[scoundrel]

About twenty years ago, the British Labour Party appeared to have painted itself into a similar corner. In Britain, the electorate had moved seismically away from socialism and left of centre beliefs towards economic liberalism and somewhat more militaristic principles. Many social attitudes were affected by the record of the Labour Party in office, when Britain was so badly misgoverned in the 1970s that the authority of the state was undermined; and by their pivotal decision in 1982 as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, to withold support from the operation to retake the Falkland Islands from the invading Argentinians using force. That went down like a shit sandwich.

By 1992, Labour had collected two decisive election defeats and in 1992 it collected a third. It went into each campaign believing that the people needed and wanted a socialist-inclined alternative government. Each time they got beat, they merely concluded that they must try harder, that one last heave would do it. When they won in 1997, it was because they stopped relying on mere effort and listened to what voters were saying. Voters weren't voting Conservative because they liked the Tories. My own dad, who voted Tory every time, thought the Tories were upper-class pricks and said so, to the face of every Tory canvasser. He told Wilf Proudfoot MP, to his face, that his party was a bag of arse. But my dad voted in the national interest as near as he could figure out what that was; and that meant keeping Labour out, simply because Labour were incompetent. In 1997, people were so sick of the Tories it was like an emetic just to think of them (even my father admitted that); and finally, by abolishing the hardline socialist clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution, the Labour Party had undertaken to respect capitalism and the mixed economy instead of nationalising the means of production, distribution and exchange. That was the thing which was undoing the Labour Party; it had wanted to micro-manage the economic life of Britain, even though it caused the collapse of the British economy in the 1970s by doing exactly that. To make itself electable, it had to show that it realised it had ruined the whole country last time and wouldn't simply dose the country with the same prescription again.

That's the challenge for the US Republicans now. Will they admit, even to themselves, that they misgoverned America so badly that the voters are actively afraid to allow them to govern again? Or will they continue to offer the medicine as before and tell themselves that next time they must try harder to sell the same old neo-liberal economic policies allied to tax cuts for the rich and spurious foreign wars, paid for by borrowing which future generations will need to repay? Will they continue to peddle social conservatism, guns, God, no abortion and knee-jerk reactionary little-America grand standing on issues such as immigration and citizenship? A lot of natural Republican bedrock supporters are very unhappy with these positions; many people who voted for Nixon and even Reagan feel like they don't recognise their own party any more. Many of the "Latino" community (I hate labels, but this one is an approximation which most people,"Latino" and non-"Latino", understand) were alienated by Republican immigration policies, but this didn't mean they were in favour of a free-for-all. They were in favour of rational immigration control policies and wanted an open discussion of what these policies ought to be. The Republicans weren't offering this; and a community which has staunch conservative values, has more than the national average of self-employed small business owners, a higher than national average rate of church attendance, voted 27% Republican. The Republicans have lost touch with their own natural constituencies.

One way to save the Republican movement (and actually I think US Democrats should want to save the Republican movement in the interests of plural democracy) would be to make it illegal for God botherers to run for office. Anyone who is a self-professed clergyman (eg the Reverend Pat Robertson) should be disqualified from public office, even as a dog catcher. Any church which donates to any political cause should lose its tax-exemption and be forced to render unto Caesar. These measures would weaken the sclerotic grip of God-botherers on the Republican movement and make it easier for electable candidates to get past the primaries. Romney and Ryan was an extremely socially conservative ticket and went down badly with the voters for precisely that reason; but Romney had a titanic struggle to get selected by Republican party members at grass roots level, who seriously contemplated selecting Rick Santorum. Until it reaches a stage where a candidate like Rick Santorum would be laughed at by the Republican grass roots, the Republican Party will struggle to reach out beyond its own grass roots and appeal to voters who have moderate conservative beliefs.