This Is What Happens When You Let Yahoos In Your House

Anyone who hasn't seen the destruction of the Republican party coming hasn't been paying attention. And who's to blame for this? By my reckoning, it's the hero of the party: That Cowboy of Commie-Busting, the Christ of conservatism, Ronald Reagan. Initially, it was an attempt to get conservative democrats in the South to vote for Republicans. In order to widen the scope of appeal of the GOP to include Christian conservatives, he gave the most energetic, engaged, and oft-times crazy voters in the country the keys to the GOP house. It took over 30 years to do it, but they done burned the place down as sure as if it were a plantation named Tara. 

At first, it seemed like a logical idea. These people go to church, have families, vote in blocks, and usually do what the preacher tells them to do. So if you get the conservative-leaning churches, you end up with a huge number of people you can count on to vote people and proposals into power much easier than those willy-nilly, hippy-dippy, consensus-needing lefties in the Democratic party. Though the cultural conservatives are not the same as the tea partiers, they are kin. There is a large overlap between the two groups on the Venn Diagram. And now the results of those two Wonder Twins of wackiness has come to pass. The chickens have come home to roost. And there ain't a Shepard anywhere near the barn to wrangle them.

Furthermore, it seems like no one else is on the farm. The chickens are left to look after themselves. The people considered the elite thinkers of the party are either untested like Marco Rubio, Not interested like Jeb Bush, or too smart to run this year like Chris Christie. The other reasonable people seem to be writers and commentators. There is no singular voice that one could say represents the soul of the party. Except Rush Limbaugh. And that is one pitch-black, Viagra-vacationing, Oxycontin-chewing, Woman-fearing soul. All that fuels the GOP currently is hate. There's plenty of that to go around. But it's like running a car with a coal-based engine. Everyone can see, hear, and smell your ugliness coming for miles.

Want proof that the right has killed the GOP? Look at the establishment, middle-of-the-road candidate that was selected years ago to be the nominee: Mitt Romney. He fits the profile that the Republican establishment would like to put forward. He has business savvy, executive experience, and matinee idol looks. But the right wing of the party has forced him to hide his moderate record under a bushel of Tea Party-ish and socially conservative policies that he's not even comfortable to say out loud. That's why he's become a mealy-mouthed flip-flopper who can't even take credit for things he did as Governor. He has to run away from his Massachusetts health care plan, which is one of the most successful and popular in the country. He has to pretend he never promised to protect a woman's right to choose. He has to make people forget that he called climate change real and that it is exacerbated by human behavior. Because way too many people in control of his party don't go in for that science bullshit.