{"id":444,"date":"2008-11-20T10:58:11","date_gmt":"2008-11-20T15:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/how-to-resurrect-the-republican-party\/"},"modified":"2008-11-20T12:40:54","modified_gmt":"2008-11-20T17:40:54","slug":"how-to-resurrect-the-republican-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/how-to-resurrect-the-republican-party\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Resurrect the Republican Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republican Part is in shambles. They are now a minority in congress, and more importantly, they’re regarded as far-right fundamentalists by many Americans. They’ve allowed the fundies to take over the party, and the results have been disastrous.<\/p>\n

They’ve abandoned their core principles. They claim to be the party of small government, but Bush grew the government more than any other president in history. They’re supposed to stand for strict adherence to the constitution, but Bush was openly contemptuous of the very concept of civil rights. He attacked them and removed them at every opportunity. The GOP has gone from conservatism to fascism, and the American people finally said “enough.”<\/p>\n

The proof is in the way the numbers shifted during the presidential campaign. McCain and Obama were neck and neck until McCain selected Palin, a picture perfect fundy Republican, as his running mate. His numbers got a quick, short boost, but then she opened her mouth and people started looking at her record. His numbers started dropping and never stopped. While we don’t know if he would have won without her, it’s pretty obvious she cost him the election.<\/p>\n

Everything she wanted, from pipelines to policies, was also, conveniently, God’s Will. Her own daughter is living proof that abstinence based sex ed is worthless, but she remains incapable of accepting that fact. While the US is rapidly losing its lead in science and technology, she wants to teach creationism in schools. She believes that if a woman or young girl gets pregnant as the result of a rape, the government should force her to bear the rapist’s child. The very real possibility of her becoming president may have won McCain a few votes, but it cost him many more.<\/p>\n

Most Americans are religious, but far right fundies, the ones who want a theocracy, are maybe 10% of the population. Atheists are another 10% minority, and we have no one to vote for. Committing the party to rationality could get many of us on board, perhaps enough to make up for the loss of the fundy vote. And that loss would be minimal. Who are they going to vote for, Democrats? Yeah, right.<\/p>\n

Other Republicans are coming to the same conclusion, finally. They are, of course, being attacked<\/a> by the fundies, but they need to grow some balls and stand up to them. It is their only hope.<\/p>\n

A substantial number of Americans are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. They are small L Libertarians, although they may not identify themselves as such. This matches up nicely with the politics of the original Republican Party, the one formed to fight slavery. The Libertarian Party is a joke, so adopting the ideas and ideals of the small Ls would build their base significantly.<\/p>\n

The best approach would be to create a faction in the party, The Rational Republicans, and gradually (but not too gradually) take over the party.<\/p>\n

Here are a few winning planks for their platform:<\/p>\n