Dem maneuvering has marooned the GOP

Gerson urges Republicans "to do more than rebrand existing policy approaches":

Some serious rethinking is necessary, particularly on economic matters ... such as ending corporate welfare, breaking up the mega-banks, improving the treatment of families in the tax code, and encouraging economic mobility through education reform and improved job training.

Agreed. And yet therein lies the Republicans' predicament. Democrats have already staked out centrist positions on economic matters from corporate welfare to job training, leaving Republicans with little but free-market swampland, which is increasingly burdensome to peddle to an increasingly wary electorate. A mixed economy is here to stay, and everyone knows it except the GOP ideologues.

So where does the GOP pragmatist--as the Anti-Democrat--go? To the left? Impossible. Farther to the right? The GOP is already headed there, and it's not working so well. To the middle, ever so subtly?--although he is then no longer the vividly differentiated Anti-Democrat? 

The Democratic Party--pushed rightward by Republicans and pulled by Clintonites from the rowdier left--has for the past 20 years invested heavily in centrism. And it's paying off, since America, traditionally, is host to a centrist electorate. Again, where does that leave a "new" GOP? With something akin, I would guess, to Eisenhower Republicanism, which would wait in the wings, merely waiting for Democrats to blow it.

Comments

[Peter G]

I do so love the way you think. In what appears to be the wasteland between opposing ideologies lies a garden of wise policies. And a few weeds. I say let the neocons and the neoprogs (I am tired of parenthesizing progressive to differentiate the wise progressives from self identified progressive idiots , hence the neologism) have their tug of war. And get some shit done be it imperfect or not.

[Peter G]

Perhaps I should also mention that these shifts, which have happened before, do reveal, I think, the subtle genius of your founding fathers and the divided powers in the constitution. After all the Republicans were once the anti-war party and once held the majority of the black vote, such as was allowed.

[Robert Lipscomb]

Obama is attacking the GOP with a classic pincher move.

On one hand, he offers a moderately progressive agenda ted together with his unified theory of governance articulated in his major speeches over the past six months. Virtually all the elements of the agenda hold majority support - even though any one of them might not flip very many votes.

So the GOP flips them in toto the bird. By continually pressing all the elements and tying them together, Obama is gradually making the point that (in toto) the GOP does not share its values and vision.

That connects to the other half of the pincher.

Independents might not be particularly upset that, say, the GOP stops the ban of assault weapons or any one of theother issues. But at some point, the meta message from the GOP is, "Screw the majority. We're gonna do what we wanna do!"

That attitude and a continual assault on the elements of democracy and majority rule and a cavalier attitude about destroying government begin to a reveal a p[arty that has neither the temperment or principles to be trusted with governance - regardless of policy.

There might not ever be a "final battle" because there might never be a final war, but every war does indeed have a final battle.