In addition, Republicans are popular with the oldest voters -- I have read that the average age of Bill O'Reilly's viewers on Fox is about 70 -- and the trouble with old people is that they get older and then die, and they are replaced by younger voters, who vote for Democrats in big numbers. You can hope that voters get more conservative as they age, but maybe they won't. Still, I don't think that demographics is the biggest problem for the GOP. After all, they could always change their policies to try to appeal to a larger group of constituents.
The concern is more that the party is not really trying to address their long-term problems, but rather is trying to hold things together using short-term tactics that cannot be sustained. In time, these tactics will unravel, even as the long-term disadvantage grows. At some point, reality is going to catch up with them, and it won't be pretty.
Politics = Money
A couple of weeks ago, a majority of the Senate voted to advance an amendment to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that made it easier for people and organizations to pour money into politics. Every Republican voted against the amendment. In fact, the Republican position on money in politics is, the more the merrier. Never mind that this is inherently corrupt, and Citizens United has just encouraged more corruption. Never mind that the vast majority of citizens are well aware that billionaires are now openly and proudly exercising enormous influence over the political system while the rest of us are getting screwed. It isn't sustainable, and one day the 99% will put limits on the 1% to make politics more fair. In the short term though, the biggest donors are giving money to the Republican Party, and they want that money to keep flowing, so the policy is to let the Koch brothers have free reign.
Voter ID
Republicans expect to do well in the 2014 elections, but the reason for that cannot be too reassuring: their voters turn out better for non-presidential elections. In other words, it's not because more people prefer them. They actually represent a minority of Americans, but as long as more of their voters vote, they can still win. That is why they have done poorly in 2008 and 2012, when President Obama was elected and re-elected. In those years, voter turnout was very good, and the more people vote, the more they favor Democrats. Republicans are counting on minority rule, and they know it. That is why they are doing what they can to make voting more difficult all across the country. It doesn't bode well for your long-term outlook when you have to try to stop people from voting in order to stay in power.
Gerrymandering
In 2012, 1.5 million more people voted for Democrats for the House of Representatives than voted for Republicans; nevertheless, Republicans held onto the House majority by a comfortable margin. There is more than gerrymandering involved, but that is a part of it. The other part is that Democrats tend to be grouped together more than Republicans are, so dividing states into House districts naturally tends to favor Republicans. Still, I would not want to be the party counting on a unrepresentative division of seats to keep my majority.
In 2012, Barack Obama won the state of Michigan by 9 percent. according to Wikipedia, Michigan has 9 Republican Representatives and 4 Democratic. Obama won Ohio by 2 percent, and the split there is 12 Republican, 4 Democrat. Virginia was a 3 percent victory for Obama, 7 Republicans, 3 Democrats. Pennsylvania was a 5 percent win, 13 Republicans, 5 Democrats. It is inherently unfair; our elected officials don't represent the voters. Republicans are counting on this inequity, but again, is it sustainable? I doubt it. Democrats are looking forward to the 2020 census, when they will have a chance to redraw the lines.
The Ruling Minority
If the money isn't enough to convince voters, and if you cannot do enough to suppress the vote of those who oppose you, what next? Republicans in Congress have used their power as a minority in the Senate and a majority only in the House to obstruct any kind of progress. Rather than compromise with Democrats to pass legislation, Republicans have used the filibuster to an unprecedented degree and have failed to pass legislation in the House that was not supported by a majority of Republicans, effectively giving control of the party to the Tea Party wing. If we can't do things our way, then the government just won't work at all. Never mind that we lost the elections. To hell with the American voters. We will break the government rather than allow majority rule.
The Longer Term
The problem with all of these solutions is that they are short-term fixes for a longer-term problem: the GOP is losing the American voters. Their policies are not popular. They fight against abortion, but 70% of Americans support Roe V. Wade. They have gone to extremes to fight the Affordable Care Act, but it's working, and they have no alternative. They have decided to pretend climate change is a hoax -- how long can you sustain that? Trickle-down economics have not worked and are now destroying the middle class. Americans support gay marriage.
The Republican response has been to push their policies even further to the right, insisting that theirs is the only way even as it becomes more and more obvious that their way will never work. They refuse to move their policies to the center, because their base is so certain that the American people have to come to their side, accept that their conservative Christian values should be the law of the land, that we need to do everything we can to encourage and enrich the wealthy while taking away from the poor. They seem to think that rather than change policies, they can bring us to their side, or maybe just force everyone to their side, majority or no.
In the long run, it won't work. You can only hold that approach together for so long.
