I'm fine with that. Who wants to be a Republican for the sake of the thing? I'm actually only a registered Republican because in my hometown, the Republican nominees win all the general elections, so if you don't vote in Republican primaries, you are effectively disenfranchised. I am more sympathetic to the platform of the GOP than the other way around, and on the whole, I think they are a more decent group of people and more ideologically honest and more morally grounded, but as far as political allies, they are effectively useless. The only hope for the Republican party is that enough useful idiots might vote for a decent candidate if we could ever get one nominated.

You "winning is everything" suckers having been playing that song for over sixty years and things have gotten progressively (in both senses) worse, in both senses. What have we ever won, of our mutually agreeable, less extreme goals? We nominate your acceptable candidates, who destroy the party or roll over for the Democrats, who NEVER compromise on ANYTHING of substance. The best we get is a mild stall of the ongoing collapse of a free state into a what will be at best, a socialist mediocracy, and at worst, the largest third world state on the planet, with no free country left for us to run to the way you're willing to let Mexicans and the rest swamp our lifeboat.

The establishment of the GOP refused to let real conservatives run against Roosevelt, blaming them for the Depression, which happened under a left-wing Republican, who was not even a Republican until he became super popular, like Eisenhower or Colin Powell, and the Republicans who only think in terms of winning, regardless of who is on the ticket, lured him into the party. Hoover exacerbated the Depression with government interference, which members of the Roosevelt administration tacitly admitted they built on with the New Deal. But the establishment insisted on running more of the same, and we got four terms of liberals and an all but indestructible welfare state, which the GOP establishment has never really bothered to make an effort at eliminating. Then you pulled the same shit with Eisenhower, insisting the Taft could not win. the last two conservative Republican nominees had won, and liberals kept losing, but the establishment and "reasonable" types kept insisting on moderation, and sure, we got Ike, the last Republican endorsed by the NY Times. The Republican majority and dominance that made Ike run on our ticket was utterly destroyed by the time he left office, and we got Kennedy & the Cuban missile crisis. The temper tantrums and incessant attacks on Goldwater pushed him to the edge, and drove him into self-destructive behavior, even though he was the most inclusive candidate in the party, who was willing to accommodate the left and right wings alike, at least until Rocky and his ilk's petulance and backstabbing turned him against the left. Note that it was Goldwater's supporters, Nixon & Reagan, who went on to success in future elections, while the careers of Rockefeller, Romney and the rest petered out and they are not remembered more for their namesakes than their own accomplishments.

You accuse the right of flipping over the board and going home, but that is more the behavior of the left wing and establishment of the party. Every time we get the nomination, the left and the establishment are the ones who sulk and pout and go home, while the right keeps being reluctantly persuaded to follow more moderate nominees against our better judgment. But we kept it up, and supported another liberal Republican in Nixon, and we got affirmative action, China's nose in the tent, abandonment of Vietnam, foot-dragging on any actual bombing or other effective tactics, the establishment of the EPA...and Watergate, which led to Jimmy Carter, whose ineptitude still has ramifications to this day, although it does give you and yours more chances to call for war, courtesy of Iran, so maybe you regard that whole chain of events as a success?

You guys all claim to revere Reagan, who, I will admit talked a good game, but somehow always seemed to come through for the party of his old Hollywood liberal buddies when it was important. He was the one, who, against the objections of the Right, appointed O'Connor to the Court. We were told "Trust the Gipper, he knows what he's doing." Our supposedly most pro-life president ever, appointed the swing vote in Planned Parenthood vs Casey! Hell, that ENTIRE FUCKING COURT was appointed by your moderate Republican administrations, except for White, who was appointed by JFK! Is it any wonder the rest of us don't care if our opposition lets a Democrat into the White House? All five pro-abortion votes in Casey were appointed by Republican presidents!

For that matter, so were most of the bad guys in Roe v. Wade! You don't want the government shutdown? Well the current issue wouldn't BE one, if you and your kind did not insist on having your own way all the time, and putting morons and cowards in the White House, who nominate justices like Blackmun, Stevens, Burger, Brennan, Stewart, Powell, Souter and O'Connor...not to mention Roberts.

And don't give me that bullshit about bucking a Democratic Senate. Why, just once, can't we get a GOP president who will keep throwing up hardcore, trustworthy conservatives until the Senate cracks or goes into recess? The only good thing about the limp dick qualities of national GOP politicians, is we can occasionally force them into withdrawing their joke candidates like that Texas broad Dubya tried to foist on us instead of Alito.

There are so many unexamined assumptions in that statement it boggles the mind. Why do we have to have a two party system? Absolutely no one, ever, aside from the political insiders whose lives are simplified by it, thinks it is a good way to run a country. How absolutely stupid do you have to be, to think your prescription of how to get things done will EVER work? When have things EVER moved slightly in our direction? We keep nominating and electing moderates and compromisers, who sell out a little more and a little more of our birthright of liberty, and tell us to be grateful they did not sell any more. You claim that conservatism kills in a general election, but the GOP never gets unexpected success with moderation, and rarely even wins with moderation - they usually do so by pretending to be conservative. Reagan didn't get elected on promising spending increases, appointing a pro-choice woman to the Supreme Court, amnesty or compromising with Gorbachev. He stumped for abolishing abortion, called the USSR evil, heaped scorn on government spending, and promised to get rid of the Department of Education. Nixon didn't get elected promising to create the EPA or hand Vietnam over to the Communists or let China begin their long-term takeover of American industry, he promised to shoot rioters, and won over working class Democrats with an appeal to traditional morality. We took Congress in 1994 on the never-delivered Contract with America, by appealing to the "angry white male" vote. The Tea Party took back Congress after Bush ran as a conservative isolationist, and then plunged us into war with two nations, increased the welfare state, instituted No Child Left Behind, appointed John Roberts, and gave out more amnesty, and yet failed to hold the Congressional majority that had lasted for 12 years. Conservatism, even pretending to be conservative, is what wins for the GOP, but you people keep pretending otherwise, preferring to read NY Times editorials than crack a history book, and think yourselves clever for taking the advise of Democrats and scorning your base.

The problem with Trump is that he wouldn't be a problem if people like you have not screwed us over so thoroughly that people are willing to consider even Asmodean's proverbial tuft of grass. They are coming to have no confidence in the GOP (has it occurred to you that Fiorina and Carson are certainly beneficiaries of the same mentality? ), but YOU guys are the ones who will not compromise and try to take some of the issues from Trump, will NEVER support outsiders until or unless they manage to win in spite of your opposition. You'd rather play footsie with the Democrats, in hopes that they throw you occasional crumbs, rather than go to the mattresses for what is right. And they never do. We get what I call "Kodos and Kang bipartisanship" after the Simpsons episode where those aliens impersonate Dole (thanks for THAT winner, GOP establishment! ) and Clinton run as a joint ticket to capture both sides of the political spectrum. Their promise was "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others." And that's what every compromise with the Democrats comes down to. Republicans get superficial appearances the party hacks use to appease short-sighted loyalists like you, and the Democrats keep their substantive issues. When true conservatives ask when we're going to do something about abortion, we get told to shut up, that it's a gradual process, that we need to start with baby steps (a particularly obnoxious turn of phrase on this issue), that we have to compromise and not get too greedy or have things all our own way. If we push too hard, after all, the Democrats might take away our tiny American flags, and THEN where would we be? Abortion is not a preference, it is a matter of right and wrong. Why don't you seriously imagine someone dismembering your new grandkid, or chemically burning it while it screams in pain and then tell me that it is an acceptable price to pay to keep the government running, and all those Democrat voting, SEIU-member bureaucrats drawing paychecks!