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ASPartOfMe
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05 Nov 2020, 10:50 am

New York Magazine

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One Republican argued that the entire political-media class needed “to have a come-to-Jesus moment. This is the third cycle in a row, and it’s always wrong in one direction.”

Other Republicans saw the beginnings of political transformation in the GOP to turn it into a “new party of the working class.” One veteran Republican operative focused on Trump’s strong performance with minority voters, saying, “Nothing has happened to the Republican Party like this since Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Regardless of whether the 2020 election does herald any sort of realignment in national politics, one Republican strategist saw the result as “a pyrrhic victory” for Biden. “His party will have basically taken a drubbing in the Senate and House and will limp in, having projected a blowout,” the strategist said. Further, the operative saw a narrow loss for Trump under these circumstances as a long-term plus for the GOP: “A Republican base that believes the election was stolen from Trump will show up to vote for school-board races.”

No one Intelligencer spoke with thought there would be intentional fraud, contrary to statements from the Trump White House and campaign. As one Republican pointed out, “Anyone who thinks there is coordinated effort to steal this election is beyond ret*d.”

The Republican operative dismissed the rhetoric in the meantime, noting, “Both sides are posturing.”


I was going to wait until the election further shook out but had in mind posting something like this.

I don’t know about becoming the party of the working class but I agree with everything else said.

The following is based on the assumption both Trump lost and that he leaves office which is not a certain outcome.

I think things like court packing, single payer health insurance, Green New Deal and so on are not going to happen anytime soon.

While I think that some of the more “woke” and socialist policies being off the table for now as a good thing overall the apparent results are overall horrible for the country. What was needed was an anti Trumpism landslide. While that would have resulted in damaging overcorrection policies that result would have hopefully put the kibosh on the idea that Trump is some sort of magical figure that can fool and own the libs every time. Even if he loses Trump is going to retain the cult leader type leader status remaining an illiberal disruptive force. Now he is going to be viewed by a large percentage of Americans as a martyr who had the election stolen from him. The country is going to remain increasingly divided and suspicious of one another. Congress will be even more paralyzed and the necessary things related to pandemic as well as other things won’t get done. This will lead to more and more people out of frustration becoming radicalized.


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05 Nov 2020, 1:31 pm

Can the Republican party go back to pre-Trump?

Can the Republican party be much less about nationalism?


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05 Nov 2020, 7:36 pm

I'm rather worried about the republican party becoming the party of the working class, because I imagine it would be as a nation workers party, which advertises itself with working for the good of society, something like a national social workers party (Get it?).

there are historical examples of parties trying to bridge the gap between uniting the working class while keeping the capitalists in control - they usually divert the rage of the disenfranchised workers away from the ruling elite who are the reason for the workers disenfranchisement and onto some scapegoat, usually a minority....


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05 Nov 2020, 8:02 pm

Shifting demographics may underlie the eventual collapse of the Republican Party.

Image


Republicans hold wide advantages in party identification among several groups of voters, including white men without a college degree, people living in rural communities in the South and those who frequently attend religious services.

Democrats hold formidable advantages among a contrasting set of voters, such as black women, residents of urban communities in the Northeast and people with no religious affiliation.

White non-Hispanic voters continue to identify with the Republican Party or lean Republican by a sizable margin (53% to 42%). Yet white voters constitute a diminished share of the electorate – from 85% in 1996 to 69% in 2018/2019. And the growing racial and ethnic diversity of the overall electorate has resulted in a more substantial change in the composition of the Democratic Party than in the GOP: 40% of Democratic registered voters are now nonwhite (black, Hispanic, Asian and other nonwhite racial groups), compared with 17% of the GOP.

36% of registered voters have a four-year college degree or more education; a sizable majority (64%) have not completed college. Democrats increasingly dominate in party identification among white college graduates – and maintain wide and long-standing advantages among black, Hispanic and Asian American voters. Republicans increasingly dominate in party affiliation among white non-college voters, who continue to make up a majority (57%) of all GOP voters.

Millennials (ages 24 to 39 in 2020), who now constitute a larger share of the population than other cohorts, also are more Democratic leaning than older generations: 54% of Millennials identify with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, while 38% identify with or lean to the GOP.

56% of women align with the Democratic Party, compared with 42% of men.

Christians make up about half of Democratic voters (52%).

More Here.

So if the Republican Party really wants to lure people away from the Democratic Party, they need to find some way to appeal to Blacks, Women, Hispanic Catholics, Atheists, Agnostics, and Yankee Farmers, and all at the same time!


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05 Nov 2020, 9:00 pm

I don't know how the Republican party could go back to how it was before Trump--whether he wins or not. If he does lose, I imagine there would be major infighting and soul-searching in the party as they try to find a way forward. Party insiders will try to moderate the party while the right wing will cling to Trump and rabidly claim the election was stolen from them. The party's base has moved further and further to the right and I don't think the party's insiders have enough will or influence among the base to reverse that.

I find it hard to believe that the Republican party will somehow emerge from this election, regardless of the result, as some kind of great party of the working class. They might be the party for the white working class, but good luck getting any kind of interracial labor coalition going with so many white nationalists in the party. This problem is only worsened by the decreasing number of whites as a percentage of the us population. The Republican party will continue to answer to big business and undermine workers' rights to organize--because that is what their donors want them to do. They only appeal as much as they do to the white working class because they like to shift blame to various economic boogeymen to explain how supposedly hardworking patriotic americans could possibly find themselves in poverty.

I'm hoping the Democrats will mould themselves into a real working class party by returning to the pro-labor policies of yesteryear. Before the Red Scares and Cold War set labor in this country back decades.


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05 Nov 2020, 9:38 pm

shlaifu wrote:
I'm rather worried about the republican party becoming the party of the working class, because I imagine it would be as a nation workers party, which advertises itself with working for the good of society, something like a national social workers party (Get it?).

there are historical examples of parties trying to bridge the gap between uniting the working class while keeping the capitalists in control - they usually divert the rage of the disenfranchised workers away from the ruling elite who are the reason for the workers disenfranchisement and onto some scapegoat, usually a minority....

My feelings too.

Non-college educated, nationalistic, "blue collar", immigrant ("cheap labor") haters, seem like they're stone throw from being a Socialist.

So, as you say, you get a mix of pro-worker (nationalistic policies) + and a mix of Socialist policies.


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05 Nov 2020, 10:21 pm

The party absolutely needs to move to the center. The Susan Collins-Lisa Murkowski types need to be the norm, rather than outliers.


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06 Nov 2020, 3:16 am

Trump gave voice to low information, low education white working class voters as no one has done since before that group had left the Democrats, who had represented them, during the Reagan Revolution. That sense of being listened to will remain for some other populist demagogue to take advantage of. The only way working class people can truly be represented is by a party that actually promotes labor power and the sharing of corporate profits, rather than blaming some unpopular minority who has it worse than them.


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06 Nov 2020, 9:47 am

Kraichgauer wrote:
... The only way working class people can truly be represented is by a party that actually promotes labor power and the sharing of corporate profits, rather than blaming some unpopular minority who has it worse than them.
Sadly, only the labor unions give power to the working-class, and those unions seem to represent only about one-eighth (maybe less?) of all working-class individuals in America.  If you want to see greater representation of labor in a political party, then look first for greater union representation in the work-force.


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06 Nov 2020, 2:46 pm

Fnord wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
... The only way working class people can truly be represented is by a party that actually promotes labor power and the sharing of corporate profits, rather than blaming some unpopular minority who has it worse than them.
Sadly, only the labor unions give power to the working-class, and those unions seem to represent only about one-eighth (maybe less?) of all working-class individuals in America.  If you want to see greater representation of labor in a political party, then look first for greater union representation in the work-force.


Actual political power from a pro-labor party would definitely help with that when it comes to overcoming so called right to work laws, and with the passage of pro-labor laws.


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06 Nov 2020, 3:49 pm

Assuming we can get Trump to step down with relatively little fuss (there will be tweets, there will be lawsuits but if it doesn't escalate beyond that), I see the election as a pretty good scenario.

Split government is my preferred setting. Both parties can run amok if they get the White House, Senate, and the House. I dislike having crazy orange men in the White House so having an actual sane leader like Biden is greatly preferred, but I would worry a lot if the Senate was also Democratic. A weaker majority in the house is good. I doubt it will happen but there's also the potential for the parties to actually try to work together instead of just bullying while in the majority. However, not working together is too politically profitable so this is a long shot.

The Democrats should look at this as a repudiation of their radical element. They lost seats in the house, failed to capture the senate, and Biden dramatically underperformed polling/expectations. Biden has the persona of the moderate, but his platform was significantly further left. I think skepticism of the far left contributed a great deal to all these results. Hopefully it prompts some soul searching and reformation among the Democratic party.

The one downside is the Republican party may continue in a direction I dislike. The state of Trumpism is in limbo after he lost as an incumbent but simultaneously outperformed expectations and other republicans made gains. Hopefully the Republican party views this election as a repudiation of Trumpism and pivots away from it.


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06 Nov 2020, 4:24 pm

Antrax wrote:
Assuming we can get Trump to step down with relatively little fuss (there will be tweets, there will be lawsuits but if it doesn't escalate beyond that), I see the election as a pretty good scenario.

Split government is my preferred setting. Both parties can run amok if they get the White House, Senate, and the House. I dislike having crazy orange men in the White House so having an actual sane leader like Biden is greatly preferred, but I would worry a lot if the Senate was also Democratic. A weaker majority in the house is good. I doubt it will happen but there's also the potential for the parties to actually try to work together instead of just bullying while in the majority. However, not working together is too politically profitable so this is a long shot.

The Democrats should look at this as a repudiation of their radical element. They lost seats in the house, failed to capture the senate, and Biden dramatically underperformed polling/expectations. Biden has the persona of the moderate, but his platform was significantly further left. I think skepticism of the far left contributed a great deal to all these results. Hopefully it prompts some soul searching and reformation among the Democratic party.

The one downside is the Republican party may continue in a direction I dislike. The state of Trumpism is in limbo after he lost as an incumbent but simultaneously outperformed expectations and other republicans made gains. Hopefully the Republican party views this election as a repudiation of Trumpism and pivots away from it.


^^^ This!

I miss the bipartisanship of the Bush (both) and Clinton years.


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06 Nov 2020, 4:32 pm

Fearing that , the republicans Senate will stymie any great progress by the Democratic. House . Or
President elect Biden ... This will not be a smooth transition between controlling parties .


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06 Nov 2020, 10:20 pm

Assuming that the dust settles as expected, and that Biden wins, and that Trump doesnt go nutso and stage a coup to stay in power- then - democracy is saved.All Americans will be winners. But obviously some political tribes in the US will be happier with the results than others.

The biggest winners will be the "The Republican Never Trumpers". The Dems will win both the House and the White House, but the GOP will keep the Senate, and Biden is basically a Centrist (fine by me). But the biggest threat to American democracy (Trump) will be gone.

So in the short run American will be run along basically GOP lines. Which is fine with me in the short run (better sane GOPism than pathological Trump GOPism).

But thats the nation as a whole.

If you're talking about the GOP and its future. In short run it will still be healthy. But in the long run it doesnt look good because of demographic trends.

Back in 2016 I figured that the GOP would make a drive to attract Hispanics (the Dems own the Blacks so why not try to own the Hispanics to balance that?), but instead they went the opposite route, and went nativist, and pitched to White xenophobia. The GOP would have to stop immigration to stop the demographic trends in order to stay in power long enough to...maintain enough power to.. stop immigration in order to stop the demographic trends in order to...

Seems like an unrealistic goal. But thats the only way they could keep going with this Trump keep America White ideology.



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06 Nov 2020, 10:28 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Assuming that the dust settles as expected, and that Biden wins, and that Trump doesnt go nutso and stage a coup to stay in power- then - democracy is saved.All Americans will be winners. But obviously some political tribes in the US will be happier with the results than others.

The biggest winners will be the "The Republican Never Trumpers". The Dems will win both the House and the White House, but the GOP will keep the Senate, and Biden is basically a Centrist (fine by me). But the biggest threat to American democracy (Trump) will be gone.

So in the short run American will be run along basically GOP lines. Which is fine with me in the short run (better sane GOPism than pathological Trump GOPism).

But thats the nation as a whole.

If you're talking about the GOP and its future. In short run it will still be healthy. But in the long run it doesnt look good because of demographic trends.

Back in 2016 I figured that the GOP would make a drive to attract Hispanics (the Dems own the Blacks so why not try to own the Hispanics to balance that?), but instead they went the opposite route, and went nativist, and pitched to White xenophobia. The GOP would have to stop immigration to stop the demographic trends in order to stay in power long enough to...maintain enough power to.. stop immigration in order to stop the demographic trends in order to...

Seems like an unrealistic goal. But thats the only way they could keep going with this Trump keep America White ideology.


And that’s just the racial stuff. That doesn’t include women, LGBT+, and non-evangelicals.

They would have to “out-progressive” the Dems to be viable in the long term. (i.e. so progressive it makes AOC look like Roy Moore or Steve King on social issues)


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06 Nov 2020, 10:38 pm

TheRobotLives wrote:
Can the Republican party go back to pre-Trump?

Can the Republican party be much less about nationalism?


People have short memories.

The right wing nutjobs were already hijacking the GOP before Trump ran for office.