RIP: The Permanent GOP Majority

Is the 100-Year Republican Majority, the dreamchild of coked-up GOP operatives, the conservative "intelligentsia" of the PNAC-Heritage-ChicagoU fiction-writing club, and the laundry list of Republican office-holders who seem to have been a part of a gerrymandering pyramid scheme for the last 40 years, finally dead?

The last 3 years have been a beautiful illustration of the inherent incompatibilities of the GOP alliance that has made the GOP more powerful and more intractible over much of the South and parts of the Midwest and West. The major misconception is that the current malevolence of voters towards the Republican Party is due entirely to the Iraq War. This is not the case. The voters were made aware of the Republican lie that was itself long before they lost patience with Iraq. That awareness has manifested itself in the form of a guilty opposition to a war that "apparently," said the dumbass voter, "was not an honest endeavour."

In the Spring of 2005, the neo-conservative alliance was where it had never been before; in charge of everything with the sense of entitlement to do and take whatever it wanted. They were going to change Social Security, the courts, end taxation as we know it, and use our military might to achieve every foreign objective that the Carlyle Group could find profit in. They could barely hide their excitement, and the other 6 billion of us held our breath, and waited for the end.

But there was one problem that the neo-con leadership had never planned on having to deal with, assuming they even had the foresight to know it was coming. They had no idea how to cash all the checks they'd written over the last 40-years. The only way to achieve such an unnatural condition as suddenly existed (GOP control over everything), they had to make promises to groups and agendas that were contradictory.

Their candidates in the Southwest pandered to xenophobia to get elected by white voters, but their national committee took money from the major agricultural, construction, and other immigrant-exploiting corporations. So when immigration reform met its foreseeable and agonizing demise, it was more a case of Southwestern Republicans biting the moneyed hands that feed them than it was a partisan issue.

They promised to cut taxes to harness the anger of the middle and lower-middle classes, but their record-deficit spending and a discretionary war were in such close proximity to those tax cuts, that it was obvious they had no intention of letting us keep those $300 checks. They were merely pay-day loans from China.

They promised to help the elderly with their prescription drugs, but by leaving gaping holes in their plan and not restricting drug prices, then following it up with a dangerous assault on Social Security, they gave birth to a whole new generation of lifelong Democrats who are 55 or older.

They won the White House by promising to act like the business professionals they were; then when they actually kept that promise, they made us feel stupid for not having seen Enron and Tyco coming. Their typical CEO short-term mindset, and irresponsible overreaching has made all Americans cynical of good news from Wall Street and untrusting of business leadership.

Their main bullhorn, Fox News, is part of a corporation whose product is self-contradictory. They push family values on their news network, and bash everything left of fascism, all while parading Foxy blonde talkers across the screen to keep their old-man audience captivated while they pick the most obscure fights (who really gives a damn about Ward Churchill?). But their "news" outlet was made possible by the success of the "offensive" Bart Simpson and the collage of trashy teensoaps in the 1990's. As a family values critic, I think Dan Quayle's only error was in criticising the informed adult decision of Murphy Brown while ignoring the teen-sex merry-go-round on 90210, or the promiscuity-is-glamorous Melrose Place. There were easier targets, and only his personal fear of the shows' main benefactor made him shy from them.

They promoted the idea that American family was under assault, that liberals do nothing to protect the integrity of the American family. But when the GOP dropped everything to intervene on the Terry Schiavo matter, it was obvious who was really pushing its backwards ideals on families. That an American must be at the very medical end or beginning of life to get some health care out of the GOP was not lost on those blue-collar Republicans who've been misdirecting their rage all these years. And it made religious conservatives slightly uncomfortable, and much more on their toes to watch what happened next.

Katrina was the hammer to the eggshell holding together the Republican image. That they couldn't manage a forecasted disaster was obvious to those who've been voting out of fear since 9/11. That they didn't give a damn must have made the true Christians in the Republican Party feel overwhelming guilt. Then there were those prowar Southerners who forgot what the National Guard is really for. They remember, now, and you can bet "that's what they signed up for" isn't how most of them respond to deployment stories in the news any longer.

The religious conservatives were expecting Roberts and Alito to turn the tide for them on abortion. Suddenly, both nominees had said that it was law and there wasn't a way to take back Roe. What they were adomate about was presidential powers, a mighty executive above the other two branches of government. Had the GOP been using abortion as a cover issue to get judges with pro-corporate, pro-executive agendas on the courts at all levels? Of course, and now both sides of the argument should feel stupid for having argued the abortion debate in the scorched-earth way they did.

The event that really triggered this separation of the GOP from its most necessary element was not what you think it was. Believe it or not, it was Terry Schiavo. When the GOP went completely outside the bounds of its authorities to interfere with this one family's horrible situation, yet would do nothing tangible to stop millions of abortions, it became clear that the entire "pro-life" position of the GOP was lip-service. And this awareness, whether conscious or not, put Alito's and Roberts' testimonies into a new light, and made it apparent that Katrina was less incompetence than indifference. This may not have made religious conservatives angry about their representatives, but it has certainly made them feel guilty and unenthusiastic. The electoral effect is that they stay home, at least for a few elections.

This is the most important point. When the Republican candidates have their nominations in hand, for office at any level, their campaign is manned by religious conservatives. Sure, there are always gun folks and anti-tax yuppies, but they're fewer in number and not nearly as committed. When a Republican candidate, outside of New York or California, doesn't have the physical presence of the religious conservatives, he or she is dead in the water. As things stand now, no GOP candidate can expect to have them to hand out literature, put up signs, register voters, make phone calls, write letters, raise money, or do any of the other critical volunteer duties that have given Republican candidates their edge for so long.

And at the end of the day, there's no indication that they can get that support back. The religious conservative community has been betrayed, and they know it. As long as they feel used and dismissed by the GOP, they will not be the foot soldiers that every slimy Republican needs as the buffer between their crazed ideologies and humanity.