The GOP Is Dead By Suicide and Millennial Momentum Is Its Funeral March

The GOP funeral hasn't been scheduled yet, but the party is dead. Unless the world turns upside down between now and November and the Democrats lose this fall election, the GOP is a goner. And not just in November but for a long time to come.

The verdict?   Suicide while not of sane mind.

The method?  Alienating three of the largest voting blocks in America, which were previously up for grabs.

First of these are women and the men who love them. With its inexplicable attacks on women's health issues, capped by Rush Limbaugh's tirade of abuse against a dignified, soft-spoken woman law student, the GOP has offended far more than women. Men too are concerned about the health issues of their wives and daughters, and independents don't like crazies. The GOP is not even smart enough to give the uproar a chance to die away. Instead, the House is pursuing legislation allowing employers to limit health insurance coverage under the Affordable Health Care Act by merely invoking "moral" beliefs. Not only is contraception coverage affected, but what about coverage for unwed mothers? HIV? Vaccinations? Drug addiction treatment? Organ transplants? It's easy to see how any employer could come up with an objection to almost any aspect of health care. Meantime, Obama has picked up by ten points with women and by some unpolled number among men who care about their women. He has also gained with independents. The GOP has kissed the gals & their pals goodbye!

Second, the GOP is on the wrong side of demography. In about eight years the Millennial generation will constitute ONE-THIRD of the electorate. (See the book "Millennial Momentum" by Morley Winograd and Michael Hais for an encouraging portrait of this young generation.) The Democrats are far more popular with this age group than are the GOPers. This generation is astonished at the GOP's out-of-date anti-female, racist, and anti-gay fixations. They are also appalled at the anti-science attitude espoused by the GOP. For the young, climate change and other environmental issues are extremely important. They are an educated generation, and they have more at stake than anyone in the future of our physical world.

Third, the GOP has chosen to alienate the Latino community, the fastest growing ethnic segment in America. Playing on the fears held by a shrinking, white, under-educated blue collar and rural population, the GOP has seemingly gone out of its way to terrify Latinos. In one of the stupidest moves imaginable, Mitt Romney went to Arizona a couple of weeks ago and announced that he embraces the "Arizona model" of laws that are designed to harass anyone who even looks Latino. This is to be done in the name of capturing "illegal aliens" ( I hate that term).  Law officers can stop anyone they "suspect"  could be an illegal. Latinos in this country are not monolithic on the issue of illegal aliens, but they sure as hell are of one mind about being pulled over because of how they look! The bizarre thing is that Romney made this stupid gesture when he absolutely didn't need to in order to secure a victory in the Arizona GOP primary. He was leading Santorum by a country mile in Arizona, and Santorum had virtually no campaign in the state. Gratuitous stupidity, Romney! Until then, Romney had kept something of a distance from the GOP anti-Latino drum-beating. Now he's the drum major!

Somewhere a group of clever and powerful GOP thinkers are gathered in a secret room dreaming up ideas for killing their own party. How else explain the persistent GOP effort to alienate every group in sight? We Democrats could never think up comparably clever ways to kill off the GOP.

Well, apparently we don't have to tromp the GOP. That's all taken care of. All we have to do is be sure to get our fellow Dems out to vote. And keep fingers crossed that the economy doesn't re-collapse, that gasoline doesn't go anywhere near $5 a gallon, and that Iran and Israel don't go to war. Also, please, no economic collapse in Europe, no tsunamis interrupting the chain of parts supply, no BP oil spills, no terror attacks on "the homeland" (I hate that expression too), no scandals in the administration, and no decision by the US Supreme Court to throw out the Affordable Health Care Act.

That's a lot to hope for.

But who could ever have hoped that the GOP would relentlessly march down a road of its own design that can lead only to its demise?

"And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true." Maybe so, Toto. Maybe so!