How could the Republicans make themselves more irrelevant? Perhaps, they could continue to fight the newly elected, and widely popular, President Obama and try and prevent the stimulus bill from passing? Maybe Republicans could campaign for more and bigger tax cuts which have not worked in four decades and have only put the country into more and more debt. Perhaps, Republicans could continue to defend highly paid executives who mismanage companies while using taxpayer money to pay extravagant bonuses. Maybe Republicans could go on the media and complain about minor contraceptive programs in the stimulus bill — they don’t understand that preventing unwanted children from being born might be fiscally easier on the economy and struggling families.
As Obama continues to try and be bipartisan the Republicans will have none of this and keep preaching their tired old nonsense of the last four decades. In a clever though not subtle move, Obama is likely to appoint Republican Senator Judd Gregg to Commerce Secretary so that a Democrat could be named to replace him and give Democrats the veto-proof 60 in the Senate. Expect the Republicans to go a little crazy next week trying to get Gregg to decline the position. Even after only 10 days in office, it is becoming clear to Obama (a very smart guy) and most of the rational part of the country, that Republicans don’t much care about the 11 million unemployed. Instead, Republicans only care about being able to claim that Obama failed for the next elections.
This observation results is the most basic realization. Even if Obama “fails” to revive the economy, he is going to spend a boat load of money to stimulate it. America will understand that Obama has done everything he can and, even if the economy continues to struggle, America will conclude that the country would be even worse off without Obama’s initiatives. Further, there will likely be more unemployed and the unemployed will be much more vocal in two and four years. Translation — Republicans will lose more seats in Congress in two years, counter to decades of statistics regarding mid-term elections. Further, Obama will easily be reelected in four years. Somewhere along this journey, the Republicans will finally understand they are irrelevant and have to be more populist and even socialist.
On the lighter side, what do you call a large group of white people? — Republicans.
For the time being it will be politics as usual but as the economy continues to falter, even with the best intention of the Democrats, more and more Democrats will be created and fewer and fewer Republicans. A 100 year study in the U.K concluded there are more suicides when conservatives are in power. This is hardly surprising because conservatives always want to promote the rich and screw everybody else. The unofficial motto of the Republican Party: “I’ve got mine, go fuck yourself.”
America is doomed.
