How Republicans Lose for Winning

Boehner and Cantor, the Do-Nothing Engineers.
How's that working out for you?

Jonathan Chait has a relevant column in New York Magazine about how the GOP are engineering their own irrelevancy and have been doing so for some time. All-out opposition to all things Obama leaves the Republican Party with no accomplishments and little influence on policy except for the continuing echoes of "just say no."

Obviously, a significant and vocal segment of the Republican base opposes the merits of any liberalization of immigration policy. But Obama has significant power to liberalize immigration policy on his own. So the substantive question for restrictionists is not whether they could use their leverage over the House to pass an immigration bill that’s better than current policy. The question is whether they could use their leverage to pass a bill that’s better than the policy that will exist after Obama unilaterally rewrites it.

What's worse is that the Do-Nothings have done nothing to help themselves in the long run. Lindsey Graham, who rarely says anything relevant beyond something similar to "our feckless president should bomb the crap out of [insert country] even if just to make sure the world knows all options are on the table, except if you ask me we really shouldn't bomb [insert country] because it would have little to no effect except make me look good on Meet the Press," has once in the last few years actually said something profoundly relevant. Graham intoned about his party, "We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

He said a mouthful.

2014 may -- or may not -- be a final triumph for gerrymandering and last-gasp "stupid party" shenanigans, but there's no denying, even among inveterate denialists, that GOP messaging had shaped itself as a big fuck you to blacks, Latinos, and women.That might feel good right now, but in 2016 they're poised to reap the whirlwind.

Here's Fox News, the TV wing of the Republican Party, showing how to win women over to their side:

Good luck, GOP. You're going to need it.