[DBR96A]

JohnMarko's comments above are entirely out of line, and they belie the notion that Democrats and liberals are more tolerant. His comments were petty and hateful.

It's also worth noting that Barack Obama lost the independent vote in 2012 despite winning the election, the same way George W. Bush lost the independent vote in 2004. If the 2004 election wasn't a ringing endorsement for Bush, then the 2012 election was not a ringing endorsement for Obama.

Truth is, the Republicans brought the mess they're in upon themselves. The Democrats have the upper hand not because people are embracing their ideals, but because they're rejecting the ideals of the Republicans.

Allow me to count the ways the Republicans have gone astray:


1. The "Southern Strategy" has backfired. It wasn't worth welcoming disaffected Democrats to the party, especially considering most of them were hard-core racists who only needed one generation to piss away all the good will the Republicans had with racial and ethnic minorities since the formation of the party under Abraham Lincoln.

2. They've chased most of the intellectuals away. (No, the conservative intellectuals haven't become Democrats; they've become independents.) Contrary to the popular narrative, there are many conservative intellectuals. The problem is, conservative intellectuals do a terrible job of appealing to emotion, especially compared to televangelists and snake oil salesmen, so the anti-intellectuals in the party mop the floor with the intellectuals in the primaries.

3. They've become economic hypocrites. The Congressmen who squealed the loudest about the bailouts for GM and Chrysler come from states that have given hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars in subsidies to foreign automakers. Corporate welfare is corporate welfare, regardless of the level of government it comes from.

4. They prefer to obstruct and privatize rather than govern. Instead of streamlining the delivery of government service, they prefer to either eliminate service or outsource it, and the outsourcing doesn't necessarily save any money since businesses have to make a profit, whereas government merely has to break even. Basically, they're "governing" the same way Al Dunlap "ran" businesses. Eventually, Dunlap was permanently banned from being an executive for a public company, so it's obvious that the approach is wrong.


The antidote for what ills the Republicans these days is a return to what the party stood for prior to Richard Nixon. This means undoing the "Southern Strategy," actually listening to the few intellectuals who are left in the party for a change, ending subsidies for mature industries, and focusing on improved delivery of service in government.