A changed GOP

by | Feb 21, 2017 | Politics | 3 comments

We need to stop being shocked by Republicans. It’s true that the NCGOP disrupts norms frequently, abruptly, and in unprecedented ways. But this has gone on long enough for the rest of us to respond differently.

The GA’s radicalism surprises political observers because they haven’t updated their expectations. Normal political parties respect rules and operate at a deliberate pace. But the new GOP simply does not fit this mold. Instead they function as a transformational faction. Their endgame appears to be replacing our institutional structure with a new system based on party dominance.

This strategy works not only to break the rules, but to systematically change them. Hence why the legislature so often ventures into terra incognita. No party has forced partisan district-court elections in many years, but the Republicans saw that tradition as an impediment and moved to rip it apart. For a crowd bent on “conservative revolution,” it was essentially a no-brainer.

The Republican Party has changed fundamentally. If they are serious about protecting our institutions, liberals and moderates need to stop wasting rhetorical energy on astonishment. Those arguments have lost their value. Now’s the time to prepare legal, procedural and messaging strategies to challenge the “conservative revolution.” And be prepared to use them.

 

3 Comments

  1. Morris

    I have to say this seems totally off base. I come from a long line of NC Democrats – the older ones that are still with us JFK, LBJ, and Carter Democrats, and the younger firmly Bill Clinton ones and a few Obama’s too – and not a one of them voted for Hillary last November. In fact the only family member (she’s a transplant from the north on my wife’s side) who admits to voting for Hillary is a LIFELONG registered Republican. NC is majority registered Democrat, and Trump won it easily, as did Burr, and frankly the Republican GA, who seem so “shocking” to you, lost no ground either. Outside of McCrory it was a very strong NC Republican election year.
    Look nationwide. What swept in the Republicans were DEMOCRAT voters in Democrat states. So perhaps the GOP changed, but they obviously changed in a way that swung large numbers of voters that Democrats previously counted as theirs.
    And when you talk about “shocking”, the shocking change was with the Democrats. The Democrats aligned themselves with some really shocking ideas to middle-America – from BLM protestors to free-trade globalists to open-borders socialists to promoting the very rare medial disorder of transgenderism from something that is treatable to something that is desirable. This “change” drove previously loyal Democrats right into the arms of the Republicans. And all the Republicans had to do was welcome them.

  2. Apply Liberally

    The time for apoplexia over radical GOP actions has passed. Well thought out strategies of full-scale resistance are required
    Call ’em out as you see ’em, but more importantly, take action to deny ’em.
    And most importantly, with every outcome of GOP programs, make certain that the public knows any consequent losses in tax dollars, or economic revenues, or public accountability, or justice, or human/civil rights.

  3. Norma Munn

    “Their endgame appears to be replacing our institutional structure with a new system based on party dominance.”

    I think the quote above says it all re the NC GOP legislators, and by extension the party itself, not only in NC but many other states. As for the Democrats, they have to actually act, not just message me non-stop.

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