There's been an understandable amount of discussion since Tuesday night about how the Republicans failed and what they can do to improve. I love a good concern-trolling post as much as anyone, especially in the wake of such an exhilarating victory.
Let's face it, though. Do we sincerely want the Republicans to soften their regional white Christian epistemic self-marginalization?
Ultimately, Republican policies are misogynistic, bigoted, obsolete and ineffectual; their politics are toxic and exploitative; their media presence is a screechy echo-chamber of gibberish and conspiracy theories; and they're rightly suffering the consequences of this deadly cocktail. If they'd prefer to self-destruct, fine. As such, they should stay away from Nate Silver's wizardry and stick with Unskewed Polls and Rush Limbaugh's "gut." Republican contra-reality politics forced them to attack an empty chair fictional construct instead of the actual president, and it forced them to fabricate policies that simply didn't exist (Jeep to China, welfare reform gutting, and so on). Great! Keep doing that. It failed. And when Republicans fail, it helps the rest of us.
But even the most sincere recommendations will fall on deaf ears anyway. The things they need to change the most are also threads that unite them. They believe women should be subjugated via anti-choice legislation and they will never abandon their abortion plank. They believe in supply-side, trickle down economics and nearly every sitting Republican politician has signed Grover Norquist's tax pledge, so softening on tax hikes for the rich is definitely out. They can't abandon their anti-immigration position or risk losing their angry, white, ignorant base who want nothing more than a return to the monochromatic 1950s Leave it to Beaver utopia -- these same conservatives market in horror stories about savage brown people beheading decent law-abiding white people in the deserts of Arizona.
They're trapped inside their own Mobius Loop of crapola and, honestly, I don't know exactly how this trend will play out for them. [continued]