You folks who think the GOP will abandon pro-business and free markets are insane.
This statement demonstrates much of the problem with the current Republican "establishment" view of things. Much of the reason why the GOP is flailing is because it has taken ideals like capitalism, business, free markets, etc. and placed those as the ultimate objectives of the economic portions of our system rather than viewing improving peoples' lives as the ultimate objective and using free-market capitalism to do it. Maybe 15% of America believes in capitalism as an ideological tenet, while probably 65% believe it is generally the best economic system to distribute resources but only as a means and not as an ends unto itself. The Republican Party must pitch the argument to voters that its economic policies will actually lead to growth that will help those voters rather than arguing "well, you believe in capitalism, don't you?". At the moment, there are a whole lot of people out there who don't want to end capitalism but simply want it to work for them rather than work to make the stock market go up. One could argue they benefit from the stock market going up, but I think many Americans, perhaps even most Americans, will find that a rather dubious assumption.
This is a terrific, well-developed response. My feelings more or less match these.
