The Republicans' master plan

Yglesias comments on how the Republicans just love to double down when they fail:

After losing ground in 2006, you might have expected Republicans to start distancing themselves from the hugely unpopular president and his failed conservative policies. Instead, the caucus held remarkably firm behind Bush’s agenda. And then they lost a bunch of additional seats in 2008. At this point you again might have expected them to start acting conciliatory. But they haven’t been. Which might lead you to suspect that they have some kind of secret master plan to explain why this makes sense. But, clearly, they don’t— [Republican Senator John] Cornyn acknowledges that his side is likely to lose more seats [in 2010].

This is a good point. Policies like infinite tax cuts and torture have made the Republicans unpopular. But in 2008 John McCain said that progressive taxation itself is a form of socialism, and reversed his stance against torture. Now we have tea-party rallies and talk show hosts talking up...more tax cuts and more torture. There are plenty of other examples. But it's just not working; the Republican party, even controlling zero branches of government, is still massively unpopular in America.

Possible explanations for the Republican party's failure to learn from its mistakes:

1. Moderate Republicans took the fall for Bush's failures, leaving the party in the hands of die-hard radicals.

2. The Republican leadership sincerely believes that the 2006 and 2008 elections were cyclical in nature, and that there's still a "center-right" majority somewhere out there that supports the same ol' Republican ideas.

3. Republicans are afraid that if they repudiate the policies of the past, they'll suffer even further losses as the party degenerates into internal struggles and the public starts wondering what the Republicans stand for at all (like "rebuilding" a struggling athletic team).

4. The secret plan is to lose so many elections that Southern right-wingers lose all sense of identification with the United States of America and attempt to secede.

But I guess that we shouldn't be surprised in any case. The Republican party built up huge patronage networks over its 30 years of dominance - politicians who made their careers by climbing the party ladder, lobbyist-politician connections, revolving-door relationships with companies, political pressure groups that live off of donations, etc. You can't expect a massive edifice like that to crumble under the pressure of two bad elections.

Update: It looks like the Republicans are putting their majority where their mouth is, increasing support for right-wing candidates even in blue states.