Republicans and Democrats: Too Big To Fail?

A question I’ve been asking myself over the past few months, as Fox News and the Tea Party seem to have usurped the Republican Party is: where’s the RNC? Even seasoned veterans of the media wars like Rush Limbaugh seem to have doubled down on the (mildly) hostile takeover of their party. Similarly, the leadership on the Left is blatantly asking the public to “ignore the man behind that curtain,” and insultingly telling voters that if they’re displeased with the president, they’re wrong. Clearly, both parties are in trouble, the Republicans more so, because the insurgency in their party is already in full effect. The revolution on the left, though, feels like it’s just out of reach, but lurking all the same.

I can remember hearing Mr. Limbaugh rail against the very possibility of a third party candidate upsetting the established order. I say to Mr. Limbaugh, that not only has it happened, but he helped make it so. When Christine O’Donnell was elected, technically she was running as a Republican, but credited the Tea Party for so successfully backing her election. And when mainline Repubs questioned her competence, the conservative noise machine delivered a bully-like smack-down on them, from Fox (Hannity, Beck etc.) to Limbaugh and bloggers beyond.

So, with media figures as prominent as Jon Stewart coming very close to calling this administration an outright failure, and a growing majority of conservatives virtually ignoring their own party’s leadership, the emergence of a strong third party candidate seems not only possible, but downright inevitable. For the Tea Party to successfully make a run at the presidency, they will either have to do one of two things. One, admit they are in fact a part of the Republican Party, and allow themselves to be mainstreamed into it. Two, form a more cohesive structure and run as a third party ticket, which to me seems more likely given their very much established distrust and displeasure with the RNC.

The more radical possibility is that a centrist, possibly soon to be former Democrat will emerge, and with a more Libertarian agenda, silence both the elites on the left and the senseless noise machine on the right by simply refusing to engage in hyperbole. I know this sounds insane in our current climate, but the foundations of both parties are fractured, and voters are becoming more dissatisfied than ever with our limited choice system.

So, too big to fail? Maybe not.  

Mike Grefski