Frances Weaver is a senior editor at The Week magazine. Originally from the U.K., she has written for the Daily Telegraph, The Spectator and Standpoint magazine.
Posted on 10/11/2013 11:10:59 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Most people would probably agree that the Republican Party is having a bit of an identity crisis right now. To all intents and purposes, Tea Party activists have been holding the rest of the GOP — and the country — hostage in their attempt to defund ObamaCare. That's just part of a longer-term pattern of far-right candidates launching primary challenges against their fellow Republican incumbents whenever they haven't been suitably "conservative" enough for the Tea Party wing.
Of course, some Republicans are in complete denial, as Fareed Zakaria points out at The Washington Post. They claim that the ongoing government shutdown is just like the GOP's "Contract with America" movement of the 1990s, when House Speaker Newt Gingrich led a strong, united and ideologically-oriented charge against the Clinton administration. That comparison is all very well and good, Zakaria says, except for one crucial difference: back then, Gingrich had complete control over the situation. Today, by contrast, Speaker John Boehner is "following rather than leading," worrying that "were he to make a deal, he would lose his job." That's no united charge. In fact, it shows a complete collapse of authority within the Republican Party.
What does that mean for the future of the GOP?
Zakaria thinks that, with less discipline within the Republican Party, threats and crises are going to become the new normal in American politics. But things could go in a much more radical direction — if the Tea Party has the guts for it. A recent Gallup poll shows that a whopping 43 percent of Tea Party activists now have an unfavorable view of their own party. If that opposition continues to grow, could Tea Partiers break off and form a party of their own?
We've been here before — with Greens, Libertarians and Ross Perot....
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
Frances Weaver is a senior editor at The Week magazine. Originally from the U.K., she has written for the Daily Telegraph, The Spectator and Standpoint magazine.
Third parties elect Democrats.
Yes, they should.
Burn the house down and rebuild.
Surrender-prone second parties empower democrats.
I say no. Take it over, yes. At least it has an existing national infrastructure and I would be willing to bet there are a lot of disaffected Repubs with the RINOs just waiting for some real conservative leadership.
We haven’t gone anywhere new, still standing with the Constitution, the GOP is leaving us.
You got it.
They shouldn’t split, they should force the GOPe Washington elitists OUT.
Whatever Fareed Zacharias thinks, must be so. /s
Good sentence structure improves clarity!
Exactly what McPain would love to have happen
No, the Tea Party should take over the GOP, not leave it. Leaving it will give us 100% Dummicrat control for decades to come.
Not guilty. But still clueless.
Should the communists split from the donkeys?
I mean heck, since we’re asking questions.
Yes. We surround them. All they have is Wall Street.
Maybe NOW the third party idea has traction.
Tea Party people have to resist all the MSM disinformation about the ‘ineffective’ size of the movement... because we already know a very concerted and clandestine effort (with full and eager WH collusion) has been made to minimze Tea Party strength!!
EXACTLY, and just as I was reading your post, RUSH was saying ZACKLY the same thing....
No, It would create two very weak parties, neither of which would have any chance of ever winning an election.
The target/flak theorem.
I thought it was the democrats, McCain, Cornyn, McConnell etc, who were splitting from the GOP.
I guess they’ll be surprised to find out the Tea Party candidates are winning the GOP elections.
Been so for quite awhile.
But do they have enough love of country and motivation to start their own party?
What would they even name themselves?
What am I saying, they are too busy attacking GOP to start their own party. I think they’ll need to retire. Stand back while they carve out their retirement income strategy.
The RINOS should leave or be exiled from the republican party.
Nope, split the Republican vote and Dems would win every election. If you think otherwise, better think again. How did we get Bill Clinton? Reform Party and H Ross Perot.
I think it’s people posing as GOP who are going to be leaving.
No.
The Tea Party is, and always has been, a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. IMHO, we must become the (R)s, not by surrendering to the old-line RINO GOP-e, but by supplanting it.
In case you weren't paying attention in 2008 and 2012 the GOP did a pretty dandy job of electing Obama and then re-electing him. McCain openly campaigned for Obama and Mitt Romney was relentlessly and tirelessly nice to him while Obama's team was slaughtering him with inside information from the IRS and the NSA.
Also, when the Demcorats run a charismatic candidate like Obama it seriously doesn't help if we run another dried up old turd with all of the appeal of, well, a dried up old turd.
No. Take it over.
Tea Party HAS taken over the GOP. At least that’s what it looks like.
Taking it over is nigh impossible. There are Reagan democrats who could be split off from the dems. And don’t forget the independents.
It could work.
In any case, the republicans have once again rolled over and exposed their genitals in the budget fight. I am finished with them.
Let John McCain, Karl Rove, Lindsey Graham, and Bob Dole have the GOP-e.
Bring Alan West, Rand Paul, Trey Gowdy, Ted Cruz, et al and let’s get this TEA Party rolling...
Correct. A takeover and re-makeover is the only option here.
Nailed it in one.
The GOP is a third party, just ask the Whigs. Voting for leftist Republicans guarantees the leftists win.
Tell that to a Whig.
I say the tea party needs to stay registered republicans so they can at least try to primary the turncoats, and vote for the independent in the general election as needed.
3rd party = isolated losers
Democrats are clearly not satisfied with controlling just their party. We cannot combat their effort to dominate the republican party if we are in a separate party of our own.
At this point I would prefer to see a democrat win over a republican turncoat in the 2014 election... but there is no way we can win all by ourselves in a 3rd party, let alone a 4th. Let us therefore seek to dominate not only the republican party, but the independent party as well.
Let us do everything we can SHORT of changing our registration to supporting the RISE of a third party.
52% of Republicans express a desire to see a third party.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/165392/perceived-need-third-party-reaches-new-high.aspx
My question is, what would the new party’s ideology be?
The problem with the GOP is that there is no guiding ideology. It’s essentially a coalition of chamber-of-commerce corporatists, libertarians, and christian fundamentalists. Those three groups are not natural ideological allies. Which constituency would be the core of the new party?
If we’re talking about a party devoted to liberty and federalism, I could get behind it.
I still think there is room to move the GOP...but its the “long” game.
The tea party can possibly do a flip of what the liberals did. They chipped away for DECADES on a grassroots level to get where things are....the right didn’t really get as passionate or involved locally (relatively speaking).
But that is changing, and its possible the passion has flipped to change things grassroots over time and unwind this thing.
The problem with that is its the same old thing people have heard....be patient. The difference is, there was no real passion for “change” before now. 2008 really changed that up.
Boehner would have had a deal tied up in a bow before Oct 1 if things were different. He is being dragged to the right.
Leaving the party might feel good, but I’m not sure what it would lead to.
There is a Far left, a mushy middle left, a mushy middle right and then the far right. I think the far left and far right almost have more in common in that they BELIEVE what they say, even if it is completely opposite. The ones in the Middle are just..blah...and there really isn’t much difference.
So what happens to that “middle”. Do they converge into the Dem part, or into the new GOP party?
I guess it would be like the UK where you have the Tories not really seeming conservative to us. Only the Tea Party would be on the right acting like the current Liberals in the UK? I’m not expert on the UK. Liberals are far left, Labor is Left, Tories are left...but center in comparison.
Here it would be the Liberal Dems, ModLib GOP and Right Tea Party?
I think if the abortion issue was somehow erased, a lot of the middle dems and gop would/could be in a party together easily.
So the Dems go a little further left, the GOP becomes Center Left/Right depending on the wind and the Tea Party becomes the right?
The GOP has a choice of destinies.
It will either come under the control of people like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Louis Ghomert, and Mike Lee.......or it will cease to exist, fracturing into several pieces and empowering Democrats and Socialists for years to come.
I say conservatives need to take back the party, starting at the county level and working up.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3074456/posts
A More Fitting Question would be “Should the establishment GOP join their Dem brothers?”
And I’ll note very specifically that this little twit writer, this foreigner, this left-wing Brit— her whole goal is to destroy conservatives. Anyone who takes her advice is an idiot listening to the enemy.
Think about a new party, technically savvy, with a legion of online bloggers. The crusty old bastions of the status quo can’t even begin to compete.
Run it like a start-up. Leverage all of the technology out there. Overrun the system.
It’s time to rethink what a political party can be.
Well, our current two party oligopoly is an artifact of the constitutional means of electing a president. That’s not the only possible way to run a government, but constitutional amendment would be needed to prescribe a different means of electing a president (such as a runoff system after an electoral vote, even if that vote is virtual) before significant numbers of national politicians would want to be anything other than Democrat or Republican.
So we’re kind of stuck with the GOP as the least worst. Instead of vain whining, let’s make hay with whatever resources we got, with prayers for the Lord to use it. A non GOP Tea Party would only make sense if it reasonably expected to pull so many voters out of both major traditional parties that it would gain the requisite victory. And it would have to fight like rabid wildcats against the major parties’ deep budgets.
FWIW, on Twitter, Paul Ryan has about 4600 followers,,and Cruz has almost 190K following. NOt that those are all admirers you see,,but when it comes to who makes news, there is no question. I’ll stick with Cruz.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire
Make them split from us.
Yes, they should split and then caucus with the GOP. That will give them the leverage they need to be a counter balance in the House.
I don’t we should. Bring the pubbies back to us! Third parties are the kiss of death, politically.
I like that idea. The establishment GOP will have to depend on them and the TEA Party will be ascendant. Their only other choice would be to caucus with the Dems, which would drive out the fence sitters.
Good idea.
NO!!!!
At least, not until a true “small government” conservative is in a position of authority. Then, FLIP to a 3rd Party.
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