Ruining the Republican brand

February 14, 2007

Earlier this week, on an unrelated point, Paperwight had an interesting item about institutions and their brand names: “If you don’t use and defend a trademark or brand, you lose it.”

With this in mind, how’s the Republican brand looking? It’s seen better days. Gallup recently found that people identifying themselves as Republicans dropped in almost every state in the Union. Today, Tom Schaller argued persuasively that the war in Iraq “has destroyed the partisan brand Republicans spent the past four decades building.”

That brand was based upon four pillars: that Republicans are more trustworthy on defense and military issues; that they know when and where markets can replace or improve government; that they are more competent administrators of those functions government can’t privatize; and, finally, that their public philosophy is imbued with moral authority. The war demolished all four claims.

In uniform or out, Americans think Iraq is a disaster, oppose escalation and blame Mr. Bush and his party for the mess in Mesopotamia. Heading into the 2006 mid-terms, polls showed Republicans trailing Democrats as the party most trusted to handle Iraq and terrorism. Nationally, Mr. Bush’s war approval ratings hover around 30 percent. […]

The Iraq war’s human consequences abroad are far more tragic than any impact they are having on partisan politics at home. But for Republicans, the last casualty of Mr. Bush’s war of choice may be the party itself.

I think that’s right, but it’s happening at a slower pace than it should. In response to the column, Atrios noted, “It’s actually weird. There’s this sense that at any moment the damn will burst and they’ll all be fighting over who hates Bush the most, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

I think that’s right. The GOP base — the types who only care if there’s an “R” after a person’s name — is just big enough to matter in a presidential primary fight, and just blind enough to stand by Bush no matter how disastrous his presidency. At this point, I have to assume they stick around because, no matter what, they still hate the left more.

The president could come to their house, shoot their dog, and set fire to their car, and the die-hard Republican would say, “At least he’s not Nancy Pelosi. Besides, he left me my TV so I can watch Fox News.” And since these folks vote in the primaries, McCain, Giuliani & Co. continue to swallow hard and pretend Bush isn’t an embarrassment.

In the process, the Republican brand deteriorates that much more.

they stick around because, no matter what, they still hate the left more.

That’s it in a nutshell. I have met a lot of wingnuts, and that is their final position. Ted Kennedy is worse, no matter what the Republicrooks do.

It’s actually a good thing, because if the core morons weren’t such a strong block, the Republicrooks could pitch them overboard, pivot and recover before they go over the falls.

I can’t wait to see the panicked looks on the faces of the moderate Republicrooks chained to the deck of the USS Republicrook as they see the 2008 precipice coming closer, and closer, and closer…

(And the true believers will tell them they’re the ones who caused the disaster by not having faith!)

  • The creed of the new GOP seems to be: “I got mine; to hell with you.” And that’s the compassionate version

  • The creed of the new GOP seems to be: “I got mine; to hell with you.” And that’s the compassionate version. pacato, Post #2

    I’d modify that creed to “I got mine; to hell with you, and I’m going to take some of yours, to boot.”

  • I love the branding game.

    Bush=Republicanism.

    All the screw ups that happened the last 6 years are the kinds of things that happens when you elect a republican as Pres.

    There are plenty of Rs who openly stated they were gwbRepublicans when shrub was flying high. Time to recycle those quotes.

  • The Republicans I used to work with in San Francisco in the ’50s, in contrast to the Democrats of those days (not the Burton bunch, but the ones whose only motivation was to keep the Blacks out of the Mission District), would drop dead if (1) they saw today’s Republican Party and (2) they weren’t already dead. Can you imagine how Eisenhower or Earl Warren would have fared with the Bush Crime Family or even the Reagan/Gingrich crowd? I am so glad LBJ kicked the bigots out of the Democratic Party, which just keeps getting better and better.

  • “Das Base” has put all their eggs in the basket of the Great BushGod. Tipping the basket gives them nothing but a big pan of raw egg—and their “credibility cookstove” has gone stone cold. Their only alternative now to “political food poisoning” is to stay with what they’ve got—no matter How bad it is.

    The “diehard faithful” in Hitler’s Germany did the same thing, until the bitter end. Then they “conveniently misplaced” their little swaztika pins, their swaztika flags, and their autographed copies of Mein Kampf. Some simply committed suicide, because they couldn’t handle the raw fact of total, irreversible defeat.

    It’ll be pretty much the same in 2008 and 2009. Suicide rates will skyrocket, and a fair number or “R”s will magically disappear from the voter registration lists. Those with the means to do so will probably leave the country….

  • George W. Bush has fucked up every single thing he has ever been involved in: Harken, Arbusto, the Texas Rangers baseball team, the state of Texas, Iraq, the United States of America, and the planet Earth. Why should the Republican Party escape?

  • The election results of this past November made it obvious that the Republican brand was in steep decline with Bush at the helm. Now, if we can only get some of those pin-head, Southern senators out of office (starting with Sessions of Alabama), perhaps the government would begin to care about people again.

  • “they are more competent administrators of those functions government can’t privatize”

    Shot that myth ALL to hell.

    The new four pillars of Republicanism:

    They lie when it’s convenient for them, which is all the time. They are incomptent and if something in government is competent they will work to reverse that. They know who and how to go to and much they will get back in campaign contributions when privatizing your tax dollars. The public philosophy has been corrupted by their immoral behavior and self -interest. The military is a toy for them and your security is a public relations ploy.

  • As he continues to fail and flounder beware of the Repubs who will claim ad nauseum that Bush was “never a conservative”..

    Bullshit…..he was conservative enough for them in 2000 and 2004

  • While Goldwater’s philosophy and Nixon’s criminality might have got things going, the modern Republican vision really came into its own with Reagan. You can draw a straight line between what Reagan did for the GOP, and what is happening now.

  • While you guys are dancing in the street,you might reflect that it wasn’t the Democratic party that repudiated the Republicans. It was the centrist voters that will cross party lines to achive a goal. I started voting on the Republican side when the Democratic party looked a lot like the current Republican party. If some how the Democrats seize control of all branches of government they will be indistinguishable from the the last party that controlled all branches of government.. I vote issues on both sides of the isle. We are all Americans even though through rhetoric we some times cross lines of common decency. We sometimes elect an official in government that is neither qualified nor able to fufill the duties of the particular office. In my life Mr. Bush is the bench mark for inadequacy

  • What’s happening to the Republicans now is the sped-up and more drastic version of what happened to the Democrats between about 1972 and 1988. Brand degradation, fracturing coalition, the whole party getting defined by its extremists, and an ultimately unbridgeable gulf between the extremists who vote in the primaries and the general public.

    While it’s entirely satisfying to see this bunch of scumbags get it in the ear and other holes, I do hope their party regains its sense and sanity at some point. I agree with comment #14 that one-party government doesn’t work for long. If a few years of Democratic control undoes some of the damage of Bush/DeLay rule, great, but eventually they’ll degrade and we will need a loyal opposition. Hopefully by then, they’ll have something–anything–worthwhile to offer. They certainly don’t at the moment.

  • I do hope their party regains its sense and sanity at some point.

    I think the GOP is not salvageable. All that’s left there are theocrats and klepto-plutocrats. The supposed “principles” of the party (small government, low taxes, strong defense, down-home values) are naive, incoherent and misguided even when they aren’t just dishonest talking points. They’ve abandoned secular constitutionalism and embraced religious authoritarianism. They can’t serve as a loyal opposition because what they are opposed to are the basics of our democratic system.

    My personal fantasy is that the Republicans get marginalized to such a degree that the party implodes (kind of like what happened to the old Reform Party after Perot cut them loose). At that point the DLC Dems could split from the progressives, and we’d get a new two-party system where both sides actually understand and support the Constitution. Ah, to dream.

  • I never thought I would be grateful for anything that Bu$h has done, but in 6 short years, he has destroyed what the right wing establishment has worked 30 years to create: A permanent conservative majority. Through his incompetence, his usurpation of the Constitution, his disdain for the rule of law, his retraction of basic freedoms, his demagoguery, and in general, his bratty, obnoxious, junior high mentality, Bu$h has exposed what the present day right wing brand of conservatism really is: Class based bigotry, unabashed militarism, religious extremism bundled with corporate plutocracy.
    Wait, didn’t I just define fascism?
    At any rate, it should be painfully obvious for anyone with an iota of common sense that these people are the antithesis of what our founding fathers sought to create. Thanks, George, you have ruined everything you have touched your whole life. At least this time you did us all a huge favor.

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