In my view, the death of the Republican party began when they sold out to the Religious right. It was a two step process, generally speaking. In the 1960s, the Republicans were the party of civil rights and individual liberty, anti-war, and the like. The Democrats were the party of segregation, Jim Crow and foreign intervention.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:Are there, or have there ever been, moderate Republicans? And if so, why did they let this happen to their party?
Lyndon Johnson sided with the Republicans in 1964 to pass the Civil Rights Act. Recall, this was not the first time the Republicans tried to get a Civil Rights Act through. In 1957, Eisenhower spearheaded it and it was filibustered by the Democrats.
What happened when the Civil Rights Act passed is that that the southern Democrats began leaving the Democratic Party. They jumped to the Republican Party in the south, and lost the south for the Democrats for a long time.
What that meant is that in the 1970s, the Republicans saw easy votes in the south and catered to the religious and racist views, as the Democrats shifted left. This allowed powerful moral majority types and southern protestant evangelicals to wield considerable political power.
Reagan was a New Deal Democrat until the 1960s, when he left the Democratic Party to side with the Republicans, who were pro civil rights and pro individual liberty and pro-New Deal and very progressive with a small P. remember, it was Nixon who went to China -- it was Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency, etc.
Reagan was part of the Straussian pro-New Dealers who were also Anti-Communist and fled the McGovernite Democratic Party.
The problem is, that while Reagan was not overtly religious and did not use his religion to set policy and such, generally speaking, he sold his soul to the religious right for votes and the same goes for GHWBush -- Reagan and Bush were not Bible thumpers, but they were elected in part by Bible thumpers. So, what we are seeing now -- the George W Bush Bible Thumping and the Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, over the top religiosity in candidate after candidate is the result of that. They are paying the price for the votes they earned in the 1970s, and 1980 by assimilating the southern Democrats into their fold. Now, anyone trying to win the Republican party has to cater to the extreme religious nutfucks.
It has to be shaken. Jettison them. The problem is that if the GOP splits in two, the jettisoned nutfucks will form an independent party (they've been attracted to and bastardized the Tea Party, for example) and either you cater to them so they vote for you or their noninvolvement will ensure a GOP candidate has no chance to beat the Dem.
