One of the repeated cycles throughout history is the
reaction to victory and defeat. The
victor generally fights the next war the way they fought the last (after all,
it won last time), while the loser generally changes (after all, what they
tried last time didn’t work). After
World War I the French, having won, prepared to fight another trench war with the Maginot
Line, while the Germans, having lost, went back to the drawing board, rethought their approach and invented Blitzkrieg,
and conquered France in 6 weeks in the next war.
This is the Republican’s problem now. The Democrats failed miserably
in this election (as they should have, considering the candidate they picked),
and are forced to go back to the drawing board and figure out what they did wrong.
The Republicans, on the other hand, won, and are now busy figuring out what to
do now that they have free run of the candy store. But in fact the Republican Party
is every bit as dysfunctional, as out of touch, as in need of a thorough house
cleaning as the Democratic Party – perhaps even more so. But having won, they
have no incentive to do the rethinking, the house cleaning.
This is the danger lurking for the Republicans. Hillary was
a very weak candidate, and her team in their arrogance made some serious
mistakes. Even a candidate as problematic as Trump could beat that. But the
next election Republicans probably won’t get such an easy opponent, and they
won’t be ready for that.
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