Republican Irrelevance

Carpetbagger has a slew of posts today which can be summed up as: Why Does the Media Take Republicans Seriously?

Here's a post on how Politico's Jonathan Martin fails to understand why dumb Republican attacks don't work (Hint: They're dumb). Here's a post about why Atlantic's Marc Ambinder ignores dumb Republican attacks (Again, they're dumb). Here's a post on how WaPo's Chris Cillizza reinforces Drudge's chockhold on dumb reporters like Chris Cillizza (Because they're dumb). Here's a post on how conservative blogger Reihan Salam got suckered by Sarah Palin (Because he's an idiot). And finally, I'll add in posts about GOP deadweights Dick Cheney and Karl Rove and how we're all better off with them as the face of the party.

And these are really just the same damn post written from different angles. And the point is clear: The Republican Party is dead. Does that mean that it will never be resurrected? Of course not. It just won't be a party that looks like anything we currently recognize and the longer they delay the transformation, the longer it'll be before the name can be resurrected.

And while the transformation won't be as big as the shift from Lincoln's party to Reagan's, that's the sort of scale to compare it with. They'll all be Republicans in Name Only by the time the name is usable again.

Jokers, Tokers, and Space Cowboys

And I again want to pat myself on the back for calling it. I predicted that the Republicans were morons for continuing the same lame attacks that failed to sink Obama last year, and that they'd be better off taking a breather and truly going into a "wilderness" phase. But no, they keep on with the same idiotic attacks that never worked and find themselves having to up the ante to stay in the game. Attacks on "socialism" didn't work, but maybe "economic fascism" might do it. (It won't.)

And a big part of the problem is that this breed of Republican were always jokers. Their attacks on Clinton were utterly laughable. And their media admirers are just as admiring as before. And no, these attacks didn't have traction with voters during the 90's any more than they do now. For as much as Republican arguments have been popular, it was purely coincidental. Republicans didn't shift voter sentiment. It just so happened that the Republicans were pushing arguments that would have been just as popular without them.

Because Clinton was popular in the 90's; not Republicans. And for as much as they dominated during the Bush Admin, they really achieved almost nothing on the legislative front. They got their war and a bunch of crazy judges, but they got almost nothing else. They weren't able to gut the government through legislative means. All they got were short-term disruptions of government service through inefficiency and corruption.

But all it took to undo their damage was a real president. The simple truth is that Republicans were never very effective at anything but winning elections, and they can't even do that anymore.

It's the Internet, Stupid

And the main difference is that the internet has made Republican attacks not only more ineffective, but actually counter-effective. Now that supply & demand has given us huge flocks of very effective liberal voices, it actually helps us to let Republicans talk. They shoot themselves in the foot with almost every utterance, and then guys like Carpetbagger skewer them for it. And it works. And no matter how badly Obama might fail, this ain't going to change. The Republican noise machine is dead and you help keep them that way every day.

And the other big change is Obama. We're just a few months into his first term, yet I'm quite convinced that I was correct in saying that Clinton caused a lot of his own headaches by spending too much on the day-to-day battles with Republicans. He always let them set the game and was intent at beating them at whatever they wanted to play. Obama doesn't do that. And that's the final nail in the coffin.

I've been saying for years that the Republican noise machine is only effective at distracting Democratic politicians, and now we've finally got a politician who knows that better than I did. You've got to pick your battles and if you spend all your time countering idiotic claims, then it makes you an idiot. These bozos don't really give a damn what they're saying and neither did a large majority of America. Finally, we've got a president who acts the same way.