Will we soon experience the rise of an explicitly "fascist" offshoot of the old Republican party?

[kennetha]

With all the talk of a demography turning the tide permanently against the Republican party as currently constituted, I fear the rise of a new hard-edge, explicitly racists, xenophobic wing of the Republican party. The party elites may think they need to adjust on things like immigration and abortion and gay marriage and the like if they are to be seen as a more modern party. But there are millions and millions of rank and file Republicans who won't want any part of any such modern party. Their racism, xenophobia, fundamentalism, and homophobia is part of the core of their being.

So I see a really tough dilemma for our friends on the right. There is no way, as time marches on, that they can win with their current coalition. They have to expand it. But if they expand it, they risk splintering themselves.

Maybe we are headed for a three party system, rather than a two party system. There will be us -- the party of a mixed economy, capitalism with a human face, and social progress. Then there will be a capitalist, internationalist party, that is pro laissez-fair capitalism but is much more socially tolerant than the current Republican right. And then there will be the quasi-fascists party of the racists, xenophobes, homophobe, fundamentalists. I suspect their economic policies will actually be closer to ours than to the party of Capital. But their social policies will put them way on the hard right.

Would that be a better America or a scarier one?

In any case, I just don't see how the Republican party as currently constituted can survive in the long run. But I also don't see a certain part of their base, ever abandoning their atavistic prejudices and allegiances and moving into modernity. ONly stable solution is a three party system.

[tledford]

1. They couldn't be more explicitly fascist than they've been for the last 30 years. eom

[kennetha]

9. disagree about that.

In the last 30 years, it's been more implicit than explicit. I'm talking about something a lot uglier than even the current party -- which is ugly enough. I'm talking about a party in which something at least as hard-edge as Pat Buchanan's '92 speech is given not by a rabble rouser, but by the nominee.

The current party is a very strange and now untenable combination of things. it's part global laissez-faire capitalist, part libertarian, part racist, homophobic, fundamentalist, xenophobe.

The capitalist part and the xenophobic part only work together through subtle manipulation on the part of the monied elites. The trick is the monied elites don't want an activist government. They want to be free to live it up as they please.

The xenophobes basically don't want stuff to be taken from them and given to the despised other. They are often blind to the fact that they are at the mercy of globalization and often are the economic beneficiaries of activist government.

The monied elites exploit their xenophobia and hatred of the other as a means of getting their support for down-sizing the government.

If the monied elites can't pull that trick any more, they need to look elsewhere for voters to manipulate. But when they do that, they will lose their ability to spin narratives that enraged the xenophobes against the underserving other. But the xenophobes are not dying off anytime soon. They want their country back.

[jberryhill]

2. It would be an improvement

William F. Buckley Jr. put a lifetime of work into separating the crazy Republicans from the merely annoying ones.

And the nuts all came rushing back.

[JHB]

5. Which is about the only reason I wish he'd stuck around to see this election...

"This is your baby, old boy. This is what you worked so hard to bring forth."

[still_one]

3. The old Republican Party is long gone

[yends21012]

4. It's a good label to keep hitting them with.

People don't realize how fascist their party has become. I think if they really looked at it and comprehended, they would be appalled.

[JaneyVee]

6. They're called the Tea Party.

[dimbear]

14. Yup. The actual fascists grabbed a loved old icon from history and abused it, just like

the Tea Party. Although the Tea Party hasn't ever made any trains run on time.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. It's already happened in many state party organizations.

Overt fascist might be a bit over the top, but rigidly authoritarian would not be. I'm not sure there is a substantial difference between a rigidly authoritarian rightwing political party and a fascist political party.

[HooptieWagon]

8. Its been a form of Fascism for years.

ie: a marrige of government and corporation ruled by an oligarchy. Only difference between Republicans and DLC are social issues. At least the progressive wing of Dem Party keeps things somewhat in check.

[Drale]

10. The Republican party is about to truly split into two parties

a more moderate party and an extreme party that makes the tea party look sane.

[k2qb3]

11. It's fascinating watching republican message boards since the election.

There's a really strong libertarian-moderate push to reform the party (and a fair amount of them thinking the party can't be saved looking to build a new one) and what seems to be a minority who refuse to consider that they can't continue as they are, who're still pushing fraud or whatever excuse they can come up with that allows them to hold onto the idea that they've never been wrong about anything.

However this plays out the GOP is going to be a minority party for a while.

There's a huge opportunity here for Democrats to win a supermajority of the electorate. That isn't ordinarily a possibility in a two party system because the minority party adjusts to regain viability, but the FOX/talk bubble prevented them from doing so, and there's a really deep libertarian/authoritarian divide within the GOP that isn't going away.

I don't know what happens to the ugliest elements of the fundie teaparty but I imagine they won't go quietly.

[Populist_Prole]

18. Good observations. Definitely seems like they're on a slippery slope

I hate to be crass, but at this point I really don't know whether it's having to wait till the most reactionary wing literally dies off, or if the more moderate ( in relative terms ) wing more or less kicks them out in a desperate act of self preservation of the party.

Their situation seems to be like some dying entertainment genre: They know that doing the same thing is not sustainable and they think they need to do something to turn it around, yet their increasingly dire position makes them unwilling to "invest" ( take a chance ) that might deep six them right then and there if it's the wrong move. So what do they do? Usually more of the same but with a new name and gimmick. The cycle repeats itself.

[socialist_n_TN]

12. IF the Republicans split into two parties, the Dems won't benefit..........

UNLESS they go back to an FDR style of economic platform. The only thing keeping the Dems even partially together is the fear of Republicans taking advantage of a split and putting into office EITHER version of their party. If the Republicans split, it's guaranteed that the Dems will split too. A Progressive Worker's Party and the regular Third Way DINOs.

I personally think this would be a good thing for the USA.

[Downwinder]

16. Mugwumps became Democrats

[BlueMan Votes]

13. soon...? we already have seen it.

it's called the tea party.

[Politicub]

15. If they want to be domestic terrorists, then they must own the penalty.

I'm not the least bit worried.

[kurt_cagle]

17. Fascism in Action and Generational Politics

Walker in Wisconsin
The unelected regional managers in Michigan
Voter ID actions nationally
Citizens United and the Koch Brothers

Yes, the Tea Party as it is constituted now is openly fascist, but no one within that party would ever own the label, despite the fact that a fascist government is essentially an dictatorial oligarchy.

However, for a number of reasons, multiparty coalition governments do not generally last very long in the United States - there's some weird calculus that emerges when the president is not necessarily the head of the majority in a bicameral government that tends to reduce multiparty systems into two party systems within a generation.

Given that, if you want to take a look into the future, consider generational politics. The Tea Party is primarily 55+, with many of its members well into their mid-60s - they are primarily Southern Boomers and non-coastal Western Boomers, many of whom were the children of union workers who benefited dramatically from the growth of the South. By 2020 - two election cycles away, the youngest will be retiring, and politically, economically and socially, they will be fading quickly. Consider that Mitt Romney was at the very leading edge of the Boomer generation, which means the likelihood of another Boomer becoming President is dropping dramatically.

Obama is a GenXer or very late Boomer (there's a lot of question as to whether the Baby Boom ended in 1961 or 1964) and in many respects he's very typical of that generation - pragmatic rather than ideological, technologically savvy, a mindset more typical of an engineer than a politician. This is the generation that BUILT the World Wide Web. His appointees in the first administration were generally older - Democratic Boomers (most of whom were in the second part of the Baby Boom generation, from about 1952-1961), but I suspect that many of the key appointments he will be making in his second term will be GenXers, such as Susan Rice (born in 1964).

Of course, this also points out the fault lines within the Democratic Party. 2nd Stage Boomers tend to be more centrist, more focused on the status quo, and in general more business friendly, though not so much as Republicans. GenXers tend to be more focused on distributed systems, open architectures, business and government transparency, and decentralization. They are more analytical, and more critical of their own party from a pragmatic rather than an ideological standpoint. Rachel Maddow or Ezra Klein are both good examples of GenXers in that regard - Rachel is devastating as an analyst because she's appealing not to what's "right" but what's logical. As the Democrats enter into what looks to be a generation long ascendancy, the tensions between these two will continue to rise. This may also be the case if a new "Lincoln Party" emerges (as I predict) that will attempt to re-establish a moderate Republican base, one that may in fact actually appeal more to the GenXers, especially if one of the key messages is decentralization of authority. It might also attract the Libertarians. I think we may see the emergence of such a Lincoln Party by 2016, but I don't think that it will cause a schism in the Democratic Ranks until 2020, even as the old GOP brand fades into history much like the Whigs or the Dixiecrats. Ironically, I think that by 2020 or 2024, the Democratic Party will in fact be considerably more conservative by today's standards than the Lincoln party, which would be the reconstituted moderate Republicans.