The Imminent Demise of the Republican Party

[Emillereid]

by David W. Orr

 

Following the election of 2004, much has been made of the weaknesses of the Democratic Party, even its possible end. But it has escaped the notice of our blow-dry television pundits and political observers alike that the Republican Party, in the full blush of triumph in control of all the branches of government and large sections of the media, stands on the edge of certain extinction. The reasons grow daily more evident. Over the past three decades, the moderate, business-oriented party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower was captured by its extreme right-wing thereby becoming a party dominated by ideologues, increasingly divorced from unmovable facts. But no organization, political party, or nation can long survive by ignoring realities of ecology, social justice, law, economics, and true security. Sooner or later, it will step off the proverbial curb into onrushing traffic of events, forces, and trends that it refused to see.

The Republican Party has already stepped into the road. The question is not whether it will survive as presently constituted, but what else will be destroyed as it collapses in ruin and ignominy, sooner than later. Beneath the noisy spin of its media echo chamber, the true platform of the Republican Party, its future epitaph, is founded on denial. The rules of the Republican Party of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Tom Delay, and their brethren are these:

Deny science when its findings are not agreeable to your base. Republicans, notably, are on the wrong side of the largest issue in human history: human driven, rapid climate change. They’ve chosen instead to live in a Crichton-esque science fiction fantasy in which real science has no standing and human actions have no tragic, irreversible, and global ecological consequences. This is not just boneheaded, it is a form of criminality for which we have, as yet, no adequate words.
Deny the looming approach of peak oil extraction thereby advancing the potential of economic, political, and social chaos when global oil supply and demand diverge as soon they will........

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0112-36.htm

Just had to post this if for no other reason than I love the title. Good article too!

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Well. The fascist swine will remain in control

As long as they own the official vote count and the press, they can be as bizarre as they want in their policies and beliefs.

[Lorien]

2. Their fantasy world is founded on the "Left behind" series

repubs have explained to me that man can't do anything to destroy the planet; only God can decide when the world will end. BUT, the same repubs drive SUVs and won't recycle because they believe that the sooner the world is destroyed, the faster Jesus will return. God apparently needs their help to destroy the planet, but if he doesn't want it destroyed, then nothing they attempt will have any serious consequences. :crazy:

[HereSince1628]

3. Kick

[G_j]

4. good article

deny, deny, deny......

"This is not just boneheaded, it is a form of criminality for which we have, as yet, no adequate words."

[MISSDem]

5. William Safire said much the same thing

in an article a few days ago. He said that if he were starting out as a politician or as a journalist he would be a Democrat, or something to that effect because that would be the up and coming thing.