Why the G.O.P. Cannot Compromise

[Elmore Furth]

The cult of Reagan True Believers is making it harder to govern the US.

Nate Silver's Political Calculus

July 7, 2011, 10:17 am Why the G.O.P. Cannot Compromise
By NATE SILVER

The Republican Party is dependent, to an extent unprecedented in recent political history, on a single ideological group. That group, of course, is conservatives. It isn’t a bad thing to be in favor with conservatives: by some definitions they make up about 40 percent of voters. . . in last year’s elections, 67 percent of those who voted Republican said they were conservative, up from 58 percent two years earlier and 48 percent ten years ago.

So the enthusiasm gap did not so much divide Republicans from Democrats; rather, it divided conservative Republicans from everyone else. According to the Pew data, while 64 percent of all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents identify as conservative, the figure rises to 73 percent for those who actually voted in 2010.

This is why Republican politicians find it difficult to compromise on something like the debt ceiling, even when it might seem they have substantial incentive to do so. Republicans are still fairly unpopular — only about 40 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the party, which is barely better than their standing in 2006 or 2008 (although Democrats have become significantly less popular since then). As long as conservative Republicans are much more likely to vote than anyone else, the party can fare well despite that unpopularity, as it obviously did in 2010. But it means that Republican members of Congress have a mandate to remain steadfast to the conservatives who are responsible for electing them.

Presidential elections are different: they tend to have a more equivocal turnout. The G.O.P. can turn out its base but it has not converted many other voters to its cause, and President Obama’s approval ratings remain are passable although not good. The Republicans will need all their voters to turn out — including their moderates — to be an even-money bet to defeat him.

Why the G.O.P. Cannot Compromise

[waronignorance]

1. The Amygdala Strain: Right-Wing Teabaggery as Psychological Pandemic

The way Baggers 'think' also makes compromise anathema to them.

The Amygdala Strain: Right-Wing Teabaggery as Psychological Pandemic

With the ascendency of a barefaced buffoon to the apex of right-wing politics some began to suspect that conservatism was not just a political disposition. And as George W. Bush’s corporate-Jesus coalition evolved into a throng that could call Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann its own, Republicanism completed its transition from political ideology into psychological disorder.

Article
http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/the-amygdala-strain-right-wing-teabaggery-as-psychological-pandemic/

[bemildred]

2. Hey, nobody forced them, they jumped in with both feet.

Now they are stuck with it, and the rest of us too. That which cannot bend eventually gets broken.

[Me.]

3. If Only Democrats Would Remain As True To Their Base As The Cons