The Democratic People’s Republic of Amerika has changed.

The change has been mainly for the worse. Why have we let the “progressives” get away with it and what can we do about it?

An article by Jim Gourdie at Conservatives on Fire suggests that The United States are committing suicide, are being murdered or are stupid.

Well, the United States of America isn’t dead yet, but she seems to be getting weaker by the day. If she does die, it will not be due to natural causes. Nations don’t die from natural causes. They either commit suicide or they are murdered. America is gravely injured. Are they self-inflicted wounds or is someone trying to kill her? Suicide is a conscious act, where as murder can be either intentional or unintentional. So, which is the case for our beloved America? Some days I am convinced she is committing suicide by way of death of a thousand self-inflicted cuts. In other words, those inflicting the cuts know they are doing harm to our nation. Other times I am equally convinced that the problem is that the majority of our politicians, the majority of our electorate, and the majority of our special interest groups are just too damn stupid to see that their “good intentions” are causing more harm than good.

Although many aspects look a bit like attempted suicide, I don’t think there has been a conscious attempt at that. It seems more likely that there has been a potentially fatal combination of attempted murder and stupidity — combined with lots more than a mere soupçon of greed for power and the privilege it confers.

The GOP (Grand Obsequious Party) has become incestuous and cannibalistic.

This article at Town Hall contends that

Here’s a New Year’s wish I would love to see come true. However it is defined or however many people are part of it, it is time to send the giant never-ending “GOP Establishment” made up of some professional politicians, some moneyed nouveaux riche who — by virtue of their contributions and the faux friendships it buys with politicians — consider themselves political landed gentry and the endless scam artist consultants they support packing.

. . . .

The emerging story of a candidate who really didn’t want to run in the first place and consultants who never listened to pleas from his own family to humanize the man so that everyday people could “feel like he understands them” just makes conservatives and the GOP faithful sick. They once again spent their hard-earned money and endless time backing another Republican nominee who had no prayer of connecting with the average voter. Never mind that he was, at closer examination, a young man of privilege who outgrew his silver spoon to create his own hard-earned fortune, his case was never properly made.

And why is that? The answer is the current class of Republican “experts” and “consultants” who constantly blow into somewhere outside of their self-indulgent D.C. bubble and believe that they really do understand the “average American” in the 21st century. They do not. (Emphasis added.)

Same for the well-entrenched elected officials, many of whom have gone from scrappy challengers of the status quo to fat and happy potentates. The so-called “experts” just sell any sort of snake oil a candidate or elected official and his loyal leeches will swallow. Hence, terrible focus-group-driven commercials, poor strategy in message and a “get out the vote” effort about as technologically advanced as the telegraph and with all the planning for contingencies as the Hurricane Katrina emergency efforts. (Emphasis added.)

The author’s pleasant wish is unlikely to come true because, at least at the national level, the Republican Party inbreeds from its own stock those whom it selects to hoist strike its colors.

Inbreeding results in increased homozygosity, which can increase the chances of offspring being affected by recessive or deleterious traits.^[2] This generally leads to a decreased fitness of a population,^[3][4] which is called inbreeding depression. An individual who results from inbreeding is referred to as inbred. The avoidance of expression of deleterious recessive alleles caused by inbreeding is thought to be the main selective force maintaining the outcrossing aspect of sexual reproduction.^[5][6]

Republican Party incest, another word for inbreeding, tends to produce malformed offspring unable to perform their proper functions. Those outside the upper echelons of the party — the boots on the ground — have about as much say in what happens as PFCs in an infantry division. Their goals and ideas for achieving them don’t matter and, if they don’t like it, tough; orders are orders and if disobeyed punishment follows. Beyond contributing their time and money Republican boots are unimportant. Should nonconforming voices of their offspring start to be heard they are aborted late term or if that fails, eaten; see Allen West, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain et al.

The Tea (non) Party, having helped substantially in giving Republicans control of the House of Representatives in 2010, was largely abandoned in the hope that it would die because the GOP prefers to select candidates who conform to its own image. Governor Romney was an experienced, intelligent, nice guy who apparently did not want to become the President. Perhaps not wanting the office should be a major qualification, but it isn’t. President Obama has been in continuous campaign mode since at least 2010 and probably will remain so for the next four years; campaigning and presidential perks seem to be what he enjoys most. He was marketed disingenuously and effectively. Governor Romney, however, was marketed in some of the worst possible ways. President Obama — an incompetent, inexperienced, affirmative action hire propelled by the far left — won in 2008. He won again in 2012 despite his persistent incompetence and having, at most, learned precious little during his four years of on the job training beyond the fine art of demagoguery campaigning. As noted here,

If we look at the things Obama and company have done in the past four years we can easily see the vast majority of their actions have resulted in no benefit for the United States. Quite the contrary, most of the actions have been very destructive and detrimental to the security of America. Whether morally, racially, economically or militarily, Obama and his utterly corrupt administration have been systematically transforming the United States into a socialistic, European style nation, undermining the sovereignty thereof and creating division like hasn’t been since the founding.

According to the Washington Post, the Republican rabble are unhappy,

Might the poll be skewed? Maybe, but the results look about right. Gun sales have been way up of late, even before the Newtown massacre and threats of draconian “gun control” measures. Perhaps of little relevance, the most-popular-ever article at my little blog, The U.S. Constitution and Civil War, published late last December, has had more than eighteen thousand views this year, more than four thousand of them in November and nearly seven thousand thus far in December. Most came through Google searches.

The GOP is neither structured nor led to survive and those who control it will not yield power voluntarily. As suggested below, they seem to consider reelection their highest and greatest objective. Until conservatives realize that the GOP is on life support, stop funding it and stop reelecting long-term mediocre incumbents, there will be no viable alternative to the Democrat Party. The GOP must be displaced as a viable alternative arises.

The Tea (non) Party has not yet begun to fight.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

An article at Breitbart opines that The Tea Party has not yet begun to fight. That seems odd, but on reading it becomes apparent that the Tea (non) Party has retreated advanced to the rear.

The one kernel of truth in recent mainstream reporting on the Tea Party–a truth that Tea Party leaders themselves admit–is that the movement is discouraged by Obama’s win in November.Mitt Romney was never the Tea Party’s first choice, and some Tea Party supporters may have stayed home on Election Day in protest, but once he secured the Republican Party’s nomination most Tea Party activists worked hard to help him win.

. . . .

Disappointment at Romney’s defeat was compounded by Tea Party losses in other races. The loss of Rep. Alan West was a heavy blow, and Richard Mourdock failed to capture the Senate seat in Indiana after defeating 36-year incumbent Richard Lugar in the primary.

. . . .

The present Tea Party dilemma did not begin in November 2012 but in January 2011, when the new Republican leadership in the House of Representatives excluded Tea Party members from the highest leadership positions. The Tea Party, used to opposing but not to governing, acquiesced in a faulty arrangement that allowed the Republican establishment to lead the legislative agenda, and to blame the Tea Party when it failed. (Emphasis added.)

That is exactly what happened in the summer of 2011, when Speaker of the House John Boehner quashed efforts by Rep. Jim Jordan to rally support around the Tea Party’s preferred “Cut, Cap and Balance” proposal in the debt ceiling debate. Boehner then signed onto an ill-fated deal that led to the present “fiscal cliff” impasse–while the Tea Party, slandered by the mainstream media as “terrorists,” bore the burden of blame.

. . . .

In the Republican primary, the Tea Party struggled to find a candidate it could support. Many of its preferred candidates stayed out of the race, while those who did enter struggled to compete with Romney’s fundraising machine or withered under the scrutiny of the mainstream media. Many Tea Party activists were encouraged by Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate, but he played a subdued role on the trail.

In effect, the Tea Party has provided the Republican Party’s grassroots support for the past two years but none of its leadership. (Emphasis added.)

So what are Tea (non) Party members to do? Be of good cheer, hold their chins high and keep stiff upper lips? That sounds pleasantly British, but look at formerly Great Britain today. Assume leadership of the Republican Party? Leadership requires that there be a place for those who can lead and are willing to do so. Whoever they are and wherever that place may be, the Republican Party has repeatedly shown that it does not want them. The mass media have done their best to disparage the Tea (non) Party as a collection of uneducated and unenlightened red neck rabble. Consider the source. Can we get our own media? Entertainment as well as “news?”  Conservatives contributed lots of money to Governor Romney’s campaign. Perhaps that could be spent, starting now, to better advantage getting actors, cameramen, singers, actors, reporters, dancers and the whole enchilada. Might Clint Eastwood get on board? Ask some of his conservative friends to do so? Also consider that many Tea (non) Party supporters, erroneously disparaged as “uneducated and unenlightened red neck rabble,” are capable of leadership in the right direction if there is a party for them to lead.

We need a new Conservative Party.

Just a few days after the 2012 presidential election debacle, I argued for a new conservative party with a principal focus different from that of Republican Party, which seems to be keeping Republican incumbents in office for as long as possible.

The Democrat Party, of course, shares that supreme goal but for Democrats. The longer an incumbent hangs on to office — no matter how corrupt, incompetent or demented –  the greater seniority he has. Power in the Congress is a function of seniority: committee chairmanships, seats on important committees and ability to deliver pork to constituents back home to get reelected again. The quasi-permanence of incumbents is a bad thing. Not only do people become increasingly powerful as they become stale in office, they become increasingly detached from the real world outside the Washington Beltway. Short trips back home to raise funds, hold “Town Hall” meetings and generally to campaign are not enough to understand the problems there. Going to motion pictures and reading about the golden days of the Old West may be enjoyable, but fails to provide the insights that come from having lived there to experience the good and the bad. Living in the greater Washington Metropolitan Area and working in Washington are quite different from living and working elsewhere. I didn’t realize that during my long and often pleasant life there. I had to leave, as I did in 1996, for that realization to come.

I also wrote here about Herman Cain’s suggestion that we need a new party. During a radio broadcast he said,

This country is in trouble and it is clear that neither party — is going to fix the problems we face.

. . . .

Cain agreed . . . that conservatives are growing tired of being ignored by Republican party leadership — and that many believe the GOP no longer speaks for them.

. . . .

“I don’t believe the Republican Party has the ability to rebrand itself against the mainstream media machine that blatantly works to support this president and other liberals as well as the Democrats,” Cain told the radio host.

Cain said it would take money, leadership and at least 50 coalitions to create a viable third political party.

“You need one for every state because of the whacky rules state by state that they have that make it difficult for a third party to emerge,” he said.

He said the new party could be made up of not only disenfranchised Republicans — but also Democrats.

I agree, and the perpetual pursuit of incumbent mediocrity is high on my list for change in what, for want of a better name, might be called the New Party.

Rather than try to keep incumbents perpetually in office, the New Party should do the reverse: there should be no New Party support for any House incumbent’s reelection after he has served one, or perhaps two, terms as a member of the New Party. Being a CongressCritter should not be a career; it should be a brief period of service to the country — perhaps four years for members of the House and six years for Senators — followed by return to being a private citizen.  If, following that period, he wants to run again, New Party support should depend on what he did while in office and what he did when he got back home. Was he effective in promoting New Party principles while in office? Good. Did he go to work with or for a company at which he had shoveled pork while in office? Bad. Did he spend much of his leisure time talking with former and hopefully future constituents to probe their views as well as give them his? Good. Did moral shortcomings or too many “gaffes” cause him to fall on his face and become unelectable? Bad. (Emphasis added.)

. . . . The New Party’s goal should be to further its own principles. In doing so, there may well be areas of agreement with Republicans and even a few Democrats. To the extent that there are, New Party members should form transitory coalitions with Republicans (maybe even with the occasional Democrat) and vice versa in hopes of passing legislation acceptable to both. Many countries do not have majority parties and rely instead on coalitions, often fluid depending on the critical issues of the moment. Might that work in the United States? What have we to lose by trying? Assuming that the numbers of New Party members increase over time, the Republican Party may come to need New Party support.

The current situation in the United States is very likely to continue to get worse at least for a while, no matter what we do. I don’t think we have much to lose at this point by getting the New Party started off in the right direction. There is important preliminary work to be done at the State and local levels, particularly in areas of education and finance, and we need to do it. The country plainly is not in the very best of hands and until we get busy the problems will continue to worsen.