The Permanent Minority party

Karl Rove once dreamed of creating a permanent Republican majority. As often happens to dreams that have their roots in hubris, the opposite now appears to be true. The Republican Party may now become the permanent minority party.

In national politics, nothing is permanent forever, although parties can remain out of power not for one or two election cycles but for decades. I think the Republican Party will enter a long, dormant phase. Much of the reason has to do with the ability of the Democrats to cohere around one common theme: a rejection of the policies of George Bush, combined with the Republican Party's inability to distance themselves from those same unpopular policies.

By contrast, the Republicans consist not of a single party but a half dozen factions, many of which contradict each other. For example, the pro-lifers are at odds with the liberterians, the neo-cons are at odds with the isolationists, the religious right is at odds with the atheist objectivists, and Main Street is at odds with Wall Street. And then of course you have the fringe-- the gun nuts, the militia types, the hospital bombers, the neo-nazis. All of this fuels the perception that Republicans are incapable of governance as they embrace a hashly negative world view-- anti-women, gays, immigrants, education, science, and common sense. It is this ideological incoherence that prevents a conservative leader tapping into the anxieties of traditionalists and translating those anxieties into power.

If there is any future with the Republcians, it will lies in the rise of the fiscal conservatives combined with the rejection of the cultural conservatives, as the latter hold to values that most Americans embrace while the former hold to values that most Americans reject.

It may well be that Republicans would rather be right than have power. But, if that is the case, Republicans may well be right and powerless forever.