The Dysfunctional Republican Party: Can It Prevail?

The world of Republican politics differs greatly from the world of Democrat politics, primarily because Republicans and Democrats really do live and think differently from one another.

On the one hand, you have a Democrat Party that marches in lock step, democrat voters who will vote for any candidate so long as they are running on the Democrat ticket, and who conform to a general and broad system of beliefs. On the other hand you have Republicans, who are much more independent, more likely to vote on a single issue, and feel represented by particular factions within the party at large, as opposed to the Republican Party itself. The Republican Party is forced to hold together a divisive collection of contradictory philosophies, personalities, and purposes, while competing with a Democrat Party with much less friction between their voters. Now, that is not to say that there is not a great deal of friction at the top of the Democrat Party, since whoever controls the party, controls the voters. But that’s a Democrat problem the Republican Party simply never experiences.

It almost seems impossible for a Republican Candidate to represent the majority of registered Republicans, were it not for the fact that the alternative to voting for a Republican usually means the election of a Democrat. Not electing Democrats is pretty much the only thing that Republicans can agree on. Unfortunately, this makes life much harder for the Republican Leadership. With social media and instantaneous news, the Republican Party can no longer hide the inside the beltway sausage making from the folks back at home. Because there really are more Republicans than there are Democrats, and because the only thing Republican voters agree on is not electing Democrats, despite all the chaos and differences within the party, there are an awful lot of Republican on Capital Hill.

Despite Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress, the Republican Leadership is paralyzed by dysfunction and disagreement. There are those who believe that Republican voters need to allow the Republican Leadership to lead and to back their play, regardless of whether or not they fully agree. There are others who believe that the Republican Leadership needs to represent the will of the majority of Republicans back in the States, and that compromising with Democrats is certainly not what they sent their Representatives to our nations’ Capital to do.  So what do they do?

Nothing.

Therefore, with the Republicans in Congress unable to accomplish anything, the minority party still controls the agenda. And since the minority party still controls the White House, advancing that agenda has been relatively easy.

This leads us to the 2016 Presidential Race. If you want to get an idea just how dysfunctional the Republican electorate really has become, you need look no further than the lead up to our Republican Primary. Donald Trump, who isn’t a conservative, a constitutionalist, or even really a Republican, is dominating the polls and drawing unprecedented support for lambasting the media (who everyone hates), Congress (who everyone hates), Illegal Immigration (which everyone hates), and failure (which Republican voters are, frankly, sick of). So running on a platform of promises of success, many Republicans are jumping on the Trump train. That the Republican Party, the media, and the Democrats apparently despise Donald Trump, has only helped him draw support for more Republicans. Sorry Fox NEWS – like Gail Wynand, you must have now realized that there is no real power in building an empire on the basis of telling your audience what they want to hear. The second you stop, they’ll turn on you; and turn on you they have.

The Libertarians seem to be sticking with Rand Paul. The Conservatives seem to be sticking with Ted Cruz. The angry people are going to sink or swim with Donald Trump, and everyone else is still trying to make a name for themselves. Of course, the media is looking for candidates looking for headlines.

Here’s the formula: Candidate goes looking for headlines. Candidate gets headlines. Candidate poll numbers go up. Media spends day after day, hour after hour, attacking Candidate. Candidate poll numbers decline. Candidate runs out of money. Candidate drops out of the race. Now, if your a Corporatist Billionare, this formula doesn’t apply to you. Which really infuriates all the powerful people in this country that can’t control you – which delights everyone who hates the powerful people.

Honestly, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I mean, the Democrats appear prepared to nominate the least repulsive blast from the past they can find – and whichever relic of liberal marxism they nominate will get at least 40% of the vote. If only the Republicans could find a candidate that could win the other 60%. Sadly, this is beginning to look impossible and I am beginning to attempt to conceptualize the probability of a President Bernie Sanders or a President Joe Biden. It seems unfathomable. I do see a way out, but that isn’t what I’m writing about today. I merely wanted to describe just how complicated the Republican Party has become and all of our parts and responsibilities in causing it. I’m not even sure its a bad thing, in principle. It’s simply having negative results.