In Which I Lament the State of the Republican Party in2016

The problem with the Republican Party today is that there really isn't one. George Will is quoted as saying, "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." Amusing as that sentiment is, it's more literally true of the GOP today.

The Republican Party isn't really a single entity with a unifying vision and platform. It is instead a loosely-organized coalition of competing and often internally contradictory factions. They are, to borrow from Battlestar Galactica, a ragtag, fugitive fleet, on a voyage to they-know-not-where. Meanwhile, Republican leaders are forced to pander to as many of these splintered factions as possible in order to get anything done. Republicans squabble amongst themselves almost as often as they squabble with Democrats.

Among the factions currently claiming affiliation with the GOP: the Gun Rights faction, the Anti-immigration faction, the Rich White Folks faction (Hillary Clinton notwithstanding), the Shouting Evangelical faction, the Get The Gummit Outta My Life faction, the Anti-Islam faction, the I'm-Mad-As-Hell-And-I'm-Not-Gonna-Take-It-Anymore faction, the Obstructionist Tea Party faction, the Anti-Vax/Climate Change Denial/Anti-Science faction, the Anti-Common Core/Pro-Homeschool faction, and maybe, somewhere in all of that, a few actual Reagan-era conservatives. These vastly disparate groups are united (if that's the right word) by just one thing: for one reason or another, they all dislike President Obama and/or Secretary Clinton.

That's no way to win an election. (See 'Kerry, John' for details.) There's no way any one candidate--or even any one Presidential/VP ticket--can hope to satisfy all of those factions. 

The Republicans have lost the last two Presidential elections--and if you ask me, they're on track to lose the next two--because  the Party no longer has any idea who the Hell they are or what they stand for. All they know is what they're against.

For my money, the 2016 Presidential election is already lost. Dysfunctional as the Democratic Party might be at the moment, nobody seriously doubts that the rank and file will eventually fall in line behind Hillary Clinton in November. As much as Democrats might dislike Clinton, they're not going to vote for Trump instead. Meanwhile, Utah, arguably the reddest of the Red States, is currently polling Trump at 29%, Clinton at 27%, and Libertarian Gary Johnson at 26%. Statistically , it's a dead heat. If, as a Republican, you can't win Utah convincingly, what chance do you have of winning the nation?

I expect that there will still be a Republican Party after November, but I have no idea what it will look like. But the GOP can't go like this much longer. Eventually, the Party is going to implode.

With luck, it'll be sooner rather than later. The sooner it happens, the more time the Party will have to figure out what the Hell it wants to be. They'd better get working on that quickly. It's only four years until the next election....