Would it be bad for America if the GOP became irrelevant?

plenty of other parties disappeared since the founding of the country

and remember, in FDR's time, the constitution stated unlimited terms for a President.
It was solely because FDR was a democrat that the law changed.

Long as people keep voting FOR someone why should that person not be allowed to continue?

Long as there are votes, it does keep people honest

When the Soviet Union went down it opened the door for US out of control democracy building.
However it only works if both sides are sane.

find another brand to run under. Since 2010, there is no GOP, there is only the Tea Party. That is what is on the ballots and how the media identifies them, but they're GOP. Those who want to seem cooler than the Tea Party have now gone home to the Libertarian Party. The GOP has already left in name, but there is no difference really. The Koch party would be more honest than this shell game.

We really don't need a party that caters to hateful, dishonest, under-informed mongers.

that argument gets reasonable results if results for the American citizen is the goal. If there are other goals that are not in the interests of the citizens then there is no argument, it's demanding the wishes of the minority. It could be said that there are enough talking points among Democrats alone to keep us working on reasonable goals without the other party. But then, a one sided unchecked power machine has the unfortunate selfish side effect of becoming either stagnant or becoming the thing we have been voting against... something tantamount to a plutocracy.

It's hard to determine if we as a one party system could keep our vision in the interest of all citizens. I would like to think we humans are ready to pull it off.

They are being kept on life support by the corporate media and the Democratic Party, who treat them with a seriousness they stopped deserving a long time ago.

When I walked out of the voting booth on Novbember 6th, it suddenly hit me that the Republican Party is pretty much....nothing. I mean, who do they represent, really? I thought to myself, "Republicans--three R's and a P. Rich people, racists, religious fanatics and psychopaths, that's who they represent."

That's not a demographic that can win a national election ever again. Maybe there was such a thing as a "principled Republican" at one time, but any surviving examples of such creatures have long since left the GOP and become Democrats or Independents.

Time to pull the plug on 'em.

To everything there is a season.

Maybe it's time for the Republicans to fade into the sunset, and be supplanted by some other party that rises to prominence.

Had quite a number of alternative parties and candidates, including rosanne bar. I don't know what rosanne's party stands for, but It's got to be better than GOP !

Having traveled in Denmark, sweden,and the Netherlands this summer, the peace and freedom party sounds like a good replacements for GOP. Sweden is and advanced society, and we could tell by all the shoppers in their stores and the unbelievable quality of their food and product design, that their economic is strong. - and they seem to not lack rich people either!

she is kind of Victoria Jackson from the left. She didn't make me want to know more about her party or her knowledge of politics. It was sort of conspiracy theatre lite.

Like the republican party of the mid 19th century. That's also why the Democratic Party will never allow it to happen.

I'd love to go with a more parliamentary government.

(i.e. you require that a candidate for a seat in the House or Senate must win more than 50% of the vote or face a run-off)

If you did this in Congress, in a decade or two, the two-party monopoly would be finished.

As it stands, only requiring that the winner get the plurality and not a majority for the seat invokes Duverger's Law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

If it were a race between a right-wing Democrat, a far-right Tea Partier, and a left-wing Green Party candidate, you would vote for the candidate closest to your ideal, and if he does not win the first round of elections, then you vote for the alternate. In this example, you would likely vote for the Green Party in the first round, and if that candidate loses, you throw your vote behind the right-wing Democrat to prevent the Tea Partier from winning. In this manner, you don't have to worry about splitting the vote and handing victory to the total opposite of what people wanted, like George W. Bush in 2000.

A faster version of this is called IRV or instant run-off voting. That's like the above example, but it's done in one election, not two.

You are thinking that if the GOP goes away that all their voters will just disappear?

All the moderates and moderate Republicans would start running as Democrats. And it would prevent liberals from winning in primaries. The party would start to drift to the center.

The GOP as it exists, is fueled by generational hatred of Democrats and "those people" that tend to support the Democrats. That's not going to fall over and die.

They just join the Libertarian party. or constitutional. Pinkertons vs. Ayatollahs, I wonder who'll win!

it needs to be replaced by a group of more moderate conservatives.

Unfortunately that seems to be a large portion of our party. Once a viable alternative is offered we may need to restructure also.

We need the tension between 2 parties to keep everyone on their toes

First of all, it is overly simplistic to say that Republicans offer nothing than "no". The Republican Party does and will continue to appeal to people who (in non-social issues) don't want to be told what to do and don't want their earned money going to someone other than them for what they PERCEIVE as services they don't benefit from. And this philosophy appeals to approximately half the Country. If the Republican Party disappeared, some other political party would emerge to replace it.

Nearly a century after the scopes trial, they want science classes to teach our children that the Earth is 6,000 years old.



They "became" irrelevant a long time ago.

That's always a danger.

However, I think most of those parties were not too diverse and either started out being intolerant or became intolerant as they realized, were corrupted by, and abused their unchallenged power.

I tend to think the Democratic Party of today, with the current primary system and recognition and acceptance of independents like Bernie Sanders, is probably diverse and accommodating enough to avoid any danger of tyranny. In fact, just tonight in her interview with Rachel Maddow it was nice to hear Nancy Pelosi describe how she and her caucus operate on a bottom-up consensus basis (unlike the apparent top-down Republican corporate/lockstep/military/dictatorial model). But as others have pointed out, either another major party would form or the Democratic Party would split or something so there would still be elections offering voters a choice.

I've often felt that anything to the right of, say, the Blue Dogs has no redeeming value in 21st Century politics and should be relegated to fringe group status.

Good question. Thanks for posting.

they are on the wrong side of history on EVERY ISSUE

If and when they withdraw their support the party will fail. Another political party will rise to take its place. It has happened before. Parties have split, parties have disappeared. The Democratic Party could easily split in 2 there are after all both liberal and conservative Democrats.

starting with the old Vegas with the red shoe polish in his hair, Sheldon.
and the Murdoch syndicate (as seen by their illegal tactics in the UK).

and then the court jesters they hire to promote their crap and propaganda to the masses
Goebbels style

and yes, the tycoons like Trump who like publicity as much as their billions.