These days the Republican Party feels an awful lot like the late 1970s Soviet Union. [theatlantic.com]
Paraphrased slightly from the link:
This was a time referred to the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, as the era of stagnation -- "vremya zastoi" in Russian.
...
that point, the Soviet Communist Party was a spent force, and ideological conviction was mostly for chumps and fanatics.
...
and large, Soviet citizens knew that the party’s formulations about the rights of all people were just window dressing for rule a small circle of old men in the Kremlin.
and yet they continue to hang on
I wonder. The Soviet Union didn't officially 'collapse' until 1991.
@RichCC Reminds me of a joke told in the old USSR.
Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev where travelling by train when it suddenly stopped.
Stalin jumped up and said "I will fix train" and promptly shot the conductors and engineers. He sat down and said "Now train will run"
They sat there for a while but nothing happened, so Krushchev jumped up and said "I will fix train." He pointed at random people and said "Now you are Conductor and you are engineer". He sat down and said "Now train will run"
Of course they sat there and nothing happened so Brezhnev said "I will fix train." He walked around the carriage, pulled down all of the curtains and then sat down again and said. "Now train is running"