I don’t know what “Death of the GOP” means. The GOP has morphed. But none of those people within the party are having a “Saul on his way to Damascus” moment of conversion to some different set of ideals. What we have is Fruit Basket Upset, not Death. All those forces are going to jockey around over the next couple of election cycles, but they are going to recongeal in some form unless one of the factions splits off to form a third party – and my wager there would be on the Tea Party people because they’re arrogant enough to think they can get their way simply by refusing to compromise on anything, and insisting on it. But I bet that split doesn’t happen. I bet, instead, Paul Ryan, or someone like him, comes out of the 2020 primary, and this year gets written off as an aberration. And while part of me hopes I am wrong about that, I’m afraid the alternative is worse.

One reason I think the GOP isn’t dying is that the Trump Phenomenon is not happening down ticket. All of the congressional seats and governorships are being waged by the usual establishment types of people. For the GOP to really be imperiled, it would have to facing mini-Donalds running for mayor all the way up to the US Senate, but that isn’t happening. It is only the head position that is in disarray. It is business as usual everywhere else. So the Death of the GOP stuff is your standard, lazy media coverage of a horse race, and just another manifestation of humans’ silly egocentrism that imagines that whatever they are experiencing is what everybody else is experiencing. But what is happening in the presidential race is not happening elsewhere.

Yet.

It could be that in 2018, we will see a bunch of Trumps running. In fact, it would surprise me if we don’t. I think a lot of potential candidates are going to copycat Trump’s style next time around, and then we can begin to see what is happening. But my guess is the GOP revolution is just starting rather than peaking at a Crisis Moment from which pieces are going to fall immediately.

That this disarray is well-deserved is what makes it so sweet. When Gingrich first stepped into congress in 1978, he brought with him a bold plan to break the perpetual minority status of Republicans in the house, and it worked. The plan was to hammer away at the theme of a corrupt, over-sized government establishment. Reagan famously got on board with that plan, and the refrain that government was the problem became a truism in American culture, leading to Gingrich’s sweeping revolution in ’94. And they became the Party of Blame. Blame all problems on somebody else. Blame Democrats, blame government, blame minorities, blame victims. Blame Muslims. Blame, blame, blame.

The problem is that the Republicans are now the establishment having dominated the political landscape in varying degrees for the past 35 years, even with a couple of nominal Democrats in the White House. And conditions for working people have worsened. So when you constantly complain that government is the problem, and you are the government, eventually you get the Tea Party and Donald Trump.

Their strategy is now coming back to eat them, but it is far from clear how much damage this attitude which THEY cultivated is going to damage them. Unfortunately, I think it is wishful thinking to foresee the death of the GOP. The conditions suggest to me that the far more likely outcome is increased demand for authoritarianism to cut through the “inefficient, corrupt government.” People are prepared for a house-cleaning. And if you get Donalds running up and down the ticket, it will certainly lead to the death of the GOP, but what replaces it may be far, far worse. The endemic racism, and fear, and economic uncertainty that muddle our culture combined with the rise of the authoritarian nationalism Trump champions suggests to me that the phoenix rising from the Republican party looks an awful lot like this one:

So when you wish for the Death of the GOP, give some thought to what you think is likely to emerge in its place.

Agamemnon wrote:

“Three football owners walk into a bar. ..”

Anybody know when Hard Knocks begins? I’ve never seen the show, and don’t have HBO, but I know a guy who knows a guy.

Mackeyser wrote:

I don’t need to take up anything with them, but I get your point.

I know the history of this offense which is why I chronicled it. I know what it is.

Moreover, much of why Wentz actually got any play to the Rams as early as he did was because NDSU runs a run-heavy WCO variant that has VERY similar elements to the quasi-WCO run-heavy offense the Rams run.

The parallels allowed for substantial overlap which is why Wentz, the inferior passer with less experience, was seen as the superior option for the Rams by most of the voices I trust like Cosell, Mayock and several others including being mobile and being able to create after a play breaks down.

/shrug.

Point is that with the focus on the Rams for some time, there wasn’t any question the Rams ran a WCO. I call it a “quasi-WCO” because it still has vestiges of the Schotty Coryell elements. Enough seem to have been purged that it’s definitely MORE of a WCO and recognized by those that dissect it as a WCO, but it has…other elements.

It’s a bit of a Franken-offense. Mostly a WCO, though.

Well, surely the Rams adapt their offense to Goff, if not this year, then soon.

wv wrote:

Paglia sometimes reminds me of Gore Vidal — not in her political positions, but just in the way she can rip someone to pieces. Ya know. No prisoners. Search and Destroy.

Anyway, I agree with Paglia on this part:

“…The most pernicious aspect of this Democratic campaign is the way the field was cleared long in advance for Hillary, a flawed candidate from the get-go, while an entire generation of able Democratic politicians in their 40s was muscled aside, on pain of implied severance from future party support. It is glaringly obvious, given how well Bernie Sanders (my candidate) has done despite a near total media blackout for the past year, that Hillary would never have survived to the nomination had she had younger, more well-known, and centrist challengers. Hillary’s front-runner status has been achieved by DNC machinations and an army of undemocratic super-delegate insiders, whose pet projects will be blessed by the Clinton golden hoard…”

w
v

That’s the same paragraph I copied and pasted on my way down to this point where I discovered you have already drawn attention to it.

Boy, Paglia trashes Hillary on the Woman issue. She found some Brand New Ways to slice Hillary up.

And…the Goiter: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/goiter/basics/definition/con-20021266

wv wrote:

Bernie won Indiana, i see. Nice.

He’s coming to my town on Thursday. Lookin forward to
seein how many folks turn out for ole Bern.

I still cannot believe how well he is doin,
given all the usual forces allied against him.

Still, Hillary is our next President. Ah well.
At least the Banks and Corporations and wealthy ‘professionals’ will be happy.

w
v
——-

Here’s a thought I had….

I don’t know how much you are following this, but I have been watching with interest. And the media has been a fascinating animal on this primary season because – as you know – Trump has eaten up the lion’s share of media coverage. Every time there is a primary or caucus, the focus is on Trump. I have literally had difficulty tracking the democrat side because I go to google news, and every story is on the Republican primary with news of the horse race, and of who insulted whom, and so on. Finding an article on the democrat side has been actually difficult. Typically, there is a paragraph about the outcome of the vote that concludes that Hillary is still a shoe-in, and then back to the Trump/Cruz/whatever BS storyline.

Well, ya know, the media IS obsessed with the horse race aspect of politics. That has been their primary focus for decades: polls, delegate counts, and so on. Issues…not so much. Unless they come packaged for them by a candidate in a “zinger” or “gotcha” quip.

But now there is nothing to cover on the Republican side. Trump is the last man standing.

Are they suddenly going to discover there is a debate happening in the democrat party?

I think they might. I don’t know if they can stop themselves. They’ve all been toeing the line by ignoring Bernie all year, but that’s the only horse race now. They are going to have to start talking about it.

That isn’t good for Hillary, I don’t think.

PA Ram wrote:

I loved Obama’s joke when he was talking about journalists leaving.

“Jake Tapper is also leaving journalisim. He’s going to work at CNN.”

He didn’t like THAT joke. But they all know it. The politicians know it–the journalists know it. They all know it.

Exactly. They don’t laugh because it’s true.

If it was obviously false, they would all find it funny.

Like it’s funny when you, I don’t know, make a joke about a man who is famously devoted to his wife being unfaithful to her with all the young women around. Everybody laughs.

But if the guy is well-known to have cheated on his wife multiple times, you get a lot of throats clearing and plastic smiles.

The 4th estate has completely lost its way. It’s been seduced by money and glamour, just like the democrat party, and everybody knows it. Once a year or so, they gather at the White House to be reminded they are complete asshat sellouts.

bnw wrote:

Mackeyser wrote:

You’ll have to ask Scalia’s family about that ‘cuz they could always have ordered one.

Or been told to not order one. Someone serving that high an office in government demands an autopsy.

Yeah, that probably wouldn’t have aroused the family’s suspicions at all.

It is scary, actually. I have two kids that are likely to live through some catastrophic events. We are of an age where we will probably live to see only the beginning of the…”re-ordering” of life on the planet. And I agree, the grip of the status quo is iron. I can’t get students to set aside their cellphones for an entire class period. There is no way people are going to give up modern conveniences in order to maybe save the planet.

It looks like the novel “Feed” is more prescient than the author intended.

PA Ram wrote:

I also wonder if the Pharoh Cooper pick is Tavon’s future replacement. They seem to have similar games and Tavon is going to get costly. I wonder if they looked ahead at that with this pick.

That was the first thing that went through my mind when I read Pharoh described as a Swiss Army Knife. I like Tavon, but there is a salary cap. And, well….

Cooper sounds like a good player. But a slot receiver described as a Swiss Army Knife? Isn’t that what Tavon Austin is?

HighPlainsDrifter wrote:

Raiders just grabbed the Browns’ second pick in the 4th and took Connor Cook. Cook’s gotta be bummed. He has to know that he likely isn’t competing for a starting gig.

What the hell?

They don’t need both of them, do they?