We Win, They Lose

In the wake of the dispiriting losses the GOP took last Tuesday, more and more Beltway Savants from both the Left and Right are insisting, yet again, that the Republican Party is simply out of touch, too conservative by half, at least.  Moderate, they counsel, or risk irrelevance.

Let's assume they're right about the disposition of the country, that it's now split about 55-45, more liberal than conservative.  They are wrong, however, about the consequences for the party if it becomes more centrist as they suggest.  The results will not be a more competitive 50-50 proposition.  Instead, the losses will be more on the order of 60-40 or worse.  Or, what's more likely, it'll be a 60-30-10 disaster with the 10% being what's left of the old GOP.

Conservatives, who remain a substantial minority in this nation (thank God!) and a large majority of the Republican Party, don't want merely to slow down the liberal advance, to better manage its predictably ruinous consequences, or to negotiate with its standard bearers some sort of domestic detente.  Rather, we want victory.  In fact, we want rollback.

Unrealistic, you say.  So was the collapse of the Soviet Union.