Where do Republicans go from here?

Watching McCain steer the SS Republican into an ice berg has been fun. In fact you can argue that the captain who should go down with the ship is George Bush but somehow like always Bush gets out at just the right time leaving someone else holding the bag.

Republicans as a political party have some real problems, their economic message of “deregulate and don’t tax” has been shown to lead to financial meltdows. Their national security message of “bomb them until they like us” has also been shown to be a failure in practice.

The only message that seems to resonate with anyone, is that we should turn the US into a christian theocracy, at least that seems to be the purpose of Sarah Palin. I think the last time the world saw a christian theocracy they called it the dark ages, but it is probably the only model that makes the republican party viable as a large minority party. The new fund-raising model of getting small contributions from a large amount of donors only works if you have a message that appeals to a large number of people. At this point the only people that still support the republican party in large numbers are christian socialists, so it seems likely that the republican party will go more towards christian socialism. This means an even more right wing position on reproductive rights which will appeal to the Dobsons of the world but no one else.

My guess is you will see some of the more hawkish Democrats start to drift towards the Republican party, as a holy war might sound good to many people, and would certainly increase the bottom line for some defense contractors but other than that if Democrats can manage to avoid corruption they may be able to maintain control of the country for a very long time; much like they did after the last depression.