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I always felt bad that the Republican Party uses them for their symbol, because elephants are perfectly lovely critters. They're matriarchal and sensitive and very intelligent.
Kind of the opposite of most of my impressions of the GOP. I think the Republican Party will survive, but some aspects are seriously damaged:
1) Free Market notions: If Economics is a science, why is it that every time the experiment of deregulation is put in place, and the results are the opposite of why the hypothesis forecasts (that to compete, a business would regulate itself to adapt to the demand of market forces, if I've understood what I've skimmed), they do not go back to the drawing board and formulate a new hypothesis to better explain the data? It would appear that self-regulation or just plain common sense doesn't prevail in absence of regulaton if S & L's, Enron, and now the Mortgage crunch and Credit crisis are indicators (big ones, you ask me.) And if one is a student of human nature, you know that people don't necessarily stop gambling on a losing streak, or stop drinking because they feel tipsy. Same with making bad money--folks don't stop trying to make those numbers, even if they are only on paper. They don't quit while they are ahead.
2) Supply side: Two instructive words regarding market forces and supply vs. demand: Tulip Mania. (I think you can Google to know what I'm on about.)
But the bigger problem with supply side is actually more simple: I think it's meaningful that the same argument used for lower taxation is the same argument that can be used against it--
To wit: The conservatives maintain that by taxing the rich, they will pass their increased costs down to everyone else in the form of higher prices and stagnated wages. And yet, there would be no incentive, not any I can think of, for them to lower prices or increase wages just because they are getting a tax break, since it means more profit. And guess what? They dont! Result--increased gap between haves and have-nots!
Like, um, QED, or something. In addition, industry has to increase productivity to make up losses in overhead from taxation, and, well, they do. What, are the executives supposed to take their ball and go home because they are taxed more? Duh.
3) The Culture war: I remember in 1992 I listened to the whole of Pat Buchanan's keynote speech at the RNC and realized he was talking about me. I'm the ideological bad guy. The gay-positive, live and let live, social liberal, pro-choice, intellectual, pro-pot-smoking, hippy-idealizing villian of that context. I am also a blue-collar kid and a working class 9-to-5 schlub who cares about my access to health care and how I'm set up for retirement now that I'm in my gimpy mid-30's. I'm willing to bet that people who I argued with in Poli Sci in college are willing to wink at my decadence in our common goal of not slaving in penury in our Golden years. Class War--let's speak softly, now, since people hate hearing that one said...trumps it.
4) Bigotry: I remember thinking for a while that there was a Big Tent that Reagan created, in a way, in that the fiscal conservatives and the military-industrial hard-core defense people and the evangelical and fundamentalist Christian social conservatives were all meeting up under the GOP wing, and I wondered if that was somehow just as dubiously cohesive as some of the disparate Labor/social liberal coalitions we smacked together on our side. But the over-riding factor I've always whiffed from the Republican side, especially with the business about "welfare queens" and the Bell Curve and all the busing nonsense and so on--was bigotry. Law and Order, and the Drug War--bigotry. It's been used as a glue. Create an "other", then unite people in opposition.
Look at the War on Drugs--Why are penalties for cheap crack often more severe than expensive pure coke? But look now at all these white kids on meth (even in Wasilla!) Why so down on Affirmative action (When legacies are a form of Affirmative action for people like W)--and why were some Republicans like John McCain opposed to recognizing Dr. King's contributions to a more just and equal and democratic society? Why was immigration used as such a big deal in 2004? Anti-Hispanic bigotry--thanks for playing, GOP--you lost them just like you've been wondering why you haven't had African Americans all this time. And using Gay marriage as a boogey-man, too--just stop, GOP. That stuff sucks. Those are real people you're hating on.
5) Militarism: I do not clean my toilet with a gun. Although I can aim effectively at a stain and even be pretty sure of eradicating it, I blow the shit out of the ceramic and get water all over my bathroom and even need to replace the toilet, so I've stopped doing that. In just that way, the military can not be employed for all your foreign policy needs. National Defense actually needs to comprise of something more than a big-ass military-indistrial complex and a willingness to invade countries and/or bomb stuff. Sometimes, a different approach may be required. The War on Terror is a good example of where the traditional "go to war on it" approach isn't always effective.
Terror is a stain in a toilet. You clean it out--you do not shoot the toilet. I have an untreated respiratory infection with a cough that I am medicating with bourbon, but I still believe that analogy is kind of clear. You do not thoroughly destroy a nation to get at a menace. You address the menace. Also, you may want to address the menace largely in the country in which they happen to be. Whupping ass on some third party because 1) There they are, 2) They look whuppable and 3) They seem to be asking for it, isn't really great foreign policy.
Also I think people who are or want to be Commanders in Chief should be US Americans who have maps.
So there's my Fave Five on stuff killing the GOP. Um, sad elephant picture, though.
(Was this, like, more of a GD answer? Because I think I took it seriously.)
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