Sean Illing Having been inside the machine, are you surprised by the devolution of the party in the last few years? David Jolly Well, Trump has exposed a lot about who we are as a country and who Republicans are as a party. But the partisanship problem is less about the people in the party and more about the structural forces driving hyper-partisan decision-making. The big three for me are gerrymandering, closed primaries, and big money. All of this puts so much pressure on people to conform or compromise. If we unrigged the system, if we had competitive districts with open primaries and public financing, you’d see people behaving very differently because there would be a completely different reward structure. Right now the only way to get reelected is to act like a hyper-partisan. As long as that’s the case, we won’t get value-driven decision-making. Sean Illing Maybe we’re missing something there, maybe the revelation of Trump is that Republican politics was never value-driven at all. I mean, if values are anchored to rewards in that way, if they’re that fluid, are they really values? Maybe it’s just about power and the means thereto. David Jolly Yeah, it’s a fair point. Maybe you’re right. Sean Illing What does the Republican Party look like in two or five or 10 years? David Jolly The Republican Party is in long-term trouble. The demographics of the nation are shifting away from hardcore Republican conservatism and they’re basically doubling down on that while relying on these rigged elements of the system to help them keep power. That’s not a good place to be in. The reason Trump won was because he brought in populism, not conservatism. I don’t see who follows that. Who’s the populist in the Republican Party that comes next? I don’t see one. I think it’s a return to conservatism and largely white male flyover state conservatism, which statistically just isn’t going to put Republicans in office a decade from now.
The Republican base is mainly comprised of evangelical social conservatives and economic libertarians. Neither is a very robust section of the population, and outside of lower taxes, don’t have positions that appeal to many people. This could be reason for the shift to focus on a culture war. Easier to claim your opponent supports something they don’t, or claim they want to destroy the country, and build a propaganda market to disseminate such misinformation. More importantly, it allows them to avoid talking about policy.
There will always be many Americans who reject socialism and the nanny state. Who wants to live in a country where we're all "equal", earning $25K per year? We are not Cuba.
I am an atheist liberal of mixed race as shown by my photo and I support Trump. I am a democrat but I see a bright future for Republican Party. Minorities are waking up to being used as pawns in class warfare and division tactics
So how might you answer this..."What does the Republican Party look like in two or five or 10 years?" ....the method seems effective, but doesn't "gaining power for the sake of power" alone lead to dictatorship? "Maybe we’re missing something there, maybe the revelation of Trump is that Republican politics was never value-driven at all. I mean, if values are anchored to rewards in that way, if they’re that fluid, are they really values? Maybe it’s just about power and the means thereto."
I thought Trump supporters were Nazis. Now we are Russian bots again? Golly gee, didn’t know you could be in the axis and alliance. This next election is going to be a landslide with how the liberal elite are putting people against each other and playing to outrage culture
What's the difference? "The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), under the leadership of Chancellor Hermann Müller, adopted the view that the communists and Nazis posed an equal danger to liberal democracy. In 1930, Kurt Schumacher said that the two movements enabled each other. He argued that the Communist Party of Germany, which was staunchly Stalinist, were "red-painted Nazis."After the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was announced, The New York Times published an editorial arguing that "Hitlerism is brown communism, Stalinism is red fascism." First you call yourself a liberal.... Then you blame liberals.... And you don't see how Trumpism has effected your mind?
But when will Trump's victim class base awaken to this? So far, they're more than happy to be similarly used by him because they see it as getting back at the Democrats.
Don’t foresee much change in the next few years, they will continue with Trumpism until he is out of office. Trumpism is a hyper focus on the culture war, creating a dividing line with hyperbolic characterizations and media spectacle. Afterwards, I predict a continuation of radical partisanship, and a search for a new celebrity front runner. Someone outside politics with an already established name. They would like to stick to their successes with Reagan and Trump, both exercised a strong establishment policy while appealing to a populist movement. Meh. We play around with dictatorship for a fun way to say a president is authoritarian, and it happens from either party depending on who is in office. The system we have is not a dictatorship, and would be hard to make it so. As far as it being all about power, I think both parties obsess about such a thing, but are mostly obsessed about their own legacy. Whether that will be monetary or through political capital would depend on said individual’s aspirations.
Oh the irony of this statement. Let me ask you something...how often are Republicans called "Nazi's" or "the party of white supremacists" or "xenophobes" and many many other things? None of which is actually true. Both sides do what you claim in that statement that I bolded. Please don't pretend, or imply as your statement does, that Republicans are the only ones that do that. Both do it to a great degree and about the same amount. Which is to say, every chance that they get.
I figured that would come up, and obviously I’d agree both Democrats and Republicans participate in such a thing. Just a few years ago people compared Obama to Hitler, it’s just a condition of the media cycle. Anyone who denies such a thing is a hack partisan. But the subject of the thread is the Republican party.
Then if I might make a suggestion? Just because the thread is about Republican's doesn't mean that one cannot bring up the Democratic Party. Comparisons are a part of debating. And it's only right to note that both sides do this. And doing the right thing is never a bad thing.
I did in my second post of the thread on the conversation of political power, the most important statement about the subject.
The voter Demographics are looking even tougher for 2020 than they were in 2016. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate/ While it is true that older voters tend to vote more than younger voters they are NOT a homogeneous voting bloc. Perhaps the most telling aspect is that it is the BLOTUS's staunchest supporters who are the ones reaching their Sell By dates. On top of that women have turned against him.
If making 40% on my retirement is being used then Trump can use and abuse me all he wants. This is far more profitable for me than the dot bomb era of Clinton.
That doesn't sound like much of an improvement... It just seems this so called Republican administration has already fractured the limits of what a US President can get away with. He's said it himself..."You know what else they say about my people? The polls, they say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible," That doesn't sound much like a Democracy to me. What does it sound like to you?