The silent, invisible, intangible majority

As the Republican party struggles to reinvent itself, it would be wise to admit that the political strategies of the last eight years are a good reason why it is on the outs today. Mark "Devilstower" Sumner over at Daily Kos shares a pretty critical insight on the stimulus bill:

For the last eight years, both in the majority and out, Republicans have understood the word compromise in only one way: capitulation. You're either with them -- on every point -- or you're again' 'em, no middle ground possible. They've taken the George W. Bush policy for international relations and made it the centerpiece of their domestic tactics.

There's a lot of truth to this. Read any Republican screed since the election, and you'll find one common thread: the ironclad conviction that Americans, deep down, despite election results and any other evidence to the contrary, wholeheartedly agree with the GOP. This despite years of polling that suggest the GOP has left the center behind:

It's one thing to convince yourself that your way is the right way. That's personal ideology, everyone does it to some extent. It's quite another to convince yourself that the "silent majority" is out there, quietly rooting for you. It was the basis of the McCain campaign, after all. The phrase was popularized by another failed Republican president, Nixon, and though it was to a certain extent borne out in his case (though it had far less to do with the country agreeing with the GOP than it did with a disastrous, terribly unpopular war, Civil Rights, etc.) suffice to say that it's not true any more. Public opinion polling has come a long way since the '60s, for one thing.

There is one other group that tends to accept this fallacy: the news media. Think Progress did a nifty study of cable news programs that featured the stimulus debate, and found that conservatives outnumber progressives on these shows by 2 to 1. In other words, not only do conservatives dominate the Republican party, they also dominate the cable news punditocracy, yet another sign that both institutions are out of touch and sliding into irrelevancy. (It pains me to note that, based on the chart they provide, Fox appears to have the most balanced coverage, with CNN the worst and even "progressive" MSNBC not doing much better. But then, the "Democrats" that tend to appear on FNC tend to either be conservatives or meek seatwarmers like Alan Colmes.)

Update: as usual, Digby says it better:

At some point, the Democrats are going to have to confront their central political problem, which is that the conservatives are not appeasable and that political and media elites have either been brainwashed by conservative propaganda or are conservatives by choice and they have to convince the citizenry that their ideology is better for their personal well being and the well being of the country. Until that happens, the conservatives will remain in power even as an opposition force and their failed ideology will continue to destroy this country. This isn't a game anymore. They have to pass good policies.