Quo Vadis GOP?

[Habbaku]

Lincoln Project's latest is potent:

https://youtu.be/dFQHm-2cyIk

[Valmy]

Just because it will make the left wing of the party happy and mollify the populist left doesn't mean it is unreasonable or a bad idea.

[Eddie Teach]

But. Were they?

What did Trump and the crazies achieve? Judges and tax cuts - the same agenda that the pragmatic Republicans would have pushed if we had President Romney, Cruz, Rubio or whoever else. Trump ran on isolationism, pulling out of foreign quagmires (and international organisations), protecting social security/Medicare, nativism and infrastructure spending.

Just like after the Tea Party - the pragmatic Republicans harnessed the crazies to deliver a standard small government and tax cuts agenda that's not been able to win an election for nigh on 40 years. I don't think that the pragmatic Republicans will stop coddling the crazies, I think at some point the crazies will reach the point when they're asking "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

I think that is the real threat/will be explosive for the GOP.

Yeah, I agree.

I don't think we're in situation where the pragmatic Republicans are questioning the wisdom of this path and wondering if the crazies will still deliver the vote.

Most pragmatic GOP types have either left or have pragmatically decided that embracing the crazies is the right move and thus become one with them.

And whether the crazies will stop delivering the votes is an open question IMO. I hope they will and that the decrease in votes due to the crazies is enough to counterbalance the naked attacks on democracy to keep the GOP in power. But I am far from certain that will go.

I guess the one thing I'm not in 100% agreement with you on is whether the "hey did you ever feel cheated" thing will be explosive to the GOP. I think the slide from radical nationalist small government party to radical nationalist big government authoritarian party could well be smooth and gradual rather than explosive.

If Trump or his successor comes out with "hey we've got good national health care that just happens to benefit white people more than others, and social benefits too" and "hard ban for abortions (with exceptions for middle class and better white people with the right connections)" and so on, I think that could very well work for them. That is, of course, if they can chart the course.

So you're saying white supremacists want to stop specifically black people from getting abortions?   

[jimmy olsen]

I don't think that the pragmatic Republicans will stop coddling the crazies, I think at some point the crazies will reach the point when they're asking "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

I think that is the real threat/will be explosive for the GOP.

They're already there aren't they? That crowd would have executed 3/4ths of the Republicans in the senate if they'd caught them.

[Jacob]

So you're saying white supremacists want to stop specifically black people from getting abortions?   

No.

I'm saying that a significant proportion of women getting abortions in the US are politically pro-life, and that their needs are "the exception" as far as they're concerned.

And I'm saying that a non-trivial part of the GOP impetus against welfare and social services and health care are about providing benefits to the wrong kind of people (like "inner city welfare queens") but is much less opposed to offering support to the right kind of people (god-loving hard working decent folks).

While those two causes (and many others) are united in the GOP, they don't necessarily overlap and they are two separate tracks of the GOP's value set.

However, the common thread there is that many supporters of the GOP are fine with "one law for them, another law for us" (or rather laws written and enforced to that effect).

So if upper middle class GOP supporters can still get discreet abortions for the special circumstances where they need them, they're fine with making them completely out of reach for everyone else.

And if the vast bulk of "we hate socialism, but it turns out we actually approve of socialist programs when they're not branded as such" GOP voters are proposed health care and welfare that takes care of them but leaves Democratic voting demographics high and dry, then that's a type of populism that'll resonate.

Basically, I'm expecting that if Trumpists go "hey did you ever feel cheated" as Sheilbh proposed, I think a populist GOP can manage just fine if they can find a way to funnel benefits to white folks who vote for them and exclude non-white folks and non-GOP voters.

The abortion thing was just a tangent.

[Tonitrus]

Lincoln Project's latest is potent:

https://youtu.be/dFQHm-2cyIk

At this point, it's about time for the Sherman Project. 

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, I agree.

I don't think we're in situation where the pragmatic Republicans are questioning the wisdom of this path and wondering if the crazies will still deliver the vote.

Most pragmatic GOP types have either left or have pragmatically decided that embracing the crazies is the right move and thus become one with them.

And whether the crazies will stop delivering the votes is an open question IMO. I hope they will and that the decrease in votes due to the crazies is enough to counterbalance the naked attacks on democracy to keep the GOP in power. But I am far from certain that will go.

Yeah to an extent we know now how much the pragmatic GOP will tolerate provided they continue to get judges and tax cuts - it's a lot. The big surprise for me was foreign policy - I thought that would be a bigger red line for pragmatic Republicans and folks like Lindsey Graham. It wasn't.  I don't think you can say there is an establishment or institutionalist GOP anymore either. It's why I keep coming back to judges and tax cuts because everything else that I thought Republicans cared about has kind of gone out the window - and it's about holding power without winning a majority (which might require compromise).

On the votes - since the 80s two Republicans have won the Presidency and both of them ran to an extent against Republican orthodoxy/mainstream Republicanism. After 2012 there was talk about whether Republicans needed to shift to win another Presidential election and the thought was that maybe if they embraced immigration reform. Trump showed them another, improbable, path to victory. I think that temptation is going to be really difficult for them to avoid (and I think the Georgia loss matter more to them than Trump).

I guess the one thing I'm not in 100% agreement with you on is whether the "hey did you ever feel cheated" thing will be explosive to the GOP. I think the slide from radical nationalist small government party to radical nationalist big government authoritarian party could well be smooth and gradual rather than explosive.

If Trump or his successor comes out with "hey we've got good national health care that just happens to benefit white people more than others, and social benefits too" and "hard ban for abortions (with exceptions for middle class and better white people with the right connections)" and so on, I think that could very well work for them. That is, of course, if they can chart the course.

I slightly disagree. I don't think the slide will be easy because at the minute it operates with Trump rhetoric and McConnell policies. I think the "pragmatic" GOP would bolt if there was someone seriously trying to implement big government policies. I think when you boil it down the "pragmatic" GOP want to cut taxes and they want to strengthen the ability to wield power from a minority position and that's it. If you move to a genuinely nationalist populist style leader, that goes against the only thing (based on the last four years) the "pragmatic" GOP care about.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I don't think that the pragmatic Republicans will stop coddling the crazies, I think at some point the crazies will reach the point when they're asking "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

I think that is the real threat/will be explosive for the GOP.

They're already there aren't they? That crowd would have executed 3/4ths of the Republicans in the senate if they'd caught them.

Like watching Soviet Commisars or Chicom shame circles on meth.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think that the pragmatic Republicans will stop coddling the crazies, I think at some point the crazies will reach the point when they're asking "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

I think that is the real threat/will be explosive for the GOP.

They're already there aren't they? That crowd would have executed 3/4ths of the Republicans in the senate if they'd caught them.

No. This isn't as bad as it can get or as bad as I think it will get.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

[celedhring]

The only Trump voter I know (former classmate that lives now in Texas and belongs to the "I loathe the guy but I want my SCOTUS judges" category) has been open on FB about the mistake of enabling him. So hope's not lost.

Although I guess that now she's got the judges there's less emotional/practical costs to dumping him.

[Darth Wagtaros]

The only Trump voter I know (former classmate that lives now in Texas and belongs to the "I loathe the guy but I want my SCOTUS judges" category) has been open on FB about the mistake of enabling him. So hope's not lost.

Although I guess that now she's got the judges there's less emotional/practical costs to dumping him.

The ones I know have all gone berserk, screaming about social media censorship; abotu the stolen election; about the Antifa breaking into the Capital (while freaking about about anyone criticizing the patriotic uprising in the Capital).   The doublethink is shit I'd have thought impossible outside of Orwell's work. It is genuine, not the parroting of the company line. 

[Syt]

Most amusing was in between her posts criticizing the power of social media platforms to remove people, my sister posted a story about an influencer who bullied a cancer patient online, saying that she should be removed from social media.

(Oh, and a post how big tech can so easily remove people and apps like Parler, but somehow child pornography is still on the internet, so maybe big tech likes it?)

[Valmy]

Parler is still on the internet though, right? It just had its impact dramatically knee capped.

[garbon]

Parler is still on the internet though, right? It just had its impact dramatically knee capped.

Amazon killed its web hosting.

[jimmy olsen]

Parler is still on the internet though, right? It just had its impact dramatically knee capped.

Amazon killed its web hosting.

But not before hackers downloaded all the posts, images and videos related to the insurrection.