It'll galvanize their support if anything. The GOP has gone off the deep end...
On the money. More to the point, large swaths of the national population have gone off the deep end at either extreme. On the one side you have these religious nuts who buy into this sort of frothing insanity. On the other hand you have the materialists including socialists, progressives and other psychologically unsound sorts grasping after equally insane desires.
and isn't going to be a viable party any longer.
I disagree. It is exactly the resonant match between the GOP and the vast hoards of ignorant, stupid, and insane lunatics that strongly ensures the GOP's future. Besides, the way things are going, if there is in fact an endgame afoot, the GOP may likely last just long enough to serve its purpose, after which it will no longer matter what happens to it.
It is grievous folly in this day and age to adopt assumptions about the character of the general public, particularly when giving it undeserved credit for intelligence, integrity, industry, and knowledge of the basics such as human freedom. On the whole people are either bat-shit crazy, dumber than posts, crooked as the day is long at the poles, or hopelessly ignorant. I have observed a disturbingly common tendency for people to exhibit two or more of these individually frightening flaws. One should exercise extreme care in evaluating the population when taken as a single statistical entity.
Santorum is insane. I do not think this could be refuted by any honest clinician psychologist given the opportunity to examine him. But Santorum is largely a product of his environment This alone speaks volumes about American culture, which I will suggest is a major contributor to his world view. He and the people who support him are his analogs and number in the many tens of millions. The central question, then, is why are all these people cleaving to insane candidates who stand to only perpetuate and advance insane visions of humanity's future in a demented utopia? It is because of the current culture - the values with which they have been inculcated through a process of creeping advancement.
People want what they are taught to want, for the most part. This poses no danger up to the point that fundamental lines are not crossed. For example, if a bunch of people, even a great and overwhelming plurality wish to live in a socialist utopia, they should be free to do so. The problems begin when those people become willing to cross the boundaries of interpersonal respect by forcing those not interested to toe their line of lifestyle. This is the age old failing of humanity.
Unless the fundamental environment at large is kept "pure", for lack of a better term, we will face these problems. I see no way to keep it pure due to the very nature of things. That is why I believe that the choice between capitulation of the individual to collectivism or a fight to the death (literally) is all but inevitable.
Pandora's box is very real. Today we call it the human psyche.
