"... the unreasonableness has gotten worse and worse over the past several years, reaching an intolerable crescendo with Trump and Cruz."

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COMMENTS: 
*  Hilarious. "The Republican Party is a collection of closed-minded reactionaries...". FGO: firm grip on the obvious.
*  Of course they like ideas.....bad ideas, irrational ideas, reactionary ideas, theocratic ideas, foolish ideas, cruel ideas, unfair ideas, unjust ideas and most of all delusional ideas.
*  You're wrong John Kasich, the Republican Party does have one big idea and zealously pursues it: The brutal and vicious pursuit of power for the 1% at all costs. By any means necessary including racism, disenfranchisement, destroying half the Middle East, denying climate science, stacking the Supreme Court, stealing a presidential election -- all of these on the historical record! 
Doubts? Please see Brothers, Koch. Cheney, Dick. ALEC. Scalia, Antonin. Election, 2000. Congress, Republican. etc etc etc Face facts, please, voters.  Facts First.*  Kasich is in this race for one reason only. He wants to end legal abortion, but he is very sneaky about it. Never talks about it. He is really a woman hater and any woman, or decent man who votes for him is a fool. Check out his record in his home state.
*  The problem with the GOP is that they no longer represent conservatives. They simply and narrowly represent the unreasonable.
*   I have heard that a sizable, but not majority, segment of the GOP is now accepting that the Earth may not be flat.
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John Kasich: The GOP ‘doesn’t like ideas’
By Stephen Stromberg, April 20, 2016

The Republican Party is a collection of closed-minded reactionaries that faces electoral catastrophe in November. But don’t take my word for it — take John Kasich’s.

“Frankly, my Republican Party doesn’t like ideas,” Kasich said in an interview with The Post’s editorial board Wednesday morning. “They want to be negative against things.” There have been exceptions, he noted, such as Jack Kemp and Paul Ryan. But, he said, “most of ’em — the party is kind of a knee-jerk against.”

Kasich does not argue that the party has become too conservative. Kasich is himself quite right-wing. He instead argues that Republicans are often simply unreasonable. “I think we’ve over-dramatized our situation,” he said, countering the apocalyptic campaign narratives of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, who spin tales about dark forces ruining the country. “We’ve had worse times in this country, far worse times in this country. We’ll be fine.” In another election, Kasich’s pitch might have proved more effective. This year, reasonableness is even less popular than usual among GOP voters.

The results, Kasich warns, will be disastrous for the party. If Republicans nominate a candidate who panders to certain voters’ fears and suspicions, Kasich said, “I think we’ll probably get wiped out, probably lose the United States Senate, the courthouse, the statehouse.” Republicans cannot win crucial swing-state Ohio with a negative message, he explained. “After that, there will be this soul-searching,” he said, but he could not predict what sort of party would emerge from “the ashes.”

Kasich, of course, has self-serving reasons to make these arguments. He is losing to two men who represent various shades of ruinous reaction. But Kasich’s grim view from the trenches is nevertheless a reminder that the country lacks a responsible conservative party, one more like the Conservatives in Britain, interested in governing a pluralistic democracy rather than seeking temporary political advantage by tearing down the institutions and norms that make such governing possible. The GOP’s trend toward irresponsibility is not new. A responsible conservative party would not deny climate change, for example. Instead, it would press for replacing expensive green energy subsidies with market-based climate policies. But the unreasonableness has gotten worse and worse over the past several years, reaching an intolerable crescendo with Trump and Cruz.

Kasich seems unlikely to save the party from the disaster he forecasts. Assuming his predictions of electoral doom prove right, will the GOP reshape itself into a more constructive force after November? It seems too much to hope. But my guess is as good as Kasich’s.
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