Just How Irrelevant Is the GOP?

I mentioned earlier today on Twitter that I've never before seen as much ink spilled in an attempt to convince someone they were irrelevant as by the left lately regarding the right. Last week, for example, Chuck Shumer had this to say about Republicans:

"The world has changed. The old Reagan philosophy that served them well politically from 1980 to about 2004 and 2006 is over. But the hard right, which still believes ... [in] traditional values kind of arguments and strong foreign policy, all that is over."

Talk about strong words. As I outlined on these pages previously, here and here, and as we all saw with the administration's efforts to marginalize major conservative force Rush Limbaugh, the effort on the part of the left to convince you the right is dead is in full force. The marching orders may or may not have been handed down explicitly, but there is little question that the message has penetrated the full measure of the left and, in the case of putative Republicans like Meghan McCain and Colin Powell, the mushy middle.

Even mustard-gate was used to advance the theory that Republicans are basically finished, with MSNBC suggesting Republicans are "desperate to avoid becoming extinct" while making much hay over a minor humorous portion of a Sean Hannity broadcast. Notably their guest was from comedy news program "The Daily Show" ... an irony, I should think, when arguing your opposition (and make no mistake, MSNBC considers the right the opposition) is marginalized to have to resort to a fake news show for your news. Of course, they resort to fake news for their news fairly routinely at MSNBC so no surprises.

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A few months ago, Daily Beast contributor Max Blumenthal misrepresented poll data to claim that Limbaugh is so far out of the mainstream that he was less popular even than Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has exhausted himself repeatedly claiming that the President wasn't aware of the tea parties, so inconsequential are the right. The Huffington Post's Frank Schaeffer has written enough open letters to Obama claiming the right is dead to start an independent newspaper (suggested name: Open Letters, Doorknobs, and Dijon Mustard, a guide to Frank Schaeffer [formerly an evengelica]). Janeane Garofalo insists that the right is nothing but a small group of racists and limbically-challenged lunatics. Bill Maher, Howard Dean ... don't let's even discuss Napolitano. We could do this all day.

I suppose I could make some comment about counting one's chickens before they're hatched, but I've no interest in advising the left politically in the first place, and in the second place they'd likely confuse it with some sort of coming home to roost comment and create a protest sign. But from the right it raises two questions worth asking. The first is: why and to what effect is the left so focused on this charge? The second, of course, is to ask whether the party is in fact dying or not.

The answer to the first is obvious. Alinsky's rules for radicals #5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It's hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage." This is also the answer to "whither the Daily Show?".

Having won the election, and quite contrary to the endlessly repeated and clearly false cries for unity and hope from Democrats, the left and those they control, like the media and the Democratic party, do not wish to go on "tolerating" the opinions, votes, or activities of the right. This effort at annihilation is blatant, with, as noted in the links above, explicit calls for the destruction of the conservative movement in America. Such intolerance on the left is not noteworthy to the media for obvious reasons, but it is noteworthy to the right. The precursor to leftist fascism has, in the past and abroad, always first been the total silencing of the opposition conservatives and liberals alike. For ample example, see "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg.

In the case of the moderate middle like Meghan McCain, the reasons are more complex. They are also, I find, important to answering the second question. Something which I will attempt to do this weekend with a follow-up story titled "Meghan or Reagan: Republicans' Future."

There is little question that the right has suffered a major setback. But there is, too, little question that the effort on the left to establish and flog the meme that the right is dead cannot be denied. I don't posit conspiracy, but rather concert. The effort is as widespread as it is malicious. When we've got to the point where it is commonplace for commentators to describe what is, let's not forget, approximately half the voting population as being desperate, brain-deformed, backward morons unworthy of consideration, all fair-minded Americans ought to be offended. Sadly in an environment just short of state-run media, that outrage is rarely stirred.

I'm neither desperate, nor limbically-challenged, nor racist, nor concerned about extinction (I do have a bit of redneck in me though). What I am is tired of having my religion, my values, my politics and my reason routinely ridiculed by an all-too-eager press.

I would warn them that such viciousness can often backfire at the polls, but I'm not interested in giving political advice to the left.


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