What is happening to the Republican Party

For the better part of 20 years, the Republican Party, through people like Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and others, have been experimenting with a zombie virus. It’s a combination of anti-intellectualism, cultural warfare, and divisive rhetoric. It’s what gave us the Contract with America and the Impeachment trial. It’s the origin of “Al Gore invented the Internet” and the Purple Heart Band Aids. It’s what created “Get a brain morans” and “Barack HUSSEIN Obama.”

But since Obama’s victory, it’s started to come unhinged. Others are likening it to a circular firing squad. They say the fiscal conservatives are shooting at the militarist conservatives who are shooting at the social conservatives in a circle of blame over who lost the election.

But I see it differently. The leaders of the party, the “elites” who pull the strings, who run the think tanks, created this situation for themselves. By promoting anti-intellectualism, they’ve made their base unable to be reasoned with. By promoting “with us or against us” rhetoric, they’ve removed any ability for the more reasonable members of their base to talk their friends out of rash action. And by framing politics as warfare, they’ve eliminated any hope of compromise.

And this will lead to a fracturing of the conservatives in this country similar to what happened to the liberals in 1968, and gave them control of the government for the next 20 years. And I can’t see a downside to this.