We had a lot of fun talking through the ways that the Republican Party is self-destructing through this election year.  But what about the Democrats?

The competitive system at the core of our Democratic Republic functions to the extent that the two major parties stake out different sides of important issues and duke them out through an election, when the people of the nation get to weigh in.  But what happens when one side is wallowing in irrelevance and the other side has little to say one way or another?  Citizens who might otherwise vote are confused, angry, or simply apathetic and stay home.  When one party loses its way, it’s up to the other one to capitalize on the moment and present its platform.

That is unlikely to happen as the Republicans square off against the Not-Republicans, aka Democrats.  The vagueness of Occupy Wall Street made into a platform, of sorts – and historically pretty much what the party has usually been without strong leadership.

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How bad can it get for Republicans?  The short answer is “much worse”.  The long answer is “much, much worse”.

There are many ways that the party of Reagan is screwing up right now, and any one of them would cause the Gipper to shake his head in shame.  Taken together, however, it is just about impossible to recognize the party itself – let alone a path to victory.

With nine months left until the election there is always a chance they’ll get it together, of course.  There’s also a good chance that we’re about to see nine months of unscripted slapstick passing itself off as “politics”.  Here is a list of what is going horribly wrong:

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The Republican Establishment has a problem.  The real issue is that no one seems to like their designated choice for President, Mitt Romney.  The personification of this problem is Newt Gingrich, running what seems to be more of a grudge match than a real Presidential campaign, but it runs much deeper.  Republicans have counted on a base that did what they were told and stayed together in the “11th Commandment” of Ronald Reagan – thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.

Coming into this cycle, the party was hoping to take the Presidency and the Senate.  If this keeps up they could lose 25 House seats and control of that body.  That could happen for a number of reasons, starting with a terrible candidate at the top of the ticket, one way or another, and an exhausted and broke base that has completely lost interest in “politics” as it is being practiced today.

That might cut a number of ways.

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