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| Naughty Republican, you need to be more conservative (picture found here) |
Without the ability to change the past, conservatives are looking forward to the primaries. Through the coming primaries, they will be able to challenge the Republicans who voted for the tax increases and spending cuts that accompanied the new fiscal cliff deal.
The president of Americans for Prosperity, Tim Phillips, said, "We aim to hold elected officials accountable. Lawmakers will not be judged solely on how they voted on the fiscal cliff, but it is a big vote to get wrong." Added executive director of the Kentucky 9/12 project, a Tea Party group in Kentucky, "Anyone who sticks their neck out now will get their head cut off." Ouch.
The Tea Party hopes to make a repeat of the 2010 primaries in which they saw victory with a number of their members.
Of course, this type of reaction is to be expected from conservatives; yet it still leaves me disappointed. Polarization between the two political parties, though unfortunate, is understandable. But polarization should not sneak its way into a single party. Chastising and attempting to get even with members of your own party because they voted against your wishes seems so childish. Perhaps I am oversimplifying, and I admit that I am no expert on all of the rules to the game of politics. However, I do have a basic sense of right and wrong. I just think that moving towards the extreme conservative end of the spectrum is dangerous for Republicans.
What do you guys think? Is the Republican Party headed towards the danger zone? Is there any possible chance of a third party emerging from all of the ruckus, or is that completely out of the question? Should conservatives wage a primary war against less conservative Republicans? Is there any hope of compromise within the Republican Party? Are conservatives powerful enough to pull the party towards their end of the spectrum in the first place?
Here is the article that inspired this post. Oh, and check out this slideshow of conservatives' reactions to the fiscal cliff deal. I don't know what amuses me more: Todd Starnes' "emotionally comprised weeper" comment, or the fact that all of these politicians have a twitter and I don't.
6 comments:
Many political analysts speculated that with the loss of the presidential elections we'd see the change in Republican Party ideologies. However, these didn't exactly come the way we had expected.
Clearly there is a fair amount of backlash it seems with the passing of the very necessary fiscal deal. While larger organization leaders have spoken out against the representatives who passed the deal, does the public actually agree? Perhaps they do, but if so, we must also bring to light that change in the party ideology might not be enough to change the ideologies of the constituency. There are a lot of factors here at play, but I do agree that this sort of backlash here seems harsh. The consequences of not passing any deal at all may have caused a lot more damage than the sort of "damage" that this deal has "caused."
I'm not so sure that a third party will emerge from all of this, but there is definitely something to be said about the Republican party becoming more and more divided. It seems to me that the "original" and very principled Republicans are getting drowned out by party members that advocate extremely far right issues. Not everyone in the party as a whole can relate or support what their representatives stand for, and so that's where people are disagreeing and arguing with each other. Tea Party-ers, Libertarians, Republicans, which title is really stands for true conservatives?
Political parties can only be really effective when all members understand and support the main leaders of their group, but that is not the case with the Republican Party. Therefore, I think Republicans are heading toward some dangerous territory. If the party could somehow create a new image or set of ideals, then maybe they could have better chances of working together. However, I guess we'll just have to wait to see how things pan out...
Obviously, die-hard conservatives will not be pleased with how the fiscal deal ended up. Polarization seems almost inevitable as Republicans are trying to regain political control from the Democrats. Unfortunately, the Tea Party is trying to convince the Republican Party to move away from moderation and toward deadly ground.
Like Abby said, it is doubtful a serious third party will arrive to get between the bickering Republicans and Democrats. History shows the resilience of the two-party system in America.
If Republicans choose to have a conservative civil war, I feel they will have no hope of defeating Democrats in the next elections. Hopefully there can be compromise in the party and that extreme Tea Party conservatives are sane enough not to swing their party into the deep zone.
In conclusion, the Republicans have to figure out what their ideology truly is and whether that is what is best for America, not for the sake of simply winning elections.
While many of the die hard conservatives in the Republican party are probably mad at the Republicans who budged during the fiscal cliff deal, I don't think that it would be a good idea for the Republican Party to attack these members. First off, I think that giving anybody in the party a bad name would be a bad idea as then both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party would be attacking a Republican which would just give the public a bad eye of Republicans. Secondly, I think the Republican Party's resources could be better used everywhere. Because most congressmen and women are reelected each election, fighting to replace a candidate would be difficult and costly. I think that if the Republican Party really wanted to make a difference it should use all of its resources to instead elect die hard Republicans into soon to be vacant seats in Congress. I think this is the path the party will probably end up taking.This way the party could ensure the long lasting support of many very conservative candidates. I think that if the Republican Party does go down this path it would be a bad idea. I feel like the more they move to the right the more voters they are alienating. Eventually, if the Republican Party starts losing seats, I think political realignment might even happen in the
Democrat's favor as they would be able to fill the more moderate gap.This kind of polarization and move to get rid of moderate candidates in any party just isn't a good idea since so much of America identifies itself as moderate.
The question of whether the Republican Party is "headed toward the danger zone" is one that came up in the aftermath of the elections. Evolve or die. As was cogently pointed out, the people of America chose to give Barack Obama a second chance, not Mitt Romney a first. Now, recognizing that each candidate was first and foremost an individual, not a party, the parallel between GOP extreme partisanship and the race to the White House isn't quite spot on.
But the fact remains that, in order to become win the Republican Party nomination, the candidates had to swing far right, and (after becoming the nominee) swing back to the center in order to appeal to the general electorate. That song and dance didn't seem to cut it. I think the more important question is whether the Republican Party will shift to accommodate changing demographics.
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