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Originally Posted by ernie
I'm not convinced that is a media thing though. That is an inherent property of the GOP base. When they feel things threaten their liberty (i.e. it goes against THEIR religious beliefs) the base moves further right. Now that base reads and watches the conservative news and that news needs viewers/readers to survive so perhaps they fan the flames somewhat but I'm not sure they are the cause. I think the cause if the base itself which is ever aging and ever more extreme/defensive with their views. The candidate and media get involved and it becomes some sort of viscous circle.
End result, though, is no different no matter the view you take on it. In order for the GOP to survive they are going to have to create a new base. They have to put the Tea Party and Trump yahoos to the side and move the center and attract the center liberals and independents again. They are not going to get anywhere ignoring that race is a huge issue in the US, ignoring that women are in fact equal and have rights to their bodies, etc etc etc. The only way they can do is to make a fundamental shift away from what everyone likes to call the historical base.
They aren't ready to do that and they won't do that until they put up a candidate that gets absolutely destroyed in an election. Someone so idiotic and right wing that absolutely no one outside the hardcore base can stand to vote for them. In short, they need to stop getting involved in the minutia of peoples pet peeves and actually decide they want to run a country not peoples lives.
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Disagree.
People are stupid and will believe most anything they are told if it is repeated enough. The bigger the lie, the more they believe.
GOP Politics is not about any particular ideology or policy, it's about controlling the conversation in an 'us vs. them' political system.
For example, gun control. Simply by muddying the waters on the debate around gun control, the GOP has effectively scored a victory because it has prevented a legitimate policy discussion. The status quo has been preserved, and the status quo is wildly preferable to whatever isn't the status quo.
The other hugely important factor to consider here is that both parties are bank rolled by special interest, and so, don't reflect stagnant ideological issues but rather the issues pressed by special interest. So while the talking points reference gay marriage or abortion or any of these other trivialities, the actual policy apparatus of the party is devoted to special interest issues like banking regulations, defense spending, pharmaceutical/medical regulation and energy.