President Trump - The First 100 days.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, there's actually a lot of black and Hispanic votes if you combine welfare state + nativism. A lot of polling after Romney saw disastrous numbers with Hispanics showed that immigration isn't the first issue of concern with every Hispanic voters. In fact, the Hispanic voters that most care about immigration are Mexican-Americans, because they are the most likely to have extended family that immigration laws affect (obviously actual Mexican-American citizens are not personally at risk of deportation--and all voters are citizens.) But, Mexican-Americans are not evenly distributed among Hispanic Americans, in fact they're clustered in California and Texas, two uncompetitive states that don't really swing Presidential elections. So while Mexican-Americans make up 63% of all Hispanics, in many ways they may not be "that" important in terms of swinging elections (albeit Arizona and New Mexico are getting more competitive because of them, these are smaller states in terms of EVs.)

Additionally, among Mexican-Americans it stands to reason, it's precisely those clustered in the Southwest who are most likely to have family wanting to cross the border. Mexican Americans say, east of the Mississippi, are probably third or fourth generation. (There's also a big divide on immigration as being a priority when you look at Hispanics who only speak English versus those who are bilingual or monolingual Spanish speakers, it should be no surprise a Hispanic like Cruz holds the views he does--he doesn't even speak Spanish and is many generations removed from immigrants.)

What we instead see is that blacks and Hispanics (in swing states) actually are voting more based on economics than "cultural" issues like whether GOP people dislike blacks or whether or not the GOP supports immigration reform. Now, a lot of blacks will never vote for Republicans as long as they remain deaf to systemic racism, but that's not the entire black electorate.

In fact, probably at least half the black electorate are primarily Dems due to economic policies/social welfare. Even during the height of Jim Crow blacks were roughly split between Dem/Republican. This is something people often don't realize, they presume blacks supported Republicans by 90/10 margins like they do Democrats today, and this "flipped" like a switch after LBJ passed civil rights legislation. The reality is, historically blacks really have liked Democratic welfare/economic policy, and voted for Dems in pretty large numbers even though it was also the party of segregation. A big part of  FDR's coalition was black voters. A lot of blacks voted for JFK and LBJ (even before he had enacted his most meaningful civil rights reforms), because blacks had been voting for Democrats for decades (especially in the North and at the Federal level.) The GOP really lost its competitiveness in the black vote because when the Civil Rights movement basically "won", the "party of Lincoln" blacks who were civil rights voters first had far less reason to stick with the GOP. It wasn't just Goldwater coming out against Civil Rights, it was that with the most important reforms passed there was much less incentive for large swathes of the black electorate to vote against what was perceived as their economic self-interest.

[alfred russel]

He already nominated a moderate that was being referenced by Orrin Hatch as the kind of compromise guy that should be nominated but wouldn't be. What more do you want from him?

I'm talking about if Clinton loses.

I think the best course of action would be to let Trump make the pick. Otherwise, you infuriate Trump regarding the Senate, and also his voters, which are the same people electing the presumed republican majority. Trump isolated from and angry at the Legislative Branch while at the same time undermining the core support of the legislative majority is not the way to bring Trump into the mainstream. 1 of 9 supreme court justices really isn't that important.

[Sheilbh]

I think the best course of action would be to let Trump make the pick. Otherwise, you infuriate Trump regarding the Senate, and also his voters, which are the same people electing the presumed republican majority. Trump isolated from and angry at the Legislative Branch while at the same time undermining the core support of the legislative majority is not the way to bring Trump into the mainstream. 1 of 9 supreme court justices really isn't that important.

I don't think he can be brought mainstream exactly because of the temperament you're mentioning.

As I see it the only option - if possible - is for a lame duck President and a lame duck Congress to gut the Presidency of its modern powers and do everything to construct bulwarks against Trump.

[Razgovory]

What effect Trump will have on the GOP has been a major concern of mine.  If he loses, it'll probably be minimal.  If he wins... The GOP could turn into a party completely bereft of ideas, simply a machine for the adulation for a narcissist.

[Sheilbh]

What effect Trump will have on the GOP has been a major concern of mine.  If he loses, it'll probably be minimal.

Afraid I very, very much doubt that. The party lost which is a big deal and there'll be ramifications that are very difficult to predict.

[DGuller]

What effect Trump will have on the GOP has been a major concern of mine.  If he loses, it'll probably be minimal.  If he wins... The GOP could turn into a party completely bereft of ideas, simply a machine for the adulation for a narcissist.

I don't think there is a danger of GOP being bereft of ideas.  The danger lies in the ideas that GOP will embrace actively and openly.

[The Minsky Moment]

(albeit Arizona and New Mexico are getting more competitive because of them, these are smaller states in terms of EVs.)

If the McCain-Trump relations continue to deteriorate, AZ could get interesting.
While I agree with your analysis, it's possible he extreme nature of Trump's immigration policy could have knock on effect even for those Latinos that for which that issue wouldn't otherwise be a litmus test.  I.e. talking about the Eisenhower era "operation wetback".

[CountDeMoney]

Here's a question: if Trump loses, will we see any swing towards a more sane form of conservatism for the Republican party? Or is Trump setting the tone for the future, win or lose?

Trumpism is here to stay. The really interesting question is who will take up Trump's mantle after his defeat in the election.

Paul Ryan was ideally positioned to take the high road, and the future of the GOP along with it.  But no.

Now granted, he's not without his weaknesses--when the premise of your economic plan is so draconian and devoid of basic human decency that enraged nuns come after you to tell you that, as a Catholic, that's not how you were fucking raised, young man--sure, it's going to be tough to maintain relevant leadership in the grudge caged match of the party's WrestleMania, but still: young, smart, a decent reputation as Not A Total Asshole^TM and already cemented as Speaker of the House, as well as distanced enough from the 2012 ticket not to have Mittens' loser funk soaked into him like farts in an airline seat. 

Yeah, losing the White House for another term or even two is a kick in the nuts....but just hunker down, accomplish what needs to be accomplished in keeping the party from splitting like a Palestinian terror group circa 1971, save the House's down ballots, try to save the Senate, and emerge from the post-Trumpocalyptic terrorscape ready to rebuild the GOP as a mainstream party.   Because it sure as shit isn't going to be Cruz.

Noooo, fucking dumbass had to sell out to the Donald like everybody else.  Unfuckingbelieveable.

[Zanza]

Now that Trump has withheld his support for Ryan, Ryan can't even withdraw his own endorsement for Trump without looking petty and personally offended. Leaves him in a very undignified position.

[CountDeMoney]

Even more undignified than that Saved By The Bell workout photo shoot.

[Phillip V]

Here's a question: if Trump loses, will we see any swing towards a more sane form of conservatism for the Republican party? Or is Trump setting the tone for the future, win or lose?

Nah, not yet. So Romney despite going hard-right in the primaries and largely staying there in the general, had long been seen as a "Rockefeller Republican" or "RINO" ( a charge that would be leveled at me if I was a public figure, since I tend to be more of a 1980s, George H.W. Bush type of Republican--if I had been voting back in the Primaries in '80 I'd have been an H.W. guy, not a Reagan guy.) A large part of the far right believed Romney lost because he wasn't conservative enough. Ted Cruz was the answer to that charge, and had Ted been defeated in the general it may have forced some soul-searching among power brokers on the far right, to acknowledge their views simply cannot win the White House. Or maybe not, but at least it'd have forced them to think about it.

Instead, Trump was elected, representing a form of blue collar populism we hadn't really seen in a long time, but he definitely holds many views that are 100% anathema to mainstream conservatives, so assuming Trump loses, the Cruz-wing of the party will still be there, believing the right time for a "true conservative" is still now.

This makes sense I guess: there were at least three flavors of insanity on offer in the primaries: Trump, Cruz, and Carson. If Trump crashes and burns, that doesn't discredit the other two.

Clinton landslides in 2016 and 2020.  Republicans will have lost a generation.

[viper37]

Here's a question: if Trump loses, will we see any swing towards a more sane form of conservatism for the Republican party? Or is Trump setting the tone for the future, win or lose?

Trump is nearly one step further down the path the Republicans took years ago.  It will only get worst, from our perspectives.  Look at the people supporting Trump and Sanders, both are radicals anti free trade people.  These people have the same core values: they deny any responsibility for their situation, it's someone else's fault, the system is rigged against them.  It used to be they were a fringe minority, post WWII, but now, they're everywhere in mainstream politics, in every occidental country and they're growing back, like the tumors they are.

[Phillip V]

Here's a question: if Trump loses, will we see any swing towards a more sane form of conservatism for the Republican party? Or is Trump setting the tone for the future, win or lose?

Trump is nearly one step further down the path the Republicans took years ago.  It will only get worst, from our perspectives.  Look at the people supporting Trump and Sanders, both are radicals anti free trade people.  These people have the same core values: they deny any responsibility for their situation, it's someone else's fault, the system is rigged against them.  It used to be they were a fringe minority, post WWII, but now, they're everywhere in mainstream politics, in every occidental country and they're growing back, like the tumors they are.

How will you get rid of these tumors?

[viper37]

How will you get rid of these tumors?

ideally, a good ol' political purge, we round 'em up, put them into work camps until they die.  Sadly, we are supposed to have evolved beyond that

So I propose a long term plan: education.  It seems to me that education, public education at the least, as degraded a lot in the US and Canada since the late 90s/early 2000s.  I see student from our high schools struggling with basic math equations and suffering from heavy difficulties in the use of a computer.  It ain't normal that a 40 year old is more adept at using technology than 20 somethings.

[grumbler]

This makes sense I guess: there were at least three flavors of insanity on offer in the primaries: Trump, Cruz, and Carson. If Trump crashes and burns, that doesn't discredit the other two.

I think Carson was just Trumpism on steroids.  Cruz was a completely different set of wacky ideas, but I don't see a lot of difference between Cruz and Pence.