It's Rove and Co. vs. Tea Party: Let the GOP civil war begin

[MadImmortalMan]

Gays, like professional women, or any particular demographic, even blacks, are not part of the Democratic base--poor people and people who understand that stability requires intense government intervention in the economy are.  Everyone else can be turned.  That was my point made before: I hope the GOP doesn't realize this and continues to rely on their base instead of rejecting it and reinventing themselves ideologically as what they've practically come to be, the party of the rich and the special snowflakes who think they can be.

See, but if you think of it like that, then there's no such thing as a base, because anybody can be turned by slight adjustments in policy.  Remember back when the Democratic base was the Klan?

Of course that's true. People identify with political parties for ideological reasons. If the party changes ideology, the followers will leave. It's not like a football team.

[dps]

Gays, like professional women, or any particular demographic, even blacks, are not part of the Democratic base--poor people and people who understand that stability requires intense government intervention in the economy are.  Everyone else can be turned.  That was my point made before: I hope the GOP doesn't realize this and continues to rely on their base instead of rejecting it and reinventing themselves ideologically as what they've practically come to be, the party of the rich and the special snowflakes who think they can be.

See, but if you think of it like that, then there's no such thing as a base, because anybody can be turned by slight adjustments in policy.  Remember back when the Democratic base was the Klan?

Of course that's true. People identify with political parties for ideological reasons. If the party changes ideology, the followers will leave. It's not like a football team.

Except that's not always true.  You still find people who vote either Democratic or Republican 'cause that the way their daddy and granddaddy voted. 

Of course, people like that don't really have to be accounted for by political strategists.

[Razgovory]

What about the racists?

Can be a part of either party's base.  Bigoted union members and bigoted blacks for example are likely to be part of the Democratic base.  Or they could very well be swing voters or apoltical.

I was kinda thinking like this this guy.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdjWLBT0DoE

[Admiral Yi]

I was kinda thinking like this this guy.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdjWLBT0DoE

Maybe you should have asked a question about him then.

[Sheilbh]

That's true. Gays will be first to jump ship the moment Republicans start seeing gay marriage as fait accompli and focus on being a party of low taxes.

I've yet to see any evidence of this, present company excepted

On the other hand there's plenty of examples of minority groups continuing to vote Labour/Democrats despite moving up the income scale and their opponents doing their best (for the most part) to ditch their bigoted reputations.

They need a Cameron.

They need a Blair/Clinton. Not a PR man.

The former is still socially conservative, but presents a more modern, open, pro-economy focus and the latter is more religious social conservative with a mistrust of big business.

Not so in the UK. UKIP aren't terribly religious and they're very anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-intervention, pro-business. They think the banks should just be left alone, for example. One of the main (coherent) arguments of Eurosceptic Tories and UKIPers is that the EU is too protectionist and regulatory and that it restricts British businesses and doesn't allow the UK to trade freely with countries like India and China.

Of course the idea that the UK could be a free-trading Singapore of the North Sea is rather implausible given both parties' fiercely anti-immigration views.

I thought the Tea Party is pretty mistrustful of big business. 

God, I wish. I'd love the Tea Party if they'd become properly populist and raged against 'too big to fail' corporatist stitch ups whether in banking or Solyndra. Alas, no.

[Ideologue]

Gays, like professional women, or any particular demographic, even blacks, are not part of the Democratic base--poor people and people who understand that stability requires intense government intervention in the economy are.  Everyone else can be turned.  That was my point made before: I hope the GOP doesn't realize this and continues to rely on their base instead of rejecting it and reinventing themselves ideologically as what they've practically come to be, the party of the rich and the special snowflakes who think they can be.

See, but if you think of it like that, then there's no such thing as a base, because anybody can be turned by slight adjustments in policy.  Remember back when the Democratic base was the Klan?

Of course that's true. People identify with political parties for ideological reasons. If the party changes ideology, the followers will leave. It's not like a football team.

Indeed.  The Dems basically dumped the Klan/Southern Democrats, who hadn't really been the base since the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

My definition is based on the premise of "who would be the last to leave" or "who would be the hardest to cleave away"?  Arguably this is still the rich for the Republicans--who were definitely the base of the Repubs until the fracture of the Democratic party in the 1960s--but the formerly southern-style Democrat, currently Tea Party crowd has had their wires crossed and is today as fiercely against liberal economic intervention (against their own interests usually, cutting off their white noses to spite a black face or two) as it is for conservative social intervention.

But you could argue that the Republican base is and always has been wealthy interests who would seek to use the government for their own ends, whether those ends be protection of their nascent industries, as in the late 19th century, free recruitment of global labor, as it is now, or destroying any regulation that would send the bill for their business' externalities back to them, as it has ever been.   But the Democratic base is tax-and-spend liberals, or more generally economic interventionists, and has been since William Jennings Bryan (though thankfully they've become a lot more sophisticated since him).

And I don't know what Yi means when "statists" (whom he equates with economic interventionists) don't exist outside think tanks.  Do I work at a think tank?  Does Joan or CdM?

[Razgovory]

I was kinda thinking like this this guy.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdjWLBT0DoE

Maybe you should have asked a question about him then.

There's a lots of guys like that.  I can't post them all.

[dps]

Indeed.  The Dems basically dumped the Klan/Southern Democrats, who hadn't really been the base since the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

Think you got that backdated by about 100 years.

[Ideologue]

Indeed.  The Dems basically dumped the Klan/Southern Democrats, who hadn't really been the base since the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

Think you got that backdated by about 100 years.

You think?  Democrats on the national level didn't seem to give them much shrift.  They did what they wanted in their shitty states and generally benefited from Dem interventionism, but Democratic policy at the national level was definitely indifferent or inimical to their "regional" interests, e.g. Truman's integrating the armed forces and the Roosevelt and Kennedy appointments to the Warren Court that formed Warren's majority in major "judicially activist" decisions.  If KlanDems were their base, they do not appear to be very beholden to them.

[Neil]

Didn't Woodrow Wilson segregate the federal governent because of his love of racial hatred?

[Ideologue]

Yeah, I think so.

1912 is pretty shortly after the Civil War.

[Neil]

Yeah, I think so.

1912 is pretty shortly after the Civil War.

It really isn't.  You're a racist for loving your party.

[Valmy]

Didn't Woodrow Wilson segregate the federal governent because of his love of racial hatred?

Yeah the thing Ide is missing is the New Deal coalition when Blacks joined the KKK in the Dem base...which is pretty weird but it just shows the ridiculous power of that coalition.  For decades it was unbeatable if it could somehow keep its internal contradictions in check.

[Ideologue]

The point is KlanDems were marginalized nationally, splintered, and began voting GOP long before the present day.  A base that not only leaves but is practically pushed out isn't much of a base.

[Valmy]

The point is KlanDems were marginalized nationally, splintered, and began voting GOP long before the present day.  A base that not only leaves but is practically pushed out isn't much of a base.

They weren't marginalized, they were a powerful force.  The Dems tried to hold onto them as long as they could, heck there were a few hanging around into the 80s.  It was ridiculous how much Roosevelt went out of his way to assure them the US would stay racist.