We Are Witnessing The End Of The Republican Party

They were so upset over Obama in a way that really do not know how to get over. Even now months later I find it amusing they truly do not have any explanations other then he did it. Trump and the wire tap is a perfect example of that. Being the victim is fundamental to their identity. It's "their country" and everyone is mean and they pick on them for being real Americans yet the other side are the "snowflakes".

I was there for Obama and plenty of Republicans accused the other party of taunting them which I am sure some did. Oh how the rules change now don't they? Which going back my point is why they can not let this go. The idea that anyone might still like Obama is just too much to bear. How dare those snowflakes protest. The thing is if Obama is no longer relevant which he is not they have to look to other people, orange people for the reason as to why problems persist. It's dangerous cult thinking a blind allegiance to a leader and it's scary and sad to me. All facts even those from other agencies of the goverment should be ignored because they are fake and the whole world has a massive conspiracy against Trump.

It's just ridiculous especially considering the fact that his party controls everything. Who is going to pick on him? Oh yeah that's right the evil black Muslim who is secretly watching him. You would think if that was the goal it would be easier for that black guy to just never give up power. To cancel the election like Republicans were sure he would.

They are so excited thinking they are in power but all the fuck ups just ensure the party will either no longer exists or DRASTICALLY change polices. Believe me when you watch debates in the future any Republican will make a point to distance himself from these times and the current president. People will one day be very embarrassed.

So as a "Bernie bro" I am not worried at all. His polices will come and his approval rating is more than double that of Trump who himself has lower ratings then Obama ever did even with every tea party member hating him unconditionally for 8 years. If Bernie is not dead in 4 years which he may be since he's old he will be a powerful figure. He himself will probably not run but someone else like him will. You think because his party shoved Hillary down the threats of the public socialism is dead think again. People are tired of an elite class like Trump rigging the system to their benefit.

This is not a post to fall into the two party system that makes us hate. You HAVE to be one on side or the other. I would rather the average American wake up and understand how they are being fucked and also the power of the people untied. Ultimately no matter what party is in power both of them play us like fiddles. There needs to be some civility returned to politics.

 

I'm having difficulties understanding how you are reconciling these 2 assertions...



We Are Witnessing The End Of The Republican Party

How does the party "controlling everything" lead you to believe that we are witnessing the end of the Republican Party? Is it Trump's approval rating?

 

I seriously doubt the Republican party is going away. I would bet, however, that in the next decade they undergo some fundamental restructuring. To grow their base they will have to appeal to a more diverse crowd than they typically do; this would include gay/lesbians, Hispanics, the marginally religious or nonreligious, and those concerned with the environment, to name just a few. Some of the many reasons I just can't vote Republican is their views on abortion, their unwillingness to embrace the findings of science, the control of the party by religious fundamentalists and their backwards views on human sexuality. These issues won't divide the public forever; people may be slow to change but they aren't completely stupid either. The GOP will fall in line in order to win elections if for no other reason.

 

So you think for Republicans to remain appealing they'll need to change many of their entrenched social policies to appeal to the trajectory that America is on. Do you think their base that currently supports all those policies is dwindling?

 

Some wit noted that when the Soviet Union fell apart the price of freedom went through the roof in the free world. The only reason there has ever been any civility in American politics is because either conservatives were abjectly ashamed of their own party being caught with the hand in the cookie jar or whatever, such as when Bush crashed the entire world economy, or when they needed liberals to support them in a fight, such as against the evil empire. Its always been "My enemy's enemy is my best friend" which is Three Stooges slapstick and reflects the capitalistic mindset of every man for himself which is why nobody is expressing shock at the idea that Trump is in bed with the Russians who attempted to throw the election. They say Americans love a winner and hate a loser because winning is the only game in town meaning, no holds barred.

 

Because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If the Republicans control all three branches of government, who will they convincingly blame when things go wrong, which they will, because Trump is an incompetent grifter and Republicans can't even repeal Obamacare.

 

Give it time. It will dwindle as the glorious promises of jobs, prosperity and making America great again fail to materialize. If they had this much trouble getting rid of Obamacare, what will happen if they try to mess with Medicare and Social Security? The environmental deregulation and financial deregulation will bite them in the ass soon enough, and there's sure to be an international crisis that they'll be clueless about solving. The addition of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court will give conservatives a majority. Hell, Trump's approval rating is down to 37% already, and a majority of Americans disapprove of him. No place to hide!

 

Yes, I do. According to Gallup:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/183491/republican-conservative-base-shrinks.aspx

The Pew Research Center finds that the Republican party is now more heavily dependent on white working class without a college degree than it was in the past.

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/18/462027861/republicans-white-working-class-trap-a-growing-reliance

 

The problem with all those statistics is that republicans frequently declare themselves "independents", yet still vote republican and, for example, in the first survey they declared themselves as "moderate" or "liberal" raising the question of what the words mean to them. That's not to say the republican party is not losing ground to democrats, but most of it is being lost to the increasing urbanization of Americans. Republicans are sending their children off to colleges and to work in cities, only to have them acquire more liberal views when actually surrounded by people with different views.

What I believe the surveys indicate is that the rural population is shrinking and the urban is growing making extreme conservatism less viable and providing at least a partial explanation for the rise of the Tea Party as the tail that wags the dog of the republican party. Extreme conservatives are rapidly aging as is the base of the republican party with their average age now somewhere over 50. That's American politics for you, instead a clear and obvious division between parties, such as a socialist party and capitalist one, we get idiots all claiming to be more conservative or realistic because Americans don't even know the meaning of socialism with republicans even accusing Big Bird of being a communist plot.

 

Maybe, but I doubt the word "liberal" will ever mean pro-life, pro-death penalty or anti-immigrant; I can't imagine a raving religious fundamentalist describing himself as a liberal.

 

The fact that Trump's approval rating is so low so early in his term--less than two-fifths in what would ordinarily be his honeymoon period--does not bode well for his future. As for the Republican Congress, only about one-fifth of Americans approve, and about two-thirds disapprove, of it. Republican efforts to prop themselves up with more gerrymandering and voter suppression will just add fuel to the fire. As mentioned, demographic trends are against them, with an aging under-educated white male population making up the base, and a growing non-white and female educated population making up an increasing percentage of the electorate. It's important to realize that the 2016 election was something of a fluke, with Hillary's emails, Russian hacking, wikileaks, Comey's pre-election day bombshell, and all the fake news taking its toll. If that continues in the next election, there will be a real crisis of confidence in the American political system. If the country does survive all this, I think the Republican Party is in real trouble. So is the country.

 

UPDATE: CORRECTION! i said that Trump's approval was at 37%, but today's Gallup tracking poll shows that it's slipped to 35%--a record low for American presidents in their first term! Unbelievable. So that puts his dwindling base in new perspective. 59% disapprove if his performance!

 

I would think they would blame the past administration, which haven't they done already? If they can't do that, than I assume they either make some justifications or empty promises, which I assume is the tactics of politicians in general. This past election has made me really realize that I'm not much of a politics person. I understand the importance of it regarding certain policies but it's difficult for me to get swept up in the fervor of individual politicians and what not.


The responses from me in this thread prior to this, were attempting to understand the assertions people were making. I'm trying to understand if these are just visceral musings, based on appeals to emotion or if there is some logical reasoning behind the assertions and what support they have for their claims, which hopefully helps me better understand some of these ideas and hopefully promotes critical thought for them. We have this thread saying the Republican Party is ending, another recent thread questioning the point of the Democratic Party...


I suspect that when things go wrong, the political pendulum will likely swing back towards the left and perhaps many of the changes that Tumbling Dice touched on will be necessary for the Republicans to adapt, but it's a bit of a stretch to go from that to the party ending.

 

Yes, the party "ending" is wishful thinking. We'll see, though, if they can do themselves some serious damage. I think you're right they will blame and are blaming Obama and Hillary, but how long can that credibly go on. My problem with believing in a Democratic resurgence is that I don't think the Democrats are all that great, and moving farther left would be exactly the wrong thing for them to do. But we're in uncharted waters. Nobody really knows shat will happen.

 

I was reading an old Frank Herbert novel recently where a variation on the power corrupts theme is presented. It's not, according to Herbert, that 'power corrupts' but that 'power attracts the corruptible'.
Interesting thought.

 

That's part of trump's immigration policy. Eliminate the non-white voter. The problem is that older white voters are dieting off, and younger ones don't share their views.

 

I don't think the party is dieing off, but the repubs have failed to recognize is that they are pissing off a lot of people. Sure, they have their base, but that is shrinking.

 

Raving religious fundamentalists include black fundamentalists who have become infamous for watching televangelists in their social security offices. Its the divide-and-conquer strategy that enforces the whole see-no-evil-hear-no-evil-speak-no-evil bullshit where words only mean whatever you can force people to interpret them to mean. By ensuring that everybody is screaming and nobody is listening it becomes all but impossible to organize for anything constructive purposes.

 

Not sure what to make of the foregoing comment. Hillary won 88% of the African-American vote, which admittedly is down significantly from the 93% won by Obama in the previous election, but then again Obama had an obvious appeal to African-American voters. Most of the decline was due to a drop off in support from African-American men. White men were Trump's biggest supporters, so there seems to have been a definite gender thing going on--a more obvious explanation than religious fundamentalism. I do know of Christians, including my sister who loathed Trump, who wouldn't vote for Clinton because of the abortion issue, so I imagine it may have played a part. That would include Catholics as well as Evangelicals. Born again evangelicals gave the pussy grabber 3% more votes than they did Romney in the previous election, while non-Hispanic Catholics and Mormons favored Trump 60% & 61%, respectively. (Catholic Hispanics went for Hillary, for reasons that aren't difficult to understand). The results don't indicate that religion was the deciding factor in the election.

 

The problem is that the US has a two party political system in a country that is split politically into some 6 main groupings

You have on the right -

Right wing libertarian

The Conservative Christian Right

And what is dubbed these days as the ‘Moderate’ Right

And on the less right

Free market Tories

Liberal Democrats

Socialists

(Just as an aside in most countries the only ones that would be thought of as left wing would be the socialists)

So what you get in your two party state is factions of these groupings within the Republican and Democrat party’s.

The neo-cons were able to put together an alliance of people from the differing groups but after the fall of the neo-cons with the end of the BushJr Admin there was that whole Tea party surge and what you now have in the Republican Party is pragmatic moderates, ideological hardliners and delusional ultra hardliners, attached to a Trump admin that is frankly nuts.

There is no-one or no group that can build a coalition with that.