Putting All The Chips On Fail

by Patrick Appel

Joshua Tucker wonders if the GOP is smarter than it first appears:

...perhaps what is going on is that conservative Republicans have given up trying to win elections at all right now by conventional means (read: not behaving in a Downsian manner), and are relying instead on the assumption that eventually the Democratic Party will self-destruct. Or, put in somewhat milder language, eventually the voters will want change for change’s sake. In the meantime, therefore, there is no reason to stop trying to remake the Republican Party in an even more conservative image (read: “fire up the base!”), so that when it does return to power, conservatives will be in a prime position to enact their preferred policies. If this is indeed the case, it seems like a high risk/high reward type strategy for conservatives, but I wonder what it means for the rest of the Republican Party.