The Collapse of the GOP | National Catholic Reporter

The Collapse of the GOP | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: The GOP is imploding, although if the country follows the lead of New Hampshire, eventually John Kasich will be the nominee - at least for Vice President - and that means Ohio will be in the GOP column.  Cruz is horrid, Trump is a joke, Carson is worse and Rubio is not ready for prime time.  Kasich, like Sanders, is not a big outside the Beltway name - put that is why we spend months on primary contests.  Of course, experienced that he is, and even though he raised taxes in Ohio, he is also strongly linked to the anti-gay marriage and pro life publicity stunts.  As a reasonable public, I have no doubt that these are stands that he takes for convenience, while being personally friendly to gays and probably as agnostic about abortion as most men, unless he has daughters.  Without the social issues, he could compete with Hillary Clinton for leadership of a Wall Street friendly right of center party.  In some ways, these two are closer than Clinton and Sanders.



The contention that Sanders cannot win is ridiculous.  The states that elected the first African American president would surely also vote for a socialist (with the possible exception of Ohio if Kasich were the nominee).  That would make in closer, but would not make it impossible for Sanders.  Indeed, the obvious red baiting - or worse the fear of red baiting - should be called out as a thing of the past.  The kind of radical change (and Sanders is far from radical) that electing Sanders represents is likely just what this country needs.  When we got Social Security and recognized the Soviets diplomatically, we had FDR as president.  He was the first triangulator.  In those days, the labor movement was far more Marxist (as opposed to Catholic worker) and the Depression had caused the Marxists to be more aggressive in their advocacy, which FDR used to threaten Wall Street into supporting Social Security when the result could have been nationalizing industry.  Wall Street geeked.  Sanders will make them geek again - Wall Street will make Hillary geek - indeed, she will likely go to Goldman Sachs for another Treasury Secretary.  We tried that.  We got 2007.



We will always have two parties, but they may be a Democratic Leadership Party and a Democratic Socialist Party.  Both will be pro-choice, although that won't be an issue, as on Saturday we are burying the only justice who believed Roe should be overturned in such a way as to let the states decide the issue.  the hope for a SCOTUS victory is slim and will die with Justice Thomas, and with it abortion as a political issue will be consigned to fringes.  If abortion as an issue defines the GOP then the GOP is essentially dead.