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.
I fail to see how your valid criticism means a change in policy/philosophy is in order rather than a change in the style/articulation of the message. I don't buy into the parties switched fairy tale, and it's fairly obvious that the GOP has had some strain of pro-business ideal in its platform since the beginning, and they've had periods of unbelievable success. They need to better articulate (once again) that business is not this boogeyman responsible for everyone's problems as the Democrats often promote but rather the lifeblood of our economy, made up of ordinary Americans (and the fact that some of had "made it" and become rich should not be demonized). I'll agree that we're not articulating that well at all, but the line of thinking "tax those evil rich people, it's not fair they have that much!" needs to be thrown back where it belongs.
