Gary Hart goes Godwin right out of the box:

Historians of early 21st century American politics will remark the degree to which radical forces, usually called neoconservatives, perverted language as recommended by the National Socialist Party in 1930s Germany. Continue to demonize liberals, blame them for all social and economic problems, and soon enough no one will be willing to admit to being a liberal. Claim that liberals and Democrats are too soft to combat terrorists and soon enough a majority, even in the oldest democracy on earth, will believe it. Open up entire electronic networks, such as Fox, and chains of radio stations, such as Clear Channel, and buy enough newspaper chains, and make all these media available to pre-programmed neoconservative ditto heads, and sure enough a subculture will emerge which distrusts its own government and believes that an entire political party is not to be trusted.

This has all happened before. And where it has happened, authoritarian government emerges.

Yes, but - this isn’t Germany, 1933, and the public has come to realize exactly what this strain of “conservatism” has inflicted upon the country, and they’ve destroyed their own brand in the process.

“Conservative” is now in the process of becoming every bit the epithet that “liberalism” is.

But I think both of these labels have outlived their usefulness. As referenced in a previous thread - everyone wants to make me to be this big liberal, most outspoken liberal in Lancaster County, blah blah. But every now and then I get a note from someone who suspects I harbor secret conservative - paleoconservative - notions. And they’re right.

At the same time, those who advance a decidedly socialistic view when it comes to property rights - as with the Crossings situation - bristle at the mere suggestion that they aren’t conservative. But again - this idea that the owners of the land should be constrained by what those who don’t own the land want, that is not conservative.

The labels wouldn’t be so important were it not for the conservative movement of the past decade - the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Coulters, who made a sort of football game out of politics. Your team and my team (I get that all the time from my winger correspondents); Yay for my team, boo for your team.

But what is it exactly your team believes? And there’s the breakdown. There’s no coherent philosophy for “conservatism” now - some have tried to articulate one, but I’d say that half the people who call themselves “conservatives” diverge from any given description, and proabably in significant ways. But the same is true of liberalism. What’s a “liberal” these days? I’m sure Rush could define it - but like so much else that comes out of his mouth, his definition would be cartoonish.

This year in particular the Republican Party is going to have to move beyond the labels, and they just can’t. They’ve invested too much in the label; too much in the idea of your team and my team, and now that people are turning away from “their team,” they’re scrambling, desperate to rebrand themselves. But they can’t: The Republican Brand is Bush. Bush is the Republican Brand. And as Josh Marshall notes:

And now we’re surprised that a party that has tightly defined itself around the most consistently unpopular president in modern political history is tanking at the polls?

Not at all. It’s just that so many self-defined “conservatives” refuse to believe he’s taking; refuse to acknowledge he’s tanking; refuse to grasp the concept that the brand has been poisoned. Because the brand, their team - it’s all they’ve got.