http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/10...y-break-apart/
Keep all of this in mind when you’re reading Jennifer Rubin’s piece today. She argues that the Republicans should “fire their base” regardless of the short-term political implications. And she uses as a moral comparison, the actions of the Democrats in the early 1960’s.
firing the base has a strange connotation to it. you risk alienating a good segment of the population.
I don’t see some great moral cause that moderate Republicans are pursuing, so it’s even less possible to envision eighty percent of the Democrats lining up to help them achieve their cherished goal.
I don't see them cracking up. as this paragraph points out, there's no real moral imperative to cause a shism in the ranks.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Democratic Party wasn’t a coherent party, and that made it vulnerable to a crack-up. For the Republicans today, we do see fissures opening up over foreign policy and trade, as well as on some cultural issues.
interesting take on the state of the republican party. there are indeed some similarities between the democrats of the 50's & 60's who at the time were dominated by segregationists (and to a lesser extent the democrats of 160 years ago) and the republicans of today.