It's fundamentally simpler than that in my opinion. The Daily Show had a nice roundup of how in 2008, most every member of Republican Party that could find a camera stated that their goal for the next four years was to oppose Obama in everything he did. They followed up in 2012 with a similar video. If you view the Republicans as an "opposition party" instead of a "minority party" their behavior is wholly logical - "anything you do we will try to stop you." As to the "giant, international media machine" Gene Lyons & Joe Conason lay out a great case as to how it was built in The Hunting of the President. I would argue, however, that the Bush administration turned that scalpel into a knife into an axe into a cudgel into a wiffle-ball bat over the course of 8 years of Global War on Terror. The biggest problem the Republican Party faces is that their chosen media organ is one ignored by everyone under 50. I linked to it a few weeks ago, but the median age of television viewers increases by a year, every year, and has since 2003. Kids just aren't consuming media the way their parents did. Republican handling of media relations indicates that they are largely in denial of this fact. Their media buys and message focus remains one of traditional media. Whereas democrats and progressives focus pretty concisely on "getting out the vote" and all things Internet, republicans and conservatives remain committed to broadcast, mail, etc. This is one reason Nate Silver ends up looking like Hari Seldon - most of the pollsters are stuck in 1987 because most of their money comes from Republicans who don't really care about the new fangled shit like the tweeter and the readits and the wibberly wobberly web. As a result, Nate Silver is one of the few people actually paying attention to the available data. You end up with a great echo chamber effect - the Republicans have Republican data repeated on Republican media to Republican voters about how Obama is a secret muslim and 80% of viewers polled disapprove of Obamacare. Meanwhile, their grandkids just nod patiently and don't tell grandma about voting by mail and we all wait patiently for them to die. America. Fuck Yeah.
I'm fully aware of the tendency of older people to lean conservative, but I've never really made the connection with we all wait patiently for them to die
I don't mean to sound macabre, but do you think that will mean a considerable democratic swing within the next... 10-20 years if the republicans don't try to reach an earlier audience? I know plenty of young people who are frustratingly conservative, but I also know that those older people make up a very large portion of the republicans votes. I wonder if we'll see a shift in the GOP's message to reflect the need to replace those old votes. It'll be interesting to see if they ride it out, straight into the ground (heh) or if they don't, whether they will try for the new group of old folks or the youth. The former seems much more likely
We're experiencing it. It's slow - people don't drop out of the rolls in waves, they trickle out. That's the big problem the Republican Party is facing right now: they're squarely aimed at a diminishing demographic. That's what the big battles in the party are about right now - excising the Tea Party faction because they're so rabid they're driving away the center.