What BooMan Said

Among other interesting and useful things:

I think racial resistance to Obama's presidency is masking the true weakness of the Republican Party. And things aren't going to remain static. There will be consequences to the Republicans' lack of unity on immigration and gay rights. With the RNC taking an official position on those issues that is anathema to, respectively, the racist and evangelical bases of the party, we can expect further erosion of the Republicans' hold on the white vote. Some of those voters will be receptive to a Clinton candidacy, but the real problem will be lack of enthusiasm resulting in less volunteerism, fewer donations, and more third-party voting.

Yes, an assertively irrationalist party isn't sustainable, but when all the energy in your party is irrationalist any correction in the service of long-term organizational sustainability will be paid for in a painful, costly drain of energy that will feel even less sustainable for party members who always live very much in the present day. It's damned if they do damned if they don't time for the GOP for a while to come -- though the instituted party duopoly provides them a breathing space of unearned pseudo-legitimacy to recover and re-invent themselves in sooner than they deserve (and probably a good thing, too).