A thought about the GOP, the Democrats, and elections past, present and future.
These are the two major parties and likely will be for some time to come, and they are different in ideological basis, of course, but there are some significant organizational, strategic, and tactical differences.
Where we often hear about the GOP fracturing into conservative, libertarian, and so-called “establishment” sects, you rarely ever hear about the Democrats breaking into progressive, communist, and old school blue dog Democrat subgroups. The GOP is quite fond of sectarian and internecine warfare, often attacking each other mercilessly in primaries, even splitting votes by running as independents or non-Republican Republicans (most of whom are moderate or borderline Democrats).
Democrats have message discipline, repeating, up and down the line, phrases like “MAGA extremists” until blood streams from our eyes. They also have operational discipline, they vote monolithically, never straying from the collective vote unless given permission from their leadership to do so (to protect their seats). They move as one organism, standing in the same positions and spouting the same rhetoric (and lies) within 5 minutes of the messaging directive going out.
Democrats also have a long-term strategy for complete domination of government, public AND private lives - that's why who is in office doesn't matter to them because the agenda drives everything. It is why neither the mental degradation of Fetterman, Biden, Harris, and Feinstein concern them anymore than the pervicacious embarrassments emanating from the Dem dumbasses like AOC and the Reactionary-ettes (Bush, Pressley, Omar and Tlaib) on the Squad don’t matter either.
If the vote is solid Democrat, they could care less about the quality of the person. It is the vote that advances the agenda that counts, the people are disposable and the more flexible their intellect and integrity, the better.
The GOP is different. Almost every quadrennial election, we run versions of popularity contests like TV’s the Batchelor. We have litmus tests and purity exams, and those who don’t pass get voted off the island like in Survivor. We tend to vote for the person, not the policy platform or agenda. We want the candidate to pretend to believe what we believe, even if they weren’t going to govern that way. As a matter of fact, before 2016, the GOP simply would not vote for a GOP version of Bill “Cigar” Clinton or John “Baby Daddy” Edwards.
Of course, President Trump was a notable exception – probably because the other 236 candidates in the primaries were establishment wankers, doofus deadbeats, or Ted Cruz, who seems far more conservative than he acts and that scares the hell out of “moderates”.
Maybe it was because Hillary was just too awful to contemplate.
I always piss my Dem acquaintances when they rant and rave about how bad Trump was and I remind them that Hillary must have been worse to lose.
And sure, on the one hand, we have George Santos, but on the other, the Democrats have Joe Biden. Not quite a tie, but there you go. Santos might catch up, Biden has a 50 year head start.
Where the GOP can barely articulate, much less execute, a cogent strategy for a mid-term election, as previously noted, the Democrats, being far more like the ChiComs with respect to long term planning and execution than any other political entity, have a plan for everything, everywhere and all at once (see what I did there?).
GOP won’t consistently win until they understand they are not fighting a string of stand-alone battles, this is war and war needs an appropriately understood strategy to win.
To borrow from Jack None Reacher, the best way to win is get your retaliation in first. I've lost all faith in the GOP. They deserve no loyalty or recognition other than maybe something you want to scrape of your shoe. Trump essentially got his retaliation in first. It wasn't always effective, but with every covefe or sleepy Joe, the Left's screeches and hysteria rubbed enough folks the wrong way.
There isn't a single Republican so far that would have the cojones to do what's necessary. We've got a Medusa that needs killing. A lot of snakes need to lose a lot of heads. How we get there... well, only God knows because trying to unify the GOP and find a few with spines is like herding cats and finding hookers in church Sunday morning.
You absolutely nailed it with this commentary. Prime example is the abortion issue. The righteous Right stays home on election day unless the candidate meets their specific goal of no abortions anywhere, ever, or for any reason. Your characterization of the Left is absolutely on the mark...they circle their wagons no matter how bad their candidate is. Alternatively, the Right revels in being "right" rather than winning.