Enjoying Republican Autopsies

I know it won’t last.  But wow, it has been great fun reading all of stories on how the G.O.P. collapsed this week and what they need to do now.  Here’s are a couple of the best.  My favorite is how the Republicans need a Ra’s Al Ghul moment:

“The theory goes like this: The party can’t sustain itself in its current state. It needs to bottom out in order to begin rebuilding successfully. “Sometimes when a system is broken, it’s better to let it/push it to failure rather than prop it up and let it limp along,” explained Matt McDonald, a veteran of the several Republican presidential campaigns and now a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies, a nonpartisan consulting firm. “That way you get to start fresh.”

We have taken to calling that line of thinking the “Gotham Theory” of politics. Here’s why (for you non-”Batman” aficionados): In “Batman Begins,” there is a character named Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson) who heads a group set on destroying Gotham, allegedly for its own good. The theory is that Gotham has fallen too far to be saved and that the best thing that can be done for it in the long run is to hasten its demise.”

The most perceptive might be Jon Lovett:

“Then it all changed. The Republican elite caught a ride on the tiger. But the tiger got sick of waiting for the gazelles it was promised, the gazelles that were always one election away. The tiger was hungry and angry and tired of being used and the longer it waited the more appetizing the elite on its back became. So the tiger got a radio station and a news channel. The tiger got organized and mobilized. And finally the tiger realized it didn’t need someone kicking its sides telling it which way to run and who to eat and when to eat and why it wasn’t time to eat and the time to eat would come, don’t worry, you’ll eat soon enough.

So the tiger ate its master and now here we are.”

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.