How would you fix the Republican Party?

[King]

Instead they need to apply the social conservative tendency to a ethnically diverse and more urbane demographic.

That's abandoning the #1 American social conservative principle: make everything as WASP as possible.

Members of ethnic social conservative religions like Catholicism and Black Protestants are considered heretics. The American Evangelical Right wants no part of them.

[King]

The Mormons are 3/4ths WASP.

And in order to fix the Republican Party, the Right needs to accept Catholics and Black Protestants them into their fold.

To many of them, that's telling them to disavow their faith. This is not an inclusive sect of people. Fundamentalists are a mean bunch and proud of it. They would rather lose elections until the Second Coming than defy what they are 100% certain to believe is God's will.

[King]

Yes, there are White Republican Catholics. I'm talking about ethnic Catholicism

[King]

What really needs to happen is Bible Thumpers need to start their own Bible Thumper Party, abandon the Republican primaries, making it easier for non-Bible Thumping Democrats and Republicans to be elected and work together while the 100 Bible Thumper seats in the House and 15 Bible Thumper seats in the Senate vote against everything important because Jesus.

Bible Thumpers were the drag of the New Deal Coalition that eventual got them bolted in the 1970s to the Republicans and now the Republicans don't know what to do with them anymore. Catering to their Third Position interests only makes liberal/conservative ideologies inconsistent.

[King]

Yes, there are White Republican Catholics. I'm talking about ethnic Catholicism

Catholics aren't an ethnicity, but ethnicities pratice differently. So I take it you mean Hispanic Catholics?

Yes, Densest Man In The World. If you must have everything spelled out for you, yes, I mean Catholics who are apart of the fastest growing population segment in this country.

[King]

There's no sign whatsoever that anything is improving, the USA is going to war in the Middle East again, eventually the "throw the bums out" mood is going to pose problems for Democratic presidential candidates even if the GOP has alienated large chunks of the country.

Except Americans love war as long as nobody dies. We can bomb them flat and nobody will question it.

I really don't see the Democrats at this point being as poor off as they were 4 years ago, or where the Republicans where in 2006.  There's no economic bubble to break the back of the Dems like the GOP in 2008.

[King]

That being said...if the problems with the modern GOP have a serious point, it's the obvious one that the modern GOP is absolutely unsuited to be a majority party rather than an opposition party.  This last sentence probably sounds incredibly obvious even to the Republicans on the site.  With a great many off the leash Congressmen on the GOP side getting reelected without any support from the national party due to their R+40 districts, they'll have no incentive to pass the agenda of President Christie or whatever, and there's no party discipline re: respecting the party leadership.  When random GOP Congressmen and maybe even Senators (Ted Cruz) spend the first few months of a President Christie's tenure bashing the president for being insufficiently conservative, the problems of the modern GOP will become obvious.

The solution to this part is actually being in power. A lot of those R+40 protest vote types are doing what they are doing precisely because they are in the opposition. Having someone in office of their own party, even if he has to make compromises, will give them someone and something to actually be for instead of being against everything. I know sports and politics aren't quite the same, but if you've ever been on a team that's winning and a team that's losing the mentality here is the same. When things are falling apart and the team is divided against itself, it looks like even if they were to somehow win they'd still be a dysfunctional mess. But the cure for that is often to be winning so that all its members can stop pointing fingers at each other for all the ways things have gone wrong and focus on working together. Winning cures a lot of ills and many of those bitter protest votes can be softened by having someone to rally around instead of against.

Not really. The GOP has no awareness of any problem in this country because they don't believe anything is wrong.

The poor aren't really that poor and don't need any help, the environment is just doing it's thing and doesn't need anybody's help, schools are just being wasteful and don't need any help, infrastructure is fine don't worry about it, defense department's budget can't spare one penny, we our money losing health care system as is don't reform anything. Their anger is about completely intangible ideas.

Once Republicans get into power in DC, they suddenly feel like they're living in a utopia and not one thing need be changed.

[King]

lol "generational theft"

The conservatives are the ones proposing  real generational theft. They get to pay the low taxes, they get full Medicare/SS benefits, they get every thing as is. Younger people? Don't worry, we'll slash all of your benefits and rights to pay for ours so you aren't saddled with the debt. We'll also be sure to repeal Medicaid, Food Stamps, the law that lets you stay on your parents healthcare coverage until your 26, and do nothing about student loan debt. Good luck kids!!!

Really caring about the next generation would involve tax increases for now, benefit cuts to Medicare and SS for right now, and more focus on social programs for the youth. GOP faux caring for our next generation is just an attempt to wash their fingerprints off the cookie jar after cleaning it out.