Why Republican Party Cannot Avoid Extinction

Much has been said and written about the inevitable death of the Republican Party.  Even Republican leaders have warned they will become modern day dinosaurs, unless they change and change quickly.

The problem is that the Republican Party is a fractured group of several political ideologies that can no longer function as one group with common goals.  Libertarians, Tea Partiers, Moderate fundamentalists, etc. all act quite differently from each other, and fail to support the candidates and platform that is ultimately put forth.  Assuming the Republicans will survive is like suggesting the European Union can function with a common currency.  It won’t happen.

We all know the demographic makeup of the party is a detriment.  A party full of old white men does not bode well as whites become a minority in the U.S., males are already a minority and old will never be a majority, but it is probably the best thing the party has right now.  The party’s exclusion of intellectuals, educated women, people of color, non-Christians and many more subgroups, has created a majority for these groups of minorities.  They don’t necessarily have a great deal in common, other than a strong desire to make sure we don’t get another Republican President.  I doubt we ever will again.

After some strategizing, the party has embraced immigration reform to capture Hispanic voters.  Great strategy, but Obama won’t let the Republicans claim it as their own.  Most Latin Americans, with the exception of Cuban Americans, don’t trust the Republicans and will not give them their vote.  As Hispanics become less passive in the election process, the Republicans cannot see much hope for their future.

All organic things eventually die off, and so must the Republicans.  In school we learned how the Republicans replaced the Whigs, which is proof that political parties in the U.S. die.  The Whigs were essentially the founding party of the U.S., but couldn’t come to grips with how to deal with slavery.  While largely opposed to it, they were a fractured, unorganized group of men that didn’t deal with “modern” day problems.  The Republican Party was formed and a few years later Abraham Lincoln was elected the first Republican President, and the rest was history as the saying goes.  Eventually the Democratic Party began representing people like the Republicans, and the Republicans became more exclusive and narrow in their representation; the two parties essentially flipped their ideologies.

The Republicans will continue to have a majority within the House of Representatives, creating difficulty for a Democratic President and Senate to move the country forward.  However, they will never elect a President again, which is amazing since we are only 25 years after Reagan.  A reasonable replacement for this party, that is inclusionary and progressive, would have a real chance to defeat the Democrats.