The GOP Would Be Much Better Off Without Republicans

We’re not familiar with David Link, described as “an attorney and a writer who has been working on gay rights in California since 1985”, who lives in Sacramento, and some of whose work can be found in Reason magazine, if you Google past all the other David Links in this great land of ours. (But is there a Senator David Link of Utah? No. There’s common, and then there’s ridiculously common.)

All we can say for certain about David Link is that he’s capable of writing this:

Responsible, thoughtful and strategic members of the national GOP have a long-term interest in ridding the party of the toxic influence that Ronald Reagan first brought in, the first George Bush tolerated, and the second Bush encouraged in the most cynical and malignant way.

Yes, if only the GOP wasn’t burdened by the very people and policies that brought them successive successes over the past thirty years. Then they could go back to being the party of Nixon.

No, wait — that doesn’t work, either. Southern Strategy, and all that.

Party of Goldwater? No?

Because that leaves us with Ike as the last Republican President who didn’t trade on the politics of resentment, and you have to be 70 to remember him with any clarity.

What David Link is trying to say is that we shouldn’t be surprised when wealthy New York Republicans back marriage-equality laws, since wealthy New York Republicans aren’t mouth-breathing Southerners. We shouldn’t presume, David Link instructs us, that wealthy New York Republicans share the same interests as the rude mechanicals in their party.

Which is true. They don’t.

Nor is it news.

The point of the Southern Strategy — which we’re still living with — was that wealthy New York Republicans could exploit the rude mechanicals with social issues, and use their easily manipulated outrage to gain and hold power, after which they could be safely ignored until their votes were required again.

This has been a commonplace since at least 1985, so we’re sure David Link is familiar with it. And maybe you can even find “responsible, thoughtful and strategic members of the national GOP” who agree with his analysis, although David Frum doesn’t count.

But it’s outright fantasy to think that there could be a modern national Republican Party without the yahoos. It’s what they’ve become. It’s what they are. And as long as they keep winning elections with it, it’s what they’ll remain.

Unsurprised [Independent Gay Forum, via Sully]