The Republican party is at a crossroads. For decades they were the party of limited growth, economic cautiousness, and maintaining the social status quo. From the 1960s to the 1990s, we made steady (albeit slow) progress. When President Clinton was elected, they started to shift towards personal destruction politics. After 9/11, the drumbeat making "liberal" a dirty word really shifted into overdrive, and has continued through the present day.

Things really melted down, though, when TFG was installed into the Oval Office with less than 50% of the popular vote (with Hillary Clinton getting more than 50%). He unleashed the Id of the Great Unwashed among us, dragging the grossest of personal attacks (including physical), and extremely bad behavior into the mainstream. The MAGAts were unleashed, culminating in the Jan 06 riot/insurrection.

He (and his behavior), however, are becoming an albatross around the neck of the Republican party. The voters soundly rejected TFG in 2018. Those who might be described as "yellow dog Republicans" tend to be elders, and are dying off (not to mention the political anti-vaxxers dying of COVID). The results of various recent elections are showing just how out of touch they really are.

Earlier this month, the people of Kansas (yes, Kansas) voted to keep abortion legal in their state, which likely came as a shock to Republicans who must have thought it was a slam-dunk. In Ohio, republicans put forth a special ballot initiative to make it harder to update the state constitution (changing the threshold from 50%+1 to 60%). This was widely seen as an effort to prevent a repeat of the Kansas vote, and it failed miserably, by more than 60%. Special ballot initiatives are in other states this year, including Michigan, Kentucky, Montana, and Colorado. It will be telling to see how the voters respond.

What's a party to do?

At the national level, "moderate" republicans are getting fed up with the extreme factions in their party holding them hostage. This is going to be a pain point for them until they can break the fever infecting their party and their supporters. The extremists need to be neutered by the party leadership, and the party needs to realize that younger voters have no interest in being underneath their boots.

The sooner the better.