by Chris Thomas

Audra Shay, Young Republicans & the Death of Prosperity - Chris Thomas | iHaveNet.com
The Shrinking GOP (© Dana Summers)

Jon Avlon of the Daily Beast has done some great reporting on Audra Shay, a Republican activist whose track record on race relations could lead one to believe that the Klan still has some influence in this country.

What's problematic about Shay, however, is not just that she appears to hold racist views, but that her views were well publicized before she was recently elected president of the Young Republicans.

Compounding the damage to a Republican brand that has seen Sarah Palin, Jon Ensign and Mark Sanford going kamikaze in the last several weeks is that Shay also seems to have run a whisper campaign against her primary rival, effectively accusing her of being a lesbian because she supported gay civil unions. Considering that recent polls have shown a majority of Texas (yes, Texas) Republicans supporting either Civil Unions or gay marriage, one has to wonder what genius thought up this particular strategy.

Then again, one has to wonder about a Party whose cognoscenti elected an explicitly racist and implicitly homophobic individual to be head of one of its largest advocacy groups.

Normally, the election of the president of the Young Republicans is not a matter of great consequence. But it is worth focusing on here not for what it is in and of itself, but for its larger implications on the nation's future.

The mainstream media has covered ad nauseaum the decline of the Republican party over the last few months. While some of the coverage has gone too far, most notably Frank Rich's erotic pleasure at the GOP's travails, the reality is that GOP Decline is the story that keeps on giving. Had the supposed conservative party just lost the election last fall, we would have moved on to something more politically interesting at this point. But along came Christian conservatives Sanford and Ensign, who were apparently as selective in their commitment to Biblical principle as George Bush was to fiscal discipline.

As those stories wound down, and the nation was getting ready for a quiet July 4th, along came Sarah Palin, whose incomprehensible decision to abandon the governorship of Alaska stunned even those who thought Palin intellectually limited. Now that same group could add mental instability to their list of Palin attributes.

But mental instability seems to be infecting the Party rank and file as well, as evidenced by the election of the aforementioned Shay. The party really does appear to be on the verge of some sort of self-destruction that would fulfill Frank Rich's most lurid fantasies.

True conservatives, defined here as those who would limit government's role in both the marketplace and in regulating social behavior, need to be concerned about these developments

A GOP in thrall to anti-intellectualism, homophobia and perhaps even racism, is not going to play a role in the future of this country. Independents, who tend to distrust both Democrats and Republicans, and who are now the most important voting block, are generally tolerant people who voted for Obama, don't hate gays and find any form of racism repugnant. In short, they are typically decent Americans. Because of this basic social decency, these people will most likely overlook Democratic incompetence on fiscal and economic issues even if, as is likely, the Left wrecks the economy in an effort to pay off its constituent groups.

Under normal historical circumstances the GOP could expect to benefit from the coming Democratic overreach. For example, in the early 90s, when Clintonian efforts to socialize medicine led to Republican majorities in both houses, the GOP brand was coming off of an incredibly successful Reagan Presidency and a Bush 41 administration that, while not nearly as glamorous as its predecessor, had ably fought the first Gulf War and had governed the nation with experience and competence.

And so in 1994, voters could turn to the GOP with the expectation the Republicans would demonstrate competence and provide a much needed brake to the Left and its pathologies.

Unfortunately for the nation this GOP counterweight does not exist today

This is due not just to the staggering incompetence of Bush 43, but more importantly because the Southern strategy first embraced in the late 1960s has been all too successful.

The GOP has backed itself into a literal corner, specifically, the Southeastern corner of the nation. It has abandoned the Northeast and the Pacific Coast. The cities are Democratic strongholds, as are the more affluent and better educated suburbs. Florida, the least southern of the southern states (but with 27 electoral votes) is trending Democratic. And, in the ultimate strategic nightmare for the GOP, the Economist reported this week that even Texas may go to the party of Obama as the burgeoning Hispanic population turns the tide for the Dems.

The Republicans may soon be, in effect, the party of the Confederacy, a bitter irony for a political organization that counted Abraham Lincoln as its greatest leader. As such, we should not be shocked that the Party is now associated with the antiquated social conservatism that has been a hallmark of Southern culture, but which has been anathema to those who occupy the other three quarters of the nation.

And so, without a counterweight, the Left will be allowed to execute its program

Headed by a charismatic, tactically brilliant but economically illiterate President, we are seeing the Democrats Californicating the American political economy. Taxes will rise to pay for a nightmarishly complex and expensive health care "reform". Increases will be focused on the entrepreneurial class, thereby denting an engine of growth first unleashed by Reagan 30 years ago.

Regulation of the Wall Street wealth creation engine will retard that sector, thereby making the deployment of capital less efficient. GM, Chrysler and Citibank continue to exist as wards of the state, eating up valuable resources that would be best deployed to more competent managers and better run businesses. Cap and trade will create another huge government program that will jack up energy prices, taxing the economy even more.

But on top of all these impediments to growth comes Obama's maniacal program to amplify W's catastrophic fiscal policies

While the President and his cohorts berated Bush for his deficits, the reality is that they are ready to double down on the last President's budgetary disaster. Like Bush, Obama claims that he is fiscally disciplined. As such, like Bush, Obama has entered a reality free zone where deficits can go on forever so long as the political rhetoric says that the nation is fiscally responsible, mounting red ink notwithstanding.

Significant meaning can always be derived from seemingly insignificant events.

Audra Shay is not even a footnote to history, but her rise to power within the Republican party is symbolic of the party's fall from grace. To be sure, the GOP has never been completely consistent on its support for free markets and fiscal discipline. But the Obama administration is ready to take the tired liberal agenda of tax and spend and regulate to incomprehensible levels. Decades ago, the GOP offered a counterbalance to such irresponsibility. But as it collapses into a party more representative of Macon County circa 1955 then Westchester County circa 2009, that counterbalance is gone, and so, unfortunately, may be the future of the nation.

 

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