagan, Bush the Second, and endless Republican leaders across the country engaged in the politics of division with substantial successes.

What nobody wants to talk about, however, is the real historical fact and current reality that the Party has been effectively controlled by banking and business interests since the inception of the Industrial Revolution. The gun, powder, and munitions industries love wars - they increase the call for munitions - and the hate gun

In a complicated set of ways - business and powerful money have made the Republican Party theirs for a very long time - and still own it lock-stock-and barrel - but they don't know how to do street politics and consider all that voting stuff beneath their pay grade. What they do do is provide the money as motivation for the likes of Ronald Reagan, Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh to work to move the electorate in certain directions they favor. They do that across the country - particularly in national political issues. This whole process is called politics - has gone on from time immemorial. It works the same in the Democratic party but with different sponsors and with a different agenda more inclined to the interests of the middle class worker.

In a very important way - Republican governors and other local party officials are less controlled and have immediate leadership problems as all the state leaders do. They are somewhat more practical, grounded, and will be the centerpiece of the party as it rebuilds.

The churches who have supported the Republican Party forcefully for the last fifty years have been victims of the party leadership. They wanted the votes of those generally well organized groups - often preempting their clergy with cash, power, sex and drugs - all usual payoffs for forsaking the faithful. Mean business it is! At the end of it all - the church faithful are moving on to personal issues when they selection candidates.

So what happens to the Republican Party now?

If the history of political party functions in the United States is instructive - the party has probably hit bottom and will begin to recover as new leadership at the local level is recruited. The hidden power structure has clear goals and will fund those who are local winners. That structure was protect on taxes and regulation - and cares little about the sort of leadership that gets it there. Over a relatively short time the party will rebuild.

Again referring to history - the Democratic Party is likely to consolidate its position during the Obama Presidency because of the unusual strength it has at this time. In this general setting, the cycle will begin again and a reasonable balanced two party system will continue.