I agree fully. I just think the idea of calling them Trumpists when Trump is gone makes no sense. Yes, the GOP will basically learn nothing and turn in 2020 to someone like Cruz.
They’ve always been around in the GOP - in the 90s they were Buchananites, in the 60s they were John Birchers. They’re isolationist, protectionist, and, to be blunt, racist.
The polite way of referring to them is “nativists” … though that’s much too polite, in my opinion.
I don’t even buy the thought that the Gubernatorial wing is growing and successful. It’s only really successful in winning Red States, and has been having very detrimental effects on the economies of said states (see Kansas under Brownback and Louisiana under Jindal). About the only industry which thrives under GOP governors are natural resource extractors (think oil/gas etc.), and that tends to be at the expense of the residents down the road.
On the other hand, I hear John Kasich is popular in Ohio and Larry Hogan seems to be doing well in Maryland. So Republican governors willing to at least create the appearance of working with Democrats exist and have success. Both these guys have distanced themselves from Trump.
I think Trumpism goes beyond traditional nativism in its explicit rejection of democratic (small d) norms. I suppose you could call it alt-rightism, but I think that elides the movements longstanding roots.
Data sound like science, and you know how Republicans feel about science.
Trump will be almost 75 in the next cycle. Doubt he’ll run. Age will take a toll on him, soon. He’s not even close to being physically in shape.
Right now the main wings of the Republican party are:
The chamber of commerce
Internationalist/neocons
social conservative/evangelic
rational libertarian
white nationalist
If we look at the conflicts.
The chamber of commerce and the white nationalist are at opposite ends of the spectrum on everything from trade to immigration, to entitlement reform to tax policy to the treatment of minorities Other than a vague agreement that federal government should be smaller they have nothing in common.
The Neocons and white nationalist are in conflict over international intervention.
The social conservative and chamber of commerce wings are in conflict over tax policy.
The rational libertarians (e.g. Rand Paul) are in conflict with a social conservative on social issues.
The rational libertarians are in conflict with Neocons on foreign policy
The social conservatives are in conflict with the white nationalist over behavior.
The problem is that white nationalists are probably the largest group, I think even larger than the chamber of commerce. But the two groups are the largest and winning an election without either one is virtually impossible in most districts.
In the past, each Republican group had agreement over about 80% of the party platform so it wasn’t that hard to bury the differences. That’s not true anymore.
I think it’s clear that the party is ready to break, but to do so, the organized portion of it must find a source of funding and votes that can replace the disorganized deplorable wing. That means they must either poach a democratic group like legal immigrants, religious blacks, or unions, or they have to double down on deplorables. I’m not convinced they won’t just do the easier thing and double down. Christie-son-of-Trump is the guy who scares me next time around.
I honestly think that they can get more than enough votes to replace the xenophobes and racists, just by being non-idiots.
Accept things like science, stop hating minorities and gays.
Done. There will be plenty of people happy to accept reasonable conservative positions that aren’t at odds with reality.
Heck, I might vote Republican if they did that. Yeah, I have some seriously liberal leanings on several issues, but I’m not head-over-heels in love with the Democratic politicians that routinely get nominated.
Wont happen. It sounds good, but no one is willing to leave a giant pile of votes on the floor. Someone will come along and pander to them at some point and then you’re back where you started. Throwing away 1/4 of the electorate isn’t going to happen, especially for a party that clings to them for dear life.
Yeah but what have we seen this cycle?
Those people are political poison. You can’t get them AND normal people.
I wonder who will get control of the machinery of the party in the states. Lots of those people were hostile to Trump.
Yet the Republicans have for decades.
My theory is you just need some executive action at Fox News and the RNC to lighten up on the fearmongering and stupidity (I know I know, it’s like asking a dog to cook your dinner), and then they’ll eventually get manipulated via television back to a compliant state. Trump will get alot less air time after the election and the people will eventually forget (probably after a few beatings and copious numbers of email screeds).
All you need is just enough of the secret sauce to prevent the Bernie Sanders of the world from getting through to the poor uneducated masses, and you’ll be fine. It’ll still take a handful of election cycles of demographic change to definitively block a hard-right Republican party from any real power, and I suspect they’ll be riding it up till the very end.
Hey, it worked for Nixon. And Reagan, etc. It’s not like these people suddenly materialized out of nowhere. The secret is keeping them quiet enough so you can maintain plausible deniability.
Yeah, but that’s the thing. Times have changed.
What we’re seeing is the ultimate end result of the southern strategy… It worked for a while, and now it doesn’t.
This is simply a fact at this point, as a result of demographics. A party which doesn’t recognize this, will be exactly in the position that the GOP is in today.
Sorry one of us was talking about what the Republicans ‘will be’, and the other what they ‘should be’. I was replying to your comment that you can’t get Trumpeteers and normal people. You can, although the strategy I outlined above won’t win them any presidential elections. Demographics are against them but they can still retain significant power in the Senate and Congress for at least a dozen years I think before they will be absolutely forced to change to survive.
The post_Trump GOP will be… exactly the same as it is now. Nothing will change.
Nothing changed after GWB, when the party came together and said “we need to do some soul searching.” What they found in that search? Racism.
I still see people saying Trump is a better defender of the Constitution than Hillary. After literally taking a shit on one of the most fundamental aspects of America. I guess he had to top taking a shit on the Constitution and up his game.
Nothing will change. In 2 years we’ll be right back here while the next batch of Steve Kings primary out the few remaining rational people in the party and then 2 years after that we’ll get another Trump, only this time they wont be a complete fucking idiot and they’ll probably win, thereby justifying the course Trump and others have laid.
Toss in a few “not a real conservative” excuses after the loss- which is completely true, but the party doesn’t want them, so I’m not sure what it proves other than the GOP isn’t really a conservative group anymore. Given a choice about 10% of the party wanted a conservative. They want a magic pill from the government that fixes everything and they’re willing to give away everything for it. They’re basically the antithesis of conservatism at this point (barring a diminishing number of hold-outs who probably wont be around in 2-4 years anyway after they get primaried).
Maddow had a clip on this talk with former SCOTUS Justice David Souter.
“An ignorant people can never remain a free people. Democracy cannot survive too much ignorance.”