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The GQP: Trumpist Death Cult


Hugo Stiglitz

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Good brief video on the evolution of the Republican Party.

 

I think it’s safe to say the outcome of the 2018 midterm election will greatly influence the direction of the Republican Party. 

However, it seems more like Fox News has more influence on Republican voters than any other entity or person, which is scary.  

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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Tinely thread.

 

https://www.axios.com/republicans-growing-identity-crisis-2018-midterms-37485bd4-eeec-46de-8154-0a205eea505d.html

 

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The Republican Party is suffering an identity crisis that poses acute short- and long-term risks: President Trump, with 38% approval in Gallup, is giving the party a constricted appeal, with the danger of continuing high-profile defections.

Why it matters: In a 50-50 nation, marginal defections can incapacitate a party.

The GOP, long synonymous with conservatism, is now effectively the Trump Party — in policy, branding and support.

That leaves some swaths of traditional conservatives without a major-party home, and endangers Republican electoral fortunes.

And two of the party's mega-donors renounced the GOP last week: hedge fund manager Seth Klarman, once Republicans' biggest donor in New England, and Les Wexner — the wealthiest GOP donor in Ohio, and founder, chairman and CEO of L Brands, which includes Victoria's Secret.

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For now, this is a crisis of the intellectual and power elite: "Morning" Joe Scarborough; his frequent guest Steve Schmidt; N.Y. Times columnist Bret Stephens; WashPost columnists George Will, Michael Gerson, and Max Boot.

But it’s slowly spreading,

The danger for Republicans is that they get clobbered in November, and a trickle becomes a steady stream.

Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, 46, a rising star in the party, continues to flirt with leaving the party — a small sign of a talent crisis that could lie ahead for the GOP.

Sasse recently fired off a quartet of tweets praising a devastating critique of the right's current straits: "America Desperately Needs a Healthy Conservatism," by Andrew Sullivan of New York Magazine.

"In today’s America, [traditional] conservatism is completely under siege," Sullivan writes. Trump "assaults the norms that conservatives revere, has contempt for existing institutions and sees the rule of law as a means to advance his own interests, rather than that of the society as a whole."

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Gallup's most recent gauge of party identity has 28% of Americans considering themselves Republicans, 27% calling themselves Democrats and 43% identifying as independents.

It's that big middle group where you see the looming threat to the vitality of the GOP: Some Trump policies are so polarizing that independents are likely to be increasingly inaccessible to the Republican Party, giving Democrats a potentially overwhelming advantage in the pool of voters they can activate.

A former White House official told me: "Shifting demographics have been a problem for Republicans for a long time. Paradoxically, while Trump likely exacerbated that problem in the long term, he also postponed its consequences because he carved out a new path to 270, in large part thanks to his trade rhetoric."

"The problem post-Trump is that what he did is not replicable."

Be smart: High profile defections like the ones above won't change the electoral math of the heartland, where GOP presidencies are won. The danger is Trump's alienation of quiet conservatives: They won't make big announcements. They just won't show up.

And they could form the base for a new conservative party — run by someone like Sasse.

 

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The Republicans have two options: double down on the hatred that seems to consume their party and remain relevant for a few more years and then become persona non grata, or tone it down in an attempt to appeal to the younger generation.  They seem to have made their choice with Trump, and barring a swift strategy change in the next few years, history books will point at 2016 as the moment Republican Wil E. Coyote reached the end of the cliff.  The younger generation abhors that stuff, and none of us (*generalization) own enough to be swayed by tax cuts to ignore it.

Republicans have banked on people becoming more conservative as they age for decades now.  Becoming the party of Trump is one way to ensure that does not happen.

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6 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

The Republicans have two options: double down on the hatred that seems to consume their party and remain relevant for a few more years and then become persona non grata, or tone it down in an attempt to appeal to the younger generation.  They seem to have made their choice with Trump, and barring a swift strategy change in the next few years, history books will point at 2016 as the moment Republican Wil E. Coyote reached the end of the cliff.  The younger generation abhors that stuff, and none of us (*generalization) own enough to be swayed by tax cuts to ignore it.

Republicans have banked on people becoming more conservative as they age for decades now.  Becoming the party of Trump is one way to ensure that does not happen.

The GOP is a recession under Trump away from oblivion. 

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1 minute ago, Bateshorn said:

The GOP is a recession under Trump away from oblivion. 

And it's inevitable.

The 3 times Republicans had TOTAL control, look what happened:

-Panic of 1907

-Wall Street Crash of 1929

-Global financial crisis of 2008

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3 minutes ago, Js1 said:

And it's inevitable.

The 3 times Republicans had TOTAL control, look what happened:

-Panic of 1907

-Wall Street Crash of 1929

-Global financial crisis of 2008

Dems were in control in 08 of Congress.

 

Other than 1947 and 1980, every post War recession has started under a GOP president's watch. Eisenhower over saw 3, Nixon 2, Reagan 1, HW 1, W 2.  if you loop in Hoover, you have to go back to Calvin Coolidge to find a GOP president that hasn't had a recession during their presidency.

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18 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

The Republicans have two options: double down on the hatred that seems to consume their party and remain relevant for a few more years and then become persona non grata, or tone it down in an attempt to appeal to the younger generation.  They seem to have made their choice with Trump, and barring a swift strategy change in the next few years, history books will point at 2016 as the moment Republican Wil E. Coyote reached the end of the cliff.  The younger generation abhors that stuff, and none of us (*generalization) own enough to be swayed by tax cuts to ignore it.

Republicans have banked on people becoming more conservative as they age for decades now.  Becoming the party of Trump is one way to ensure that does not happen.

It will be the party of Trump for 2 or 6 years more depending on the 2020 election. After that, it will return to the Bushes, Rubios, and Cruces.  There is nobody waiting in the wings to carry the Trump torch. There are simply grifters hanging on. When Trump himself walks off into the sunset, you won't find a single person who is able or willing to carry on the brand. Instead, everyone who has been around him, to a person, will publicly declare that they always thought he was a useful idiot. Some of those, like Kelly and even Sanders, will walk back to the old GOP fold. Others, like Miller, will carry on with ethnonationalism, but they will once again be shunned.

The Dems need to do their best to make sure the Trumptanic takes all the GOP hanger ons down with it, or else it will be pretty easy for us to fall right back into "compassionate conservatism", "neoconservatism", or trickle down nonsense.

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1 minute ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Much like your charges that anyone who disagrees with you is a virulent racist, but you continue being you.

Stop being racist. You can do it.

Also, white people in America being racist has a long and well-documented history.

Edited by David Dennison
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7 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Stop being racist. You can do it.

Also, white people in America being racist has a long and well-documented history.

People being racist around the world for its entire history has been well documented.  Not sure how you're not in a fetal position daily over that fact.

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1 hour ago, Chrispy said:

People tend to get conservative in the voting booth, so the Republican Party will be just fine. Predictions of its demise are amusing, but hardly rooted in reality. 

I would agree with you if intend that "conservative" means a well thought out position on issues and careful selection of options.  Just as an amateur musician might play a piece more conservatively in front of a small audience than they would in practice.  

I would also agree with you if it meant that someone who had always voted R had gone to the voting booth with the intention of mixing it up a little bit, got cold feet or got lazy at the last minute and reverted back to a straight R ticket.

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2 minutes ago, Jiggy-Z said:

I would agree with you if intend that "conservative" means a well thought out position on issues and careful selection of options.  Just as an amateur musician might play a piece more conservatively in front of a small audience than they would in practice.  

I would also agree with you if it meant that someone who had always voted R had gone to the voting booth with the intention of mixing it up a little bit, got cold feet or got lazy at the last minute and reverted back to a straight R ticket.

It wouldn't be cold feet as much as the fact that they wouldn't have done any research at all.  So when they get down to comptroller and dogcatcher all they see is names they know nothing about other than D or R.  For example, they may know Beto now, but they probably don't know much at all about the other races on the ballot.  So if there are too many of them, that single straight R bubble starts to look a lot easier than Beto and 10 R bubbles.

In Texas, what happens to the ballot if you choose straight R and also Beto?  Thrown out?  Straight R overrides the Beto vote?  Or Beto vote and R otherwise?

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2 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, 46, a rising star in the party, continues to flirt with leaving the party — a small sign of a talent crisis that could lie ahead for the GOP. 

Will they name this new party The Jeffersons?

judge-jonah-about-to-smash-a-clock.jpg

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8 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

It wouldn't be cold feet as much as the fact that they wouldn't have done any research at all.  So when they get down to comptroller and dogcatcher all they see is names they know nothing about other than D or R.  For example, they may know Beto now, but they probably don't know much at all about the other races on the ballot.  So if there are too many of them, that single straight R bubble starts to look a lot easier than Beto and 10 R bubbles.

In Texas, what happens to the ballot if you choose straight R and also Beto?  Thrown out?  Straight R overrides the Beto vote?  Or Beto vote and R otherwise?

Thought I covered that scenario with "lazy".

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19 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

You did, and they are.  What's the answer to the last question though because we will probably be seeing a lot of it?

Are you saying it would be thrown out as a matter of course because it looks like a mistake.  Is this even something that happens on the up and up?

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3 hours ago, Chrispy said:

People tend to get conservative in the voting booth, so the Republican Party will be just fine. Predictions of its demise are amusing, but hardly rooted in reality. 

100% this

You people are in a two-party nation where one is a white nationalist and the other is moderate conservative and convincing yourselves that we're a hair away from a liberal progressive government.

The Republican Party is going to be fine.

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Just now, bad_teammate said:

100% this

You people are in a two-party nation where one is a white nationalist and the other is moderate conservative and convincing yourselves that we're a hair away from a liberal progressive government.

The Republican Party is going to be fine.

Yes, it will be.

Because the power is with the "white nationalist" side, when it gets down to nut-cutting time.

And they will hold onto power, you can take that to the bank.

The illusion of the ability to resist/dissent is just that -- an illusion that has pacified much of the folks, at least until now.  When that illusion no longer pacifies the "others," they'll find other means of pacification.  They will likely be much less gentle.  But know this: the folks who currently run the show are going to continue to run the show, and they'll do whatever it takes to keep it that way.

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On 9/21/2018 at 8:54 AM, Chuckie Finster said:

The Republicans have two options: double down on the hatred that seems to consume their party and remain relevant for a few more years and then become persona non grata, or tone it down in an attempt to appeal to the younger generation.  They seem to have made their choice with Trump, and barring a swift strategy change in the next few years, history books will point at 2016 as the moment Republican Wil E. Coyote reached the end of the cliff.  The younger generation abhors that stuff, and none of us (*generalization) own enough to be swayed by tax cuts to ignore it.

Republicans have banked on people becoming more conservative as they age for decades now.  Becoming the party of Trump is one way to ensure that does not happen.

Explain this hatred stuff to me.  No Democrat members of Congress have been shot since Trump's election.  No Democrats running for office have been stabbed since Trump's election, no one is trying to keep liberals from speaking at universities since Trump's election,  no social media platforms have been restricting liberal expression since Trump's election and no Republican members of the House of Representatives have publicly called for people to harass Democrat politicians and government officials wherever they go since Trump's election and yet the Republicans are considered to be the party that is filled with hate.   Stop with the Bill Maher bullshit that the political disarray in the country today is completely the fault of Republicans.  The Republicans today annoy the living hell out of me however the Democrats today scare the living hell out of me.

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The Republican Party will be fine because it will adapt to find a majority. The Republican Party that controls both houses, and the WH has its days numbered unless it figures out how to appeal to folks who are POC or who are white and aren’t afraid of POC, and all sorts of other permutations of social progressive values. Single payor healthcare is another examplethat republicans will survive if they get on board and within that framework provide solutions not just attempts to carve out profit for health insurance companies.

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On 9/21/2018 at 11:03 AM, FondrenRoad said:

In Texas, what happens to the ballot if you choose straight R and also Beto?  Thrown out?  Straight R overrides the Beto vote?  Or Beto vote and R otherwise?

I believe Beto gets your vote and R's get your vote in all other races.  See Sec 65.007 of the election code, section (c).

(c) If a ballot indicates a straight-party vote and a vote for an opponent of one or more of that party's nominees, a vote shall be counted for the opponent and for each of the party's other nominees whether or not any of those nominees have received individual votes.

Straight ticket voting in Texas is going away on Sept 1, 2020, just in time for the 2020 election.  You may want to vote early in that election. I suspect that many people who only vote every four years choose straight ticket.  Those folks are going to be really confused when there is no R or D button and they have to either punch all of the votes one by one or think about their choices.  Expect long lines of confused people on election day.

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22 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Stop taking kids from their parents and locking them in jails or sending them thousands of miles away and then we can have a real conversation about hate in politics.

21:55 to 24:30  and don't bother trying to respond to me if you don't watch those two minutes and thirty five seconds.

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On 9/22/2018 at 8:26 PM, EMAWesome said:

Explain this hatred stuff to me.  No Democrat members of Congress have been shot since Trump's election.  No Democrats running for office have been stabbed since Trump's election, no one is trying to keep liberals from speaking at universities since Trump's election,  no social media platforms have been restricting liberal expression since Trump's election and no Republican members of the House of Representatives have publicly called for people to harass Democrat politicians and government officials wherever they go since Trump's election and yet the Republicans are considered to be the party that is filled with hate.   Stop with the Bill Maher bullshit that the political disarray in the country today is completely the fault of Republicans.  The Republicans today annoy the living hell out of me however the Democrats today scare the living hell out of me.

Greg Gianforte would like a word with you.

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  • 1 month later...

Topic of discussion: The evolution of the Republican Party 1980-2018

1980-1992 - The Reagan Era

Lots of contradictions, factions, and bad policies but overall held the party together and projected American values well, at least rhetorically.

 

1993 - 2000 - Newt Gingrich Era 

Significant rise of the religious right and spending more time on destroying democrats than actually trying to solve problems.

 

2001 - 2008 - The Neoconservative Era

Mistakes were made.

 

2009 - 2016 - The rise of the Tea Party 

Doubled down on the worst elements of the Newt Gingrich Era with more emphasis on the culture wars.  The party of “NO”

 

2017 - Today - The Donald Trump Era

Complete capitulation to corruption and no accountability.   Now overtly the party of hate, fear, cowardice, and treason.  Retaining Power is prioritized over values, duty, oaths, laws, and objective truth.

 

202? - The Post Trump Era

?????????

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Republican Party In 25 years will be remade it just needs to be burnt to the ground first. In the next ten years Dems will take all three branches - hopefully will pass some legislation on key topics and put some of the social issues to rest. Then without power the republicans will have to address their problems. Coupled with the aging population and new leaders much younger the republicans will focus on business and conservative fiscal policy and they will be remade into a party that counterbalances a far left party that will be near the ledge itself.

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  • Hugo Stiglitz changed the title to The GQP: Trumpist Death Cult


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