There aren't a lot of options Libertybele. If the Republicans don't budge and are utterly defeated in the next decade then what does it matter? The timeline for the destruction of our liberties and descention into third world insanity will be expedited if the Republicans lose. The left is hoping people like you would rather die than bend with the tides. That makes their goals easier.
Nonsense. When was the last time the GOP didn't budge? They have been steadily sliding left my WHOLE LIFETIME--and I'm a great grandfather 8 times over.
How well has that worked?
Is that energizing the base (redefining the 'base' as the few moderate liberals sucked in by the portside drift of the GOP is BS, so let's get back to the social and fiscal Conservatives who traditionally composed the base of the GOP.--Nixon's "silent majority" who are burned out and gobsmacked at being lied to with neither compunction nor remorse by those they have entrusted from the allegedly 'honest' party to handle the business of government within the Constitution.)
You can toss the "social issues" but keep in mind that 240 million Americans identify as Christian, and then there are those of other faiths who take their beliefs seriously as well. Such a large majority (of all faiths) might somehow embrace a stand on social issues which leans conservative. If you want to get them to the polls, then don't abandon their beliefs, simple as that.
Go running off to cater to the latest libertine passion/perversion and the appeal drops. But if you want to run the 'two mommies' ads like JC Penny did, expect your stock to drop until you have new management.
You won't gain by trying to be Democrats, because the Democrats are already well practiced at it and have their voters pretty well in hand.
If you want to win, stand tough on the issues which really matter (the border comes to mind--especially so) because if the GOP stays wishy washy on the Border and illegal immigration, the Democrat demographic will be expanded to the point that American Citizens will be a minority. (DO you really think there are only 11.5 million illegals in the US? Sh*t, they were throwing that number around thirty years ago, there have been over a million coming in every year (we damnsure aren't deporting that many) and they have been doing what people do--making babies. )
As for the past decades:
I have far fewer rights than when I could first vote:
We won't even go into gun rights but they have been significantly lessened.
The State can seize my property, funds, assets (other than cash), business, etc., on the spurious belief that somehow those items are guilty of a crime: to wit, that they are assets derived from some illegal activity.
There is no evidentiary standard, warrant, not even arrest required, and I must prove the innocence of inanimate objects to perhaps reclaim my assets, if that CAN be done, and at my expense against an adversary I fund (in part) which has limitless resources.
Communications (including this one) are routinely monitored by the NSA as a matter of course, as are everyone's, and may well be recorded on a server farm somewhere. (What happened to the 4th Amendmaent?)
My grandfather, cut and milled the timber on his half of the farm to clear the land and build barns and outbuildings--egad! he did that with NO PERMITS! --and it was perfectly legal. His daughter cannot cut other timber on the farm without an EIS, an exclusion from Scenic River and Buffer Zone regulations, and
a separate permit to cut each tree, even though the very trees in question were planted by an ancestor some 180 years ago. (over 20 acres of mature (actually just past prime) Red Oak--worth a fortune).
They can't fish in the river for personal consumption without a license (Riparian Rights were stripped from landowners in the '70s)--by virtue of the original land grant they not only had riparian rights, but to the center of the channel--a mile offshore. If anyone ever drills for the natural gas I strongly suspect is present, the royalty and mineral rights will be contested by, if not claimed by the selfsame State which decreed the robbery of the other riparian rights possessed from well before there ever was a United States.
That's just hitting a few of the high points, but where did those regulations stem from? From an agency or agencies which were founded or empowered thus, not under Democrat Presidents, but by Republicans.
These are just a few high points on what voting for the "conservatives" in the GOP have cost us as a family, but we aren't the only ones, either. Now remind me again why I should vote Democrat so they don't steal me blind and take away my Rights?
With 'Friends' like the GOP, who needs enemies?
The Democrats
are worse, because they want the remaining rights I possess (not to mention money), but who does that leave for me to vote FOR?
The only time in the last quarter century I had (almost) the opportunity to vote FOR someone I liked (as opposed to just casting a ballot to block someone completely unacceptable) was in the last Presidential Primary, and then the GOP in this State
didn't hold one.
Give me a reason why I should SUPPORT that.
Just not being the other bunch of totalitarians doesn't cut it any more.