My theory on the internal strife of the Republican party from a Liberal Democrat perspective

a reply to: AngryCymraeg

Yes.
There is a term little used nowadays to describe certain conservatives extremists, reactionary. Reactionary conservatives hate all things liberal. Compromise is not in their vocabulary, or, if it is, it is meant in the way an authoritarian user would use it--compromise by doing it my way! Sadly, once everyone to the left of GOP reactionaries were labeled RINOs, reactionaries constitute the vocal minority ruling what's left of the party. That faction was allowed to gain control.

Non-Americans must understand that the structure, the power sharing, the voting system, of the American govt was based on a system of two groups, forcing the two parties in power to find common ground, to compromise, in order to accomplish governance, to move America forward. Members of each party came from all sides of the political continuum. Each party contained liberals and conservatives. And that is where compromise could occur.

What we all have witnessed in recent years is the entrenchment of one party, controlled by reactionaries, in a position of not willing to compromise, or define "compromise" as doing it their way.

I have watched for years as Republican leaders apologized and kowtowed to bombastic conservative media, as if that media were in charge of the party line. All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing, so the quote goes. It was the good Republicans who did not want to rock the boat, who thought that way was best for their party's chance to retain power, who refused to speak up. Actually, if they did speak up, they were called RINOs and/or were not given party support to campaign. And so they remained acquiescent or silent.

I live in an area where the majority is republican all in. This idea I see in many posts on this site that the liberals are the racists is surprising. Maybe some of both sides are guilty but the republican mindset types here have hands that are plenty dirty.

a reply to: roadgravel

Definitely today's Republicans are not the Northeastern liberal/moderate Nelson Rockefeller Republicans of the 1960s who actually wanted to support Martin Luther King, Jr, and the civil rights movement. Liberal Republicans left a long time ago, then moderates were RINO'd out.

The Dixiecrats (white supremacist conservative Southern Democrats) were full on Republicans by the end of the 1980s. Many (not all) of the Reagan Democrats were racists who relied on the GOP overtures to them. It was this taking in and nurturing of these racist/white supremacists, promoting the GOP as a home for them, that tilted the political playing field.