When did the GOP start going to shit?

[frunk]

I think in that period you have Roe v Wade and the disappointment from the perspective of Christian conservatives in the Baptist in the White House. I think that allows for religious politics to align in a way behind the Southern Strategy of Nixon; I think without Roe v Wade I don't know if the Souther Strategy works. I think Roe v Wade interacts really importantly with racial politics in developing the modern Republican party.

Roe v. Wade was important because the conservative Protestants in the US decided it was.  Prior to RvW most mainstream Protestant groups didn't have a problem with abortion, and it was seen as a Catholic issue.  It wasn't until almost 5 years after RvW that it became a point of contention.

[Sheilbh]

Roe v. Wade was important because the conservative Protestants in the US decided it was.  Prior to RvW most mainstream Protestant groups didn't have a problem with abortion, and it was seen as a Catholic issue.  It wasn't until almost 5 years after RvW that it became a point of contention.

Yeah - there's a fascinating Talking Politics on this. And I think it is linked to racial politics and the south, as argued here:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

I have a soft spot for Syriza as well but its an exception that would tend to prove Yi's rule, as they ended up governing in a way that disappointed their populist backers.

Fair.

[Malthus]

I don't think it's orthogonal because one of the purposes of a political movement is to win power. In terms of fulfilling that goal it may be canny and I don't think you can win with stupidity, I think voters are pretty smart - so you, at least, need a lot of other stuff going on/as part of your offer.

And as I've said before with Trump the really striking thing is he didn't act on what he said - because he's lazy and not engaged or interested in governing. You know the whole infrastructure week meme is a sign of how unseriously he took those campaign commitments - instead what he delivered was what elite Republicans have wanted and delivered for decades: tax cuts and judges.

I don't think Trump's flaws are his populism, I think it's all of the personality/character stuff that was clear on day one.

You and I are simply defining stupidity differently.

If whatever wins is smart, nothing someone said is stupid if it helps them win, by definition.

My problem with that is demonstrated by recent events. I define stupidity as saying things that are both untrue, and that a person of reasonable intelligence ought to reasonably know are untrue. That stupidity is actively harmful if it leads to results that are bad for the nation and its citizens.

In the case of Trump, his pronouncements on the pandemic were stupid in this sense. It doesn't matter, under this definition, whether his stupid claims won him votes or not (in this case, they probably cost him the election, as even a middling competent reaction to the pandemic would probably have seen him win - piles of dead bodies are hard to overlook). However, the stupidity of his statements on the pandemic would not be transformed into intelligent remarks if he happened to win the election.

[Sheilbh]

You and I are simply defining stupidity differently.

If whatever wins is smart, nothing someone said is stupid if it helps them win, by definition.

My problem with that is demonstrated by recent events. I define stupidity as saying things that are both untrue, and that a person of reasonable intelligence ought to reasonably know are untrue. That stupidity is actively harmful if it leads to results that are bad for the nation and its citizens.

Yeah. So I suppose I don't see stupidity as linked to truth - and I'm always slightly uncomfortable with truth becasue to me I think there's a difference between facts which are important and truth which to me involves interpretation. I think there can be untrue interpretations of the same fact, that acknowledge the fact it - it doesn't lead to truth in itself; or that there can be multiple truths from the same factual pattern - if that makes sense.

So thinking of Trump and stupidity - the thing that springs to mind straight away for me is "injecting sunlight" or bleach. The issue isn't that it's untrue but that it's idiotic - perhaps that it's not only untrue, but could never be true - it's untethered.

In the case of Trump, his pronouncements on the pandemic were stupid in this sense. It doesn't matter, under this definition, whether his stupid claims won him votes or not (in this case, they probably cost him the election, as even a middling competent reaction to the pandemic would probably have seen him win - piles of dead bodies are hard to overlook). However, the stupidity of his statements on the pandemic would not be transformed into intelligent remarks if he happened to win the election.

I agree with that. But I suppose my point is that I don't think Trump ran on his management of the pandemic, I think he ran from the pandemic because he knew it was bad for him. I don't think Trump's strategy was to mobilise voters who thought he'd done well on the pandemic.

And I suppose if I was to say that populism as a style of politics is mobilising anything - it's frustration/anger, not stupidity.

That's why I always think it's a symptom rather than a cause of political issues. It may exacerbate them but it reflects an underlying frustration/anger. And the thing I think most of those populists I like and don't think are stupid have achieved is normally they have bent the results or politics of their society closer to the expectations of voters - whether that's trust-busting, shaking up an old-fashioned political establishment, experimenting with direct democracy, expanding social welfare, or even in the case of de Gaulle and Cardenas producing a sort of settled national political system/modern identity. They reduce that distance between people's expectations and political reality.

[Berkut]

I agree with that. But I suppose my point is that I don't think Trump ran on his management of the pandemic, I think he ran from the pandemic because he knew it was bad for him.

But this is a strictly political viewpoint.

The job of politicians is not to just get elected. It is to actually DO THE ACTUAL job once elected.

You seem to divorce your view from the reality that the politicians have to actually do things outside getting elected or re-elected.

[garbon]

I can't help the feeling that the Sheilbh way of politics would lead to terribly efficient campaigners (via deplorable means) who would win but also be the worst possible people for those jobs.

[Eddie Teach]

Aren't you describing the state of things that already exists?

[Sheilbh]

But this is a strictly political viewpoint.

The job of politicians is not to just get elected. It is to actually DO THE ACTUAL job once elected.

You seem to divorce your view from the reality that the politicians have to actually do things outside getting elected or re-elected.

Of course not but if you don't get elected you don't get a chance to do anything at all. All you can do is watch with utter impotence while other people fuck up and, especially, if you lose to someone who has no right winning anything that should cause a back to the drawing board re-evaluation.

Again I think the issue with Trump are personality and character and I think that dictated his response to the pandemic.

I can't help the feeling that the Sheilbh way of politics would lead to terribly efficient campaigners (via deplorable means) who would win but also be the worst possible people for those jobs.

No, not at all. Although Trump is the only person I've been utterly unsurprised by in office because as Berk said, we learned nothing. I never bought the "office will change him" thing and it was all predictable. I think most people do change in office but I never expected Trump would, and I don't think he ever did.

We also rely on our structures to, in a sense, do a bit of a stress test for suitability for office - I think the GOP structures are breaking down/being reformed as we speak. But I think the "The Party Decides" model of primaries sort of serves that purpose.

But I think in a democracy you can't really separate being able to win a campaign from being good in office - or the other political stuff which is more internal and around the various internal stakeholders/actors you might have to deal with/shady backroom deals. There's other stuff you need obviously, but the core of winning a campaign is getting people to listen to you and having a story. I think you still need to be doing that in office to bring people with you. But in office I think it's less a story than an argument of why policies are necessary and contribute to that campaign narrative. I think that strikes me as a failure of Bush I and early Obama - that they stopped bringing people with them or even trying. They were almost entirely focused on process and the technical side of things they forgot to make the "why" argument. Reagan is the opposite extreme - and I think Bill Clinton is probably the best I've seen in my lifetime at this.

And I don't think deplorable means are good - I also don't think they're actually that effective on their own - I think the core of being a good campaigner is have a simple story and repeating it until the 90% of the country not paying attention to politics know what you're for. They almost all boil down to time for a change or don't change horses midstream. I don't think Trump was any less deplorable in 2020 - I think he had a worse story and his opponent had a better one than in 2016.

But I get really annoyed at people who sort of elevate the purely technical policy side of things and love that they're good on that, but feel like they're sort of above politics because what they're really doing is fetishising losing and turning it into a virtue. I think if you think politics matters, and I do, then that sort of self-indulgence is one of the worst things and it particularly annoyw me because it does seem to be a particular fault on parts of the left - at least in the UK and US.