Josh Marshall on GOP Autopsy

Josh Marshall comments on GOP reform efforts on Talking Points Memo.

But the gist is that the GOP, based on the House of Representatives where it may well have a lock through 2020, has decided that there’s really nothing that needs fixing with the party’s emphasis on social conservatism and being the political party, overwhelmingly, of white people. Indeed, House Republicans are now increasingly vocal that all the stuff about an autopsy or rebuilding the party post-2012 was basically bunk.

Marshall adds the following comment from a TPM reader who is a former GOP staffer.

The entire party is united against anything that might raise taxes on the people most likely to give money to Republican campaigns and the Party campaign infrastructure. The entire party is likewise united in the view that government agencies (other than the military and intelligence agencies) are staffed by people who are lazy, inefficient, possibly corrupt, and doing jobs that taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for. Finally, the consensus that regulation of interests that could potentially help fund the GOP’s campaign infrastructure is bad at all times is unchallenged within the party.

You can call these beliefs an expression of ideology if you wish; I think of them more as the internalization of campaign slogans proven effective in elections held between 20 and 30 years ago, and to some extent as the reflection of tangible policy objectives pursued by organized interests. They represented official Bush administration policy, especially with regard to taxes. After that administration presided over years of economic stagnation followed by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, there was, and is, no reflection within the party about these beliefs representing the core of what the GOP should stand for.

What this does is permit Republicans in public life leeway to be for only two things. One is, “nothing”; a public platform consisting only of attacks on the Obama administration, liberals, and the media can still win support among Republicans. The other thing Republicans can be for is magic: tax cuts that will reduce the deficit, spending cuts that will create jobs, deregulation that will do only good and won’t lead to anyone being taken advantage of.