JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
- 63,590
- 16,776
- 2,220
Zakaria: The rebirth of the Republican Party? – Global Public Square - CNN.com Blogs
I think Zakaria, untypically, has nailed this one. Bsically what we are seeing in this election is a Tea Party Spring uprising powered by a large number of small donations and volunteer time and effort, and all guided by a consensus reached in meeting set up or conducted on the internet. The whole reason the old party hierarchies exist is because in the pre-internet days you needed such structures to bring people together, to pool resources, and act as the brain of a mass organization. We dont need that nearly so much any more and I suspect we will need it ever less as time goes on.
What Zakaria is seeing in the GOP is similar to what happened with the Arab Spring, the initial OWS, and pro-democracy movements in Russia.
Power is shifting quite strongly from cadres of leadership to lower levels of local groups who can decide who and what they want to support, and this is happening across all groups to one extent or another. But it is happening most clearly in groups where the lower ranks have been led in a direction they do not prefer in the past and there has been too much concentration of decision making at the top and little input from the lower ranks.
I get the feeling that the new boss wont be the same as the old boss any more.
Power has shifted to the South and West. The energy of the Republican Party has moved away from the coasts and the big cities. Power has also shifted away from the proverbial smoke-filled rooms to the grassroots. The forces that represented the establishment in the Republican Party - the big corporations and the banks - are much weaker. The forces that are strong today are Christian conservatives, libertarian activists and other more diverse, populist groups. These groups have always existed but before now they were directed by the coastal elites. Not anymore. The Tea Party represents the dramatic acceleration of these forces.
These forces elevated Rick Perry and Herman Cain before the candidates petered out. Now their enthusiasm is propelling Newt Gingrich. Today, you can see the split between the old, hierarchical Republican Party and the new party in the contest between Gingrich and Romney.
Gingrich - partly because he knows how to speak to them - has been able to energize the grassroots base of the Republican Party. All Romney has going for him is the traditional establishment of the party that says, Look, this guy is sensible; hell play well in the general election; hes a good manager. He is the unthreatening candidate they can agree on. In the past that would have been enough. But you have a new Republican party that is driven much more by the new centers of power in the South and the Southwest and much less by the old establishment.
If Gingrich does win the nomination, it is not just the story of one guy doing well; it is the story of a very different Republican Party than the one we have been familiar with for the last 30 or 40 years.
I think Zakaria, untypically, has nailed this one. Bsically what we are seeing in this election is a Tea Party Spring uprising powered by a large number of small donations and volunteer time and effort, and all guided by a consensus reached in meeting set up or conducted on the internet. The whole reason the old party hierarchies exist is because in the pre-internet days you needed such structures to bring people together, to pool resources, and act as the brain of a mass organization. We dont need that nearly so much any more and I suspect we will need it ever less as time goes on.
What Zakaria is seeing in the GOP is similar to what happened with the Arab Spring, the initial OWS, and pro-democracy movements in Russia.
Power is shifting quite strongly from cadres of leadership to lower levels of local groups who can decide who and what they want to support, and this is happening across all groups to one extent or another. But it is happening most clearly in groups where the lower ranks have been led in a direction they do not prefer in the past and there has been too much concentration of decision making at the top and little input from the lower ranks.
I get the feeling that the new boss wont be the same as the old boss any more.