The surprise of Donald Trump’s primary sweep is that he secured the majority of southern Evangelicals despite his being the Devil candidate. The question is not whether American religious fervor has diminished, which it hasn’t, but whether it has the political influence claimed by the likes of Ralph Reed and his Christian Coalition. This weakness of a supposed rock solid affinity group brings into question the Republican strategy to herd discordant single issue constituencies into the corral, especially if the cowboys are fat, nonsense talking and not adept with the lasso. Republican orthodoxies born in the 1980’s have ossified into caricatures of excess rarely tested with analytical rigor so fences are trampled over by mere blowhard comments by a celebrity candidate. It makes no difference that Trump is the Republican nominee or someone other because by this summer’s national convention the party will reveal it has no truth to coalesce around.
The Republican Party’s tin ear is best described as one which receives few voices from few contributors. The Citizens United decision by The Supreme Court, though considered a blessing for the easy big money it provides, is the root cause of their problem with the message. Big money from few donors is stupid money. Stupid in its formulation of low common denominator advertisements, more akin to selling soap, as well as with its reliance on broadcast television to spread the message. It makes the Party a top down political machine with a hazy view of the electorate. It’s a structure that is the antithesis of the internet and its new social media communities and given that this is the medium of the young and educated it bodes poorly for the G.O.P. as presently constituted. Bernie Sanders’ campaign comes from the reverse of a Citizens United funded one where success is measured by the large number of donors of small donations. It’s not just a phenomenon of the political left since it first appeared on the right with Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential bid and this year this self organized from the bottom up movement is giving fits to Hillary Clinton’s directed from above campaign to its less internet connected group of supporters. Given this upward trend for candidates who bubble up from below the prospects are not good for parties who formulate and direct from the top.
The Republican strategy of corralling disparate constituencies ranging from libertarian free market to authoritarian evangelical philosophical backgrounds gives no positive message because it’s impossible to develop any other than a negative one from such a discordant grouping. Senator Mitch McConnell, the titular head of the party, called on Republicans to make Barack Obama a one term president and marshal opposition to everything Obama and so cast government as the enemy of everything. What should be a bipartisan issue, immigration, has been pushed further and further into a corner without solution by strident unreasonable voices encouraged by the Senate Majority leader’s intransigence. It got so that the 2016 Republican establishment candidates felt the full brunt of the mob against them when trying to feather in a hint of minority inclusiveness suggested by the RNC’s Election-Autopsy. If Ted Cruz the anti-establishment candidate were to win the Presidential election then he too would feel the mob’s resistance because he will embody government, what his constituents have been taught to hate.
The Grand Old Party is doomed to wither away because it’s rural monopoly power from gerrymandered districts and restrictive voter registration is bad for business. Rural power pondering issues akin to determining how many angels fit on a pinhead and then forcing that opinion with law onto economically vibrant urban centers is a conflict that the Chamber of Commerce will tire of resolving for the party. Demographics will cause states such as Texas to fall off the Republican grid as Latinos overwhelm the political fences. Southwest states will gravitate back toward Barry Goldwater's conservatism of live and let live free markets; best represented by today’s Libertarian Party. The Antebellum South’s strident intolerant tone as characterized by Ted Cruz’s evangelical crusade will embarrass northern Republicans enough to consider an alternative, again the Libertarian Party. New England's electoral college outcome will be solidly Democrat so a protest vote for a closely aligned third party would be without consequence in 2016 but it might establish a party of the right to self organize in social media; a party with a young and urban future as well as one which brings Washington back to a civil dialogue over liberty and authority.
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