Is the Republican Party just self-destructing?

They just seem to be ripping themselves to pieces. Layer upon layer of idiots. And they all disagree with each other.

Maybe they just need to split into the Republican Party and the Ultra Conservative Party.

I can never remember anything like this before. It's kind of like a modern version of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. All of the good Republicans have been replaced by these weird creature who are all mouth and very little brain.

party of know nothings... this is, to a point, a repeat of the whig failure as a party.

And no you do not remember it since it has not happened in modern times.

twice today, friends have pointed out that they think the Republican party is damaging itself. I played dumb both times and asked why. Well...here's what I'm getting (paraphrased) "now I'd be afraid to vote for any Republicans again. You just never know when they're going to decide to destroy the country. Look what they're doing now with this debt ceiling deal. You just can't trust them to do what's best for the country."

Except for the far right here in KC. Their new thing is that China is going to take over the country - they are scaring themselves silly.

I think they just really like to scare themselves. They do it all of the time - just kind of move from one awful scenario to the next.

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That's been going on for decades and the puke party leaders have been the ones behind it.

Their insistence on complete loyalty to an ever-righter viewpoint has weeded out anyone who isn't both evil and nuts.

Not coincidentally, the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention -- the folks who pre-approved Bush's wars -- did the same thing a while back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention_conservative_resurgence

of the repub party. They aren't so stupid as to give up the party apparatus that brings in money. We've seen that they can't raise it on their own.

obstinance is real and not just part of the show.

They were created and nurtured by corporate America and their media outlets, and they can wipe them out just as easily.

to begin with. It's bad enough we have to deal with their Congressional detritus but the fact that there are enough ill-informed, deluded, gullible, reactionary voters out there to send enough of that detritus to Washington - really does concern me. I find myself wondering about the people who somehow think the teabaggers are correct - what is WITH them? How on earth do they come to this rationale? WTF is with these people? Yeah, I'm pretty sure about the answers, too, and it's WAY bigger than any of us wants to accept. Combination of reactionary revisionists in education, constant ad buys by the disproportionately wealthy and corporations with HUGE unfair advantages toward influencing public policy, outfits like Pox Noise spewing nonstop lies and distortions and propaganda - very nicely and appealingly PACKAGED, though - and just how many people allow themselves to be suckered in.

And add that to the derision that smart people get. All the support and high-fives to idiots like sarah palin talking up the virtue and value of having a "Joe Sixpack Vice President." Jesus, Mary and Joseph - the whole idea of the president being the sharpest knife in the drawer has been discredited! Dumb is cool! Hell, Dumb is PREFERRED! Ignorance truly is Bliss! All you need to say is "I know what I know" and then just go shut your ears again. Dear God. And I think it's been aided and abetted and strongly reinforced in arenas outside politics, too. Anybody remember when Johnny Cochran vigorously defended OJ with the newly-coined and now-famous term "Junk Science". Anybody notice how Casey Anderson's attorney updated that concept with his repeated references to "Fantasy Forensics"?

They don't seem to have ripped each other to pieces enough to get OUR side a win, though. They've got it together enough to obstruct this thing all to hell.

:(

There are really lots and lots of nice people here but they just don't ever think about stuff.

But, like I said, not many are really very educated. And being very educated is not really a goal.

They created the Tea Party to increase GOP turn out ... and inadvertently, got the craziest members of their base to actually think their views were mainstream.

And so now, the GOP is struggling. Their immediate goal is to ride out this storm, and keep the Tea Party nuts from destroying the party.

If they can, they'll leverage the Citizen's United to limit the Tea Party influence going forward. Keep it active, but clip its wings.

As for struggling, the ink is barely dry on the Bush/Obama Tax cut extension. I wish our party was "struggling" like that.

Its a SHOW vote ... and nothing more.

The entire vote was intended to give the GOP House members political cover AFTER they vote for a debt ceiling increase.

I'd have thought you would have seen that.

Guess not.

nearly all of the Senate Pukes (maybe all - we will see) voted for it contradicts the premise that the Repukes are "splitting apart". I thought that's what we were discussing.

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are political zombies - they just keep comming and eating brains.

They are kicking Democratic ass all up and down the field.

They have Obama sniveling at their feet like a beaten puppy....they're laughing their collective asses off.

somewhat in spite of the lily-liveredness of the 'moderate' faction of the GOP. i don't like the TEA party's goals, but it's hard to argue with their methods.

a free-for-all between a couple hundred rabid rats locked in a cage.

And it's neck-and-neck, the leading switching frequently. But I think the GOP has what it takes to destroy itself first, well before the Dem Party does.

Imagine a large fruit bearing tree.

Its has put out fruit for many years. But it is aging, and it yield has been reducing rapidly in recent years.

Suddenly, the aging tree bursts with new fruit, more than at any point in recent years.

Then, shortly after, the tree dies.

I think this is where the current GOP is. Their old tree is dying, and 2010 was when their tree burst forth with its last big harvest.

And as the old GOP tree dies, the rotting fruit on the ground will try to sprout roots. And while the GOP may not die off completely, it will also never be the same thing again.

Imagine the US as a human body. A single cancerous tumor is detected, which we might as well call Limbaugh. You have a chance to kill off the tumor, but decide it is no big deal, and besides, you're against radical therapy, so you let it grow. Pretty there are a few dozen tumors, called Liddy, North, Levin, Gallagher, and a few others. At this point killing off the cancer would be painful and invasive, so you decide to hope it will go away on its own. Lo and behold, it's now 15 years later, and the body is completely riddled with cancer - so much so that there is no hope of recovery. The only thing to do is get comfortable and try to stay that way while the body breathes its last breath.

We could have stopped this cancer during the 2000 elections. But Clinton got a BJ.

And so rather than continue with a realistic treatment, some of us took herbs in the form of Nader. And in doing so, let Bush #2 accelerate the growth of the cancer.

And now, many act surprised that the cancer is starting to kill our vital organs.

The GOP should die off, but we on the left are too busy fighting each other to try and kill of the GOP cancer.

After all, Gore won that election. That's been proven a number of times. However, we didn't fight back during the theft, and there is nothing we can do about it. Also, Kerry won in 2004, as was proven this past week. Yet Bush was declared the winner and we didn't fight back, and there is nothing we can do about it. Voting rights are being stripped from hundreds of thousands of young, old, poor, and minority people across the country. We don't fight back in any meaningful way, and the US Department Of Justice pretends it's not even happening, and there is nothing we can do about it. Do you wonder why that is?

Any good doctor, loved one, or close friend will tell you that when the battle against cancer can no longer be won, it is time to seek comfort and make the best of what is left of your life. For me, I have a meagerly-paid but steady and enjoyable job, a long time woman, a mortgage that we can afford on a house that we like, some money in the bank, and two grown children who make us proud. We've exerted a great deal of time and money during our lives trying to wrestle the country from the cancer that is the Republican party. Now we're old, the cancer is terminal, and the country of Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, McGovern, and O'Neill that we grew up and grew old in is on its death bed, killed by Big Media and Hate Radio. Some will take their comfort by making their world small and dialing out the blare of the fascist media cabal. Others will sign petitions and participate in camp-outs and such. Others will stick with the Dem party as it becomes the 1980's Republican Party (some will sort of like this - they don't like unions, public schools, and Social Security that much themselves; others will be holding their noses, secure in the knowledge that they're keeping worse from becoming worst). Others will vote for local liberal candidates, trying to make their own little corner of GlenBeckistan more livable. Other will spend their days listening to Hate Radio and watching Cable "News" and bitching about it (I don't understand this one, I'm afraid). And still others will hang on, believing that the Repukes are getting weaker, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, the era of American the Beacon Of Hope & Democracy is dead - dying of the cancer that I already described. However people seek their comfort in the last days is OK by me.

ripping themselves to pieces but are controlling the House and most of the important stuff in the Senate with the filibuster. With the media singing for them, they are and will be one hell of a problem for America.

this is a variation on the "12D chess" baloney we heard all last year. As long as

1. They completely control Big media, and
2. No one stands up to them,

they'll continue to get bigger and more malevolent

it's a bi-partisan effort, and they just may make this one work.

One is very young and sol-sized, (Teathugs) the other is much, much larger and much older, (Rethugs) as time passes the larger one uses up its "fuel", and goes supernova, exploding and then collapsing into itself, turning into a massive black hole, still there, but left feeding off the once much smaller-sized, and still hot and bright young Teathug star. Although both are lessened in strength overall by the large Rethug star becoming a massive black hole, they are both still very dangerous to anything that gets gravitationally close enough to get pulled in and fried by the Teathug star, or tries to avoid it, and instead is caught up and sucked in by the invisible Rethug black hole.

In the process of destroying themselves, they're destroying US.