" It makes no sense anymore to speak of 'the GOP' without specifying which one."

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COMMENTS:
*  Sorry, Eugene, but this is the best thing that could happen to the Republican Party! For a long time it has ruled from the top rather than building its foundations and policies from the bottom up. Win in 2017 or not, in the long haul it can only gain in strength from the current battles of ideas.
    *  At this point, it sounds like a battle of hate and stupidity. There are precious few actual 'ideas' being expressed. And if you mean that it's good for the GOP to go racing to the bottom - which it is currently doing - it will not be stronger for it.
*  The GOP: a party of bigots, racists and misogynists who stick together.
*  There is only one Republican Party. It is the party that has been coddling, encouraging and expanding hate and bigotry in the U.S. since the "Southern Solution." It is the party that gives to the rich while lying to the middle class and the poor and catering to their hatreds while screwing them economically. The only "fracturing" is that the billionaires thought that they could continue their lies and deception forever and could always control the silly little minded fools who follow them and that has finally fractured. After being lied to for several generations the angry, hateful, nasty, bigots the GOP has created now believe that they have the right to elect one of their own. The rich should be happy. As long as their angry mob can harm and torture people as they choose, dispose of minorities and women as they choose, the mob is likely to still not tax the rich and in fact will let them chew on the few bones left in the crashing economy they will create. Unless of course, they do decide to rush the End Times they have been taught to look forward to so much and decide to unleash America's nukes. Then there will be nowhere the rich puppeteers can run.
   *  the GOP has successfully hoodwinked a huge section of America into believing that it's actually going to help them when in fact - every single one of their policies will not help these people at all. It's basically a cynical ploy to lie to people it 'knows' won't know whether they're being lied to or not. You know what the GOP thinks of their base? They think they're stupid sheep. It's a huge con - and it's working!
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The great fracturing of the Republican Party
By Eugene Robinson, December 17, 2015

It is no longer possible to think of “the Republican Party” as a coherent political force. It is nothing of the sort — and the Donald Trump insurgency should be seen as a symptom, not the cause, of the party’s disintegration.

I realize this may seem an odd assessment of a party that controls both houses of Congress, 32 governorships and two-thirds of state legislative chambers. The desire to win and hold power is one thing the party’s hopelessly disparate factions agree on; staunch and sometimes blind opposition to President Obama and the Democrats is another. After those, it’s hard to think of much else.

It makes no sense anymore to speak of “the GOP” without specifying which one. The party that celebrates immigration as central to the American experiment or the one that wants to round up 11 million people living here without papers and kick them out? The party that believes in U.S. military intervention and seeding the world with democratic values or the one that believes strife-torn nations should have to depose their own dictators and resolve their own civil wars? The party that represents the economic interests of business owners or the one that voices the anxieties of workers?

All of these conflicts were evident Tuesday night at the presidential candidates’ debate in Las Vegas. It was compelling theater — Trump mugging and shrugging for the cameras, Jeb Bush gamely steeling himself to go on the attack, Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) waging a one-on-one battle, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vowing to shoot down Russian jets over Syria, Ben Carson turning “boots on the ground” into a mantra without actually saying what he thinks about deploying them.

A Republican optimist might praise the candidates for airing “serious” and “important” policy debates. A realist would say this is a party that appears to believe in anything, which is the same as believing in nothing.

One of the more telling exchanges came when Trump was asked whether the United States was safer with dictators running the troubled nations of the Middle East. Trump replied, “In my opinion, we’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that frankly, if they were there and if we could have spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems; our airports and all of the other problems we’ve had, we would have been a lot better off, I can tell you that right now.”

Carly Fiorina was aghast. “That is exactly what President Obama said,” she declared. “I’m amazed to hear that from a Republican presidential candidate.”

Indeed, there once was broad consensus within the party about the advisability and legitimacy of forcing “regime change” in pursuit of U.S. interests. But toppling even such a monster as Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is opposed by Trump, Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) — who combined have the support of 51 percent of Republican voters, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. So apparently there isn’t a “Republican view” about foreign intervention anymore.

Nor is the party able to agree on immigration policy. Even if you somehow manage to look past Trump’s outrageous call for mass deportation, there is no consensus for the course of action favored by what’s left of the party establishment, which would be to give undocumented migrants some kind of legal status. The only point of concord is the allegation that Obama has failed to “secure the border,” which is actually far more secure than it was under George W. Bush.

Once upon a time, the Republican Party’s position on a given issue usually dovetailed nicely with the views of business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But the chamber supports giving the undocumented a path to legal status. It also waxes rhapsodic about the benefits of free trade for U.S. firms and shareholders. Now, since Trump opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact (as does Mike Huckabee), other candidates have had to mumble about waiting to see the details before deciding pro or con.

The GOP electorate has changed; it’s whiter, older, less educated and more blue -collar than it used to be. Many of today’s Republicans don’t see globalization as an investment opportunity; they see it as a malevolent force that has dimmed their prospects. They don’t see the shrinking of the white majority as natural demographic evolution; they see it as a threat.

One of our two major political parties is factionalized and out of control. That should worry us all.
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