The Republican Party has lost. They have been losing for decades now. This is the reality that they are coming to terms with and it isn't pretty. This has been building since their loss in 2006. That was the year that marked a turning point in their acceptance that the world was changing around them and their vision for conservative governance was being rejected. In truth conservatives have been lying to themselves for decades now about the success of their movement. The Bush Presidency was showing them in real time that the conservative movement they thought they were buying was actually just a movement to grow government.
Despite the Reagan Revolution and to a lesser extent the Gingrich Revolution in the 1990s their movement resulted in no major legislative accomplishments. The conservatives, who grew to despise the New Deal programs and the Great Society programs,, enlisted then conservative California Governor Ronald Reagan. The Reagan Revolution was suppose to be morning in America and was to put in motion the idea of rolling back the programs that were over indulgent and creating our American malaise of the 1970s. Despite solid Presidential victories in the eighties the conservative movement. failed to fully enact the ideas of Barry Goldwater and the conservative movement.
In the 1990s the conservatives achieved semi success of the Reagan era forcing Democrats to nominate moderate, southern New Democrat Bill Clinton and to an extent getting him to concede on welfare reform. It was a small victory for the conservative movement but none-the-less a victory. They also, in their minds, put up a road block to Hillarycare under the Gingrich Revolution. Universal healthcare was seen to the progressive movement in this country as the next great step forward.
The conservatives electing George W Bush with the hopes of finally accomplishing their dreams of rolling back the New Deal Social Security program through privatizing accounts was going to be their big legislative accomplishment. Having captured the Senate and House while holding the White House for the first time in american history conservatives were set up to undue all the success the progressives have accomplished in the 20th century.
Despite having majorities in the House and Senate they failed to accomplish their goal. In large part to the idea that the public likes government, they like the programs built in the 20th century and were rejecting the idea of rolling them back. The conservative movement suffered a fatal set back under the Bush years. Government grew deficits grew debts grew. Reality set in.
This is why the election of Barack Obama sends conservatives into a fit of insanity. They see this as the end game for their movement. Not only are the New Deal programs and The Great Society programs not being rolled back but with Obamacare they are being expanded. Conservatives are seeing entitlement programs growing, cultural norms change with the growing acceptance of gay marriage and a court less and less inclined to give them their overturning of Roe v Wade. The demographics are changing they are getting younger, less white, and less conservative.
The WSJ/NBC poll released earlier tonight is devastating not just for House Republicans in the immediate and having implications for 2014. While this is true this is not the big concern for the larger movement. They have lost their Obamacare fight, but it puts into empirical evidence that the public is rejecting their world view. People want more government not less. They are, like in the early part of the 2000s, are rejecting the conservative ideas for governance.
